MUDIE-SMITH, Richard (ed.).

£275 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Sweated Industries. Being a Handbook of the "Daily News" Exhibition. Second edition, revised and updated. The Daily News exhibition in May 1906 was a turning point in the legislation of sweated industries. Funded by the newspaper's liberal owner, George Cadbury, the show exposed the harsh conditions faced by women working in professions such as sack mending, trouser finishing, bristle picking, and making nails, chains, and match-boxes. "Starkly and without exaggeration, the exhibition's pocket-sized catalogue set out the case histories of the workers and chronicled their life stories … While huge audiences watched the workers performing their various tasks, still larger numbers read about them in the press. Disturbing and somber monochrome pictures of the women were widely circulated in the exhibition's handbook" (Blackburn, pp. 93-4). The second edition was issued shortly after the first, the 5,000 copies of which had sold out within ten days of the exhibition opening. This updated edition includes over 200 additional exhibits. This copy is from the collection of the Marxist historian and author of the Dictionary of Labour Biography, John Saville (1916-2009), with his ownership signature on the frontispiece recto.

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