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This study of canal construction workers between 1780 and 1860 challenges labour history's focus on skilled craftsmen and the model of working-class culture it generated. Canallers, part of the mass of unskilled labour thrown up by industrial capitalism, had an experience that differed in many ways from artisans. Once on the labour market, they were wholly alienated, more fully exploited, worse off economically and socially fragmented. Their struggle as members of a class pivoted on material conditions not on skill and shop-floor control. Canal construction played a significant role in the rise of industrial capitalism by opening new markets, providing an army of workers and initiating the state-capital ties so important in later years. Increasingly dominated by Irish immigrants the workforce lived in shanty towns at the work site or in nearby cities, the setting for much vice and violence. These were not the vibrant working-class communities of later labour history and the situation deteriorated in the late 1830s as labour surplus caused massive unemployment and depressed wages. The history of canal workers traces another strand of the labour story, one where the absence of skills bred powerlessness that made common labour's engagement with capital markedly unequal.

Canal construction workers --- Canals --- Channels (Hydraulic engineering) --- Hydraulic structures --- Inland navigation --- Canal diggers --- Canal workers --- Construction workers --- History. --- Arts and Humanities --- History

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This is the first full-length, modern study of the Diggers or 'True Levellers', who were among the most remarkable of the radical groups to emerge during the English Revolution of 1640-60. It was in April 1649 that the Diggers, inspired by the teachings and writings of Gerrard Winstanley, began their occupation of waste land at St George's Hill in Surrey and called on all poor people to join them or follow their example. Acting at a time of unparalleled political change and heightened millenarian expectation, the Diggers believed that the establishment of an egalitarian, property-less society

Levellers. --- Winstanley, Gerrard, --- Cobham (Kent, England) --- England --- Great Britain --- History --- Social conditions --- Politics and government --- Cobham. --- Digger movement. --- Diggers. --- English Revolution. --- Gerrard Winstanley. --- Surrey. --- True Levellers. --- civil war. --- political change. --- property-less society. --- radical groups.

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This highly original study of the 'manic style' in enthusiastic writing of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries identifies a literary tradition and line of influence running from the radical visionary and prophetic writing of the Ranters and their fellow enthusiasts to the work of Jonathan Swift and Christopher Smart. Clement Hawes offers a counterweight to recent work which has addressed the subject of literature and madness from the viewpoint of contemporary psychological medicine, putting forward instead a stylistic and rhetorical analysis. He argues that the writings of dissident 'enthusiastic' groups are based in social antagonisms; and his account of the dominant culture's ridicule of enthusiastic writing (an attitude which persists in twentieth-century literary history and criticism) provides a powerful and daring critique of pervasive assumptions about madness and sanity in literature.

English literature --- Enthusiasm in literature. --- Literature and mental illness --- Literature and society --- English language --- Levellers. --- Ranters. --- Antinomianism --- Diggers --- Radicals --- Authors, Insane --- Mental illness and literature --- Poets, Insane --- History and criticism. --- History --- Rhetoric. --- Style. --- Smart, Christopher, --- Arts and Humanities --- Literature --- Germanic languages

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The Levellers were a crucial component of a radically democratic movement during the civil wars in seventeenth-century England. This was to be democratic at a time when the very idea of democracy conjured up nothing good; with its suggestion of anarchy and the 'levelling' of distinctions in rank and of property, even the holding of women in common. This collection of thirteen fully annotated Leveller writings, including their famous Agreements of the People, is important as a contribution not only to the understanding of the English civil wars, but also of democratic theory. The editor's introduction sets the Leveller ideas in their context and, together with a chronology, short biographies of the leading figures and a guide to further reading, will be of interest to students of the English civil wars, the history of political thought and the history of democratic ideas.

Levellers --- Political science --- 321.01 --- 942.06 --- 321.01 Algemene staatsleer. Politieke filosofie. Staatsleer. Staatstheorie --- Algemene staatsleer. Politieke filosofie. Staatsleer. Staatstheorie --- Administration --- Civil government --- Commonwealth, The --- Government --- Political theory --- Political thought --- Politics --- Science, Political --- Social sciences --- State, The --- Diggers --- Radicals --- 942.06 Geschiedenis van Engeland--(1603-1714) --- Geschiedenis van Engeland--(1603-1714) --- Early works to 1800 --- Great Britain --- Politics and government --- Social Sciences --- Political Science --- Levellers.

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"In America's historical imagination, toil and triumph against nature and overwhelming odds characterizes such achievements as the Erie Canal and the transcontinental railroad. Triumph transformed canal and railroad entrepreneurs into visionaries whose work brought the nation bountiful riches and did the Lord's bidding. Celebrated for their spirit and perseverance in 'building' the nation's infrastructure, they found respect for looking to tomorrow and creating a future. For generations, most indexes of American history supported and reinforced this narrative of progress. Yet, if this is the historical memory, it is conveniently stunted. What of those whose bodies strained and broke under the load of such glories? What of those men beyond the din and fanfare who only appear in old photographs with faces blurred and indistinguishable? In their lives and deaths in the mud, muck, and mountains is another history of American achievement. These barely visible and forgotten, ordinary men, 'unskilled' immigrants from Ireland and China, Mormons, and native-born American workingmen rank, as well, as the creators of national growth and progress. Their experiences and voices, along with those of the privileged and well-connected, are the subjects of this study. I examine the rise of Western canals and railroads to national prominence through the menial labor of countless men, largely hidden from view because they left virtually no paper trail, who strung together livelihoods at the economic fringes of society. This book examines the contest for control of American progress and history as distilled from the competing narratives of canal and railroad construction workers and those fortunate enough to avoid this fate"--Provided by publisher.

E-books --- Canal construction workers --- Railroad construction workers --- Foreign workers --- Canals --- Railroads --- History --- Channels (Hydraulic engineering) --- Hydraulic structures --- Inland navigation --- Alien labor --- Aliens --- Foreign labor --- Guest workers --- Guestworkers --- Immigrant labor --- Immigrant workers --- Migrant labor (Foreign workers) --- Migrant workers (Foreign workers) --- Employees --- Railroad workers --- Construction workers --- Canal diggers --- Canal workers --- History. --- Employment --- Noncitizen labor --- Noncitizens --- Canal construction workers -- United States -- History. --- Canals -- United States -- History. --- Foreign workers -- United States -- History. --- Railroad construction workers -- United States -- History. --- Railroads -- United States -- History. --- 19th century american history. --- 19th century american immigrants. --- american empire. --- american history. --- american west. --- canals. --- capitalism. --- central pacific railroad. --- chinese. --- construction workers. --- continental empire. --- cultural studies. --- erie canal. --- history. --- immigrants. --- immigration. --- irish. --- labor studies. --- labor. --- mormons. --- narrative of progress. --- national infrastructure. --- rail travel. --- railroads. --- suffering. --- survival. --- technology. --- union pacific railroad. --- united states of america. --- westward expansion. --- workers rights. --- workers.