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From quarry workers to weavers, welders to tailors, the pictures highlight the diverse, backbreaking work undertaken by the estimated 400 million labourers in India.

The influx was such that a huge part of London's East End became known as "weaver town" as it transformed into a centre for the trade, led by migrants from across the English Channel.

As a former production weaver who churned out a line of unisex sweaters she sold through the American Craft Council, Schwartzenberger understands the meditative qualities of weaving.

His father was a shawl weaver and his mother was a cotton winder.

The previously widely accepted theory was that Columbus was born in Genoa in 1451, to a family of wool weavers.