University Sultan Moulay Slimane

Faculty of arts and Humanities

Department of English Language and literature
English Studies
Beni Mellal
Academic Year: 2023/2024

Semester 4: Module 25

Introduction to Cultural Studies

Prof. El habib El hadari

 INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL STUDIES
Course objectives
• This course aims to introduce students to the field of Cultural

Studies and to the main concept and founding figures of the

field.

• This course also aims to develop students’ discussion and

analysis skills.

• It also aims to help students distinguish between Cultural

Studies and the study of culture.

Defining Cultural Studies

Post-disciplinary
Inter-disciplinary Cultural Studies reacts
to other disciplines
Cultural Studies
interacts with other
Anti-disciplinary
disciplines
A dialogue between Cultural Studies differ
Cultural Studies and from other disciplines
other and comes up with
ideas that go against
disciplines (Ex: their
sociology,
anthropology…)
 Cultural Studies can be defined as an Inter-disciplinary, anti-
disciplinary and post-disciplinary field of knowledge. In cultural studies, there is a dialogue
among scholars (thinkers) on concepts that belong to different disciplines. This means that
cultural studies interact meaningfully with other disciplines. It all creates controversy among
scholars that can result in opposing ideas views. It is also a field which reacts to what has
been said and written about different concepts.
Scholars interested in cultural studies can be compared to birds that
move from one nest to another. They borrow concepts from other disciplines.
It is very important to distinguish between cultural studies and the study of culture
because they are totally different. The study of culture can take place in different disciplines
including cultural studies. Which means that it is not an established field of knowledge. By
contrast, cultural studies is an institutionalized discipline because we know where and when
it began, and who initiated it.
The main figures of this discipline are STUART HALL, RAYMOND WILLIAMS,
GEORGE HARTMAN and RICHARD HOGGERT.
It first appeared in Europe and then moved to the Americans, Australia
and other places in the world. This means that it is internationally Ubiquitous (exiting
everywhere).
• What is culture?

Culture has been described by such scholars Raymond Williams and George
Hartman as a fuzzy concept. It is fuzzy (complex). It is very hard to define especially in a
multicultural and intercultural world, where people are very much worried about their
national culture. The world today is ruled by a global capitalist system which aims to create a
world based on cultural cosmopolitanism and sameness. This means that national boundaries
vanish onto vapor and are replaced by cosmopolitan one. The ultimate goal is to assassinate
national cultures and supplants (replace) it with a cosmopolitan one.
Cultures are very much influenced by the power of the media controlled by a global
capitalist system. Thus we can say that people in the world of today live in a Global Media
Sphere where they are bombarded with media products like images, videos, songs, sitcoms,
footballers, actors, models….
Everything in the world of today has become a business. Culture itself becomes a
business. It is a commodity. It is on sale in the capitalist market.
 • What does the word Culture means?
This word is polysemous (it has many meanings) it lends itself to different
meanings. For instance, it can be used to describe the ability of someone to demonstrate
academic knowledge and cultural awareness.
It can also mean the ability to dive/delve deeper into the world of intellectual
production and thinking. It can also devote the capacity of talk about issues of global
cultural significance.
In brief, this word does not have one specific meaning or defining, it depends on
the angle which we see it.
Street Brian’s definition of culture
According to Street Brian, culture is a verb and not a noun. It means that
culture should not be defined of what it is, but in terms of what it does. For example,
culture can shape our identity. It defines how we think and behave. It distinguishes us
from others. It makes us reflect on what we do and see. The focus here is on the
functions (rules) of culture towards people as individuals and groups.
Magpie metaphor
Cultural Studies is characterized by its ability to interact with and react to
other disciplines. The key point to remember is that it borrows concepts from these
disciplines and it confers on these concepts a touch of originality. It does not
mechanically repeat what other disciplines say but it brings some original thinking to
these concepts.

