chartism means A working-class movement for political and social reform in the United Kingdom during the mid-19th century. Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 83 out of 100.
Why “chartism” is a great word
CHARTISM — [Noun] A 19th-century British working-class movement for political reform, galvanized by the six democratic demands of the People's Charter of 1838. From charter (referring to the People's Charter) + -ism (denoting a movement or system). The term was in use by 1839. Unlike radicalism (a broad, diffuse doctrine of fundamental change) or suffragism (a campaign focused on the franchise alone), Chartism was a specific, monumental, and organized cry for a complete democratic constitution. It was the thunder of a million signatures on a petition, the grim solidarity of a torchlit march on a frozen moor, and the bitter rustle of an illegal newspaper passed from loom to furnace—a fleeting, physical hope for a political world that never arrived, leaving only its principles to echo down the century.
name
- A working-class movement for political and social reform in the United Kingdom during the mid-19th century.“An insincere world; a godless untruth of a world! It is out of this, as I consider, that the whole tribe of social pestilences, French Revolutions, Chartisms, and what not, have derived their being,—their chief necessity to be.”
noun
- The practices and methodologies of chartists.