Industrial district
place where workers and firms, specialised in a main industry and auxiliary industries, live and work
Industrial district (ID) is a place where workers and firms, specialised in a main industry and auxiliary industries, live and work. The concept was initially used by Alfred Marshall to describe some aspects of the industrial organisation of nations. At the end of the 1990s the industrial districts in developed or developing countries had gained a recognised attention in international debates on industrialisation and policies of regional development.
History of the term
The term was used the first time by Alfred Marshall in The Principles of Economics (1890, 1922) and in his Industry and Trade Marshall talks of a.... "thickly peopled industrial district".
The term was also used in political struggle. The 1917 handbook of the Industrial Workers of the World states:-
"In order that every given industrial district shall have complete industrial solidarity among the workers in all industries as well as among the workers of each an INDUSTRIAL DISTRICT COUNCIL is formed ..."
The term also appears in English literature. For instance, in a short story of 1920 by D. H. Lawrence, You Touched Me (aka 'Hadrian'):-
"Matilda and Emmie were already old maids. In a thorough industrial district, it is not easy for the girls who have expectations above the common to find husbands. The ugly industrial town was full of men, young men who were ready to marry.
“Industrial district” enters the record as place where workers and firms, specialised in a main industry and auxiliary industries, live and work. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Industrial, district and place can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Industrial district” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Industrial, district and place provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 8, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q1662024. The Library of Congress control number is sh85065857. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1890, 1922, 1917 and 1920.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
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- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Industrial district”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Industrial district primary sources, Industrial district archive and Industrial research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Industrial district”?
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Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Industrial district” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.