The Weaver's Knot : : The Contradictions of Class Struggle and Family Solidarity in Western France, 1750–1914 / / Tessie P. Liu.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Cornell University Press Archive Pre-2000
• VerfasserIn: Liu, Tessie P.,
• Place / Publishing House: Ithaca, NY : : Cornell University Press, , [2019]; ©1994
• Year of Publication: 2019
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (312 p.) :; 2 maps, 14 tables
• Other title: Frontmatter --; Contents --; Preface --; 1. Introduction --; 2. Rural Industries and the Evolution of Capitalist Production --; 3. The Putting-Out Wilderness: The Vulnerability of Merchants in the Marketplace --; 4. Winning Control over Entrepreneurship: Merchants and the New Cotton Regime --; 5. Cooperation and Collectivity: Weavers Mobilize to Retake Control --; 6. Handloom Weavers in the Age of Powerlooms: The Failures of Mobilization --; 7. New Domestic Industries: The Sweated Trades --; 8. The Agricultural Labor Market --; 9. What Price Dignity? The Transformation of the Weaving Family Economy and the Creation of Cheap Labor --; 10. Conclusion --; Bibliography --; Index
• Format: Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
• ISBN: 9781501737053; 9783110536171
• DOI: 10.7591/9781501737053
• Access: restricted access
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: Tessie P. Liu.

When the threads break, the weaver ties them together rather than abandon the cloth. Invisible to the untrained eye, the knot must hold if the entire fabric is to remain strong. Tessie P. Liu tells the story of the men and women in a handloom weaving community in western France who struggled for generations to preserve their way of life in the face of industrialization.Liu provides a finely detailed history of the linen weavers of the Pays des Mauges from the mid-eighteenth century until the eve of World War I. Focusing on the weavers' campaign for independence as small producers, she traces the consequences of their struggle not only for their regional economy but also for their family structure. She argues persuasively that industrialization has had a very different impact on women than on men, and that we cannot interpret the process of industrialization without an understanding of the gender relations among those whose lives it transformed.Liu also presents important new evidence that industrialization is not, as has been believed, a straight road to ever-increasing technological efficiency. According to such a view, cottage industry is merely a stage on the way to the factory system. She describes instead an unpredictable process of industrialization fired by conflicts among producers, merchants, and aspiring capitalists, all attempting to gain control of various phases of production. For the weavers of the Mauges, the author shows, the ultimate price of resistance to industrial "progress" was high: men preserved their own identity as artisans only at the cost of their wives and daughters becoming sweated workers in mechanized industries.