Stephen P. Rice
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520227811
- eISBN:
- 9780520926578
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520227811.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter focuses on the manual labor school movement in America during the early part of the nineteenth century. During the late 1820s, just as the first mechanics' institutes were being ...
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This chapter focuses on the manual labor school movement in America during the early part of the nineteenth century. During the late 1820s, just as the first mechanics' institutes were being organized in America, education reformers around the country founded schools of higher learning designed to address personal ills by combining manual labor with a classical education. The manual labor program traced its roots to a school founded by Philip Emanuel von Fellenberg, near Bern, Switzerland, at the very end of the eighteenth century. Proponents argued that the manual labor system would not preserve the health of students, but it would also provide them with good habits, improve their studies, and offer them a means for paying for their schooling.Less
This chapter focuses on the manual labor school movement in America during the early part of the nineteenth century. During the late 1820s, just as the first mechanics' institutes were being organized in America, education reformers around the country founded schools of higher learning designed to address personal ills by combining manual labor with a classical education. The manual labor program traced its roots to a school founded by Philip Emanuel von Fellenberg, near Bern, Switzerland, at the very end of the eighteenth century. Proponents argued that the manual labor system would not preserve the health of students, but it would also provide them with good habits, improve their studies, and offer them a means for paying for their schooling.
Richard Landes
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199753598
- eISBN:
- 9780199897445
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199753598.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, World Religions
This chapter lays out a conceptual framework in which to understand demotic millennialism as a fundamental challenge to (agrarian) “prime-divider” societies (characterized by a profound gap between ...
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This chapter lays out a conceptual framework in which to understand demotic millennialism as a fundamental challenge to (agrarian) “prime-divider” societies (characterized by a profound gap between commoners and elites) and argues that civil polities (characterized by equality before the law and individual freedom) are expressions of a millennial project. Thus, the Enlightenment represents a secular form of demotic millennialism, and the American and French Revolutions were apocalyptic episodes that attempted to transform this world into a just society based on that vision.Less
This chapter lays out a conceptual framework in which to understand demotic millennialism as a fundamental challenge to (agrarian) “prime-divider” societies (characterized by a profound gap between commoners and elites) and argues that civil polities (characterized by equality before the law and individual freedom) are expressions of a millennial project. Thus, the Enlightenment represents a secular form of demotic millennialism, and the American and French Revolutions were apocalyptic episodes that attempted to transform this world into a just society based on that vision.
Stephen Rice
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520227811
- eISBN:
- 9780520926578
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520227811.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This book offers a new understanding of class formation in America during the several decades before the Civil War. This was the period in the nation's early industrial development when travel by ...
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This book offers a new understanding of class formation in America during the several decades before the Civil War. This was the period in the nation's early industrial development when travel by steamboat became commonplace, when the railroad altered concepts of space and time, and when Americans experienced the beginnings of factory production. These disorienting changes raised a host of questions about what machinery would accomplish. Would it promote equality or widen the distance between rich and poor? Among the most contentious questions were those focusing on the social consequences of mechanization: while machine enthusiasts touted the extent to which machines would free workers from toil, others pointed out that people needed to tend machines, and that work was fundamentally degrading and exploitative. This book shows how members of a new middle class laid claim to their social authority and minimized the potential for class conflict by playing out class relations on less contested social and technical terrains. As they did so, they defined relations between shopowners—and the overseers, foremen, or managers they employed—and wage workers as analogous to relations between head and hand, between mind and body, and between human and machine. The book presents fascinating discussions of the mechanics' institute movement, the manual labor school movement, popular physiology reformers, and efforts to solve the seemingly intractable problem of steam boiler explosions.Less
This book offers a new understanding of class formation in America during the several decades before the Civil War. This was the period in the nation's early industrial development when travel by steamboat became commonplace, when the railroad altered concepts of space and time, and when Americans experienced the beginnings of factory production. These disorienting changes raised a host of questions about what machinery would accomplish. Would it promote equality or widen the distance between rich and poor? Among the most contentious questions were those focusing on the social consequences of mechanization: while machine enthusiasts touted the extent to which machines would free workers from toil, others pointed out that people needed to tend machines, and that work was fundamentally degrading and exploitative. This book shows how members of a new middle class laid claim to their social authority and minimized the potential for class conflict by playing out class relations on less contested social and technical terrains. As they did so, they defined relations between shopowners—and the overseers, foremen, or managers they employed—and wage workers as analogous to relations between head and hand, between mind and body, and between human and machine. The book presents fascinating discussions of the mechanics' institute movement, the manual labor school movement, popular physiology reformers, and efforts to solve the seemingly intractable problem of steam boiler explosions.
