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Work and Labor in Early America
Ten leading scholars of early American social history here examine the nature of work and labor in America from 1614 to 1820. The authors scrutinize work diaries, private and public records, and travelers' accounts. Subjects include farmers, farmwives, urban laborers, plantation slave workers, midwives, and sailors; locales range from Maine to the Caribbean and the high seas.
These essays recover the regimen that consumed the waking hours of most adults in the New World, defined their economic lives, and shaped their larger existence. Focusing on individuals as well as groups, the authors emphasize the choices that, over time, might lead to prosperity or to the poorhouse. Few people enjoyed sinecures, and every day brought new risks.
Stephen Innes introduces the collection by elucidating the prophetic vision of Captain John Smith: that the New World offered abundant reward for one's "owne industrie." Several motifs stand out in the essays. Family labor has begun to assume greater prominence, both as a collective work unit and as a collective economic unit whose members worked independently. Of growing interest to contemporary scholars is the role of family size and sex ratio in determining economic decision, and vice ersa. Work patterns appear to have been driven by the goal of creating surplus production for markets; perhaps because of a desire for higher consumption, work patterns began to intensify throughout the eighteenth century and led to longer work days with fewer slack periods. Overall, labor relations showed no consistent evolution but remained fluid and flexible in the face of changing market demands in highly diverse environments. The authors address as well the larger questions of American development and indicate the directions that research in this expanding field might follow.
308 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
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January 1, 2018
Most people interested in American history know much more about the major figures involved in the founding of Jamestown, VA, Massachusetts, and the Pilgrims, and the American Revolution than about the work and everyday lives of people in colonial British North America.
If you want to know how people actually lived on a day-to-day basis, this collection of essays can provide a useful learning opportunity.
I had heard of this collection of essays as far back as graduate school, and I finally read them for sense of the historiography of work and labor in colonial British North American. As expected, I was familiar with the arguments and evidence of most of the authors.
I will briefly mention a few of the essays. In "Working the Fields in a Developing Economy: Essex County, Massachusetts, 1630 - 1675," Daniel Vickers digs into how early New England families obtained workers for their farms. In England, the rural economy often included the hiring of workers on regular basis. In this study, Vickers found that family members supplied much more of the farm labor in early Massachusetts.
There were simply not a large number of available workers for hire in this situation. In this case, he showed that most extra work was obtained by land-owning fathers from their sons. In turn, wealthier, land-owning men were more likely to hire much less affluent men to carry out extra work on an occasional rather than consistent basis.
In this manner, the material circumstances of early colonial Massachusetts significantly modified the economic practices of then-contemporary England.
Students of early American history will be familiar with the book written on 18th century Maine housewife and midwife Martha Ballard by Laura Thatcher Ulrich. However, having read the book a number of years ago, in an undergraduate course of the history of medicine in America, I enjoyed re-visiting her work in this more focused essay, "Martha Ballard and Her Girls: Women's Work in 18th century Maine."
This study shows how much the more common sources can miss about the experience of women.
First, Ballard was apparently only able to start serving as a midwife after her last child was born. She couldn't have done so in the throes of giving birth to her children.
Second, Martha Ballard's diary shows her involvement in the local economy in a way that local merchants' records did not. She often dealt directly with merchants, buying and selling good including cloth which her daughters and hired white female servants spun.
Ballard also benefited from having her daughters in the household to carry out work as they grew up, a key example of how family labor often supplied the work force in early New England, consistent with Vicker's essay. However, Ballard was able to have a niece work for her for several years, as well as hiring other young women not related to her on a short-term basis.
Also, once Ballard's daughters married and left home, the aging Mrs. Ballard found her heavy workload the harder due to the lack of extra hands to help. This also lead in part to the decline of her midwife practice.
In his essay, "Task and Gang Systems: The Organization of Labor in New World Plantations," Philip D. Morgan explores how enslaved Africans' labor was organized in differing patterns throughout the western hemisphere slave societies. Typically, the type of crop being grown greatly influenced how enslaved workers were organized.
In "The Vicissitudes of Fortune: The Careers of Laboring Men in Philadelphia, 1750 - 1800," historian Billy G. Smith addressed the question of whether members of the laboring classes of late colonial and early national Philadelphia were often able to move up the economic ladder.
