Coercion, Contract, and Free Labor in the Nineteenth Century

Coercion, Contract, and Free Labor in the Nineteenth Century

Author: Robert J. Steinfeld

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2001-02-05

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 9780521774000

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This book presents a fundamental reassessment of the nature of wage labor in the nineteenth century, focusing on the common use of penal sanctions in England to enforce wage labor agreements. Professor Steinfeld argues that wage workers were not employees at will but were often bound to their employment by enforceable labor agreements, which employers used whenever available to manage their labor costs and supply. In the northern United States, where employers normally could not use penal sanctions, the common law made other contract remedies available, also placing employers in a position to enforce labor agreements. Modern free wage labor only came into being late in the nineteenth century, as a result of reform legislation that restricted the contract remedies employers could legally use.


Book Synopsis Coercion, Contract, and Free Labor in the Nineteenth Century by : Robert J. Steinfeld

Download or read book Coercion, Contract, and Free Labor in the Nineteenth Century written by Robert J. Steinfeld and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001-02-05 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a fundamental reassessment of the nature of wage labor in the nineteenth century, focusing on the common use of penal sanctions in England to enforce wage labor agreements. Professor Steinfeld argues that wage workers were not employees at will but were often bound to their employment by enforceable labor agreements, which employers used whenever available to manage their labor costs and supply. In the northern United States, where employers normally could not use penal sanctions, the common law made other contract remedies available, also placing employers in a position to enforce labor agreements. Modern free wage labor only came into being late in the nineteenth century, as a result of reform legislation that restricted the contract remedies employers could legally use.


Terms of Labor

Terms of Labor

Author: Stanley L. Engerman

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 1999-01-01

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 0804765332

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Throughout recorded history, labor to produce goods and services has been a central concern of society, and questions surrounding the terms of labor—the arrangements under which labor is made to produce and to divide its product with others—are of great significance for understanding the past and the emergence of the modern world. For long periods, much of the world’s labor could be considered under the coercive control of systems of slavery or of serfdom, with relatively few workers laboring under terms of freedom, however defined. Slavery and serfdom were systems that controlled not only the terms of labor, but also the more general issues of political freedom. The nine chapters in this volume deal with the general issues of the causes and consequences of the rise of so-called free labor in Europe, the United States, and the Caribbean over the past four to five centuries, and point to the many complications and paradoxical aspects of this change. The topics covered are European beliefs that rejected the enslavement of other Europeans but permitted the slavery of Africans (David Eltis), British abolitionism and the impact of emancipation in the British West Indies (Seymour Drescher), the consequences of the end of Russian serfdom (Peter Kolchin), the definition and nature of free labor as seen by nineteenth-century American workers (Leon Fink), the effects of changing legal and economic concepts of free labor (Robert J. Steinfeld), the antebellum American use of the metaphor of slavery (David Roediger), female dependent labor in the aftermath of American emancipation (Amy Dru Stanley), the contrast between individual and group actions in attempting to benefit individual laborers (David Brody), and the link between arguments concerning free labor and the actual outcomes for laborers in nineteenth-century America (Clayne Pope).


Book Synopsis Terms of Labor by : Stanley L. Engerman

Download or read book Terms of Labor written by Stanley L. Engerman and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 1999-01-01 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout recorded history, labor to produce goods and services has been a central concern of society, and questions surrounding the terms of labor—the arrangements under which labor is made to produce and to divide its product with others—are of great significance for understanding the past and the emergence of the modern world. For long periods, much of the world’s labor could be considered under the coercive control of systems of slavery or of serfdom, with relatively few workers laboring under terms of freedom, however defined. Slavery and serfdom were systems that controlled not only the terms of labor, but also the more general issues of political freedom. The nine chapters in this volume deal with the general issues of the causes and consequences of the rise of so-called free labor in Europe, the United States, and the Caribbean over the past four to five centuries, and point to the many complications and paradoxical aspects of this change. The topics covered are European beliefs that rejected the enslavement of other Europeans but permitted the slavery of Africans (David Eltis), British abolitionism and the impact of emancipation in the British West Indies (Seymour Drescher), the consequences of the end of Russian serfdom (Peter Kolchin), the definition and nature of free labor as seen by nineteenth-century American workers (Leon Fink), the effects of changing legal and economic concepts of free labor (Robert J. Steinfeld), the antebellum American use of the metaphor of slavery (David Roediger), female dependent labor in the aftermath of American emancipation (Amy Dru Stanley), the contrast between individual and group actions in attempting to benefit individual laborers (David Brody), and the link between arguments concerning free labor and the actual outcomes for laborers in nineteenth-century America (Clayne Pope).


The Cambridge World History of Slavery: Volume 3, AD 1420-AD 1804

The Cambridge World History of Slavery: Volume 3, AD 1420-AD 1804

Author: David Eltis

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2011-07-25

Total Pages: 777

ISBN-13: 0521840686

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The various manifestations of coerced labour between the opening up of the Atlantic world and the formal creation of Haiti.