Examples of concepts:

Culture Representation Stereotype

Pop culture Language Social class
Race Power Identity
Gender Ideology Hybridity
Ethnicity Hegemony etc...
 Kaleidoscope metaphor
Cultural Studies can be defined in terms of metaphors. It canbe compared to
a magpie because it moves from one discipline to another in an interactive and reactive
way. It can be also compared to a kaleidoscope because it is not static. It is a dynamic
field of study. It keeps changing and developing over time.
Thus cultural studies is a field associated with originality and newnesswhen it comes to
dealing with different concepts.
We can distinguish between little “c” culture and big “C” culture. The first
refers to the things that we do on a daily basis. It refers to the everyday cultural practices
and customs like greetings, praying, cooking etc …
Big “C” culture refers to the great artistic, scientific and intellectual productions
of a society. To exemplify, the books written by William Shakespeare can be categorized
under the heading of the big “C”. The things that have been made in such fields as
architecture, engineering, physics, biology and care mechanics are also parts of the big
“C”.
The Iceberg Metaphor
Edward Hall has defined culture in terms of an iceberg. Culture can be
visible or invisible. The visible part of culture refers to the things that we can see live the
way of eating, dressing, praying, drinking, dancing, etc…
The invisible part of culture refers to the hidden cultural beliefs that reside
inside us. This part is not easy to discover. We need a lot of time to learn it and find it
out.
The Elephant Story Metaphor
This story refers to six blind men who were brought a big elephant and were
asked to touch it and say what it was. The six men provided six different answers,
depending on the angle from which they saw it. We cannot say that one was right and the
others were wrong because it was all a matter of perspective. The implication of this is
that there is no right o wrong culture. There is no best or worst culture. What is culturally
appropriate for me cannot be appropriate for others.
 Patrick Moran’s definition of culture
Patrick Moran defines culture in terms of 4”P” (products, practices,
perspectives and persons). Products are the things that are made by people who belong to
one cultural community (e.g.: chopsticks in China, Tajine in Morocco, Sushi in Japan,
and Pizza in Italy…). Practices are the behaviors that distinguish cultural communication
from each other (e.g.: praying, greeting, dancing…). Perspectives are the angles from
which cultural practices are seen by a cultural community. Persons are the people who
practice this culture and exchange perspectives about it and produce cultural products
within a certain community. Patrick Moran stresses the importance of a community for
any culture. The 4 “P” can’t exist in a vacuum. They need a community to develop and
prosper. A community can be simply defined as a group of people who
share the same culture.

Products :are the things that are made

Practices :are the behaviors that
by people who belong to one cultural
distinguish cultural communication
community (e.g.: chopsticks in China,
from each other (e.g.: praying,
Tajine in Morocco, Sushi in Japan, and
greeting, dancing…)
Pizza in Italy…)

Patrick Moran's 4 "P"

Persons: are the people who practice

Perspectives :are the angles from this culture and exchange
which cultural practices are seen by a perspectives about it and produce
cultural community. cultural products within a certain
community.
 Raymond Williams’ definition of culture

Raymond Williams with Stuart Hall are the key founder of field of
cultural studies. Raymond Williams describes culture as a “fuzzy” concept because it is
very complex. He says that culture is “one of the two or three most complicated (fuzzy,
frizzy or complex) words in the English language.” In his work titled: Culture and
Society 1780-1950, he defines culture as an individual habit of mind which refers to
what the individuals mind does and thinks. He also defines it as the intellectual
development (growth) of the whole society which refers to the intellectual productions of
the society. He also refers to culture as the artistic production of the society which means
what the society produce at the artistic level. His focus on the intellectual and artistic
dimensions of the culture can be referred to general culture as opposed to specific
culture that pertains to each individual. Raymond Williams does also provide an
anthropological definition of culture which simply refers to the way people live as a
group in a society.
Culture for Raymond Williams is:

What individually do
and think

Culture for
What the society Raymond The way people
produce at the Williams live in a group in
intellectual level. is: a society

What the society

produce at the artistic
level.

