France 1831, 1834

Synopsis

At the beginning of the July Monarchy, in the industrial French city of Lyon, the silk workers had a very hard life. In addition to backbreaking work, they were largely dependent on the fluctuations of the silk market and on the price of labor as fixed by the merchants. In 1831 they revolted against the merchants' tyranny and compelled the prefect state's representative to arbitrate the conflict. The government harshly repressed the uprising, as with the one that broke out later in 1834. Both times, workers from other industries joined the canuts, or silk weavers, in support of their protests.

Historians interpret the silk workers' riots in Lyon as the first modern strikes of the industrial era. The canuts' strikes foreshadowed many social struggles in industrialized countries that followed.

Timeline

• 1809: Progressive British industrialist Robert Owen proposes an end to employment of children...