Abstract
The development of new machinery in nineteenth-century American canning followed two paths. Automative, labor-saving devices were developed to replace labor in unskilled tasks while deskilling, human-capital-saving machinery was designed to make craft labor more replaceable. Cannery operators appear to have focused on deskilling machinery as the key to greater managerial control over production. Craft workers through organizational power and pressing for higher wages seem to have stimulated the early and sustained search for deskilling machinery. Because human-capital-saving machinery allowed wage cuts, they could be adopted prior to their being used as labor-saving devices.
Keywords
DeskillingCraftMechanizationLabour economicsCapital (architecture)WageHuman capitalProduction (economics)BusinessEconomicsEngineeringEconomic growthArtAgricultureWork (physics)Mechanical engineeringHistory
Affiliated Institutions
Related Publications
Technical Change, Inequality, and the Labor Market
This essay discusses the effect of technical change on wage inequality. I argue that the behavior of wages and returns to schooling indicates that technical change has been skil...
Occupations and earnings of women workers.
Despite the great influx of women into the labor force Blau and Ferber find little change in the female occupational distribution and earnings. They attribute this to occupatio...
Publication Info
- Year
- 1986
- Type
- article
- Volume
- 46
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 743-756
- Citations
- 40
- Access
- Closed
External Links
Social Impact
Altmetric
PlumX Metrics
Social media, news, blog, policy document mentions
Citation Metrics
40
OpenAlex
Cite This
Martin Brown,
Peter Philips
(1986).
Craft Labor and Mechanization in Nineteenth-Century American Canning.
The Journal of Economic History
, 46
(3)
, 743-756.
https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022050700046854
Identifiers
- DOI
- 10.1017/s0022050700046854