This volume explores the idea of unemployment, as nineteenth-century economists constructed the category ‘unemployment’, referring to a structural problem that caused ‘genuine workmen’ to be temporarily unemployed through no fault of their own. Sources examine how social thinkers and politicians put forward a range of arguments about the reasons for unemployment, the increasingly detailed categorization of people without work, and the growing movement to represent ‘labour’ both inside and outside Parliament, in large part to address the problem of unemployment. Accompanied by extensive editorial commentary, this volume will be of great interest to students of British History.