"The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844" by Frederick Engels is a powerful indictment of the Industrial Revolution's detrimental impact on workers. Engels meticulously demonstrates how industrial cities like Manchester and Liverpool experienced alarmingly high mortality rates due to diseases, with workers being four times more likely to succumb to illnesses like smallpox, measles, scarlet fever, and whooping cough compared to their rural counterparts. The overall death rate in these cities far surpassed the national average, painting a grim picture of the workers' plight. Engels goes beyond mortality statistics to shed light on the dire living conditions endured by industrial workers. He argues that their wages were lower than those of pre-industrial workers, and they were forced to inhabit unhealthy and unpleasant environments. Addressing a German audience, Engels' work is considered a classic account of the universal struggles faced by the industrial working class. It reveals his transformation into a radical thinker after witnessing the harsh realities in England. "The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844" remains an essential resource for understanding the hardships endured by workers during the Industrial Revolution. Engels' meticulous research and impassioned arguments continue to shape discussions on labor rights, social inequality, and the historical agency of the working class.

Built between 1921 and 1934, the London County Council's Becontree Estate was the largest public housing scheme ever undertaken in Britain, and, at the time of its planning, in the world. Using interviews with surviving tenants from the inter-year period, Dr Olechnowicz discusses the early years of the estate, looking in detail at the philosophy behind its construction and management, and showing how it eventually came to be denigrated as a social concentration camp.

The feisty warm-hearted "mum" has long figured as a symbol of the working class in Britain, yet working-class history has emphasized male organizations such as clubs, unions, or political parties. Investigating a different dimension of social history, Love and Toil focuses on motherhood among the London poor in the late Victorian and Edwardian years, and on the cultures, communities, and ties with husbands and children that women created. Mothers' skills in managing the family budget, earning income, and caring for their children were critical in protecting households from the worst hardships of industrial capitalism, yet poverty or the threat of it molded intimate relationships and left its imprint on personalities. This book is also a case study demonstrating the larger argument that the concept of "motherhood" is more socially and historically constructed than biologically determined. Shaky household economics, pressure toward respectability, the close proximity of neighbors, the precariousness of infant and child life, and little chance of better lives for their children shaped the work and emotions of motherhood much more than did the biological experiences of pregnancy, birth, and lactation. This beautifully written book, embellished with Cockney slang and music hall songs, addresses fascinating questions in the fields of women's studies, labor history, social policy, and family history.

Housing Market Renewal and Social Class critically examines the rationale for housing market renewal: to develop ‘high value’ housing markets in place of so-called ‘failing markets’ of low cost housing.