The Machine Wreckers

Machine Wreckers, The (Die Maschinenstürmer)

    Author: Ernst Toller

    First Performance: 1922, Berlin

    Published: 1922

    First English Translation: 1923

    Genre: Drama in 5 acts and a prologue; German prose and verse

    Setting: The House of Lords and Nottingham, 1812–16

    Cast: 26m, 7f, 5 children, extras

Despite Lord Byron's support for the weavers, a bill is passed in Parliament making destruction of machinery a capital offence. In Nottingham misery reigns, as women and children work for a pittance at the new steam looms, while the male weavers starve. When Jimmy Cobbett, an idealistic rebel, becomes leader of the discontented men, his brother Henry, fearing for his job as foreman, plots with the treacherous weaver John Wible to get rid of Jimmy. Jimmy tries to persuade the mill owner Ure to...

[The entire page is 301 words long]

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass