Workers' Responses to Paternalism in British Factory-Based Events (1840–1860).

This article examines large communal events organized in mid-Victorian textile mills to explore the practices and meanings of paternalism from the workers' perspective. It analyzes how paternalistic employers like Titus Salt and Samuel Courtauld used festivals, processions, and poetry to foster a feudal-like social order based on deference and mutual obligation, while also allowing workers limited space for negotiation and symbolic status within the factory community. The study highlights the theatrical and ritualized nature of these events as a means to display power and reinforce social cohesion, and it pays particular attention to the role of occasional laudatory poetry—especially by working-class poets such as Ellen Johnston—in both affirming and subtly challenging paternalistic relationships. The article calls for further research into workers’ nuanced responses to paternalism, including women’s contributions, to better understand the complexities of industrial social dynamics in this period.