Séminaire franco-britannique d’histoire
Université Paris IV-Sorbonne, en partenariat avec l’Institute of Historical Research (University of London) et le Groupe d’histoire intellectuelle (Université Paris 8-Vincennes-Saint-Denis)
Maison de la Recherche, 28 rue Serpente, Paris 6e, salle D116
Jeudi 25 avril à 17h30 : Emma Griffin (East Anglia), “The Sons of Freedom: working-class life during the British Industrial Revolution”
Abstract: “The industrial revolution was possibly the single most significant event in world history – the moment when one small nation left behind its agrarian past and entered decisively on the pathway to modernity. But what did it all mean for the ordinary men, women and children, who with their strong backs and nimble fingers did the most to power it?
Most historians have argued that the workers had little to celebrate. The introduction of new working patterns which compelled men to work at the relentless pace of the machines. Children forced into factories and down mines at ever younger ages. Families squeezed into dark, disease-ridden cities. And nothing but the workhouse for those who slipped through the net. All the great Victorian commentators – Engels, Dickens, Blake – painted their industrial times in a very dark hue. And their dismal litany continues to colour the way we think about our industrial past.
But what if this story isn’t really true? What if working people were not simply crushed in the cogs of the great industrial juggernaut? Is it possible that even the poor had something to gain? Using working-class autobiographies, this paper will try to get beneath the picture painted by the great iconic figures of Victorian England and suggest that if we listen to the workers themselves we may need to revise our standard account of the industrial revolution.”
Emma Griffin est notamment l’auteur de Liberty’s Dawn: A People’s History of the Industrial Revolution (Yale University Press, 2013) et de A Short History of the British Industrial Revolution (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). Le texte de la communication est disponible sur simple demande.
Discutant : Jacques Carré (Paris IV)
Jeudi 23 mai à 17h30 : Muriel Pécastaing-Boissière (Paris 4): « “A Plea for the Weak Against the Strong” : l’anti-impérialisme d’Annie Besant (1847-1933) »
Jeudi 30 mai à 17h30 : Malcolm Chase (Leeds): “1820: disorder and stability in the United Kingdom”
Vendredi 31 mai à 14h (salle D116) : Malcolm Chase (Leeds), autour de son livre, Le chartisme. Aux origines du mouvement ouvrier britannique (1838-1858) (Publications de la Sorbonne, 2013).
(en partenariat avec le PRI îles Britanniques EHESS- Paris 7 et le Centre d’histoire du XIXe siècle – Paris 1–Paris 4)
http://historyspot.org.uk/podcasts/franco-british-history-external