To sum up, Raymond Williams provides a complex definition of culture in

which the interplay between what is anthropological, individual, intellectual and artistic
takes place. He takes us from the common sense of definition of culture (culture as a
way of life) to a more complicated definition that entails the some brain work at the
intellectual, artistic and individual levels.
 Geoffrey Hartman’s definition of culture
For Geoffrey Hartman, culture is an inflammatory word because in
some cases culture can lead to cultural conflicts and wars. The idea is that people as
individuals and societies can fight with each other because of their cultural differences.
The implications of this are that there are moments when some people at the individual
and societal levels, can strive to abolish their culture of others and perpetuate their own
culture. Another implication is that not everything about culture is good in the sense that
culture can result in both good and bad things.
Like Raymond Williams, Geoffrey Hartman does also
highlight the complex nature of culture. Hartman refers to culture as divers and
proliferating in the sense that it can take different forms depending on where it is used.
To explain his point of view, he gives some examples which show this diversity: media
culture, gun culture, pop culture, deaf culture, football culture, etc…His intention
(propose) is to show that culture does not have one use. He talks about the idea that the
word that is culture has been used in different domains (in different fields). For him,
wherever you go, there is culture. It is everywhere. He compares it to a wild plant that
grows in unwanted places.
To recapitulate, Raymond Williams and Geoffrey Hartman
share the belief that culture is a fuzzy concept. For Raymond Williams, culture is not a
matter of what we do on a daily basis. It is more than that. It is an intellectual and artistic
endover. For Geoffrey Hartman, culture is like plant that can be found in different fields
though it is unwanted. It is placeless (everywhere).
Raymond Williams
Raymond Williams wrote some interesting works in which he Theorized
and conceptualized the term of culture. One of these works is Culture and Society 1780-
1915. In this work, he mentions that culture has four meanings. The first meaning is that
culture is an individual habit of mind. This means that culture is something individual in
the sense that each person has his or her own culture. We can call this type of meaning a
specific form of culture.
 The second meaning that Raymond Williams gives to culture is that it is the
state of intellectual development of a whole society. This means that culture refers to the
intellectual productions of the society in different fields like literature, philosophy and
anthropology.
The third meaning is that culture refers to the arts. This implies that culture does
also denote the artistic production of the society.
The last meaning that Raymond Williams give to culture is that it is the whole
way of life for a group of people. The last meaning is anthropological.
To sum up, Raymond Williams provides a definition of culture in which
there is an intersection between of what is individual, intellectual, artistic and
anthropological. That’s why culture for Raymond Williams is a fuzzy concept.
Raymond Williams has another work. It is sociology textbook about
culture. In this textbook, he presented the first Contemporary Cultural Theory. He also
grouped the second and the third definitions as general and ideal. He also contrasted the
second and the third with the fourth which he described as an anthropological.
Culture for Raymond Williams is very complex at different levels. It has
physical and human application. Physical application simply refers to the geographical
land or earth where culture exists. This means that there is no culture without a physical
space (earth). By human application, he means the people of the earth, their cultures
and sub-cultures.
According to him, culture has positive and negative connotations. This means
that culture has symbolic meanings which can be either positive or negative. These
connotations differ from one society to another.
Raymond Williams says that culture is a noun of process which means
that it is the “tending of nature”. In this context, he talks about the earliest meaning of
culture associated with the natural growth. To clarify, culture is the past was seen as a
corps or plants that grow naturally. That’s he compared culture to a plants that developed
far away from the intellectual intervention of the human mind. Culture later on has
another use which is not a noun of process but as a noun of configuration. This means
that culture is made up of different parts that create the whole thanks to the intellectual
development of the society. Thus Raymond Williams distinguishes between the
earliest vision of culture which was natural and the new vision which is intellectual. The
implication of this is that culture for Raymond Williams is an intersection of what
is natural and intellectual.
Raymond Williams has another work titled key words. In this work, he
defines culture in this way: “Culture is one of the two or three most complicated words in
the English language. This is so partly because of its intricate historical development, in
several European languages, but mainly because it has now come to be used for
important concepts in several distinct intellectual disciplines and in several distinct and
incompatible systems of thought”.
In this quote, Raymond Williams attributed the complexity of culture to
