Labour & Technology

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A hand-operated stocking frame in a whitewashed workshop with a partly knitted worsted web hanging from its needle bar, a cast lead weight swinging slightly on the web, a chalked slate of piece rates propped against the frame and a stool pushed back from the treadles

What the Machine Breakers Actually Wanted

The framebreakers of 1811 were not protesting machinery. They were protesting the use of machinery to evade apprenticeship, quality customs and agreed piece rates — and that is the part the word Luddite erases.

By Brecht Corbeel · August 8, 2026 · 17 min read

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