Why do historians agree that the typical worker in the mid-nineteenth century was not a machine operator but the traditional crafts person and labourer ?
The historians recognise that the typical worker in the mid-nineteenth century was not a machine operator but the traditional crafts person and labourer due to the following reasons : Role of. traditional industries : Although cotton and metal were the most dynamic industies but the traditional industries could not be displaced because a large portion of work even in the textile industries was being done within domestic units. Even at the end of the nineteenth century, less than 20 per cent of the total workforce was employed in technologically advanced sector. Changes in the ‘traditional’ industries : The pace of change in the traditional industries was not set by steam-powered cotton or metal industries. Only ordinary and small innovations became the basis of growth in many non-mechanised sectors such as food processing, building, pottery, glass work, furniture work and production of implements.
