ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses which heroes from antiquity were admired and held up as exemplars by workers and which they were asked to identify with in their working lives. It shows how certain figures, especially Hercules and Atlas, were violently contested, being used to symbolise both ruling-class or imperial dominion and the physical power of the proletariat, especially when organised into trade or labour unions. A few ancient female figures manifested themselves in working-class self-¬imagining and images of the working class. Shafts: A Paper for Women and the Working Classes ran between 1892 and 1899. The gods and heroes of the British working class overlapped with those used by opponents of slavery. The close connection between Prometheus and Hephaestus/Vulcan in ancient Athenian cults was replicated in the parallel appearances they made in industrial iconography, along with Prometheus’ fellow Titan, Atlas.