Book Synopsis The Cambridge World History of Slavery: Volume 3, AD 1420-AD 1804 by : David Eltis

Download or read book The Cambridge World History of Slavery: Volume 3, AD 1420-AD 1804 written by David Eltis and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-07-25 with total page 777 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The various manifestations of coerced labour between the opening up of the Atlantic world and the formal creation of Haiti.


Brokering Servitude

Brokering Servitude

Author: Andrew Urban

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 374

ISBN-13: 0814785840

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A note on language -- Introduction -- Liberating free labor : vere foster and assisted Irish emigration to the United States, 1850-1865 -- Humanitarianism's markets : brokering the domestic labor of black refugees, 1861-1872 -- Chinese servants and the American colonial imagination : domesticity and opposition to restriction, 1865-1882 -- Controlling and protecting white women : the state and sentimental forms of coercion, 1850-1917 -- Bonded Chinese servants : domestic labor and exclusion, 1882-1924 -- Race and reform : domestic service, the great migration, and European quotas, 1891-1924 -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Index -- About the author


Book Synopsis Brokering Servitude by : Andrew Urban

Download or read book Brokering Servitude written by Andrew Urban and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A note on language -- Introduction -- Liberating free labor : vere foster and assisted Irish emigration to the United States, 1850-1865 -- Humanitarianism's markets : brokering the domestic labor of black refugees, 1861-1872 -- Chinese servants and the American colonial imagination : domesticity and opposition to restriction, 1865-1882 -- Controlling and protecting white women : the state and sentimental forms of coercion, 1850-1917 -- Bonded Chinese servants : domestic labor and exclusion, 1882-1924 -- Race and reform : domestic service, the great migration, and European quotas, 1891-1924 -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Index -- About the author


Theory as History

Theory as History

Author: Jairus Banaji

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2010-03-22

Total Pages: 426

ISBN-13: 9004183728

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The twelve essays in this book demonstrate the importance of bringing history back into historical materialism. They combine the discussion of Marx's categories with historical work on a wide range of themes and periods (the early middle ages, 'Asiatic' regimes, agrarian capitalism, etc.).


Book Synopsis Theory as History by : Jairus Banaji

Download or read book Theory as History written by Jairus Banaji and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010-03-22 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The twelve essays in this book demonstrate the importance of bringing history back into historical materialism. They combine the discussion of Marx's categories with historical work on a wide range of themes and periods (the early middle ages, 'Asiatic' regimes, agrarian capitalism, etc.).


Bondage

Bondage

Author: Alessandro Stanziani

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2014-01-01

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 1782382518

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For the first time, this book provides the global history of labor in Central Eurasia, Russia, Europe, and the Indian Ocean between the sixteenth and the twentieth centuries. It contests common views on free and unfree labor, and compares the latter to many Western countries where wage conditions resembled those of domestic servants. This gave rise to extreme forms of dependency in the colonies, not only under slavery, but also afterwards in form of indentured labor in the Indian Ocean and obligatory labor in Africa. Stanziani shows that unfree labor and forms of economic coercion were perfectly compatible with market development and capitalism, proven by the consistent economic growth that took place all over Eurasia between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries. This growth was labor intensive: commercial expansion, transformations in agriculture, and the first industrial revolution required more labor, not less. Finally, Stanziani demonstrates that this world did not collapse after the French Revolution or the British industrial revolution, as is commonly assumed, but instead between 1870 and 1914, with the second industrial revolution and the rise of the welfare state.


Book Synopsis Bondage by : Alessandro Stanziani

Download or read book Bondage written by Alessandro Stanziani and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2014-01-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first time, this book provides the global history of labor in Central Eurasia, Russia, Europe, and the Indian Ocean between the sixteenth and the twentieth centuries. It contests common views on free and unfree labor, and compares the latter to many Western countries where wage conditions resembled those of domestic servants. This gave rise to extreme forms of dependency in the colonies, not only under slavery, but also afterwards in form of indentured labor in the Indian Ocean and obligatory labor in Africa. Stanziani shows that unfree labor and forms of economic coercion were perfectly compatible with market development and capitalism, proven by the consistent economic growth that took place all over Eurasia between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries. This growth was labor intensive: commercial expansion, transformations in agriculture, and the first industrial revolution required more labor, not less. Finally, Stanziani demonstrates that this world did not collapse after the French Revolution or the British industrial revolution, as is commonly assumed, but instead between 1870 and 1914, with the second industrial revolution and the rise of the welfare state.


Unequal Freedom

Unequal Freedom

Author: Evelyn Nakano GLENN

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2009-06-30

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 9780674037649

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The inequalities that persist in America have deep historical roots. Evelyn Nakano Glenn untangles this complex history in a unique comparative regional study from the end of Reconstruction to the eve of World War II. During this era the country experienced enormous social and economic changes with the abolition of slavery, rapid territorial expansion, and massive immigration, and struggled over the meaning of free labor and the essence of citizenship as people who previously had been excluded sought the promise of economic freedom and full political rights. After a lucid overview of the concepts of the free worker and the independent citizen at the national level, Glenn vividly details how race and gender issues framed the struggle over labor and citizenship rights at the local level between blacks and whites in the South, Mexicans and Anglos in the Southwest, and Asians and haoles (the white planter class) in Hawaii. She illuminates the complex interplay of local and national forces in American society and provides a dynamic view of how labor and citizenship were defined, enforced, and contested in a formative era for white-nonwhite relations in America.


