In what has established itself as a classic study of Britain from the late eighteenth century to the mid-Victorian period, Eric J. Evans explains how the country became the world's first industrial nation. His book also explains how, and why, Britain was able to lay the foundations for what became the world's largest empire. Over the period covered by this book, Britain became the world's most powerful nation and arguably its first super-power. Economic opportunity and imperial expansion were accompanied by numerous domestic political crises which stopped short of revolution. The book ranges widely: across key political, diplomatic, social, cultural, economic and religious themes in order to convey the drama involved in a century of hectic, but generally constructive, change. Britain was still ruled by wealthy landowners in 1870 as it had been in 1783, yet the society over which they presided was unrecognisable. Victorian Britain had become an urban, industrial and commercial powerhouse. This fourth edition, coming more than fifteen years after its predecessor, has been completely revised and updated in the light of recent research. It engages more extensively with key themes, including gender, national identities and Britain's relationship with its burgeoning empire. Containing illustrations, maps, an expanded 'Framework of Events' and an extensive 'Compendium of Information' on topics such as population change, cabinet membership and significant legislation, the book is essential reading for all students of this crucial period in British history.

This volume examines Brazilian labour history, integrating issues of gender, race, and ethnicity by addressing topics such as free and unfree labour in the nineteenth-century Amazon, the transnational contexts of urban sex work, the intersection of 'class' and 'community' in a Sao Paulo workers' bairro, and the (legal) struggles of sugar cane workers in Pernambuco. At the same time, this volume presents a renewed historiography of movements and organisations (often with an emphasis on transnational dimensions), covering issues from revolutionary syndicalism in Rio, through the role of World War II in the formation of Brazilian populism, to the intervention of US 'free unionism' during the military dictatorships in Brazil and Argentina. This volume goes beyond a survey of more recent Brazilian labour history and offers articles that enter into conscious dialogue with the debates and findings of scholarship in other world regions.

The book uses the Factory Acts of the late nineteenth century as an entry point into the early history of labour relations in India, specifically the mill industry of Bombay. It unites legal and social history in a manner which differs from most social histories of labour, and offers a new perspective on the constitution of industrial relations in colonial India. The Factory Act passed by the Government of British India in 1881 produced the first official definition of 'factories' in modern Indian history as workplaces using steam power and regularly employing over 100 workers. It imposed certain minimal restrictions upon the freedom of employers in a limited range of industrial workplaces and invested factory workers, most explicitly children, with a slim set of immunities and entitlements. In 1891, the Factory Act was amended: factories were redefined as workplaces employing over 50 workers, the upper age limit of legal 'protection' was raised, weekly holidays were established, and women mill-workers were brought within its ambit. In its own time, factory law was experienced as a minor official initiative, but it connected with some of the most potent ideological debates and political oppositions of the age. This book takes these two pieces of labour legislation as an entry point into the history of 'industrial relations' (the term did not yet exist in its present sense) in colonial India, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century combining the legal and social history which diverges from most studies of Indian workers. It identifies an emergent 'factory question' built on the problem of protective labour legislation. The cotton-mill industry of Bombay, long familiar to labour historians as one of the nodal points of modern Indian capitalism, is the principal focal point of this investigation. While this is a book about law and regulation, it is neither a legislative nor a policy history. While it is preoccupied with the history of factory legislation, it does not offer a full narrative that takes this as its 'object'. And while the book focuses on Bombay's cotton mills, it contains significant departures both from the city and its major industry. A number of questions which have only rarely been thematized by labour historians-the ideologies of factory reform, the politics of factory commissions, the routines of factory inspection, and the earliest waves of strike action in the cotton textile industry-are raised in this book.

Based on a confidential wartime British Government report, this in-depth dossier details the inner workings of Organisation Todt, which not only built the Reichsautobahns, but also Germany's Siegfried Line and the Atlantic Wall. Founded by the charismatic Fritz Todt, the OT was responsible for the construction of all of the major military works across Europe - from the Siegfried Line and Atlantic Wall, to the U-Boat pens and V1 and V2 weapon sites. When Fritz Todt died in a fl ying accident in 1942 he was succeeded by Hitler's chief architect, Albert Speer, who was also appointed as Reich Minister of Armaments and War Production. Although the OT was not a military organization as such, it literally underpinned the Nazis' stranglehold on the occupied territories. Not just through the fortifications but also through the systematic and highly controversial use of enforced labour drawn from the populations of the vanquished countries. At its peak the OT consisted of a force of almost two million men and women, and it is through the depth of detail revealed in this handbook that we discover the largely untold human story.