Daniel Caner
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520233249
- eISBN:
- 9780520928503
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520233249.003.0002
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Ancient Religions
A vignette from the apophthegmata patrun of the late fourth or early fifth century presents two very different attitudes toward wandering monks. It tells that if a monk is seen wandering and changing ...
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A vignette from the apophthegmata patrun of the late fourth or early fifth century presents two very different attitudes toward wandering monks. It tells that if a monk is seen wandering and changing its place of meditation or residency, that monk might be scandalized and could cause alarm. The desert of Egypt offers enough examples of respected wandering monks, who demonstrate that wandering was not simply an outlandish, typically Syrian, or otherwise a deviant form of ascetic behavior, but rather a practice with its own principles, aims, and priorities, which might be pursued wherever conditions allowed. Some might say that the practice of these virtues among Egyptian monks was exaggerated because the normative tradition associated with Egypt clearly favored an ascetic lifestyle based on cell-sitting and manual labor over one characterized by wandering and material dependency.Less
A vignette from the apophthegmata patrun of the late fourth or early fifth century presents two very different attitudes toward wandering monks. It tells that if a monk is seen wandering and changing its place of meditation or residency, that monk might be scandalized and could cause alarm. The desert of Egypt offers enough examples of respected wandering monks, who demonstrate that wandering was not simply an outlandish, typically Syrian, or otherwise a deviant form of ascetic behavior, but rather a practice with its own principles, aims, and priorities, which might be pursued wherever conditions allowed. Some might say that the practice of these virtues among Egyptian monks was exaggerated because the normative tradition associated with Egypt clearly favored an ascetic lifestyle based on cell-sitting and manual labor over one characterized by wandering and material dependency.
Michelle M. Sauer
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719085062
- eISBN:
- 9781526104267
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719085062.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter examines the vocation of the hermit in connection to both physical and spiritual roads—that is the actual road system of medieval English as well as the paths of mystical contemplation. ...
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This chapter examines the vocation of the hermit in connection to both physical and spiritual roads—that is the actual road system of medieval English as well as the paths of mystical contemplation. As medieval society grew more suspicious of purely contemplative religious practices, the eremitic vocation was deliberately redesigned to provide physical support for the community, particularly through maintenance of roads and bridges. Mobility, always an important part of the vocation, became a central image, and the late Middle Ages witnessed an increased number of ‘road hermits’, who deftly combined community care, charitable work, and spiritual guidance. Thus, hermits provide a new version of the ‘mixed life’, demonstrating the increasing emphasis on labour as a religious expression, and deliberately evoking a sense of progress and mobility.Less
This chapter examines the vocation of the hermit in connection to both physical and spiritual roads—that is the actual road system of medieval English as well as the paths of mystical contemplation. As medieval society grew more suspicious of purely contemplative religious practices, the eremitic vocation was deliberately redesigned to provide physical support for the community, particularly through maintenance of roads and bridges. Mobility, always an important part of the vocation, became a central image, and the late Middle Ages witnessed an increased number of ‘road hermits’, who deftly combined community care, charitable work, and spiritual guidance. Thus, hermits provide a new version of the ‘mixed life’, demonstrating the increasing emphasis on labour as a religious expression, and deliberately evoking a sense of progress and mobility.
Deborah Kamen
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691138138
- eISBN:
- 9781400846535
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691138138.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Ancient History / Archaeology
This chapter focuses on the legal and social status of the “basest” chattel slaves—that is, those performing the basest forms of labor, like working in the mines or mills. Chattel slaves had no legal ...
