ABSTRACT

This book, first published in 1929, analyses the changes to Birmingham and the Black Country in the nineteenth century. The area underwent quite a transformation: many of the older trades were decaying, while at the same time a number of new manufactures were making a remarkable rapid advance. As a result of this, the industrial structure of the area in the early twentieth century was made up of very different constituents from those of which is was composed sixty years previously. This is an invaluable study of a remarkable industrial transformation that was carried out in a very short space of time.

part I|45 pages

Introductory

chapter I|10 pages

The Area Defined

chapter II|33 pages

Economic Development before 1860

part II|126 pages

Birmingham and District in 1860

chapter I|16 pages

The Birmingham Trades

chapter II|19 pages

The Light Manufactures of the Black Country

chapter III|15 pages

The Heavy Industries

chapter IV|13 pages

Raw Materials and Mechanical Equipment

chapter V|30 pages

The Scale of Industry

part III|71 pages

Prosperity and Decline 1860–1886

part IV|46 pages

The New Era, 1887–1914

chapter I|31 pages

The Fortunes of the Older Manufactures

chapter II|13 pages

Coal, Iron and Steel

part V|23 pages

The New Industries

part VI|30 pages

Changes in Mechanical Equipment and in the Scale of Industry

part VII|84 pages

War and Post-War, 1914–1927

chapter I|7 pages

The War And Its Immediate Effects

chapter III|19 pages

Recent Tendencies in Industrial Organization

chapter IV|23 pages

Summary and Conclusions