Living Worlds
A Manchester cotton mill gate at dusk in 1844, gaslit windows, chimneys and a canal, workers walking home.

1840–1890 · Manchester, 1844

Steam and Cotton

The mill bell keeps the time.

The law of Steam and Cotton

The mill bell keeps the time.

Manchester, 1844: the first industrial city. Six- and seven-storey cotton mills line the canals, gas lights the mill windows at dusk, and about 400,000 people live in the town and its neighbours.

A young mill worker in a shawl leaving the mill gate at dusk with a friend.

A life in Steam and Cotton · composite, based on the record

A spinner, twenty

She has worked the mill since she was thirteen. Tonight she walks home with her sister, talking the whole way.

Meanwhile, in the same age

Steam and light

Ginza at dusk in 1882, a crowd in kimono and bowler hats looking up at the first electric street lamp beside brick colonnades, gas lamps and a horse tram.

First Light

Tokyo, 1 November 1882

A double-hulled voyaging canoe with pandanus sails on the open Pacific at dusk.

Which world will you live in?

Request access See every age