History

I’m looking for first-person accounts of life during the 1st Industrial Revolution in Europe and then the United States.

The ideal writer is capturing their experience close to real time, and is educated in business and economics.

Either unpolished manuscripts or edited books are fine.

Even better if not digitized.

Any recommendations?

Engels' The Condition of the Working Class in England comes to mind

also Babbage's Machinery & Manufactures:

Healthcare investor by day, web3/AI tinkerer by night. 🟪 Host: /venturecapital /theitinerant

Engels' The Condition of the Working Class in England comes to mind

also Babbage's Machinery & Manufactures:

https://rybn.org/human_computers/articles/Babbage_Charles_On_the_Economy_of_Machinery_and_Manufactures.pdf

creating and destroying; built flying cars & autonomous vehicles, now building roc.camera, writings: july.rocks

Marx also has some of the best descriptions of Capitalism imo in Das Kapital

also hard to ask for this and not mention marx as well, but marx can be quite long and bit more philosophical

I remember reading Das Kapital and every few pages thinking first of all can't believe he was 26, and also dude needs an editor

Engels is the best first person account

It is depressing af though

Thanks, both look great.

RE: Marx (and Adam Smith), it’s a good reminder. I’m overdue to revisit the classics.

Ideally looking for less politicized / academic works. 

For example: a banker, trader, lawyer, etc writing about the times from their personal perspective.