Title: Women, Writing, and the Industrial Revolution
First published: 1998
Description: Industrialization in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries inspired deep fears and divisions throughout England. The era's emergent factory system disrupted traditional patterns and familiar ways of life. Male laborers feared the loss of meaningful work and status within their communities and families. Condemning these transformations, Britain's male writers looked longingly to an idealized past. Its women writers, however, were not so pessimistic about the future.

As Susan Zlotnick argues in Women, Writing, and the Industrial Revolution, women writers foresaw in the industrial revolution the prospect of real improvements. Zlotnick also examines the poetry and fiction produced by working-class men and women. She includes texts written by the Chartists, the largest laboring-class movement in the early nineteenth century, as well as those of the dialect tradition, the popular, commercial literature of the industrial working class after mid-century.
Subjects: Industries, English literature, Industrial revolution, History and criticism, Women authors, Literary collections, Literature and technology, Women and literature, Industrial revolution in literature, History, English literature, women authors, English literature, history and criticism, 18th century, English literature, history and criticism, 19th century
Places: Great Britain
Time periods: 19th century, 18th century
LC classification: PR448.I54 Z57 1998