Good%20Times,%20Hard%20Times:

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Good Times, Hard Times Britain's Industrial
Revolution
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Hard Times By Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens novel, Hard Times is an
excellent illustration of change of the structure
of class in England.
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As a result of the Industrial Revolution, there
was a rise in the middle class and establishment
of the working class the Victorian bourgeoisie
overthrew the Hanoverian aristocracy. The roles
in society changed into that which David
Cannadine argues in his book, The Rise and Fall
of Class in Britain.
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• The class structure Dickens describes is what
  Cannadine refers to as a three-layer society
• Land Owners drew their unearned income from
  their estates as rents
• Bourgeois Capitalists obtained their income
  from their businesses in the form of profits
• Proletarian Workers made their money by selling
  their labor to their employers for weekly wages

Class for itself/Class Consciousness

• Each character in Hard Times knew their place in
  society and their actions and lifestyles fell
  into accordance.
• One would have to go out of his way to cross
  paths with another of a different class.

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Hard Times Classes

• Stephen Blackpool working class proletarian
  employed by Josiah Bounderby
• Josiah Bounderby wealthy manufacturer
• Thomas Gradgrind a man after Jeremy Benthams
  logical Utilitarian heart was a Member of
  Parliament and teacher at a school that focused
  on facts and only facts. This character even
  creates an educational social class which he
  enforces strongly upon his children.

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Relationship between Mr. Bounderby and Mrs.
Sparsit
Illustration of the change in social class and
literary tool used by Dickens to create the
effect of irony.

• Mr. Bounderby the stereotype of the self-made
  man who pulled himself out of the lowest of low
  in society
• Mrs. Sparsit comes from the old aristocracy and
  still believes herself to be of such a high
  social standing. Ironically, this grand lady
  works for a man who was born in a ditcha man who
  in the age of aristocracy would have served her

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Hard Times vs. Persuasion
The society in Hard Times is a contrast from that
of Jane Austens Persuasion, which took place in
the summer of 1814 at fictional Sir Walter
Elliots estate, Kellynch Hall of Uppercross in
Somersetshire, and then later in Bath, however it
is evident that the change in class structure has
begun in Persuasion. Society and wealth in the
age of aristocracy was land-based, while wealth
during the height of the Industrial Revolution
and the society in Hard Times was industry-based.
The rise of the middle class showed the change
of power to belong to those of new money rather
than old money.
Jane Austen
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Coketown vs. Coalbrookdale
Hard Times takes place in the fictional British
town of Coketown, which gives reference to the
Industrial Revolution. In 1709, the originally
brass-founder, then later ironmaster, Abraham
Darby, discovered a method for smelting iron
using coke (which is pre-heated coal) instead of
charcoal to make iron. This new innovation for
making wrought iron rather than the previous,
more brittle cast iron helped to jumpstart the
Industrial Revolution, and because Darby did most
of his work in Coalbrookdale, it and the
adjoining area that became known as Ironbridge
are often referred to as the birthplace of the
Industrial Revolution in Great Britain.
Ironbridge was given its name when in 1779
Abraham Darby III builds the first cast iron
bridge across the River Severn.
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Ironbridge
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Friedrich Engels View
This description of Coalbrookdale and Dickens of
Coketown are also similar to Friederich Engels
(who later went on to compose the Communist
Manifesto with Marx) view of Industrial
Manchester in 1844. He said that the laboring
quarters of the city were located between the
northern boundary of the commercial district and
the Irk. Even the good streets in this location
are narrow and winding and the houses dirty,
old, and tumble-down, and the construction of the
side streets utterly horrible.
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Engels Believed

• Laborers had poor working conditions
• Laborers were crammed together in slums
• Laborers could be replaced easily, so the
  manufacturers didnt worry about workers rights
  and they gave the smallest amount of benefits and
  paid the lowest wages possible.
• There was a clear separation of worlds between
  classes and that one would have to go way out of
  his way to run into one of another class.

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Work
Ford Madox Browns painting, Work, displays the
opposite of Engels belief of class separation.
In his painting, all three classes are
represented. In the middle, the proletarian
workers are hard at work. On the right, the
business owners are watching over the workers
production. Finally, on the left are upper class
or even upper-middle class women passing by,
trying to stay away from the filthy workers,
while passing out pamphlets.
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Cardiff
Cardiff, Wales was also an important city in the
British Industrial Revolution. According to the
article, Full Steam Ahead, Wales was the
worlds first industrial nation with more of its
population becoming engaged in industry than
agriculture in the 1840s. Cardiff was the
perfect place for industry to be born with its
mines and steel mills. In fact, the worlds
price of coal was determined by the Welsh city.
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London and the Great Exhibition

• In 1851, the Great Exhibition, also known as the
  Crystal Palace, opened in Hyde Park. By the
  mid-nineteenth century was leading the Industrial
  Revolution and the purpose of the exhibition was
  to display Britains superiority in industry,
  economics and military.\
• One of the results of the Great Exhibition was
  what London intended, to showcase their
  superiority. By the mid-nineteenth century, the
  era was referred to as Victorian (after the
  current monarch, Queen Victoria) worldwide.
• Class was also a part of the exhibition. The
  landowners and the bourgeoisie were the ones who
  attended the exhibition, especially because it
  took place in Londons west end, which was the
  wealthy part of the city, to view the products of
  the Industrial Revolutions, products made by the
  lowly working class.

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The Crystal Palace

• Completed in 10 days by Sir Joseph Paxton
• Made out of iron and over a million feet of glass
• Had 13,000 exhibits from all over the world
• Had 6,200,000 visitors
• Exhibits included
• Jacquard loom
• an envelope machine
• tools
• kitchen appliances
• steel-making displays
• reaping machine from the United States

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Crystal Palace
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The age of feudalism and aristocracy was over.
The beautiful countryside estates and gentlemen
and ladies were becoming few and far between.
Capitalism and industry were polluting the cities
in the form of sweat, blood and smog. While
Cannadine was correct in saying that society had
dramatically changed, he was incorrect in his
argument that class had fallen completely.