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This chapter returns to the wider female associational world, examining attempts to consolidate women's organizations around a non-partisan reformist agenda which reflected their conviction that, however extensively the state might or indeed should intervene, ongoing social problems would continue to provide fertile soil for middle-class social leadership. It examines the Women's Group on Public Welfare and its 1943 study of urban poverty, Our Towns; the local co-ordination of the women's movement through Standing Conferences of Women's Organisations; the role of the Townswomen's Guilds and the Soroptimists in these developments; and the limited wartime revival of feminism and efforts to promote independent women candidates in local elections. The ambition and self-assertiveness of this non-partisan feminine reformism was limited both by the inability of women to take on the male-dominated power of the political parties, and by the growing marginalization of philanthropic forms of authority as social work became increasingly professionalized in the welfare state.

The current vocational education and training (VET) system in the Netherlands originated in the training initiatives undertaken by private actors in the artisan and industrial sectors in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Its central features are corporatist administration, significant state involvement, and the dominance of school-based training. Since World War II, the state has played a more active role in VET, and the general education component of VET has increased. The 1980s saw a return to a clearer focus on the needs of the labor market. By the early 1980s, VET was seen as the mutual responsibility of the state, the social partners, and educational institutions. A major reform in 1994 reorganized and streamlined the system of vocational schools and vocational training, increasing cooperation between industry and the VET system.

The present-day Danish vocational training system exhibits a strong collective orientation. After providing an overview of the way that the current system operates, this chapter adopts a historical perspective to depict the system’s achievement of its contemporary status. The period between 1857 and 1937 is first reviewed to explain how the craft trades managed to retain authority over the production of skills and then how a burgeoning social democratic party helped bring about trade “self-management” by having the social partners share responsibility for the coordination of vocational training. The bodies established to do this were the trade committees, each composed of equal members of representatives from trade unions and employer associations. The period from about 1950 is then reviewed to demonstrate the way that these earlier developments and partisan competition shaped the adjustment of the system to incorporate large segments of the population in an inclusive system.

The introduction explores the context in which the Incorporation of Mary’s Chapel developed. The phenomenon of the craft guild is an important part of the Europe’s urban social structure, from the largest capital city, to many of the smaller aspiring towns. Whether composite, with numerous trades, or granted to a single occupation, the feudalistic structures of urban work often favoured this protectionist institution, though corporate privileges and exclusivity were far from uniform, and always contested. In this chapter, a brief narrative of the Incorporation’s history sets the scene for the later chapters, followed by an account of how historians have viewed the process of incorporating Edinburgh’s building trades, from the eighteenth century to present day, demonstrating the need for a full study of such an important urban institution.

In the world of apprentices, journeymen, and masters, a masterpiece was a test piece completed as part of a claim to a master’s level of skill and status. In formal guilds there could be elaborate examinations, in which submitting a masterpiece was part of the process. In the Naples conservatories, advanced students could compose a large sacred work for chorus and instruments to demonstrate a professional level of skill. In between the masters who gave lessons to the conservatory children and the child apprentices who learned those lessons were a middle level of teaching assistants called “little masters” (mastricelli or maestrini). These were selected from advanced students who had passed qualifying examinations.

What role did the entrepreneur play in shaping Ancient Mesopotamia, the “cradle of civilization”? This chapter demonstrates how the entrepreneurial drive transformed this pagan Middle Eastern society. Most relevantly, it helped spur Mesopotamia’s transition from an agrarian Bronze Age economy to a bustling hub of urban commerce, now a defining characteristic of Western Civilization. It will also highlight how this transformation spurred similar development throughout the then-known world.

Chapter 7 connects the book to work on the subsequent history of Cambridge, including that on the development of the University. It considers the extent to which trends identified in the Hundred Rolls continued into the fourteenth century. Cambridge adjusted to the decline in its agricultural trade after the Black Death by developing its service sector, linked to university education. The role of family dynasties remained significant, but the period was characterised by the growth of three key institutions – the borough corporation, the guilds, and the colleges. College property holdings increased, driven by increasing student numbers, and the colleges gradually obtained rights to the meadows adjoining the river to the west of the town. The foundation of King’s College transformed the street plan in the west of Cambridge, obliterating many ancient streets and buildings, but providing new economic opportunities to supply the academic community.

