ABSTRACT
The politically charged debate over workers’ living standards during the Industrial Revolution deserves renewal with the appearance of fresh data or new perspectives.2 This essay mines an expanding data base and emerges with a far clearer picture of workers’ fortunes after 1750. While optimists and pessimists can both draw support from the enterprise, the pessimists’ case emerges with the greater need for redirection and repair. The evidence suggests that material gains were even bigger after 1820 than optimists had previously claimed, even if the concept of material well-being is expanded to include health and environmental factors. Although the pessimists can still find deplorable trends in the collective environment after 1820, particularly rising inequality and social disorder, this article suggests that their case must be shifted to the period 1750-1820 to retain its central relevance.
