Social Mobility in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century England

In this groundbreaking study, Andrew Miles subjects historical evidence of intergenerational and career mobility from the records of nineteenth-century marriages and autobiographical testimony to the analytical techniques developed by social scientists. Challenging previous assumptions about the long-term pattern of mobility in Britain, he demonstrates that the increase in mobility which accompanied the growth of an increasingly urbanized and bureaucratic service economy over the second half of the nineteenth century made English society more "open," while simultaneously encouraging a process of working-class formation which helped shape the emergence of modern labor politics.