DID THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION HELP THE POOR?

DID THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION HELP THE POOR? Kids, one of the much-debated issues in economic history is whether the Industrial Revolution helped the common man. The negative view was expressed by the much-respected E.P. Thompson in THE MAKING OF THE ENGLISH WORKING CLASS: “the share of the average working man in ‘the benefits of economic progress’ was paltry, consisting of ‘more potatoes, a few articles of cotton clothing for his family, soap and candles, some tea and sugar, and a great many articles in the Economic History Review’”? (The quote is from a review by Ferdinand Mount in the Times Literary Supplement for April 4 of THE DRESS OF THE PEOPLE by John Styles, which deals with “everyday fashion” in England in the 1700’s.) Styles presents evidence that the English poor dressed pretty well throughout the 18th century. Mount begins with an anecdote about Voltaire, on his first day in England, mistaking young girls at a fair as being members of the beau monde, only to be told by ladies of the court that evening that if girls were at a fair, they were country girls or maidservants. Voltaire’s mistake occurred in 1726, before—one would think—the Industrial Revolution could have had much effect.