Two textile townships, c. 1660-1820: a comparative demographic analysis
摘要:
Family reconstitution results for two industrializing townships in West Yorkshire are compared with findings from Cambridge Group reconstitutions and from similar European studies. The research highlights the variety of demographic experience between and within communities which experienced similar structural, economic, and technological shifts. This suggests that the construction of typologies of demographic change based on dominant occupations or sectors may be misleading, as may the assumption that economic transformation acted uniformly upon local populations. Aggregate shifts in demographic indicators in the townships appear to have been driven by significant change in the experience of relatively small, identifiable subgroups and cohorts. Rural industry seems to have stabilized communities, as well as changing them, and localized practices, culture, and responses conditioned and particularized economic change itself.