Romance of modern work

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Cotton pickers depicted next to a Lancashire Mill in a promotional brochureTowns like Bolton could produce everything necessary to build and run a cotton mill, except the raw cotton.

The importance of the slave system in the supply of cotton to the Lancashire cotton industry is one of the hidden histories of the Industrial Revolution.

This illustration actually co-opts that history.

It accompanied the introduction to the book Concerning Cotton published by the Amalgamated Cotton Mills Trust Ltd. in 1920.

In the foreground three cotton pickers smile while at work. In the background, towering above them is a Lancashire cotton mill.

The cotton pickers have been transported to Lancashire!


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