Class
Key Texts
- Martin Hewitt, 'Class and the Classes' in Chris Williams (ed.), A Companion to Nineteenth-Century Britain
- Richard Trainor, 'The Middle Class' in Martin Daunton (ed.), The Cambridge Urban History of Britain
- J Foster, ‘Nineteenth-century towns - a class dimension’ in Dyos (ed.), The Study of Urban History
- D Gadian, ‘Class consciousness in Oldham and other north-west industrial towns’ in Morris and Rodger, Historical Journal, 1978
- R. A. Sykes, 'Some aspects of working-class consciousness in Oldham, 1830-1842', Historical Journal, 1980
- M. S. Hickox, 'The English Middle-Class Debate', British Journal of Sociology, 1995
Seminar Questions
- Is a study of class important to understand the Victorian City?
- Were Victorian cities an expression of class conflict and a site of class struggle?
- Did the urban middle class develop an ideology of their own?
- How important were gender ideologies in the development of class identities?
- How were class identities represented in the fabric of the city? (Use Bradford case studies)
further reading
P Atkins, ‘The spatial configuration of class solidarity in London's west end 1792-1939’, Urban History Yearbook, 17 (1990)
Joanna Bourke, Working class cultures in Britain
Anna Clark, The Struggle for the Breeches
G Crossick, An Artisan Elite in Victorian Society: Kentish London, 1840-1880
L Davidoff and C Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class
J Foster, Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution
D Feldman and G Stedman Jones. (eds), Metropolis London: Histories and Representations since 1800
R Gray, The Labour Aristocracy in Victorian Edinburgh
C Hall, ‘Private persons versus public someones: class, gender and politics 1780-1850’ in C. Steedman, Language, Gender and Childhood
C Hall, ‘The Early Formation of Victorian Domestic Ideology’ in S. Burman, Fit Work for Women
P Joyce, Visions of the People: Industrial England and the Question of Class 1848-1914
P Joyce, Class
P Joyce, 'A people and a class : industrial workers and the social order in nineteenth-century England', in Michael Bush, (ed.), Social orders and social classes in Europe since 1500 : studies in social stratification
A Kidd, ‘The Middle class in 19th century Manchester’ in Kidd and Roberts, City, Class and Culture
R McKibbin, Ideologies of Class
G Stedman Jones, Outcast London: a Study in the Relationship Between Classes in Victorian Society
N Kirk, Change, continuity and class: Labour in British society, 1850-1920
T Koditschek, Class formation and Urban-industrial Society: Bradford, 1750-1850
Lyn Hollen Lees, ‘The study of social conflict in English industrial towns', Urban History Yearbook (1980)
R Morris, (ed.) Class, Power and Social Structure in British Nineteenth-Century Towns
Stana Nenadic, 'Businessmen, the urban middle classes and the dominance of manufacturers in nineteenth century Britain', Economic History Review, 1991
A J Reid, Social Classes and Social Relations in Britain, 1850-1914
W Rubinstein, ‘The Victorian middle classes: wealth, occupation and geography', Economic History Review, 35 (1982)
D Smith, Conflict and Compromise: Class Formation in English Society, 1830-1914: a Comparative Study of Birmingham and Sheffield
R Swift and S Gilley (eds) The Irish in the Victorian City
R Swift, ‘The outcast Irish in the British Victorian city: problems and perspectives’, Irish Historical Studies (1987)
P. Thane 'Aristocracy and middle class in Victorian England', in A. Birke & L. Kettenacker (eds), Middle Classes, Aristocracy and Monarchy
J Tosh, A Man’s Place
F M L Thompson, The rise of respectable society
F M L Thompson, ‘Social control in Victorian Britain’, Economic History Review, 34 (1981)
R Trainor, ‘Urban Elites in Victorian Britain’, Urban History Yearbook, (1985)
M J Wiener, English culture and the decline of the industrial spirit
J Wolff and J. Seed (eds), The Culture of Capital: Art, Power and the Nineteenth-century Middle Class