Two textile townships, c. 1660-1820: a comparative demographic analysis

Family reconstitution results for two industrializing townships in West Yor kshire are compared with findings from Cambridge Group reconstitutions and from similar European studies. The research highlights the variety of demog raphic experience between and within communities which experienced similar structural, economic, and technological shifts. This suggests that the cons truction of typologies of demographic change based on dominant occupations or sectors may be misleading, as may the assumption that economic transform ation acted uniformly upon local populations. Aggregate shifts in demograph ic indicators in the townships appear to have been driven by significant ch ange in the experience of relatively small, identifiable subgroups and coho rts. Rural industry seems to have stabilized communities, as well as changi ng them, and localized practices, culture, and responses conditioned and pa rticularized economic change itself.