The Triumph of Textiles: Industrial Dundee, c. 1700-1918
A fresh account of the remarkable rise of Dundee as a global industrial city – and the origins of its later demise. The background to jute, the product most closely associated with Dundee, is investigated in unprecedented depth. The role of flax and linen as foundations for the jute industry is emphasised.
The book challenges many perceptions of Dundee. Linen was as important to Dundee before c.1850 as jute was afterwards; the significance of jute pre-1850 has often been exaggerated by historians. Traditionally Dundee’s success was attributed to the production of cheap coarse cloth for sacks, bagging etc. Yet many firms manufactured high quality, admiralty grade canvas, and colourful rugs and carpets in imitation of Brussels and other woollen floor coverings.
Design was important. So too were enterprising merchants and manufacturers from the early eighteenth century onwards. Although squalor and industrial and social conflict became the norm after the 1870s, prior to that Dundee was relatively buoyant economically, and greatly admired by visitors including those from as far afield as the US. In short, Dundee was one of Scotland’s industrial powerhouses – a fact too often overlooked.

1145015333
The Triumph of Textiles: Industrial Dundee, c. 1700-1918
A fresh account of the remarkable rise of Dundee as a global industrial city – and the origins of its later demise. The background to jute, the product most closely associated with Dundee, is investigated in unprecedented depth. The role of flax and linen as foundations for the jute industry is emphasised.
The book challenges many perceptions of Dundee. Linen was as important to Dundee before c.1850 as jute was afterwards; the significance of jute pre-1850 has often been exaggerated by historians. Traditionally Dundee’s success was attributed to the production of cheap coarse cloth for sacks, bagging etc. Yet many firms manufactured high quality, admiralty grade canvas, and colourful rugs and carpets in imitation of Brussels and other woollen floor coverings.
Design was important. So too were enterprising merchants and manufacturers from the early eighteenth century onwards. Although squalor and industrial and social conflict became the norm after the 1870s, prior to that Dundee was relatively buoyant economically, and greatly admired by visitors including those from as far afield as the US. In short, Dundee was one of Scotland’s industrial powerhouses – a fact too often overlooked.

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The Triumph of Textiles: Industrial Dundee, c. 1700-1918

The Triumph of Textiles: Industrial Dundee, c. 1700-1918

by Christopher A Whatley, Jim Tomlinson
The Triumph of Textiles: Industrial Dundee, c. 1700-1918

The Triumph of Textiles: Industrial Dundee, c. 1700-1918

by Christopher A Whatley, Jim Tomlinson

Hardcover

$115.00 
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Overview

A fresh account of the remarkable rise of Dundee as a global industrial city – and the origins of its later demise. The background to jute, the product most closely associated with Dundee, is investigated in unprecedented depth. The role of flax and linen as foundations for the jute industry is emphasised.
The book challenges many perceptions of Dundee. Linen was as important to Dundee before c.1850 as jute was afterwards; the significance of jute pre-1850 has often been exaggerated by historians. Traditionally Dundee’s success was attributed to the production of cheap coarse cloth for sacks, bagging etc. Yet many firms manufactured high quality, admiralty grade canvas, and colourful rugs and carpets in imitation of Brussels and other woollen floor coverings.
Design was important. So too were enterprising merchants and manufacturers from the early eighteenth century onwards. Although squalor and industrial and social conflict became the norm after the 1870s, prior to that Dundee was relatively buoyant economically, and greatly admired by visitors including those from as far afield as the US. In short, Dundee was one of Scotland’s industrial powerhouses – a fact too often overlooked.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781399537810
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Publication date: 11/30/2024
Pages: 304
Product dimensions: 6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Christopher A. Whatley OBE, FRSE, is Professor Emeritus at the University of Dundee. He is the author of the award-winning The Scots and the Union (EUP, 2006 and 2014), and co-edited Edinburgh UniversityPress’s History of Everyday Life in Scotland series. Long interested in Dundee’s history he has co-edited and written several books on the city.

Christopher A. Whatley OBE, FRSE, is Professor Emeritus at the University of Dundee. He is the author of the award-winning The Scots and the Union (EUP, 2006 and 2014), and co-edited Edinburgh UniversityPress’s History of Everyday Life in Scotland series. Long interested in Dundee’s history he has co-edited and written several books on the city.



Jim Tomlinson is Professor in Economic & Social History at the University of Glasgow, and author of Managing the Economy, Managing the People. Narratives of British Economic Life from Beveridge to Brexit (Oxford UniversityPress, 2017).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

List of Tables

Illustrations

Introduction: Re-writing the history of Industrial Dundee

Chapter One: Dundee: The First Town in Great BritainThe manufacture of linen is now...our principal article of trade...and Dundee is considered, in regard to this kind of manufacture, the first town in Great Britain.

Chapter Two: The English East India Company and Dundee’s emergence as a global city, 1830s-1870sA success that has enriched Scotland and promoted the commerce of the world.’

Chapter Three: Entrepreneurial endeavour, from Angus flax merchants to ‘Lords o’ Juteopolis’Nearly half a century ago some sagacious Scotchmen engaged in the manufacture of jute’ (1883)

Chapter Four: Dundee’s people and the headlong chaos of industrial transformationA ‘starving, turbulent population’?

Chapter Five: The Darker SideIndustrial Dundee: ‘a very dangerous place to live’?

Chapter Six: Kolkata bites back: the one-industry city under duressOf late, the jute mills of India have been dangerous competitors’ (1883)

Chapter Seven: The city divided, c.1876-1918Ye rich, that move through plenty/Just think of poor Dundee

Chapter Eight: The City and the First World War[Dundee] is in the strongest position in jute commodities that has ever been experienced’ (1915)

Afterword

 

 

 

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