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This chapter focuses on the legal and social status of the “basest” chattel slaves—that is, those performing the basest forms of labor, like working in the mines or mills. Chattel slaves had no legal claims to property, either moveable or unmoveable. They also, in theory, had no power over their labor or movement: they performed the tasks that were assigned to them and engaged in no movement that was not mandated by their master or mistress. In practice, this ideal behavior was not necessarily realized: although specific tasks were assigned to slaves, the ways in which they conducted these tasks were within their control, and many slaves (particularly in households with few slaves) were “multitaskers” who presumably had some degree of control over which tasks they did when, and how. That said, to the extent that they did not choose their occupations, and did not own the means or fruits of their production, slaves, at least ideologically, had no control over their labor.Less
This chapter focuses on the legal and social status of the “basest” chattel slaves—that is, those performing the basest forms of labor, like working in the mines or mills. Chattel slaves had no legal claims to property, either moveable or unmoveable. They also, in theory, had no power over their labor or movement: they performed the tasks that were assigned to them and engaged in no movement that was not mandated by their master or mistress. In practice, this ideal behavior was not necessarily realized: although specific tasks were assigned to slaves, the ways in which they conducted these tasks were within their control, and many slaves (particularly in households with few slaves) were “multitaskers” who presumably had some degree of control over which tasks they did when, and how. That said, to the extent that they did not choose their occupations, and did not own the means or fruits of their production, slaves, at least ideologically, had no control over their labor.
J. Brent Morris
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781469618272
- eISBN:
- 9781469618296
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina9781469618272.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter focuses on the development of Oberlin as a utopian community similar to many of the other utopian experiments that popped up across the nation in the 1830s and 1840s. It details the ...
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This chapter focuses on the development of Oberlin as a utopian community similar to many of the other utopian experiments that popped up across the nation in the 1830s and 1840s. It details the Oberlin Institute's acceptance of African American and female students; and how the institute's manual labor system best exemplified the convergence of the community's utopian ideas.Less
This chapter focuses on the development of Oberlin as a utopian community similar to many of the other utopian experiments that popped up across the nation in the 1830s and 1840s. It details the Oberlin Institute's acceptance of African American and female students; and how the institute's manual labor system best exemplified the convergence of the community's utopian ideas.
Stephen P. Rice
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520227811
- eISBN:
- 9780520926578
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520227811.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter focuses on health and human physiology education in America during the 1800s. Like proponents of manual labor schools, writers and lecturers on health and physiology encouraged Americans ...
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This chapter focuses on health and human physiology education in America during the 1800s. Like proponents of manual labor schools, writers and lecturers on health and physiology encouraged Americans to improve their bodies as well as their minds. They argued that a healthful state, which was necessary not only for personal happiness but for the important work of serving God and securing the nation, depended upon a balance among mental, moral and bodily functions. Many of the leading antebellum popular physiologists and health reformers also responded in various ways to the social tensions accompanying the market and manufacturing transformations of the period.Less
This chapter focuses on health and human physiology education in America during the 1800s. Like proponents of manual labor schools, writers and lecturers on health and physiology encouraged Americans to improve their bodies as well as their minds. They argued that a healthful state, which was necessary not only for personal happiness but for the important work of serving God and securing the nation, depended upon a balance among mental, moral and bodily functions. Many of the leading antebellum popular physiologists and health reformers also responded in various ways to the social tensions accompanying the market and manufacturing transformations of the period.
Lotika Singha
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781529201468
- eISBN:
- 9781529201505
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781529201468.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
The outsourcing of domestic work in the UK has been steadily rising since the 1970s, but little research has considered the experiences of local White British women working as independent cleaning ...
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The outsourcing of domestic work in the UK has been steadily rising since the 1970s, but little research has considered the experiences of local White British women working as independent cleaning service-providers.Domestic work in India is increasingly researched but mostly with a regional focus. Through a nuanced cross-cultural analysis of outsourced domestic cleaning in a particular social context in the UK and India, this book provides a fresh perspective on domestic work: that outsourced domestic cleaning can be done as work (using mental and manual skills and labour) or as labour (understood as requiring mainly manual labour accompanied by ‘natural’ emotional/affective labour), depending on the work conditions. The book challenges feminist dogma and popular myths about housework.Less
The outsourcing of domestic work in the UK has been steadily rising since the 1970s, but little research has considered the experiences of local White British women working as independent cleaning service-providers.Domestic work in India is increasingly researched but mostly with a regional focus. Through a nuanced cross-cultural analysis of outsourced domestic cleaning in a particular social context in the UK and India, this book provides a fresh perspective on domestic work: that outsourced domestic cleaning can be done as work (using mental and manual skills and labour) or as labour (understood as requiring mainly manual labour accompanied by ‘natural’ emotional/affective labour), depending on the work conditions. The book challenges feminist dogma and popular myths about housework.
