Pottering settler colonialism: Martin Crawford, Land and labour: The Potters’ Emigration Society, 1844–51, Manchester University Press, 2024 | settler colonial studies blog

Pottering settler colonialism: Martin Crawford, Land and labour: The Potters’ Emigration Society, 1844–51, Manchester University Press, 2024

12Aug24

Description: Land and Labour narrates the history of the Potters’ Emigration Society, the most widely discussed project of its kind in the era of mass migration to America. Founded by the revived potters’ union in 1844, and the brainchild of a young Welsh-born activist, William Evans, it sought to solve the problems of surplus labour by changing pottery workers into farmers on land acquired in Wisconsin through a subscription and lottery scheme. The book examines the Society’s industrial and Owenite origins, including the impact of the 1836–37 strike and 1842 riots, and competition from rival labour organisations and Feargus O’Connor’s Chartist Land Plan. In 1848, short of funds, the Society opened its doors to other trades and regions. At its peak it comprised over one hundred branches, including members in Scotland, Lancashire and London. Beset by naivety, over-ambition and the inherent difficulties of transatlantic communication, the Society collapsed at the beginning of 1851. Land and Labour is based on intensive research into British and American newspapers, passenger lists, census, manuscript, genealogical and other sources. Despite the Society’s failure, its history offers a unique insight into working-class dreams of landed independence in the American West and illuminates the complex and contingent nature of transatlantic emigration in the mid-nineteenth century.

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