Common Labour: Workers And The Digging Of North American Canals, 1780 1860

by Peter Way

This study of canal construction workers between 1780-1860 challenges labor history's focus on skilled craftsmen. Canalers were unskilled workers, often members of despised social groups such as Irish immigrants and African-American slaves. They worked twelve or more hours a day in all weather, exposed to diseases and job-related risks, going home at night to rude shanty towns. Their harsh lifestyles bred conflict that undercut worker unity but promoted battles with employers over workplace issues, and the state was increasingly drawn in to enforce industrial production. Lacking the power that skill brought, canalers had little control over their working conditions. Their experiences represent a different strand of the labor story.

Genres: History, Labor, Nonfiction, American History

Hardcover

First published September 24, 1993

Reviews

[Alexandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

So repetitive!!!

[Mary Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good social and economic historical study of building the canals in the early stages of our country. It is the first time in this country that a project required a lot of wage labor. Prior to this people were farmers or craftsmen or worked in small shops producing local goods. Canal lees worked in pitiful conditions in remote locations for contractors who were trying to make a profit by controlling costs.

The book is repetitive and can be a bit dry but anyone who bikes, walks, kayaks, on these locations or lives nearby will be interested in this topic. As someone who had bicycled on the C&O, the Erie, and the Lehigh canals, among others, i will now look differently at the canals and towpaths and the blood sweat and tears and lives that went into building these water highways.

[Robshelton365 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book on the culture of the men and women who helped build the canals that changed America in the early 19th century.

[Mike Emett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Required reading for the "US History 1787-1877" graduate seminar.