Humanity Is Calling

DESCRIPTION: "We have come to ask your assistance, For at home we've been starving too long...." "For humanity is calling, Don't let the call be in vain, But help us, we are needy and falling." Children are starving. There is no cotton because of the "American War"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1867 (broadside Harding B 11(1594))
KEYWORDS: worker hardtimes war poverty
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Harding-FolkSongsOfLancashire, p. 10, "Ashton Famine Song" (1 text,
Roud #V23635
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 11(1594), "Humanity is Calling," J. Harkness (Preston), 1840-1866
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Red, White and Blue" (tune, according to Bodleian Harding B 11(1594))
cf. "Gentle Annie" (tune, according to Harding-FolkSongsOfLancashire)
NOTES [149 words]: This song is an accurate reflection of conditions in England's spinning and weaving districts in 1862-1863. They were supplied mostly with cotton from the American South, which was cut off by the American Civil War. At first, the Southerners refused to export their cotton to try to force Britain to recognize them; then, by 1863, the Union blockade was starting to make export difficult. With no cloth to weave, towns in Lancashire and elsewhere had no work to do.
The result was poverty and riots, such as the one at Ashton-under-Lyne pictured in Harding-FolkSongsOfLancashire. It is of historical note that those largely stopped when Abraham Lincoln put forth his Emancipation Proclamation. It was controversial in America, but the workers of Industrial England -- who weren't much better than slaves themselves -- supported emancipation, and no longer wanted to help the American South. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.7
File: MHFL010

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