Richa Nagar, Sangtin Kisan Mazdoor Sangathan, and Parakh Theatre
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780252042577
- eISBN:
- 9780252051418
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252042577.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Gender Studies
This opening section conveys, in the form of a bilingual poem (in English and Hindustani), the intellectual and political aspirations and commitments of the book while also introducing the reader to ...
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This opening section conveys, in the form of a bilingual poem (in English and Hindustani), the intellectual and political aspirations and commitments of the book while also introducing the reader to its blended and multilingual genre. The poem registers protest through metaphors and materialities of hunger, theatre, and manual labor. The refrain, "translation, no italics" underscores the manner in which the translations are forever shifting and evolving as a part of ongoing journeys; they cannot be fixed and reduced to their italicized equivalents.Less
This opening section conveys, in the form of a bilingual poem (in English and Hindustani), the intellectual and political aspirations and commitments of the book while also introducing the reader to its blended and multilingual genre. The poem registers protest through metaphors and materialities of hunger, theatre, and manual labor. The refrain, "translation, no italics" underscores the manner in which the translations are forever shifting and evolving as a part of ongoing journeys; they cannot be fixed and reduced to their italicized equivalents.
Alastair J. Reid
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719081033
- eISBN:
- 9781781702949
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719081033.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, Social History
This chapter explores on the impact of machinery on traditional skills in the shipbuilding industry. It suggests that the evidence needs to be handled with some care for, by being over-influenced by ...
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This chapter explores on the impact of machinery on traditional skills in the shipbuilding industry. It suggests that the evidence needs to be handled with some care for, by being over-influenced by the interpretation of some of the early histories of the unions involved and relying on selected pieces of first-hand testimony, it would be possible to conclude that the experience of craftsmen in modern British industry has indeed been one of traumatic loss of position. However, when this material is placed in its original context of ambiguity about the extent of industrial change and emphasis on the survival of real skills, it becomes clear that it does not provide an accurate picture of the role of craftsmen at work. Throughout the period of this study the craft sectors of British industry continued to rely on high levels of manual aptitude, technical intelligence, and self-organisation, particularly in the case of the assembly of complex items like large metal ships.Less
This chapter explores on the impact of machinery on traditional skills in the shipbuilding industry. It suggests that the evidence needs to be handled with some care for, by being over-influenced by the interpretation of some of the early histories of the unions involved and relying on selected pieces of first-hand testimony, it would be possible to conclude that the experience of craftsmen in modern British industry has indeed been one of traumatic loss of position. However, when this material is placed in its original context of ambiguity about the extent of industrial change and emphasis on the survival of real skills, it becomes clear that it does not provide an accurate picture of the role of craftsmen at work. Throughout the period of this study the craft sectors of British industry continued to rely on high levels of manual aptitude, technical intelligence, and self-organisation, particularly in the case of the assembly of complex items like large metal ships.
Oz Almog
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520216426
- eISBN:
- 9780520921979
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520216426.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter begins with a discussion of the training of farmers and fighters, covering the idealization of manual labor and training the younger generation for battle and heroism. The discussion ...
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This chapter begins with a discussion of the training of farmers and fighters, covering the idealization of manual labor and training the younger generation for battle and heroism. The discussion then turns to anti-intellectualism in Sabra culture, and the Sabra's cultural and spiritual horizons.Less
This chapter begins with a discussion of the training of farmers and fighters, covering the idealization of manual labor and training the younger generation for battle and heroism. The discussion then turns to anti-intellectualism in Sabra culture, and the Sabra's cultural and spiritual horizons.
Lotika Singha
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781529201468
- eISBN:
- 9781529201505
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781529201468.003.0005
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
This chapter introduces the central argument of the book through a discussion of how the research respondents conceptualised paid-for domestic cleaning in terms of the structure of cleaning work and ...
