ABSTRACT
Deindustrialization refers to a process whereby industrial activities, such as mining and manufacturing, significantly decline over several decades so that the portion of a region’s or a society’s income that comes from industrial activities also significantly decreases. The process has received increasing attention from social historians, who deal not only with the impacts of loss of modernity but with the values and social relationships of groups who try to preserve key traditions in the face of industrial decline. The classic cases of deindustrialization in early modern European history are northern Italy and Flanders (presentday northern Belgium) during the 17th century. Milan in 1640, for example, produced 3,000 wool cloths; in 1705, it produced only 100. Since the industrial revolution, no country as a whole, with the possible exception of Britain, can be said to have deindustrialized, but certain regions clearly have. Some historians would consider the decline of rural or cottage industry as part of deindustrialization. During the 19th century, rural or proto-industry in Ireland, Brittany, and parts of the rural Northeast in the United States all declined as factories in other areas took away the work done in these regions. Older coal mining areas are the clearest cases of modern deindustrialization. These areas declined as newer, more easily worked coalfields and new fuel sources, such as oil, undercut the old fields. In 1913, South Wales produced 57 million tons of coal. In 1937, it produced only 34 million tons. Similar declines have occurred in Scotland, Appalachia in the United States, Belgium, and France. In Great Britain as a whole, including Wales and Scotland, the number of coalminers fell 75 percent between 1948 and 1984, from 716,000 to only 181,000. Although less dramatic, the decline of older textile, automobile, and iron and steel regions can be considered as cases of deindustrialization. The consequences of severe deindustrialization, especially in the coalfields, have been unemployment, out-migration, and human tragedy.
