As industry grew, those with leisure visited places of manufacture, not merely to learn how commodities were produced, but for the sensation and spectacle these places afforded. First encounters with the industrial were highly charged, evoking awe and terror, wonder and disgust; tourists often found themselves caught up in something beyond their ability to explain. Whether mechanically lowered into the depths of salt mines, ushered into the infernal atmosphere of the iron forge, or overpowered by the invasive noise and thick air of the textile factory, curious members of the public toured and recorded their experiences, teaching their readers how to think and feel about industrialization, and in the process taking part in the construction of a new industrial aesthetic and regime. The sensations, emotions, and thoughts such practices produced offer insight into our own moment when the industrial moves our cultures and our minds.

Matt Rowney is Associate Professor of English at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. His recent monograph, In Common Things (University of Toronto Press, 2022) captures the agency of common substances in Romantic period literature. His work appears or is forthcoming in Studies in Romanticism, European Romantic Review, and Essays in Romanticism. When not in the classroom or at his desk, he enjoys walking in the English countryside and wandering the streets of Tokyo.