Agriculture and Cottage Industry: Redefining the Causes of Proto-Industrialization

Gay L. Gullickson

The Journal of Economic History, 1983, vol. 43, issue 4, 831-850

Abstract: Prevailing theory regards subsistence or pastoral agriculture as a prerequisite for the spread of proto-industry. Commercial agriculture and proto-industrialization are viewed as incompatible. The expansion of the cotton industry in the pays de Caux, a fertile cereal-producing region in Normandy, contradicts the theory and indicates that seasonal unemployment and landleness, not subsistence agriculture, were the distinguishing features of proto-industrial regions. When these regions were located near market towns, the peasants' need for off-season work complemented the growing demand of eighteenth-century merchants for a large labor supply and determined the location of proto-industries.

Date: 1983
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