SOURCE: Vicinus, Martha. “Street Ballads and Broadsides: The Foundations of a Class Culture.” In The Industrial Muse: A Study of Nineteenth-Century British Working-Class Literature, pp. 8-59. London: Croom Helm, 1968.

In the following excerpt, Vicinus explores the response of weavers to the mechanization of their trade as described in popular working-class broadside literature, which the critic says protested against the factory system and insisted on the rights and personal dignity of the individual.

Broadsides contain a wealth of commentary on industrialization. Many works praise various inventions and improvements, such as ‘Steam Boots’, about a ‘Hollander bold’ who wears steam boots to rocket about Europe. But far more common was anger and resistance to change. The intensification of work in the mines and cottages and the development of the factory system meant the death of an older, more varied life. With these changes songs became more critical of the present...