three reasons. The first one is the complex nature of its development across history.
The second one is that culture is not field-bound because it exists in several intellectual
disciplines. The last one is that culture does also exist indifferent systems of thought.
Raymond Williams also says: “Culture in all its early uses was a noun
of process: the tending of something, basically crops or animals… from the tending of
natural growth was extended to a process of human development, and this, alongside
the original meaning in husbandry (agriculture, farmers), was the main sense”. The
key point in this quote is that the origin of culture was in husbandry (agriculture).
Culture and sub-culture
A sub-culture is a group of people with their own culture that belongs to the
umbrella culture. These people have their own beliefs, practices and behaviors which are
different from the general culture. They have different cultural characteristics that
distinguish them from others at the level of food, cloths, rituals, music and celebrations.
Members of sub-cultures give symbolic connotations to their culture. Most of the times
sub-culture represent minority groups and cultures. Sometimes, they are marginalized.
Sometimes, they are seen as a danger to the umbrella culture. That’s why Raymond
Williams mentions that the general culture should be protected from sub-cultures.
Example of subcultures:
• LGBT: this group of people constitutes abnormal (strange) sexual inclinations.
That’s why a lot of societies including the Moroccan one should fight it to protect their
general culture.
• Hippies: the hippies are a cultural group whose behaviors constitute a danger to the
general culture for many people including Morocco.
• Hip hop.
• Punks (It’s a movement that appeared in the 1970s and which is known for its
opposition to the government. This movement is famous for fast and loud music).
 Geoffrey Hartman
The key point about Geoffrey Hartman’s definition of culture is that he
rises consciousness about the rule of culture in causing cultural wars between individuals,
communities and societies. That’s why he describes culture as “an inflammatory word”
because it can kindle actual wars. This implies that culture is a double-edged concept
because it is not always good. It can be dangerous.
The common point between Hartman and Raymond Williams is that
both of them stress the complexity of culture. According to Hartman, the complexity
of culture can be attributed to its proliferating uses. Culture for him is omnipresent. It is
not field-bound. To explain his point of view, he gives some examples such as: media
culture, football culture, pop culture, music culture… Thus, culture has roots in
probably every aspects of our life.
Stuart Hall
Stuart hall is one of the founding figures of cultural studies. In his
lecture at the University of Massachusetts in 1989, he talks about the historical context
that led to the emergence of cultural studies. He provided the complex that trigged the
need to established cultural studies as a field that gives new ways of understanding
culture. For him, it was necessary to create this discipline because there was a lack in
terms of theorization and conceptualization of the term of culture.
For Stuart Hall, other disciplines like arts and literature did not theorize
and conceptualize. They were dedicated to the preservation of cultural heritage. This
means that the main concern of cultural studies is to theorize and conceptualize culture
according to Stuart Hall.
The other discipline talked about cultural system as abstract concept made up of
networks and abstract norms and values. But according to him, the changing ways of life
and societies and groups necessitate a new approach that takes into consideration the
network of meanings that individuals and groups can make meaning by communicating
with each other. In this way, the field of cultural studies focuses on the process of
meaning making at the individual and societal levels. The main concern of cultural
studies is how the popular culture (everyday culture) intersects with the high culture. It
also focuses on how power cuts across knowledge and how cultural processes anticipate
social changes. In brief, cultural studies are a place of intersections.
 Cultural studies was founded by The Center for Contemporary Cultural
Studies at Birmingham University in 1960s. This center was established by Richard
Hoggart.
There is culture and there are counter-cultures in every society. Any sub culture
or cultural sub group can get into a relationship of opposition with general culture. In the
USA for example, in the late 20th century, culture became a battle field in which different
cultures get into wars and conflicts. Now they are known as culture wars in which the
religious right, counter cultures, new conservatism and the neo-left were involved.
These cultures wars or clashes played an important role in defining a new political that
developed by 1980 and which is still valid today at least in the USA. The point to make
here is that culture conflicts can impact different aspects of life including politics.
These culture wars in the USA paved the way to the movement from the focus
on culture to the field of cultural studies as a new proto-discipline and as a new proto-
type in the USA that time. It was an undeveloped field of study. Many questions were
raised about the statue of American Cultural Studies. The point to make here is that
these culture wars triggered more interest in American cultural studies.
The British Cultural Studies was founded in 1964 at The Center for
