Description:Broadside ballad entitled The Way to Strike Home.
The song is set under the banner A General meeting of the Truck Masters and sung to the tune Washing Day.
It portrays a group of businessmen planning and comparing methods of profitting from the truck system at the expense of their workers.
The Truck System
This was a system whereby the workers were forced to accept goods in lieu of payment.
They would be payed in tokens, which could only be spent at the company store or Tommy Shop.
The workers, often housed by the work master, suffered widespread exploitation.
They were charged inflated prices for the goods they took, so the master profitted not only from their labour, but also from his sales to them.
The work master determined the prices of the goods. He could effectively make his labour costs cheaper by hiking the price of essential goods.
If the worker did not accept these conditions he would often be out of a job and a home.
The Truck Act of 1831 made this practice illegal in many trades. In 1887 the act was extended to cover most manual workers.
Broadside ballads
Broadsides or broadsheets were a popular way of distributing and publishing songs.
It was a practice that had been growing in popularity since the birth of the printing press in the 1500s and carried on until the early 1900s.
These ballads covered many different subjects including romance, nationalism, famous individuals, current affairs and, in this case, conditions of employment.
Ballad singing was not only used as a form of entertainment. In this period there was a high level of illiteracy amongst the working classes. Ballad singing became a good way to spread news, ideas or propaganda.
Broadsides were often sold by street hawkers who would also sing the songs.
About this document
This document was printed by hasle in Manchester and collected by Burslem pottery manufacturer Enoch Wood. It is now among the collections of Stoke-on-Trent Museums.