Low pay is as much a problem for labor and policy makers in capitalist economies today as it was 100 years ago. Although the definition of sweating extends beyond inadequate wages, it is that dimension that has consistently provided the focus of state action and ultimately—as the Chartist-inspired title of this monograph implies—of Sheila Blackburn's analysis. But Blackburn also challenges the conventional interpretation of sweating as a marginal industrial process, arguing that, because it is characterized by inefficient management, oversupply of adult labor, insecure worker combinations, and sometimes by low skill, sweating can affect all types of labor, in a range of organizational forms and in a spread of locations and trades. Blackburn's painstakingly researched book extends the limited (1850) focus of previous scholarship.

The chronological structuring of the book is shaped by thematic considerations, as contemporary preoccupations—and the writings that form the basis of Blackburn's evidence—shifted ground. The first section of the study indicates that sweating as a social problem with profound health implications was initially highlighted in the mid-nineteenth century in a range of protest literature, including Mayhew's letters to the Morning Chronicle, Charles Kingsley's Alton Locke (1850), and Thomas Hood's The Song of the Shirt (1843). Neither this writing, nor that of professionals who focused on disease and sanitary reform, considered adequately how the manifestations of sweating, including the complex problem of poverty, could be remedied. Investigations of the 1880s on the spread of infection through the London garment sweatshops generated assumptions about the profit-maximizing Jew, presaging an anti-Semitic dimension to witness statements to the Select Committee on the Sweating System appointed in 1888.

In the second section of the book, Blackburn describes the shift to solution-based discussion as the involvement of the state gathered pace by the end of the nineteenth century. The Select Committee identified factors that contributed to the problem and exonerated one potential culprit—new technology— but it failed to recognize the sweated conditions of contemporary factories. Its recommendations included registration and inspection, and while limited in scope, this generated debate about the minimum wage and Wages Boards in which the influences of John A. Hobson, as well Sidney and Beatrice Webb, are evident. The year 1906 is identified as a turning point in thought and policy because of the coincidence of the Board of Trade Committee, a reforming Liberal government, and an exhibition and conference on sweated industries that raised ethical and economic concerns. Progress was then rapid: the recommendations of the 1907 Select Committee on Homework shaped the Trade Boards Act of 1909.

The final section of the book considers the practical implementation of a minimum wage through the twentieth century. Two chapters take the form of case studies. The first of these is a close and revised analysis of the Cradley Heath chainmakers, the first group to be affected by the legislation. Although the actions of female labor in the trade have been described elsewhere, Blackburn exposes employer disingenuousness in praising the legislation while exploiting a loophole and shows how widespread support for the well-organized women forced bosses to implement it properly. R. H. Tawney's theoretical and practical contribution is the second case through which Blackburn assesses the value of the Wages Boards. An acknowledged influence on the antisweating campaign, Tawney sustained a profound belief in the importance of the Trade Boards even as they were criticized in the interwar years. Blackburn draws on Tawney's early and less known work on the chainmaking and tailoring boards to correct conventional wisdom on his work. While recognizing his contribution to socialist thought and his challenge to economic orthodoxy, Blackburn argues that Tawney's uncritical appraisal of the Trade Boards (driven by the desire to allay anxieties about the power of the state or challenges to trade unions) indicates an incomplete solution to the problem of low pay in the twentieth century. The persistence of low wages, if not of sweating itself, to the present and the sometimes bitter disagreements over the optimum solution are discussed in Blackburn's final chapter. As the scope of the 1909 Act widened from its initially narrow four trades, provision for a minimum wage became part of Labour Party and trade union strategy, which in the interwar years faced employer criticism and government sluggishness. Since the Second World War, a range of strategies to combat low and unequal pay has been discussed and implemented, and, while the analysis has become more complex, insufficient wages, poor working conditions, geographical and gender inequalities, and inefficient production continue to characterize the English economic landscape.

Blackburn is an undoubted expert on the history of sweated labor, and this richly detailed and erudite exploration is the product of careful and imaginative research. Her nuanced analysis demonstrates the complexity of the much misunderstood subject of sweating and the serious limitations of previous interpretations. However, the argument, at least in the first part of the book, is so tightly focused on the debates about sweating and the causes of sweated labor that the nature of work itself is sidelined. Blackburn rightly distances herself from the notion of sweating as a system, and one which assumes an oppressed female home or sweatshop worker, and her discussion of women chainmakers is illuminating. Yet, by adopting a gender-neutral argument, Blackburn may have conveyed the impression that women are not the main victims of sweating and low pay. But Blackburn's book will be of huge value for those wishing to deepen their understanding of the conceptual and practical dimensions of worker exploitation and of the range of working practices and forms of industrial organization in English industrial society.