Some Degree of Power: From Hired Hand to Union Craftsman in the Preindustrial American Printing Trades 1778-1815

About this title:

"In the years following the American Revolution, hired printers formed local trade associations to address their grievances in the work place. Since printers regularly traveled from city to city in search of work, these forebears of modern trade unions - then called "trade associations" or "trade societies" - spread throughout the young nation.

Earlier historians have generally believed that this period in American history lacked significant trade union activity, but in Some Degree of Power: From Hired Hand to Union Craftsmen in the Preindustrial American Printing Trades, 1778-1815, Mark Lause demonstrates that these printers were part of a larger network that connected printers, cobblers, tailors, and other skilled workers into associations that not only supported and protected their societies but also shaped their ideology. Using the copious records left by an active and literate work force, Lause argues that these artisans organized not only to promote their own immediate concerns but also to create more permanent unions to control wages and working conditions. All readers intrigued by the history of the early American republic, its laborers, and the printing industry itself will welcome this story of printers on the road and the trade societies they formed in New York, Philadelphia, and points westward."

Publisher : University of Arkansas Press; First Edition (July 1, 1991)
Language : English
Hardcover : 261 pages
ISBN-10 : 1557281858
ISBN-13 : 978-1557281852
Item Weight : 1.26 pounds
Dimensions : 6 x 1.1 x 9 inches