Abstracts
Abstract
Friedrich Engels’ The Condition of the Working-Class in England (1845) features a pioneering multisensory ethnography of the factory system. His critique of the industrial revolutionization of light for 24/7 production adapted a contemporaneous Gothic imaginary of the night. In The Philosophy of Manufactures (1835), Andrew Ure repudiated a physician who condemned night-work’s effects on factory children – “if light is excluded from tadpoles, they never become frogs” – by counter-claiming: “the number and brilliancy of the gas-lights in a cotton-mill” militated against child-labourers lingering “in the tadpole state.” Dispelling Ure’s thinking as blinding fantasy, Engels revealed “the vampire property-holding class” penetrating night-workers with “very powerful light … most injurious to the sight.” He brilliantly anticipated Karl Marx’s demonstration in Capital (1867) that industrial revolutionism, involving capital’s rapid take-up of new lighting technologies, occurred “at the expense of the workpeople. Experimenta in corpore vili, like those of anatomists on frogs, were formally made.”
Résumé
La condition de la classe ouvrière en Angleterre (1845) de Friedrich Engels constitue une ethnographie multisensorielle pionnière du système de l’usine. Sa critique de la révolution industrielle de la lumière pour une production 24/7 a traduit un imaginaire gothique contemporain de la nuit. Dans The Philosophy of Manufactures (1835), Andrew Ure répudie un médecin qui condamnait les effets du travail de nuit sur les enfants des usines – « si la lumière est niée aux têtards, ils ne deviennent jamais des grenouilles » – en rétorquant que « le nombre et l’éclat des lampes à gaz dans une filature de coton » allaient à l’encontre des enfants qui travaillaient « à l’état de têtard ». Évacuant la pensée d’Ure comme un fantasme aveuglant, Engels a révélé « le vampirisme de la classe des propriétaires » transperçant les travailleurs de nuit avec « une lumière très puissante... la plus nuisible à la vue ». Il a brillamment anticipé la démonstration de Karl Marx dans Le Capital (1867), selon laquelle la révolution industrielle, qui implique l’adoption rapide par le capital des nouvelles technologies d’éclairage, s’est produite « aux dépens des travailleurs. C’étaient de véritables expériences in corpore vili, comme celles des vivisecteurs sur les grenouilles ».
Appendices
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