Veins of iron run deep in the history of America. Iron making began almost as soon as European settlement, with the establishment of the first ironworks in colonial Massachusetts. Yet it was Great Britain that became the Atlantic world's dominant low-cost, high-volume producer of iron, a position it retained throughout the nineteenth century. It was not until after the Civil War that American iron producers began to match the scale and efficiency of the British iron industry. In "Mastering Iron", Anne Kelly Knowles argues that the prolonged development of the American iron industry was largely due to geographical problems the British did not face. Pairing exhaustive manuscript research with analysis of a detailed geospatial database that she built of the industry, Knowles reconstructs the American iron industry in unprecedented depth, from locating hundreds of iron companies in their social and environmental contexts to explaining workplace culture and social relations between workers and managers. She demonstrates how ironworks in Alabama, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia struggled to replicate British technologies but, in the attempt, brought about changes in the American industry that set the stage for the subsequent age of steel. Richly illustrated with dozens of original maps and period art work, all in full color, "Mastering Iron" sheds new light on American ambitions and high-lights the challenges a young nation faced as it grappled with its geographic conditions.

A facsimile edition of Bradshaw's wonderfully illustrated guide to Victorian London, dating from 1862. Bradshaw's guide to London was published in a single volume as a handbook for visitors to the capital. It includes beautiful engravings of London attractions, a historical overview of the city, advice for tourists and a series of 'walking tours' radiating outwards from the centre of London, covering the North, East, South and West, The City of London and a tour of the Thames (from Greenwich to Windsor). All major attractions and districts are covered in detailed pages full of picturesque description. This beautiful reformatted edition preserves the historical value of this meticulously detailed and comprehensive book, which will appeal to Bradshaw's enthusiasts, local historians, aficionados of Victoriana, tourists and Londoners alike - there really is something for everyone. It will enchant anyone with an interest in the capital and its rich history.

On the banks of the Pacific Northwest's greatest river lies the Hanford nuclear reservation, an industrial site that appears to be at odds with the surrounding vineyards and desert. The 586-square mile compound on the Columbia in eastern Washington is known both for its origins as part of the Manhattan Project, which made the first atomic bombs, and for the monumental effort now under way to clean up forty-five years' of waste from manufacturing plutonium for the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. Hanford routinely makes the news, as scientists, litigants, administrators, and politicians argue over its past and its future.

It is easy to think about Hanford as an expression of federal power, a place apart from humanity and nature, but that view is a distortion of its history. "Atomic Frontier Days" looks through a wider lens, telling a complex story of production, community-building, politics, and environmental sensibilities. In brilliantly structured parallel stories, the authors bridge the divisions that accompany Hanford's headlines and offer perspective on today's controversies. Influenced as much by regional culture, economics, and politics as by war, diplomacy, and environmentalism, the story of Hanford and the Tri-Cities of Richland, Pasco, and Kennewick illuminates the history of the modern American West.

John M. Findlay is professor of history at the University of Washington. His focus is social and urban history. Bruce Hevly is associate professor of history at the University of Washington. His focus is history of science and technology.

""Atomic Frontier Days" captures one of the most interesting and controversial places in the American West in all its surprising particularity. Technologically sophisticated, shrewd, at once analytically unflinching and generous, it belongs on the short list of books necessary to understand the West and its complicated relation to the nation." -Richard White, author of "The Organic Machine"

"This richly detailed study takes us beyond big government programs and corporate contracts to show people coping with the intricate dance of science and technology, warfare and welfare, the mess of making bombs and the business of cleaning up." -Virginia Scharff, Center for the Southwest, University of New Mexico

The contributors to this collection of seven essays (plus an editor's introduction and a comparative afterword) have framed debates about the construction of commercial culture in China. They all have agreed that during the early twentieth century China's commercial culture was centered in the private sector of Shanghai's economy and especially in the "concession" areas under Western or Japanese rule, but they have differed over the issue of whether foreign influence was decisive in the creation of Shanghai's commercial culture. Between 1900 and 1937, was Shanghai's commercial culture imported from the West or invented locally? And between 1937 and 1945, was the history of this commercial culture cut short by Japanese military invasions and occupations of the city or was it sustained throughout the war? The contributors have proposed various and even conflicting answers to these questions, and their interpretations bear upon wider debates in historical, cultural, and comparative studies.

