The French Worker

This anthology, drawn from the autobiographies of seven men and women whose lives spanned the 19th century, provides a rare glimpse of the everyday lives of workers in the age of early industrialization in France. These stories convey the ambitions, hardships and reversals of ordinary people struggling to gain a measure of respectability. The workers' livelihoods are diverse: chair-maker, embroiderer, joiner, mason, silk weaver, machinist and seamstress. Their stories of daily activities, work life and popular politics are filled with lively, often poignant moments. We learn of dismal, unsanitary housing, disease, workplace accidents and terrible hardship, especially for the children of the poor. The autobiographies also illuminate the relationship between changes in working conditions and the forms of political participation and protest that occurred as the 19th century drew to a close.