The Lancashire Cotton Famine
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Cotton Famine in Lancashire from 1861-65. The Famine followed the blockade of Confederate Southern ports during the American Civil War which stopped the flow of cotton into mills in Britain and Europe. Reports at the time told of starvation, mass unemployment and migration. Abraham Lincoln wrote, “I know and deeply deplore the sufferings which the working-men of Manchester, and in all Europe, are called to endure in this crisis.” While the full cause and extent of the Famine in Lancashire are disputed, the consequences of this and the cotton blockade were far reaching.
Guests
- Lawrence Goldman
10 episodes
Director of the Institute of Historical Research at the University of London - Emma Griffin
6 episodes
Professor of History at the University of East Anglia -
David Brown No other episodes
Senior Lecturer in American Studies at University of Manchester
Reading list
-
Lawrence Goldman at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London
-
Emma Griffin at the University of East Anglia
-
David Brown at the University of Manchester
-
Spinning the Web: The Story of the Cotton Industry
-
Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk During the Cotton Famine
Edwin Waugh Google Books → -
The American Civil War and the Lancashire cotton famine - Revealing Histories
-
Lancashire Cotton Famine - Wikipedia
-
Divided Hearts: Britain and the American Civil War
R. J. M. Blackett (Louisiana State University Press, 2000) Google Books → -
English Public Opinion and the American Civil War
Duncan Andrew Campbell (Royal Historical Society, 2003) Google Books → -
Unlikely Allies: Britain, America and the Victorian Origins of the Special Relationship
Duncan Andrew Campbell (Bloomsbury, 2008) Google Books → -
A World on Fire: An Epic History of Two Nations Divided
Amanda Foreman (Allen Lane, 2010) Google Books → -
The Lancashire Cotton Famine, 1861-1865
W. O. Henderson (Manchester University Press, 1969) Google Books → -
Blue and Gray Diplomacy: A History of Union and Confederate Foreign Relations
Howard Jones (University of North Carolina Press, 2010) Google Books → -
The Hungry Mills: The Story of the Lancashire Cotton Famine 1861-5
Norman Longmate (Maurice Temple Smith Ltd, 1978) Google Books → -
My Days are Swifter than a Weaver's Shuttle: Richard Ryley's Diary, 1862
Richard Ryley (Clement, 1982) Google Books → -
Four Centuries of Lancashire Cotton
Geoffrey Timmins (Lancashire County Books, 1996) Google Books → -
The Facts of the Cotton Famine
John Watts (RareBooksClub.com, 2013) Google Books →
Related episodes
-
The Great Irish Famine
4 Apr, 2019 940 History of Europe -
The Poor Laws
20 Dec, 2018 360 Social problems and social services -
The Corn Laws
24 Oct, 2013 330 Economics -
The Thirty Years War
6 Dec, 2018 940 History of Europe -
Consequences of the Industrial Revolution
30 Dec, 2010 330 Economics -
Slavery and Empire
17 Oct, 2002 900 History -
Booth’s Life and Labour Survey
10 Jun, 2021 360 Social problems and social services -
The Industrial Revolution
23 Dec, 2010 940 History of Europe -
The Morant Bay Rebellion
3 Nov, 2022 970 History of North America -
Malthusianism
23 Jun, 2011 300 Social sciences, sociology and anthropology -
Wilberforce
22 Feb, 2007 320 Political science -
The American Populists
15 Jun, 2017 320 Political science -
North and South
9 Mar, 2017 820 English and Old English literatures -
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
8 Jun, 2006 320 Political science -
The Zong Massacre
26 Nov, 2020 320 Political science -
The Anarchy
1 Nov, 2012 940 History of Europe -
The Highland Clearances
8 Mar, 2018 940 History of Europe -
The War of 1812
31 Jan, 2013 970 History of North America -
President Ulysses S Grant
30 May, 2019 970 History of North America -
The Peasants’ Revolt
16 Nov, 2006 940 History of Europe
Programme ID: b05tly3f
Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05tly3f
Auto-category: 973.7 (History of the United States during the Civil War)