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This chapter introduces the central argument of the book through a discussion of how the research respondents conceptualised paid-for domestic cleaning in terms of the structure of cleaning work and whether anyone can do cleaning for a living. The chapter proposes that depending on the conditions of work, cleaning can be done as work, that is, using mental and manual skills and effort and performed under decent, democratic work conditions, or as labour, that is, requiring mainly manual labour, accompanied by exertion of ‘natural’ emotional/affective labour and performed in undemocratic conditions. Good paid-for cleaning work is also not simply a replacement of unpaid housework that can be done by anyone; it entails much learning and continued commitment anddoes not come ‘naturally’ to women.Less
This chapter introduces the central argument of the book through a discussion of how the research respondents conceptualised paid-for domestic cleaning in terms of the structure of cleaning work and whether anyone can do cleaning for a living. The chapter proposes that depending on the conditions of work, cleaning can be done as work, that is, using mental and manual skills and effort and performed under decent, democratic work conditions, or as labour, that is, requiring mainly manual labour, accompanied by exertion of ‘natural’ emotional/affective labour and performed in undemocratic conditions. Good paid-for cleaning work is also not simply a replacement of unpaid housework that can be done by anyone; it entails much learning and continued commitment anddoes not come ‘naturally’ to women.
Carol Williams
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037153
- eISBN:
- 9780252094262
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037153.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Gender Studies
This introductory chapter first maps the logic for the unconventional inclusions of Faye HeavyShield's creamy, multipaged, glass-bead book entitled hours and Beth Piatote's short fictional story, ...
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This introductory chapter first maps the logic for the unconventional inclusions of Faye HeavyShield's creamy, multipaged, glass-bead book entitled hours and Beth Piatote's short fictional story, “Beading Lesson”, as the cover and finale of the present volume, respectively. It then provides an overview of the extraordinary set of essays nesting between the covers of HeavyShield and Piatote by sampling some key concerns for a transnational history of indigenous women's labor. Although not clearly scored between chapters nor among sectors of work, the book is organized both chronologically and relative to various sectors of labor discussed by the respective authors. Starting with examinations of women's resources or manual labor, the analysis moves to variations on rural, agricultural- or land-based labor; turns to reproductive and/or domestic “service” or labor within arenas such as women's social networks or “clubs”; focuses on entrepreneurial and creative initiatives and the professional opportunities that evolve according to external market demands; and concludes by looking at women's labor and their compounding social capital as they transition into advocacy, activism, education, or administration.Less
This introductory chapter first maps the logic for the unconventional inclusions of Faye HeavyShield's creamy, multipaged, glass-bead book entitled hours and Beth Piatote's short fictional story, “Beading Lesson”, as the cover and finale of the present volume, respectively. It then provides an overview of the extraordinary set of essays nesting between the covers of HeavyShield and Piatote by sampling some key concerns for a transnational history of indigenous women's labor. Although not clearly scored between chapters nor among sectors of work, the book is organized both chronologically and relative to various sectors of labor discussed by the respective authors. Starting with examinations of women's resources or manual labor, the analysis moves to variations on rural, agricultural- or land-based labor; turns to reproductive and/or domestic “service” or labor within arenas such as women's social networks or “clubs”; focuses on entrepreneurial and creative initiatives and the professional opportunities that evolve according to external market demands; and concludes by looking at women's labor and their compounding social capital as they transition into advocacy, activism, education, or administration.
Richard E. Ocejo
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780691165493
- eISBN:
- 9781400884865
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691165493.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Occupations, Professions, and Work
In today's new economy—in which “good” jobs are typically knowledge or technology based—many well-educated and culturally savvy young men are instead choosing to pursue traditionally low-status ...