In the late nineteenth century, Mexican citizens quickly adopted new technologies imported from abroad to sew cloth, manufacture glass bottles, refine minerals, and provide many goods and services. Rapid technological change supported economic growth and also brought cultural change and social dislocation. Drawing on three detailed case studies the sewing machine, a glass bottle blowing factory, and the cyanide process for gold and silver refining, Edward Beatty explores a central paradox of economic growth in nineteenth-century Mexico. While Mexicans made significant efforts to integrate new machines and products, difficulties in assimilating the skills required to use emerging technologies resulted in a persistent dependence on international expertise.

Since the Middle Ages Europe has been one of the most urbanized continents on the planet and Europe's cities have firmly stamped their imprint on the continent's economic, social, political, and cultural life.
This study of European cities and towns from the fall of the Roman Empire to the present day looks both at regional trends from across Europe and also at the widely differing fortunes of individual communities on the roller coaster of European urbanization. Taking a wide-angled view of the continent that embraces northern and eastern Europe as well as the city systems of the Mediterranean and western Europe, it addresses important debates ranging from the nature of urban survival in the post-Roman era to the position of the European city in a globalizing world.
The book is divided into three parts, dealing with the middle ages, the early modern period, and the nineteenth and twentieth centuries - with each part containing chapters on urban trends, the urban economy, social developments, cultural life and landscape, and governance. Throughout, the book addresses key questions such as the role of migration, including that of women and ethnic minorities; the functioning of competition and emulation between cities, as well as issues of inter-urban cooperation; the different ways civic leaders have sought to promote urban identity and visibility; the significance of urban autonomy in enabling cities to protect their interests against the state; and not least why European cities and towns over the period have been such pressure cookers for new ideas and creativity, whether economic, political, or cultural.

Professor Rein's travels and researches, undertaken at the cost of the Prussian government, took place during the crucial period of rediscovery by Japan and the West of each other. What makes Rein's work so interesting and classic is his extraordinary organization and attention to detail: no other survey has covered so much ground with such depth of analysis. The facsimile reissue of Rein's work attempts to do justice to the quality of the original illustrations at a realistic price. These illustrations demonstrate the richness and variety of techniques in use in Japanese industry at the time.

Treasure House to the World tells the story of the rise of Canadian gold mining and its environmental consequences in the Abitibi region of northern Ontario in the early twentieth century. It connects Canadian gold mining to its international context and demonstrates how mining companies redistribute the harms associated with extraction to nearby communities.

The 1973 'Oil Shock' is considered a turning point in the history of the twentieth century. At the time it seemed to mark a definitive shift from the era of low priced oil to the era of expensive oil. For most Western industrialized countries, it became the symbolic marker of the end of an era. For many oil producers, it translated into an unprecedented control over their energy resources, and completed the process of decolonization, leading to a profound redefinition of international relations. This book provides an analysis of the crisis and its global political and economic impact. It features contributions from a range of perspectives and approaches, including political, economic, environmental, international and social history. The authors examine the origins of what was defined as an 'oil revolution' by the oil-producing countries, as well as the far-reaching effects of the 'shock' on the Cold War and decolonization, on international energy markets and the global economy. In doing so, they help place the event in its historical context as a key moment in the transformation of the international economy and of North-South relations.

London's Industrial Past gives the reader an opportunity to read about a selection of factories that were once scattered across the city. While older generations may look back at the names that have gone with great affection, for the younger reader it may come as a surprise that so many 'things' were once manufactured in Britain's capital city. The sheer wealth and breadth of products that were made is staggering, from the mundanity of biscuits to the hightech of aircraft production. This volume sheds light on those lost names, many of which are still with us, but no longer made in London, or indeed in the UK. Areas of manufacture covered include brewing, toys, aircraft, cars, sweets, biscuits, electrical goods and art and photographic supplies. Brands mentioned include Truman's, Lesney, Handley Page, Bentley, Trebor, Peek Freans, Lyons, Hoover, Kodak and Beechams. Packed with archive images and illustrations, this volume will be a great addition to the library of anybody with an interest in London's history.

