Category: industry

Clothing the people: female manufacturers

Whereas 18 per cent of men in the Cornwall of the 1860s worked in manufacturing, this classification encompassing a broad range of activities, around 13 per cent of unmarried women were found in the same sector, but largely concentrated in just one branch – the production of clothing. However, that 13 per cent is probably … Continue reading Clothing the people: female manufacturers →

Cornish craftsmen in the 1860s

Nowadays fewer than one in five of the labour force are engaged in actually making things, in the sense of taking some raw materials and turning them into something else. The rest of us, if we are what economists call ‘active’, are instead selling stuff to each other, meeting demand for healthcare, education or hedonism, … Continue reading Cornish craftsmen in the 1860s →