This is the first collection of essays on Chartism by leading social historian Dorothy Thompson, whose work radically transformed the way in which Chartism is understood. Reclaiming Chartism as a fully-blown working-class movement, Thompson intertwines her penetrating analyses of class with ground-breaking research uncovering the role played by women in the movement.
Throughout her essays, Thompson strikes a delicate balance between down-to-the-ground accounts of local uprisings, snappy portraits of high-profile Chartist figures as well as rank-and-file men and women, and more theoretical, polemical interventions.
Of particular historical and political significance is the previously unpublished substantial essay co-authored by Dorothy and Edward Thompson, a superb piece of local historical research by two social historians then on the brink of notable careers.
Dorothy Thompson was an American journalist and radio broadcaster, who was noted by Time magazine in 1939 as one of the two most influential women in America, the other being Eleanor Roosevelt.
She is notable as the first American journalist to be expelled from Nazi Germany (in 1934), one of the few women news commentators on radio during the 1930s, and as the inspiration for Katharine Hepburn's character "Tess Harding" in the film Woman of the Year (1942).
-- Note for Goodreads Librarians: there are multiple authors with this name. When adding books for this author, use three spaces between 'Dorothy' and 'Thompson'.