This chapter explores the origins and aims of the five voluntary women's organisations included in this research: the Mothers’ Union, Catholic Women's League, National Council of Women, National Federation of Women's Institutes and the National Union of Townswomen's Guilds. Each group is situated within the context of the inter-war women's movement and their contribution to both the movement and to the lives of their members is evaluated. The chapter also considers the membership of each organisation, at both local and national level and explores why each of the five organisations sought to ensure that they remained non-party and non-feminist throughout these years.

This chapter outlines the history of musicians’ representative organisations before the formation of the Amalgamated Musicians’ Union in 1893. It traces developments from the fourteenth century to the late nineteenth, examining the various fraternities, brotherhood guilds and societies which were formed. Issues of protectionism, benevolence and organisation are raised. The moves towards a re trade unionism are outlined in the context of the growth of new unionism. The formation of the Amalgamated Musicians’ Union (AMU) and thee rival London Orchestral Association (LOA) are outlined.

This chapter examines townspeople’s participation in parishes, guilds, and the burghs themselves. Each of these groups employed religious symbols to express a sense of community and each deployed religious mechanisms to strengthen communal endeavours. Although their memberships were frequently overlapping and sometimes also contested, for the most part the various communities of religion in Scottish towns were seen as mutually reinforcing rather than mutually exclusive. The smooth and harmonious unity within and between groups that was espoused in theory was sometimes punctured in practice by conflicts arising from the messy realities of day-to-day life, but when this happened Scottish townspeople sought to heal the rift through reconciliation enacted in religiously significant space. Thus for most Scottish townspeople different religious communities and their various goals tended to be complementary in principle. Even if there were in practice certain areas of tension and occasional instances of outright hostility between different religious groups, devotion within the parish and the guild was, nonetheless, generally seen as intrinsic to the welfare of the town.

We now move on from the marketplace to the pubs and drinking houses, which as we have already seen, were to be found in the periphery of the market area. Here again we shall see that at times a brief homily in a Midrash can give us a glimpse into social situations in Roman Palestine; when coupled with classical sources, these homilies can help create a picture of how society functioned in that period. I will begin with a passage from Leviticus Rabba, which although it has the hallmarks of a sermon and therefore may not be strictly accurate historically, nonetheless captures the feeling of the times and is thus most instructive to the historian. In order fully to understand this text, we must first preface our discussion with some introductory remarks. The problem of Roman sumptuary laws has been discussed by a number of scholars. Ramsay MacMullen in his Enemies of the Roman Order has written as follows: … From the 70’s A.D., the governing classes, heavy eaters themselves and sometimes, like Nero, addicts of dives and bars, tried to improve the character of the lower classes by intermittent legislation to shut up taverns and to prohibit the sale of cooked meats and pastries. That left vegetables, their definition at one time being narrowed to peas and beans. After Vespasian, public morals were given up as a bad job for three centuries. In the 370’s, when prefects renewed the war, they limited wine shops in what they could sell and in the hours they could stay open. … Of particular importance in this connection is the statement of Ammianus Marcellinus that Ampelius, governor of Rome (371-72 C.E.), gave orders that no wine shop should be opened before the fourth hour (about nine o’clock in the morning), in other words, that wine shops should be shut up at night. It is clear from these examples that an examination of pubs and licensing hours can offer valuable insights into social conditions of the time.

This chapter is concerned with labour struggles in Limerick and a blend of guild language, trade union activity and modes of violence in the shape of the united trades. It describes how the eighteenth-century protestant labour guilds had given way in the nineteenth century to organisations that called themselves guilds till the 1890s, but were now overwhelmingly Catholic. The chapter challenges lazy assumptions about the linear transfer from guild to union modes of activity.