Common Labor: Workers and the Digging of North American Canals, 1780-1860

by Peter Way

Canal construction played a significant role in the rise of industrial America opening up new markets, employing an army of workers, and initiating the ties between capital and government that remain important to this day. The work went forward using simple tools and the brute strength of men and animals, with diggers working twelve-hour days and suffering the ravages of disease and injury. In this highly acclaimed study, Peter Way challenges conventional views of the part these workers played in the early republic and of the culture they created.

Increasingly made up of Irish immigrants, Way explains, the work force was housed in shanty towns hastily thrown up along the path of canal construction. Unlike the vibrant, proud working-class communities so beloved in labor history, these towns were the scene of considerable off-hours vice and violence. As wages fell throughout the 1830s, workers' discontent mounted to the point where riots were frequent and militia units often descended on the towns to enforce order. Common Labour traces a dark picture of powerlessness, depravity, and rage in the lives of America's canal diggers.

Genres: History, Labor, American History, Nonfiction

304 pages, Paperback

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.