Canada's largest and most famous example of class conflict, the Winnipeg General Strike, redefined local, national, and international conversations around class, politics, region, ethnicity, and gender. The Strike's centenary occasioned a re-examination of this critical moment in working-class history, when 300 social justice activists, organizers, scholars, trade unionists, artists, and labour rights advocates gathered in Winnipeg in 2019. Probing the meaning of the General Strike in new and innovative ways, For a Better World includes a selection of contributions from the conference as well as others' explorations of the character of class confrontation in the aftermath of the First World War. Editors Naylor, Hinther, and Mochoruk depict key events of 1919, detailing the dynamic and complex historiography of the Strike and the larger Workers' Revolt that reverberated around the world and shaped the century following the war. The chapters delve into intersections of race, class, and gender. Settler colonialism's impact on the conflict is also examined. Placing the struggle in Winnipeg within a broader national and international context, several contributors explore parallel strikes in Edmonton, Crowsnest Pass, Montreal, Kansas City, and Seattle. For a Better World interrogates types of commemoration and remembrance, current legacies of the Strike, and its ongoing influence. Together, the essays in this collection demonstrate that the Winnipeg General Strike continues to mobilize-revealing our radical past and helping us to think imaginatively about collective action in the future.

Canada's largest and most famous example of class conflict, the Winnipeg General Strike, redefined local, national, and international conversations around class, politics, region, ethnicity, and gender. The Strike's centenary occasioned a re-examination of this critical moment in working-class history, when 300 social justice activists, organizers, scholars, trade unionists, artists, and labour rights advocates gathered in Winnipeg in 2019. Probing the meaning of the General Strike in new and innovative ways, For a Better World includes a selection of contributions from the conference as well as others' explorations of the character of class confrontation in the aftermath of the First World War. Editors Naylor, Hinther, and Mochoruk depict key events of 1919, detailing the dynamic and complex historiography of the Strike and the larger Workers' Revolt that reverberated around the world and shaped the century following the war. The chapters delve into intersections of race, class, and gender. Settler colonialism's impact on the conflict is also examined. Placing the struggle in Winnipeg within a broader national and international context, several contributors explore parallel strikes in Edmonton, Crowsnest Pass, Montreal, Kansas City, and Seattle. For a Better World interrogates types of commemoration and remembrance, current legacies of the Strike, and its ongoing influence. Together, the essays in this collection demonstrate that the Winnipeg General Strike continues to mobilize-revealing our radical past and helping us to think imaginatively about collective action in the future.

This is the second volume on the history of the Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU), covering the period 1932 to 1945. In 1931, when the economic slump created mass unemployment, the TGWU was a large rambling union. The union lost members, struggled to hold its activists together, and split politically between communists and their allies and the right-wing labour leadership of Bevin. This spilled over to the struggle of the unemployed, the role of the state, and attitudes to the growth of fascism at home and abroad. By the late 1930s, an armament-inspired boom allowed the TGWU to negotiate industry-wide formal agreements in many of its strongholds - docks, passenger and commercial road transport, and general labourers. These deals favoured the weak but held back the strong such as the London bus workers who staged strikes based on rank-and-file organisation. These were matched by local strikes against a range of speed-up initiatives. The TGWU backed rearmament and the war when it came. The leadership put aside its anti-communism for the duration, and communist-inspired shop stewards played major roles in improving war-time productivity. The union grew and large numbers of women joined, forming their own groups and playing an increasing role in union affairs. At the same time the TGWU hesitantly supported liberation in the colonies. As the war came to an end, the union supported the welfare reforms of the Beveridge report and backed the election of a Labour Government.

