Hi and thanks for this fabulous subreddit!

I read Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class last year and found it really interesting. I read a little about Francis Place too. I know he had a collection of every leaflet or meeting minutes he could get his hands on. I'm looking for a means to better understand what these were like. What were the arguments and counter-arguments of the people who attended meetings and voted for or against a strike? What did the leaflets look like and how were they phrased? Were there so many leaflets anyway, did people paste placards or was most of the communication verbal (and with secret signs like Thompson describes for the Luddites)?

Obviously, the better way would be to catch a train and go to the British Library read the Place Collection, which I'll probably do someday when I'm richer and not afraid of planning things... but if there exists a book about this subject or that can make me understand what the atmosphere was at this time, could you please recommend it to me?

I should add that I'm not a linguist at all (I can read fairly complicated books but I could lack vocabulary if they are for linguists).

(I'm sorry if it is too vague a question, I did try the FAQ and the Book List but did not found what I was looking for.)