The Workplace before the factory : artisans and proletarians, 1500-1800

The collection of essays in this book ranges across a wide variety of crafts and industries to offer a unique perspective on the place of labor in the lives ofartisans and wage-earners in the era before large-scale mechanization. The Workplace before the Factory addresses a common theme-the influence of the work process and technological innovation on labor and production before the Industrial Revolution. Covering a broad span of time, place, and enterprise, the authors discuss different kinds of industrial organizations-outwork, small shop, and centralized production. Among the activities they describe are papermaking in eighteenth-century France, linen weaving in Upper Swabia, unskilled labor in Paris, Saxon silver mining, printing in Antwerp, and artisanal crafts in rural New England