Zach Sell
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- January 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781469661346
- eISBN:
- 9781469660479
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469661346.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter examines how famine in India’s North-Western Provinces and the Lancashire cotton famine were intertwined. Engaging with a long-standing and extensive historiographical debate over the ...
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This chapter examines how famine in India’s North-Western Provinces and the Lancashire cotton famine were intertwined. Engaging with a long-standing and extensive historiographical debate over the so-called Lancashire cotton famine, the chapter foregrounds the composite social histories of Manchester goods—the textile commodities produced by workers in Britain’s factories—to argue that this crisis was bound to the social histories of colonial markets in India’s North-Western Provinces. The chapter argues that this famine must be understood as part of a racial and cultural logic of empire.Less
This chapter examines how famine in India’s North-Western Provinces and the Lancashire cotton famine were intertwined. Engaging with a long-standing and extensive historiographical debate over the so-called Lancashire cotton famine, the chapter foregrounds the composite social histories of Manchester goods—the textile commodities produced by workers in Britain’s factories—to argue that this crisis was bound to the social histories of colonial markets in India’s North-Western Provinces. The chapter argues that this famine must be understood as part of a racial and cultural logic of empire.
Jim Powell
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- September 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781789622492
- eISBN:
- 9781800852112
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781789622492.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, Economic History
This chapter investigates Britain’s cotton supply and usage during the war. It examines all the issues that have been misinterpreted or ignored: cotton imports, bale weights, cotton re-exports, ...
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This chapter investigates Britain’s cotton supply and usage during the war. It examines all the issues that have been misinterpreted or ignored: cotton imports, bale weights, cotton re-exports, wastage in spinning, raw cotton stocks, stocks of cotton goods, exports of cotton goods and investment in new mills. There was nothing abnormal about the cotton market in 1859–61. Without the war, there would have been no allegation of pre-war over-production, no assertion of the glutting of overseas markets. The chapter offers an alternative explanation of why short-term working, which led to the Lancashire cotton famine, began in October 1862 when there was not yet a scarcity of cotton. The international cotton trade needed a large pipeline of stock. The outbreak of war, followed by the Confederate embargo and the Union blockade, paralysed the world market and caused an abrupt fall in demand. The conclusion is that, for the three main years of the war, British yarn production was at 36 per cent of the market requirement, and that about 4.5 billion lb of raw cotton was denied to Britain in the seven years to the end of 1867.Less
This chapter investigates Britain’s cotton supply and usage during the war. It examines all the issues that have been misinterpreted or ignored: cotton imports, bale weights, cotton re-exports, wastage in spinning, raw cotton stocks, stocks of cotton goods, exports of cotton goods and investment in new mills. There was nothing abnormal about the cotton market in 1859–61. Without the war, there would have been no allegation of pre-war over-production, no assertion of the glutting of overseas markets. The chapter offers an alternative explanation of why short-term working, which led to the Lancashire cotton famine, began in October 1862 when there was not yet a scarcity of cotton. The international cotton trade needed a large pipeline of stock. The outbreak of war, followed by the Confederate embargo and the Union blockade, paralysed the world market and caused an abrupt fall in demand. The conclusion is that, for the three main years of the war, British yarn production was at 36 per cent of the market requirement, and that about 4.5 billion lb of raw cotton was denied to Britain in the seven years to the end of 1867.
Jim Powell
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- September 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781789622492
- eISBN:
- 9781800852112
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781789622492.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Economic History
Losing the Thread is the first full-length study of the effect of the American Civil War on Britain’s raw cotton trade and on the Liverpool cotton market. It details the worst crisis in the British ...
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Losing the Thread is the first full-length study of the effect of the American Civil War on Britain’s raw cotton trade and on the Liverpool cotton market. It details the worst crisis in the British cotton trade in the 19th century. Before the civil war, America supplied 80 per cent of Britain’s cotton. In August 1861, this fell to almost zero, where it remained for four years. Despite increased supplies from elsewhere, Britain’s largest industry received only 36 per cent of the raw material it needed from 1862 to 1864. This book establishes the facts of Britain’s raw cotton supply during the war: how much there was of it, in absolute terms and in relation to the demand, where it came from and why, how much it cost, and what effect the reduced supply had on Britain’s cotton manufacture. It includes an enquiry into the causes of the Lancashire cotton famine, which contradicts the historical consensus on the subject. Examining the impact of the civil war on Liverpool and its cotton market, the book disputes the historic portrayal of Liverpool as a solidly pro-Confederate town. It also demonstrates how reckless speculation infested and distorted the raw cotton market, and lays bare the shadowy world of the Liverpool cotton brokers, who profited hugely from the war while the rest of Lancashire starved.Less
Losing the Thread is the first full-length study of the effect of the American Civil War on Britain’s raw cotton trade and on the Liverpool cotton market. It details the worst crisis in the British cotton trade in the 19th century. Before the civil war, America supplied 80 per cent of Britain’s cotton. In August 1861, this fell to almost zero, where it remained for four years. Despite increased supplies from elsewhere, Britain’s largest industry received only 36 per cent of the raw material it needed from 1862 to 1864. This book establishes the facts of Britain’s raw cotton supply during the war: how much there was of it, in absolute terms and in relation to the demand, where it came from and why, how much it cost, and what effect the reduced supply had on Britain’s cotton manufacture. It includes an enquiry into the causes of the Lancashire cotton famine, which contradicts the historical consensus on the subject. Examining the impact of the civil war on Liverpool and its cotton market, the book disputes the historic portrayal of Liverpool as a solidly pro-Confederate town. It also demonstrates how reckless speculation infested and distorted the raw cotton market, and lays bare the shadowy world of the Liverpool cotton brokers, who profited hugely from the war while the rest of Lancashire starved.