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In today's new economy—in which “good” jobs are typically knowledge or technology based—many well-educated and culturally savvy young men are instead choosing to pursue traditionally low-status manual-labor occupations as careers. This book looks at the renaissance of four such trades: bartending, distilling, barbering, and butchering. The book takes readers into the lives and workplaces of these people to examine how they are transforming these once-undesirable jobs into “cool” and highly specialized upscale occupational niches—and in the process complicating our notions about upward and downward mobility through work. It shows how they find meaning in these jobs by enacting a set of “cultural repertoires,” which include technical skills based on a renewed sense of craft and craftsmanship and an ability to understand and communicate that knowledge to others, resulting in a new form of elite taste-making. The book describes the paths people take to these jobs, how they learn their chosen trades, how they imbue their work practices with craftsmanship, and how they teach a sense of taste to their consumers. The book provides new insights into the stratification of taste, gentrification, and the evolving labor market in today's postindustrial city.Less
In today's new economy—in which “good” jobs are typically knowledge or technology based—many well-educated and culturally savvy young men are instead choosing to pursue traditionally low-status manual-labor occupations as careers. This book looks at the renaissance of four such trades: bartending, distilling, barbering, and butchering. The book takes readers into the lives and workplaces of these people to examine how they are transforming these once-undesirable jobs into “cool” and highly specialized upscale occupational niches—and in the process complicating our notions about upward and downward mobility through work. It shows how they find meaning in these jobs by enacting a set of “cultural repertoires,” which include technical skills based on a renewed sense of craft and craftsmanship and an ability to understand and communicate that knowledge to others, resulting in a new form of elite taste-making. The book describes the paths people take to these jobs, how they learn their chosen trades, how they imbue their work practices with craftsmanship, and how they teach a sense of taste to their consumers. The book provides new insights into the stratification of taste, gentrification, and the evolving labor market in today's postindustrial city.
Stephen P. Rice
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520227811
- eISBN:
- 9780520926578
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520227811.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter examines how steam boiler explosions in America led to the making of the engineer. As a subject in the popular discourse on mechanization, steam boiler explosions offered another ...
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This chapter examines how steam boiler explosions in America led to the making of the engineer. As a subject in the popular discourse on mechanization, steam boiler explosions offered another opportunity for members of the middle class to conceptualize the relation between mental and manual labor in terms that helped legitimate their social authority. For participants in the popular discourse on mechanization, the conception of the proper relation between human and machine extended by analogy to the proper relation between people who worked with their heads and those they employed, who worked with their hands.Less
This chapter examines how steam boiler explosions in America led to the making of the engineer. As a subject in the popular discourse on mechanization, steam boiler explosions offered another opportunity for members of the middle class to conceptualize the relation between mental and manual labor in terms that helped legitimate their social authority. For participants in the popular discourse on mechanization, the conception of the proper relation between human and machine extended by analogy to the proper relation between people who worked with their heads and those they employed, who worked with their hands.
Richard E. Ocejo
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780691165493
- eISBN:
- 9781400884865
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691165493.003.0010
- Subject:
- Sociology, Occupations, Professions, and Work
This concluding chapter reviews the alternative paths for how workers are dealing with conditions of the precarious new economy. They are entering common occupations in everyday workplaces that ...
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This concluding chapter reviews the alternative paths for how workers are dealing with conditions of the precarious new economy. They are entering common occupations in everyday workplaces that people do not normally think of as knowledge-based or culturally relevant, and transforming them into high-end, quality jobs that fuse mental and manual labor and that people with other work opportunities see as viable career options. These workers experience manual labor as meaningful and even fun through the enactment of a set of cultural repertoires that allow for physical, bodily labor, challenging mental problem-solving, cultural understanding, and interpersonal communication. The jobs also require the confident performance of each of these work practices in concert, not independently of the others.Less
This concluding chapter reviews the alternative paths for how workers are dealing with conditions of the precarious new economy. They are entering common occupations in everyday workplaces that people do not normally think of as knowledge-based or culturally relevant, and transforming them into high-end, quality jobs that fuse mental and manual labor and that people with other work opportunities see as viable career options. These workers experience manual labor as meaningful and even fun through the enactment of a set of cultural repertoires that allow for physical, bodily labor, challenging mental problem-solving, cultural understanding, and interpersonal communication. The jobs also require the confident performance of each of these work practices in concert, not independently of the others.
Peter Brown
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801451829
- eISBN:
- 9780801471056
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801451829.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Historiography
This chapter focuses on a religious struggle over the meaning of work and the definition of “the poor” in late antiquity, illustrating how theological principles and their institutional application ...
