We recently acquired a bound volume of issues of the late Victorian periodical, The Working Man: A Weekly Record of Social Progress and Industry from 1886, featuring a wealth of detailed illustrations.

The call number for this item is 12449 and be viewed at the Clara Thomas Archives & Special Collections. For the catalogue record, see here.

One of the more attractive aspects of this publication are the detailed illustrations of factory work from all areas of British industry: from gold leafing to iron mongering; needle-making to the construction of lighthouses; the journals articles cover small workshops to large-scale industrial operations.

For more context about the role of illustration in our understanding of nineteenth century working life, see Geoffrey Tweedale's ""Days at the Factories": A Tour of Victorian Industry with the Penny Magazine". Technology and Culture 29 : 4 (1988): pp.888-903.