Contemporary Cultural Studies established by Richard Hoggart, a professor at
Birmingham University. Thus, the field of cultural studies, regardless of where it
belongs, is still profoundly (deeply) indebted to the founding work of the Birmingham
center directed by Richard Hoggart. The Center for Contemporary Cultural
Studies in internationally held as the pioneering institutions, when it comes to the birth
of cultural studies. Professor Anthony Easthope considered the work of the
center as the most important intervention in cultural studies in Britain.
It is very important to note that The Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies
was a place for important debates about what to study and how to organize this study.
These debates have resulted in the emergence of polyphonic models in cultural studies.
There was a plurality of voices that addressed the question of culture and aspects related
to it. The point to make here is that there were various (different) competing
Birmingham models.
To put it differently, the results of the debates among different scholars and
professors at The Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies was a plurality in terms of
what cultural studies is. For instance, cultural studies was described as an inter
(between)-or post (reacting to)-disciplinary field of study. Cultural studies reacts to and
interact with the idea and concepts presented by disciplines. This means that there is a
conversation between cultural studies and other disciplines. For example, cultural studies
gets into a critical dialogue with Marxism by discussing and debating such concepts as
social class, capital, power, ideology, hegemony and hierarchy. Scholars invested in
cultural studies deal with these concepts but from a different perspective. They confer on
these concepts a touch of originality.
Cultural studies was also defined as a sort of political intervention into other
existing disciplines. It was categorized (classified) as a new self-contained discipline that
complete by itself and that deals with a subject that is entirely new using a new
theoretical parading. This diversity of meanings and definitions attributed to cultural
studies shows that there is a clearly visible difference in the way it is perceived.
Stuart Hall focuses on the political aspect of cultural studies by dealing
with the questions of power, hegemony and ideology. For him, cultural studies are a
political system of analysis. To use the words of During (1999, p.2), cultural studies is a
politically engaged from of analysis and this is one of the distinguishing features of
cultural studies. Simply put, cultural studies provide an analysis which shows its political
engagement. This is to say that, cultural studies focus on the relationship between the
cultural, the political, the social, the economic and the ideological.
In the American cultural studies, the main focus is substantially laid on issues
of race, gender, ethnicity and sexualism. It touches on the conflict between cultural
elitism and cultural populism. In other words, it focuses on the antagonism between the
cultural ideas of the elites and those of the common people or ordinary people.
Harold Bloom (1994), a cultural elitist, considers cultural studies a treat
(menace) to “Batman comics, Mormon theme park, television, movies,
Shakespeare…”.
Gross berg, a cultural populist, sees cultural studies as a way to react to
anything elitist. For him, cultural studies are a form of revolution (rebellion) against
cultural elitism. In this context, it is very important to note that such founding fathers of
British cultural studies as Richard Hoggart, Thompson and Raymond
Williams were basically interested in the study popular or working class culture.
Stuart Hall
In his famous work titled Cultural Studies and its Theoretical Legacies,
Stuart Hall provides retrospective look at the past and implicitly at the future of
cultural studies by doing “some genealogical and archaeological work on the archive”.
He describes himself as a tableau vivant when he raises the question of the archives. He
represents what he calls “a spirit of the past resurrected” and “an authority of an
origin”. He questions the emergence of cultural studies in this way: “didn’t cultural
studies emerge somewhere at the moment when I first met Raymond Williams or in the
glance I exchange with Richard Hoggart? In that moment, cultural studies was born;
it emerged (appeared) full ground from the head” (p.262).
Stuart Hall describes theoretical work conducted at The Center For
Contemporary Cultural Studies founded by Richard Hoggart as “theoretical
noise” which “was accompanied by a great deal of bad feeling, argument, unstable
anxieties and angry silences” (p.263). the implication of this is that the birth of cultural
studies was not easy at all. It was the fruit of heated theoretical debate at the center for
contemporary cultural studies at the university of Birmingham.
Stuart Hall defines cultural studies as “a discursive formation”, a
concept used by Michael Foucault in his work titled “The Archeology of
Knowledge”. Stuart Hall borrows this concept from Michael Foucault to
show that cultural studies is characterized by its discontinuity. It is a system of
dispersion. S. Hall mentions that cultural studies “has no simple origins…much of
the work of the work out of which it grew…was already present in the work other
people” (p. 263). Cultural studies provides a discourse which is a dispersion of
discontinuous elements borrowed from other disciplines.

