| The objective of this thesis was to analyze the critical role of the Northern Star, as an influential radical newspaper, in mediating and making interpretable the new economic and political struggles of the 1830's working class during the first wave of Chartist activity. Between the fall of 1837 and the fall of 1839 working-class radicals began to see parliamentary reform as the only solution to specific social grievances such as poor relief, factory reform and assaults on labor unions. The People's Charter has often been credited with providing the ideological framework for the Chartist Movement. This thesis will show that the editorial content of the Northern Star preempted this document by several months and had already set the working class down the road towards Chartism. Once the movement was underway, the Northern Star continued to shape Chartism's language, its goals and the actions of its members. |