In the 1960s, Tillamook County was at war with itself. As the regional dairy industry shifted from small local factories to larger consolidated factories, as food safety and factory conditions became more important, as the profit margins between milk and cheese collapsed, Tillamook farmers found themselves at a crossroads. How should the producers work with distributors, and how could they advocate for their businesses without pricing themselves out of the market? On one side of the debate was Beale Dixon, head of the County Creamery Association, the co-op that represented the county's farmers and packaged their products for the big dairy distributors in the Willamette Valley. Dixon set up a scheme to offer low-interest, low-collateral loans to the supermarkets that stocked CCA products; he argued it was a cheap, easy way to ensure good will-and continued purchases-in a tight market. On the other side was George Milne, a respected farmer and board member of Tillamook Cheese and Dairy Association, the largest producer in the CCA. Milne believed that Dixon's loan program amounted to fraud and embezzlement, and cheated the farmers out of money they were due. The question of loans soon spiraled out into a community-wide dispute, exacerbated by a complex web of family and business relationships that made conflicts of interest hard to avoid. Dixon worked for both CCA and Cheese and Dairy; he was fired from one but not the other. The Cheese War raged for the better part of a decade, across board meetings and courtrooms and the community itself. Co-op members traded recall petitions and rival factions distributed misleading petitions and letters. While largely unknown outside of Tillamook County, the Cheese War was so divisive that some families remain fractured today. Sisters Marilyn Milne and Linda Kirk were children of the Cheese War. In elementary school, they saw how it absorbed their parents, Barbara and George Milne. As adults, they realized they actually knew very little about it and set out to learn the real story. The authors have conducted years of research through the archives and newspapers of Tillamook County and conducted numerous interviews and oral histories of key players in the Cheese War and their families. As Americans become ever more interested in food supply chains and ethical consumption, here is a story of the very human factors behind one of Oregon's most famous brands.

The Ottoman Empire went through rapid economic and social development in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as it approached its end. Profound changes took place in its European territories, particularly and prominently in Macedonia. In the decades before the First World War, industrial capitalism began to emerge in Ottoman Macedonia and its impact was felt across society. The port city of Salonica was at the epicentre of this transformation, led by its Jewish community. But the most remarkable site of development was found deep in provincial Macedonia, where industrial capitalism sprang from domestic sources in spite of unfavourable conditions. Ottoman Greek traders and industrialists from the region of Mount Vermion helped shape the economic trajectory of 'Turkey in Europe', and competed successfully against Jewish capitalists from Salonica. The story of Ottoman Macedonian capitalism was nearly forgotten in the century that followed the demise of the Empire. This book pieces it together by unearthing Ottoman archival materials combined with Greek sources and field research. It offers a fresh perspective on late Ottoman economic history and will be an invaluable resource for scholars of Ottoman, Greek and Turkish history. Published in Association with the British Institute at Ankara

In late eighteenth-century Britain a handful of men brought about the greatest transformation in human history. Inventors, industrialists and entrepreneurs ushered in the age of powered machinery and the factory, and thereby changed the whole of human society, bringing into being new methods of social and economic organisation, new social classes, and new political forces. The Industrial Revolution also dramatically altered humanity's relation to the natural world and embedded the belief that change, not stasis, is the necessary backdrop for human existence. Iron, Steam and Money tells the thrilling story of those few decades, the moments of inspiration, the rivalries, skulduggery and death threats, and the tireless perseverance of the visionaries who made it all happen. Richard Arkwright, James Watt, Richard Trevithick and Josiah Wedgwood are among the giants whose achievements and tragedies fill these pages. In this authoritative study Roger Osborne also shows how and why the revolution happened, revealing pre-industrial Britain as a surprisingly affluent society, with wealth spread widely through the population, and with craft industries in every town, village and front parlour. The combination of disposable income, widespread demand for industrial goods, and a generation of time-served artisans created the unique conditions that propelled humanity into the modern world. The industrial revolution was arguably the most important episode in modern human history; Iron, Steam and Money reminds us of its central role, while showing the extraordinary excitement of those tumultuous decades.

Farmers feed cities, but starting in the nineteenth century they painted them too. Flax from Canada and the northern United States produced fibre for textiles and linseed oil for paint - critical commodities in a century when wars were fought over fibre and when increased urbanization demanded expanded paint markets. Flax Americana re-examines the changing relationships between farmers, urban consumers, and the land through a narrative of Canada's first and most important industrial crop. Initially a specialty crop grown by Mennonites and other communities on contracts for small-town mill complexes, flax became big business in the late nineteenth century as multinational linseed oil companies quickly displaced rural mills. Flax cultivation spread across the northern plains and prairies, particularly along the edges of dryland settlement, and then into similar ecosystems in South America's Pampas. Joshua MacFadyen's detailed examination of archival records reveals the complexity of a global commodity and its impact on the eastern Great Lakes and northern Great Plains. He demonstrates how international networks of scientists, businesses, and regulators attempted to predict and control the crop's frontier geography, how evolving consumer concerns about product quality and safety shaped the market and its regulations, and how the nature of each region encouraged some forms of business and limited others. The northern flax industry emerged because of border-crossing communities. By following the plant across countries and over time Flax Americana sheds new light on the ways that commodities, frontiers, and industrial capitalism shaped the modern world.