Extract N 1
Raymond Williams provides a historical account (record) of the
development of five words that are of capital importance in the world of today. He traces
their history starting from their original use in language to their acquisition of new and
important meanings in our life. He seeks to hint at the idea that the changes in language
reflect the wider changes in life and thought. In other words, there is a strong
interconnection between the changes in language and the changes in society. Thus,
language, life and thought are intending.
Raymond Williams wants to impart the message that the changes in the
linguistic use of the five words (i.e.) industry, democracy, class, art and culture) are an
indicator of the general changes in the way humans look at and think about common life.
To put it differently, there is a dynamic relationship between language and society to
the extent that the changes in the first lead to the changes in the second on many
grounds (levels).
According to Raymond Williams, the changes in the use of the five
words arouse our curiosity to ponder (think) more on our social, economic and political
institutions, the purpose each institution incarnates (embody/represent) and how these
institutions are connected to what humans aspire for (long for) when engaged in
learning, educational and artistic activities.

INDUSTRY

Before Industrial Revolution

A human attribute After Industrial Revolution
Quality-skill (like describing Became intitution of production and
someone) many facturing
Assduty=hardwork Activities
Industrious =hardworking /skilled Techniques of production
people assiduous Methods of production
Industriel Institutions

Raymond Williams draws a demarcation line (the industrial revolution)

that explains the difference between the old and the new meanings of the word industry.
Before the industrial revolution the word was used to refer to a human quality (attribute,
characteristic and feature The epithet (adjective) industrious meant hard working,
assiduous, skilled, persistent, and diligent. All these designated (denoted) human
qualities. Raymond Williams want to say that the word industry was used to
describe people with special qualities needed for the prosperity of society. With the
advent (coming) of the industrial revolution at the end of the 18 th century, the word
industry began to denote an institution of production and manufacturing, where
different activities take place and different methods and techniques of production are
used.
Thus, the industrial revolution marked an important transitional stage in the
transformation of the meaning of industry from being a human quality to becoming a self
established institution with its own activities, methods and techniques. The interweaving
(mixture) of the words industrious and industrial in the 19 th century resulted in the
emergence (appearance, birth) of a new system named industrialism which was marked
by the birth of significant technical methods and this has remarkable impacts on the
methods of production and on the society as a whole.
 This is to imply that the changes in the uses of the word industry played a
pivotal role in creating a new society and transforming it at different levels. The society
cannot be quarantined (isolated) from the transformation in the industrial system of
production and its concomitant (accompanying) activities and procedures.

democracy

Before: After:
American and trench revolution American and French
Greek government by the revolution
people Became a part of the politcal
Just a letrrory word vocabulry

The second word that Raymond William focuses on this extract is

democracy. He draws a demarcation line distinguishing determine the old and new
meaning of democracy. He talks about democracy before and after the American and
French revolution. Democracy was formally defined as a new literary word, but now it is
part of the political vocabulary Williams makes a clear reference to sum unfavorable
uses of the word democracy. For example it has been associated with hated Jacobinism
(hostile revolutionary movement of extremists) or mob-rule (also called monocracy
which refers to majoritarian form of government dominated by the ordinary people)
this is to suggest that when the issue of democracy is raised, it is associated with
revolution and extremism. The word democracy in the word of today has been loaded
with dangerous and subversive beliefs and practices that aim to topple down the existing
ruling regime system. Democrats societies can be described as dangerous and supsersive
mode agitators who urge others to rebel (revolt) against the ruling system.
To recapitulate, the changes in the meaning of democracy have
the political life of the society. They have impacted how the political leaders and rulers
regard the democrats. Those in power see any act or endeavor to build a society founded
on democracy as a threat to their throne. The negative meanings that have been attributed
to the word democracy have played a capital role in defining the relationship between the
ruling people and the grass roots and the masses.
 CLASS

Before 1772 The end of 18th

century
Was associated with a group
of students sociel heirarchy

The third word that Raymond Williams dwells on (focuses on) is class
which before 1772, was related to schooling and study life it was employed (used) to
denote a group of students in schools and colleges and refers to classes in courses like
logic and philosophy. At the end of the 18th century, the word class began to be tinged
with a social sense and thus social classes like lower classes, higher classes, middle
classes, working classes, upper classes, upper middle classes and lower middle classes
came into existence.
The implication of this is that the word class has got a new meaning related to
social hierarchy. It has got important social meanings beyond its original meaning
associated with groups of students taking a certain course. This change in the meaning of
the word class has led to heated debates about topics related to class such as conflicts and
wars among social classes, the prejudices they have about each other and their attitudes
towards each other.
Therefore, the change in the meaning of the word class has tremendously
(hugely, greatly, remarkably) contributed to the establishment of new forms of social
relationships and divisions. This change has also triggered some important question about
what a social structure is, the kind of impact this structure has on the social feelings of
countries like England especially at the time of the industrial revolution.