Popular virtue

<i>Popular virtue </i>is the first in-depth study of the changing nature of moral politics within working-class Radicalism between 1820 and 1870. Through study of the lives activism and intellectual influences of a number of key leaders of working-class Radicalism this book highlights how Radicalism's attitudes to morality and everyday life shifted from a festive and libertarian culture that advocated sexual liberty and gender equality in the 1820s-30s to a more austere and ascetic politics that emphasized moral improvement temperance and frugality after the 1840s. Despite the fracturing of this culture with the decline of Chartism in the 1850s <i>Popular virtue</i><i> </i>highlights how the moral politics of the 1840s possessed important legacies in not only the politics of Popular Liberalism and the Reform League but also in heterodox medicine and self-help.