Class and Community by Alan Dawley depicts the development of Lynn, Massachusetts from before to after the industrial revolution, focusing on the shoemakers employed there. Throughout the novel, Dawley calls attention to class conflict, concentrating on the difficulties and poverty that laborers experienced, as well as their determination to improve their working conditions.
Lynn is seen as a microcosm of the United States industrial revolution because it portrays a sweeping trend across the United States−the rise of factory working and its effects including terrible conditions such as low pay, long hours, and an unsafe workplace. These shoemakers eventually revolted when the conditions did not improve.
The careers of Ebenezer Breed, Micajah Pratt, and Benjamin Newhall express the tendency of capitalist transformation in the shoe manufacturing business by displaying that while the factory system worked well at the beginning, the growth did not last. The relationship between the community and equal rights shows the unifying effect of the conditions factory workers experienced against the elite employers. Central shops and outwork aided this unity by bringing together workers under one roof, where they share the same sufferings and may spread their attitudes to each other. George Hood’s mayoral election demonstrates that
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This machine can sew faster than people and requires less skill to operate, and therefore will look good to a money-seeking employer. The sewing machine reinforced the trend of guiding away from household production and to the factory system. The decrease in pay, rise in work hours, and the women losing their jobs led to the series of strikes against the employers known as the Great Shoemakers Strike of 1860. The strikers believed that they should gain fair compensation. In response, the manufacturers raised wages but would not sign the bill of wages that the strikers