No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
The M Yarn: Price and Social Imagination in Early Industrial Britain
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 July 2015
Abstract
This essay explores market talk in early nineteenth-century Britain through a close reading of the correspondence of the cotton-spinning firm McConnel & Kennedy of Manchester between 1798 and 1813. I argue that two distinct “narratives” of price and value emerge from these letters, and that the cleave between them pointed both to a deep anxiety about the market, and to a clear and clever bargaining strategy. McConnel & Kennedy clung stubbornly to a definition of “value” that they understood to be fictive, in order to avoid frank surrender to what they saw as cannibalistic price-competition. Rhetoric was, then, no small thing to them. They conceived supply and value as being inversely related, and this idea, I argue, was implicit also in wider contemporary anxieties about the relationship between proliferation and meaning.
- Type
- Manuscript
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Author(s) 2014. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved.
Footnotes
I am extremely grateful to the staff at the John Rylands University Library of Manchester for their patience, helpfulness, and courtesy to me during my various stints with them.
References
Bibliography of Works Cited
Brewer, John. The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Burgess, Miranda. British Fiction and the Production of Social Order, 1740–1830. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Collier, Frances. The Family Economy of the Working Classes in the Cotton Industry
Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1964.Google Scholar
Edwards, Michael M. Growth of the British Cotton Trade 1780–1815. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1967.Google Scholar
Ellis, Markman. The Politics of Sensibility: Race, Gender, and Commerce in the Sentimental Novel. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Gallagher, Catherine. Nobody’s Story: The Vanishing Acts of Women in the Marketplace, 1670–1820. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gallagher, Catherine. The Body Economic: Life, Death, and Sensation in Political Economy and the Victorian Novel. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Gilmartin, Kevin. Writing Against Revolution: Literary Conservatism in Britain, 1790–1832. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Grenby, M.O. The Anti-Jacobin Novel: British Conservatism and the French Revolution. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoppit, Julian. Failure in English Business, 1660–1800. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Huberman, Michael. Escape from the Market: Negotiating Work in Lancashire. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Ingrassia, Catherine. Authorship, Commerce and Gender in Early Eighteenth-Century England: A Culture of Paper Credit. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Jacob, Margaret
Stewart, Larry. Practical Matter: Newton’s Science in the Service of Industry and Empire, 1687–1851. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Jones, Robert. Gender and the Formation of Taste in Eighteenth-Century Britain: The Analysis of Beauty. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Keen, Paul. The Crisis of Literature in the 1790s: Print Culture and the Public Sphere. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kittredge, Katherine, ed. Lewd & Notorious: Female Transgression in the Eighteenth Century. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kennedy, John. Miscellaneous Papers on Subjects Connected with the Manufactures of Lancashire. T. Cunningham: Manchester, 1849.Google Scholar
Kowaleski-Wallace, Elizabeth. Consuming Subjects: Women, Shopping, and Business in the Eighteenth Century. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Lemire, Beverly. Fashion’s Favourite: The Cotton Trade and the Consumer in Britain, 1660–1800. Oxford: Cambridge University Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Lemire, Beverly. The Business of Everyday Life: Gender, Practice and Social Politics in England, c. 1600–1900. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Lee, Clive H. A Cotton Enterprise, 1795–1840: A History of McConnel & Kennedy, Fine Cotton Spinners. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1972.Google Scholar
Lewis, Myrddin J.
Lloyd-Jones, Roger. Manchester and the Age of the Factory. New York: Croom Helm, 1988.Google Scholar
Lynch, Deirdre. The Economy of Character: Novels, Market Culture, and the Business of Inner Meaning. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.Google Scholar
McCloskey, Deirdre. Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can’t Explain the Modern World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011.Google Scholar
McConnel, David C. Facts and Traditions Collected for a Family Record. Edinburgh, UK: Ballantyne and Company, 1861.Google Scholar
Miller, Ian
Wild, Chris. A & G Murray and the Cotton Mills of Ancoats. Oxford, UK: Oxford Archaeological Unit, 2007.Google ScholarPubMed
Mokyr, Joel. The Enlightened Economy: An Economic History of Britain, 1700–1850. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Mokyr, Joel. The Gifts of Athena: Historical Origins of the Knowledge Economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Parthasarathi, Prasannan. Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence, 1600–1850. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pearson, Jacqueline. Women’s Reading in Britain, 1750–1835: A Dangerous Recreation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pocock, John Greville Agard. The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975.Google Scholar
Pocock, John Greville Agard. Virtue, Commerce, History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1985.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poovey, Mary. Genres of the Credit Economy: Mediating Value in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-century Britain. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Preda, Alex. Framing Finance: The Boundaries of Markets and Modern Capitalism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Raven, James. Judging New Wealth: Popular Publishing and Responses to Commerce in England. Oxford: Cambridge University Press, 1992.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose, Mary. Firms, Networks and Business Values: The British and American Cotton Industries since 1750. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sherman, Sandra. Finance and Fictionality in the Early Eighteenth Century: Accounting for Defoe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Valenze, Deborah. The Social Life of Money in the English Past. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Wahrman, Dror. The Making of the Modern Self: Identity and Culture in Eighteenth-Century England. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Wennerlind, Carl. Casualties of Credit: The English Financial Revolution, 1620–1720. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brewer, John. The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Burgess, Miranda. British Fiction and the Production of Social Order, 1740–1830. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Collier, Frances. The Family Economy of the Working Classes in the Cotton Industry
Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1964.Google Scholar
Edwards, Michael M. Growth of the British Cotton Trade 1780–1815. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1967.Google Scholar
Ellis, Markman. The Politics of Sensibility: Race, Gender, and Commerce in the Sentimental Novel. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Gallagher, Catherine. Nobody’s Story: The Vanishing Acts of Women in the Marketplace, 1670–1820. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gallagher, Catherine. The Body Economic: Life, Death, and Sensation in Political Economy and the Victorian Novel. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Gilmartin, Kevin. Writing Against Revolution: Literary Conservatism in Britain, 1790–1832. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Grenby, M.O. The Anti-Jacobin Novel: British Conservatism and the French Revolution. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoppit, Julian. Failure in English Business, 1660–1800. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Huberman, Michael. Escape from the Market: Negotiating Work in Lancashire. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Ingrassia, Catherine. Authorship, Commerce and Gender in Early Eighteenth-Century England: A Culture of Paper Credit. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Jacob, Margaret
Stewart, Larry. Practical Matter: Newton’s Science in the Service of Industry and Empire, 1687–1851. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Jones, Robert. Gender and the Formation of Taste in Eighteenth-Century Britain: The Analysis of Beauty. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Keen, Paul. The Crisis of Literature in the 1790s: Print Culture and the Public Sphere. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kittredge, Katherine, ed. Lewd & Notorious: Female Transgression in the Eighteenth Century. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kennedy, John. Miscellaneous Papers on Subjects Connected with the Manufactures of Lancashire. T. Cunningham: Manchester, 1849.Google Scholar
Kowaleski-Wallace, Elizabeth. Consuming Subjects: Women, Shopping, and Business in the Eighteenth Century. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Lemire, Beverly. Fashion’s Favourite: The Cotton Trade and the Consumer in Britain, 1660–1800. Oxford: Cambridge University Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Lemire, Beverly. The Business of Everyday Life: Gender, Practice and Social Politics in England, c. 1600–1900. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Lee, Clive H. A Cotton Enterprise, 1795–1840: A History of McConnel & Kennedy, Fine Cotton Spinners. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1972.Google Scholar
Lewis, Myrddin J.
Lloyd-Jones, Roger. Manchester and the Age of the Factory. New York: Croom Helm, 1988.Google Scholar
Lynch, Deirdre. The Economy of Character: Novels, Market Culture, and the Business of Inner Meaning. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.Google Scholar
McCloskey, Deirdre. Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can’t Explain the Modern World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011.Google Scholar
McConnel, David C. Facts and Traditions Collected for a Family Record. Edinburgh, UK: Ballantyne and Company, 1861.Google Scholar
Miller, Ian
Wild, Chris. A & G Murray and the Cotton Mills of Ancoats. Oxford, UK: Oxford Archaeological Unit, 2007.Google ScholarPubMed
Mokyr, Joel. The Enlightened Economy: An Economic History of Britain, 1700–1850. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Mokyr, Joel. The Gifts of Athena: Historical Origins of the Knowledge Economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Parthasarathi, Prasannan. Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence, 1600–1850. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pearson, Jacqueline. Women’s Reading in Britain, 1750–1835: A Dangerous Recreation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pocock, John Greville Agard. The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975.Google Scholar
Pocock, John Greville Agard. Virtue, Commerce, History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1985.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poovey, Mary. Genres of the Credit Economy: Mediating Value in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-century Britain. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Preda, Alex. Framing Finance: The Boundaries of Markets and Modern Capitalism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Raven, James. Judging New Wealth: Popular Publishing and Responses to Commerce in England. Oxford: Cambridge University Press, 1992.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose, Mary. Firms, Networks and Business Values: The British and American Cotton Industries since 1750. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sherman, Sandra. Finance and Fictionality in the Early Eighteenth Century: Accounting for Defoe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Valenze, Deborah. The Social Life of Money in the English Past. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Wahrman, Dror. The Making of the Modern Self: Identity and Culture in Eighteenth-Century England. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Wennerlind, Carl. Casualties of Credit: The English Financial Revolution, 1620–1720. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Articles and Essays
Berg, Maxine. “Quality, cotton and the global luxury trade.” In How India Clothed the World: The World of South Asian Textiles, 1500–1850. edited by Riello, G.
Roy, T.. Boston: Brill, 2009.Google Scholar
Daniels, George W. “Early Records of a Great Manchester Cotton-Spinning Firm.”
Economic Journal
25
(June 1915)
175–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daniels, George W. “The Cotton Trade During the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.”
Transactions of the Manchester Statistical Society 62 (1915–1916), 53–84.Google Scholar
Harley, C. Knick. “Cotton textile prices in the Industrial Revolution.”
Economic History Review
51, no. 1
(1998), 49–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lloyd-Jones, Roger
Le Roux, A. A. “The Size of Firms in the Cotton Industry: Manchester 1815–41.”
Economic History Review
33, no. 1
(1980), 72–82.Google Scholar
Pearson, Robin
Richardson, David. “Business Networking during the Industrial Revolution.”
The Economic History Review
54, no. 4
(2001).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richardson, Philip. “The Structure of Capital during the Industrial Revolution Revisited: Two Case Studies from the Cotton Textile Industry.”
The Economic History Review
42, no. 4
(1989), 484–503.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solar, Peter M.
Lyons, John S. “The English cotton spinning Industry, 1780–1840, as revealed in the columns of the London Gazette.”
Business History
53, no. 3
(2011), 302–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yamamoto, Koji. “Piety, Profit, and Public Service in the Financial Revolution.”
English Historical Review, cxxvi, Issue 521(August 2011), 806–34.Google Scholar