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This chapter focuses on a religious struggle over the meaning of work and the definition of “the poor” in late antiquity, illustrating how theological principles and their institutional application affect the economy and society of entire regions. The monks of Syria and Egypt in the last centuries of the Roman Empire were far from being the wonderful drop-outs they were often imagined as; they acted as a catalyst for the social imagination of an entire society. What happened in this era reflects the extremist poverty of Saint Francis and his followers, which arose as a criticism on the economy of the thirteenth-century Italian cities. The monks' insistence that manual labor should be combined with almsgiving to the poor contributed to an imaginative victory in which the rich have a religious duty to support the poor.Less
This chapter focuses on a religious struggle over the meaning of work and the definition of “the poor” in late antiquity, illustrating how theological principles and their institutional application affect the economy and society of entire regions. The monks of Syria and Egypt in the last centuries of the Roman Empire were far from being the wonderful drop-outs they were often imagined as; they acted as a catalyst for the social imagination of an entire society. What happened in this era reflects the extremist poverty of Saint Francis and his followers, which arose as a criticism on the economy of the thirteenth-century Italian cities. The monks' insistence that manual labor should be combined with almsgiving to the poor contributed to an imaginative victory in which the rich have a religious duty to support the poor.
Keri K. Stephens
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- August 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190625504
- eISBN:
- 9780190882327
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190625504.003.0006
- Subject:
- Sociology, Science, Technology and Environment
As mobile devices became more affordable, people at all job levels started bringing their personal devices to work. All of a sudden, people saw workers whose jobs involved manual labor pull out their ...
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As mobile devices became more affordable, people at all job levels started bringing their personal devices to work. All of a sudden, people saw workers whose jobs involved manual labor pull out their mobiles and tap away. There was an assumption that they were often cyberslacking—wasting work time on non-work tasks. This chapter introduces a group of janitors who were banned from using their personal devices at work. But their supervisors were stuck in an awkward place: sandwiched between needing to communicate face-to-face with their subordinates and being expected to be constantly reachable through multiple devices because that’s how their own managers communicated. The ban reinforced existing power structures; there were issues of trust, language barriers, computer literacy, and inconsistent enforcement of rules. This ban actually harmed productivity, and the findings suggest that these manual workers can use mobile devices productively: they still need access to on-the-job information.Less
As mobile devices became more affordable, people at all job levels started bringing their personal devices to work. All of a sudden, people saw workers whose jobs involved manual labor pull out their mobiles and tap away. There was an assumption that they were often cyberslacking—wasting work time on non-work tasks. This chapter introduces a group of janitors who were banned from using their personal devices at work. But their supervisors were stuck in an awkward place: sandwiched between needing to communicate face-to-face with their subordinates and being expected to be constantly reachable through multiple devices because that’s how their own managers communicated. The ban reinforced existing power structures; there were issues of trust, language barriers, computer literacy, and inconsistent enforcement of rules. This ban actually harmed productivity, and the findings suggest that these manual workers can use mobile devices productively: they still need access to on-the-job information.
Ning Wang
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781501713187
- eISBN:
- 9781501714016
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501713187.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This concluding chapter explains that the suffering endured by political exiles did not come only from the state and its agents: it was also self-imposed. Indoctrinated with Party ideology, many ...
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This concluding chapter explains that the suffering endured by political exiles did not come only from the state and its agents: it was also self-imposed. Indoctrinated with Party ideology, many political exiles acknowledged their offence, wished to cleanse their minds of “erroneous thoughts,” and worked hard to show their repentance and to achieve self-redemption through manual labour. This struggle for redemption was a self-imposed affliction. When they discovered that their fate was decided more by Party policies than by their individual efforts at labour reform, many exiles found themselves in psychological agony. Internecine strife exacerbated their misery and led to moral corruption.Less
This concluding chapter explains that the suffering endured by political exiles did not come only from the state and its agents: it was also self-imposed. Indoctrinated with Party ideology, many political exiles acknowledged their offence, wished to cleanse their minds of “erroneous thoughts,” and worked hard to show their repentance and to achieve self-redemption through manual labour. This struggle for redemption was a self-imposed affliction. When they discovered that their fate was decided more by Party policies than by their individual efforts at labour reform, many exiles found themselves in psychological agony. Internecine strife exacerbated their misery and led to moral corruption.
