The Thread of Migration: A Scottish-French Linen and Jute Works and its Workers in France, c. 1845–c. 1870
Year: 2016
Type: article
Abstract: After 1815, European manufacturers in several sectors sought to reap the benefits of British technical superiority through the acquisition of British machinery and workers who could operate it. France was one of the beneficiaries of this transfer process. Along with iron, engineering, and tulle making, another British industry that established a French presence was linen and jute textile manufacturing. The authors present the results of joint research carried out in Scotland and France, focusing on a spinning mill established by a Dundee-Paris partnership in Ailly-sur-Somme in 1845. Much of the technical, managerial, and worker input came from Dundee, then becoming Britain’s – and for a time, the world’s – leading coarse textile manufacturing centre: ‘Juteopolis’. But the flow of expertise was not always unidirectional and there was cultural interchange too, in a process that by the 1870s had resulted in Ailly becoming one of the most important industrial establishments in France.
Source: Journal of Migration History
Authors: Fabrice Bensimon, Christopher A. Whatley
Institutions: Paris-Sorbonne University, University of Dundee
Language: English
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2329137571