In the first book ever written about the impact of phosphate mining on the South Carolina plantation economy, Shepherd McKinley explains how the convergence of the phosphate and fertilizer industries carried long-term impacts for America and the South. Fueling the rapid growth of lowcountry fertilizer companies, phosphate mining provided elite plantation owners a way to stem losses from emancipation. At the same time, mining created an autonomous alternative to sharecropping, enabling freed people to extract housing and labor concessions. Stinking Stones and Rocks of Gold develops an overarching view of what can be considered one of many key factors in the birth of southern industry. This top-down, bottom-up history (business, labor, social, and economic) analyzes an alternative path for all peoples in the post-emancipation South.

Too often, depictions of women's rise in corporate America leave out the first generation of breakthrough women entrepreneurs. Here, Edith Sparks restores the careers of three pioneering businesswomen--Tillie Lewis (founder of Flotill Products), Olive Ann Beech (cofounder of Beech Aircraft), and Margaret Rudkin (founder of Pepperidge Farm)--who started their own manufacturing companies in the 1930s, sold them to major corporations in the 1960s and 1970s, and became members of their corporate boards. These leaders began their ascent to the highest echelons of the business world before women had widespread access to higher education and before there were federal programs to incentivize women entrepreneurs or laws to prohibit credit discrimination. In telling their stories, Sparks demonstrates how these women at once rejected cultural prescriptions and manipulated them to their advantage, leveraged familial connections, and seized government opportunities, all while advocating for themselves in business environments that were not designed for women, let alone for women leaders. By contextualizing the careers of these hugely successful yet largely forgotten entrepreneurs, Sparks adds a vital dimension to the history of twentieth-century corporate America and provides a powerful lesson on what it took for women to succeed in this male-dominated business world.

In an era dominated by huge railroad corporations, Indianapolis Union and Belt Railroads reveals the important role two small railroad companies had on development and progress in the Hoosier State. After Indianapolis was founded in 1821, early settlers struggled to move people and goods to and from the city, with no water transport nearby and inadequate road systems around the state. But in 1847, the Madison & Indianapolis Railroad connected the new capital city to the Ohio River and kicked off a railroad and transportation boom. Over the next seven decades, the Indiana railroad map expanded in all directions, and Indianapolis became a rail transport hub, dubbing itself the "Railroad City." Though the Pennsylvania and the New York Central Railroads traditionally dominated the Midwest and Northeast and operated the majority of rail routes radiating from Indianapolis, these companies could not have succeeded without the two small railroads that connected them. In the downtown area, the Indianapolis Union Railway was less than 2 miles long, and out at the edge of town the Belt Railroad was only a little over 14 miles. Though small in size, the Union and the Belt had an outsized impact, both on the city's rail network and on the city itself. It played an important role both in maximizing the efficiency and value of the city's railroad freight and passenger services and in helping to shape the urban form of Indianapolis in ways that remain visible today.

With this richly illustrated history of industrial design reform in nineteenth-century Britain, Lara Kriegel demonstrates that preoccupations with trade, labor, and manufacture lay at the heart of debates about cultural institutions during the Victorian era. Through aesthetic reform, Victorians sought to redress the inferiority of British crafts in comparison to those made on the continent and in the colonies. Declaring a crisis of design and workmanship among the British laboring classes, reformers pioneered schools of design, copyright protections, and spectacular displays of industrial and imperial wares, most notably the Great Exhibition of 1851. Their efforts culminated with the establishment of the South Kensington Museum, predecessor to the Victoria and Albert Museum, which stands today as home to the world's foremost collection of the decorative and applied arts. Kriegel's identification of the significant links between markets and museums, and between economics and aesthetics, amounts to a rethinking of Victorian cultural formation. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including museum guidebooks, design manuals, illustrated newspapers, pattern books, and government reports, Kriegel brings to life the many Victorians who claimed a stake in aesthetic reform during the middle years of the nineteenth century. The aspiring artists who attended the Government School of Design, the embattled provincial printers who sought a strengthened industrial copyright, the exhibition-going millions who visited the Crystal Palace, the lower-middle-class consumers who learned new principles of taste in metropolitan museums, and the working men of London who critiqued the city's art and design collections-all are cast by Kriegel as leading cultural actors of their day. Grand Designs shows how these Victorians vied to upend aesthetic hierarchies in an imperial age and, in the process, to refashion London's public culture.