He examined local governmental records such as tax rolls and poor house records, among others, to try to understand the economic fortunes of men who were not likely to leave records of their own.
In doing so, Smith focused on shoe makers and tailors, as representative types of urban artisans, and laborers and merchant seamen, common sorts of laborers.
In short, the essay asserts that most of these men were not able to move up the economic ladder. There were exceptions, but "most struggled....to remain afloat." (251). About one third "improved their income or acquired property during their stay in the city." (250). While there were more opportunities for those who moved westward, those who stayed in Philadelphia were not likely to prosper.
There are other essays, which cover other specific topics. Taken as a whole, if you are interested in early American history, but have not studied the details of daily life and work in colonial Britihs North America, you will find this book rewarding.
If you want to know how people actually lived on a day-to-day basis, this collection of essays can provide a useful learning opportunity.
I had heard of this collection of essays as far back as graduate school, and I finally read them for sense of the historiography of work and labor in colonial British North American. As expected, I was familiar with the arguments and evidence of most of the authors.
I will briefly mention a few of the essays. In "Working the Fields in a Developing Economy: Essex County, Massachusetts, 1630 - 1675," Daniel Vickers digs into how early New England families obtained workers for their farms. In England, the rural economy often included the hiring of workers on regular basis. In this study, Vickers found that family members supplied much more of the farm labor in early Massachusetts.
There were simply not a large number of available workers for hire in this situation. In this case, he showed that most extra work was obtained by land-owning fathers from their sons. In turn, wealthier, land-owning men were more likely to hire much less affluent men to carry out extra work on an occasional rather than consistent basis.
In this manner, the material circumstances of early colonial Massachusetts significantly modified the economic practices of then-contemporary England.
Students of early American history will be familiar with the book written on 18th century Maine housewife and midwife Martha Ballard by Laura Thatcher Ulrich. However, having read the book a number of years ago, in an undergraduate course of the history of medicine in America, I enjoyed re-visiting her work in this more focused essay, "Martha Ballard and Her Girls: Women's Work in 18th century Maine."
This study shows how much the more common sources can miss about the experience of women.
First, Ballard was apparently only able to start serving as a midwife after her last child was born. She couldn't have done so in the throes of giving birth to her children.
Second, Martha Ballard's diary shows her involvement in the local economy in a way that local merchants' records did not. She often dealt directly with merchants, buying and selling good including cloth which her daughters and hired white female servants spun.
Ballard also benefited from having her daughters in the household to carry out work as they grew up, a key example of how family labor often supplied the work force in early New England, consistent with Vicker's essay. However, Ballard was able to have a niece work for her for several years, as well as hiring other young women not related to her on a short-term basis.
Also, once Ballard's daughters married and left home, the aging Mrs. Ballard found her heavy workload the harder due to the lack of extra hands to help. This also lead in part to the decline of her midwife practice.
In his essay, "Task and Gang Systems: The Organization of Labor in New World Plantations," Philip D. Morgan explores how enslaved Africans' labor was organized in differing patterns throughout the western hemisphere slave societies. Typically, the type of crop being grown greatly influenced how enslaved workers were organized.
In "The Vicissitudes of Fortune: The Careers of Laboring Men in Philadelphia, 1750 - 1800," historian Billy G. Smith addressed the question of whether members of the laboring classes of late colonial and early national Philadelphia were often able to move up the economic ladder.
He examined local governmental records such as tax rolls and poor house records, among others, to try to understand the economic fortunes of men who were not likely to leave records of their own.
In doing so, Smith focused on shoe makers and tailors, as representative types of urban artisans, and laborers and merchant seamen, common sorts of laborers.
In short, the essay asserts that most of these men were not able to move up the economic ladder. There were exceptions, but "most struggled....to remain afloat." (251). About one third "improved their income or acquired property during their stay in the city." (250). While there were more opportunities for those who moved westward, those who stayed in Philadelphia were not likely to prosper.
There are other essays, which cover other specific topics. Taken as a whole, if you are interested in early American history, but have not studied the details of daily life and work in colonial Britihs North America, you will find this book rewarding.
Displaying 1 of 1 review