Labor, Nation, and Textile Production: Thomas Allom (1804-72) and the Representation of Chinese Weavers

Abstract

In 1843, prints of Thomas Allom’s paintings on procedures involved the production of silk were published in China, in a series of views. These prints were based on the Pictures of Weaving that were created in the Qing dynasty court and date to 1696. The publication of Allom’s images of Chinese weavers not only coincided with Britain’s Opium Wars in China, but also with the reification of domestic productivity that the Industrial Revolution had engendered. At roughly the same time, Allom produced paintings of contemporary British industrialized textile manufacturing that celebrated this country’s advances in technology and society. Both sets of images were used to validate England’s economic transition from agriculture to industry, to ease tensions over claims of inhumane treatment that British weavers endured. In my interpretation, Allom’s imagery was positioned to endorse the imperialist and capitalist expansionism of Britain. In the mid-19thcentury, Chinese and domestic depictions of textile technology served to consolidate claims that sought to affirm new modes of production while dispelling anxiety over conditions of the weavers in British mills. Allom’s depictions of Chinese women weavers were hard at work, proclaiming the moral and economic superiority of Britain.