Between Craft and Class: Skilled Workers and Factory Politics in the United States and Britain, 1890-1922

by Jeffrey Haydu

Between Craft and Class provides an incisive new look at workers' responses to the momentous economic changes surrounding them in the early years of the twentieth century. In this work, Haydu focuses on the reaction of skilled metal workers to new production methods that threatened time-honored craft traditions. He finds that the workers' responses to industrial change varied--some defended the status quo, while others agreed to trade customary rules for economic rewards. Under some conditions class protest arose, as workers of diverse skills and trades joined to demand a greater voice in the management of industry. Between Craft and Class explores how broadly based movements for workers' control developed during this critical period, and why they ultimately failed.
Comparing workers in the United States and Britain, Haydu's scholarship is distinguished by extensive primary source research and provocative theoretical insights. In its scope and depth, this book will revise current notions of craft politics and working-class radicalism during this period.

312 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1988

Reviews

[Matt]

When movements for "workers' control" of factory production happen, Haydu asks what form they take, whether craft-based and sectional, or class-based and broad. He compares engineers in Britain with machinists in the US in the late 1800s/early 1900s (basically, both engineers and machinists are workers who make machines.) In Britain, killed workers advanced broad agendas for workers control that included less-skilled workers, while in the US skilled workers' agendas for workers control were narrower and less inclusive. I'm trying to decide whether also to compare machinists and engineers for my dissertation research, so I'm reading the book with that question in mind.