Book Synopsis Unequal Freedom by : Evelyn Nakano GLENN

Download or read book Unequal Freedom written by Evelyn Nakano GLENN and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inequalities that persist in America have deep historical roots. Evelyn Nakano Glenn untangles this complex history in a unique comparative regional study from the end of Reconstruction to the eve of World War II. During this era the country experienced enormous social and economic changes with the abolition of slavery, rapid territorial expansion, and massive immigration, and struggled over the meaning of free labor and the essence of citizenship as people who previously had been excluded sought the promise of economic freedom and full political rights. After a lucid overview of the concepts of the free worker and the independent citizen at the national level, Glenn vividly details how race and gender issues framed the struggle over labor and citizenship rights at the local level between blacks and whites in the South, Mexicans and Anglos in the Southwest, and Asians and haoles (the white planter class) in Hawaii. She illuminates the complex interplay of local and national forces in American society and provides a dynamic view of how labor and citizenship were defined, enforced, and contested in a formative era for white-nonwhite relations in America.


Tea War

Tea War

Author: Andrew B. Liu

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2020-04-14

Total Pages: 359

ISBN-13: 0300252331

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A history of capitalism in nineteenth‑ and twentieth‑century China and India that explores the competition between their tea industries “Tea War is not only a detailed comparative history of the transformation of tea production in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but it also intervenes in larger debates about the nature of capitalism, global modernity, and global history.”— Alexander F. Day, Occidental College Tea remains the world’s most popular commercial drink today, and at the turn of the twentieth century, it represented the largest export industry of both China and colonial India. In analyzing the global competition between Chinese and Indian tea, Andrew B. Liu challenges past economic histories premised on the technical “divergence” between the West and the Rest, arguing instead that seemingly traditional technologies and practices were central to modern capital accumulation across Asia. He shows how competitive pressures compelled Chinese merchants to adopt abstract industrial conceptions of time, while colonial planters in India pushed for labor indenture laws to support factory-style tea plantations. Characterizations of China and India as premodern backwaters, he explains, were themselves the historical result of new notions of political economy adopted by Chinese and Indian nationalists, who discovered that these abstract ideas corresponded to concrete social changes in their local surroundings. Together, these stories point toward a more flexible and globally oriented conceptualization of the history of capitalism in China and India.


Book Synopsis Tea War by : Andrew B. Liu

Download or read book Tea War written by Andrew B. Liu and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-14 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of capitalism in nineteenth‑ and twentieth‑century China and India that explores the competition between their tea industries “Tea War is not only a detailed comparative history of the transformation of tea production in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but it also intervenes in larger debates about the nature of capitalism, global modernity, and global history.”— Alexander F. Day, Occidental College Tea remains the world’s most popular commercial drink today, and at the turn of the twentieth century, it represented the largest export industry of both China and colonial India. In analyzing the global competition between Chinese and Indian tea, Andrew B. Liu challenges past economic histories premised on the technical “divergence” between the West and the Rest, arguing instead that seemingly traditional technologies and practices were central to modern capital accumulation across Asia. He shows how competitive pressures compelled Chinese merchants to adopt abstract industrial conceptions of time, while colonial planters in India pushed for labor indenture laws to support factory-style tea plantations. Characterizations of China and India as premodern backwaters, he explains, were themselves the historical result of new notions of political economy adopted by Chinese and Indian nationalists, who discovered that these abstract ideas corresponded to concrete social changes in their local surroundings. Together, these stories point toward a more flexible and globally oriented conceptualization of the history of capitalism in China and India.


Master and Servant Law

Master and Servant Law

Author: Christopher Frank

Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 9780754668305

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Drawing on historical narratives that are frequently examined in isolation, this book examines the tactics, rhetoric and consequences of a sustained legal and political campaign by English and Welsh trade unions, Chartists, and a few radical solicitors against the penal sanctions of employment law during the mid-nineteenth century. In so doing, the author draws new conclusions about the development of the English legal system, trade unionism and popular politics of the period.


Book Synopsis Master and Servant Law by : Christopher Frank

Download or read book Master and Servant Law written by Christopher Frank and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2010 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on historical narratives that are frequently examined in isolation, this book examines the tactics, rhetoric and consequences of a sustained legal and political campaign by English and Welsh trade unions, Chartists, and a few radical solicitors against the penal sanctions of employment law during the mid-nineteenth century. In so doing, the author draws new conclusions about the development of the English legal system, trade unionism and popular politics of the period.


Masters, Servants, and Magistrates in Britain and the Empire, 1562-1955

Masters, Servants, and Magistrates in Britain and the Empire, 1562-1955

Author: Douglas Hay

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2005-10-12

Total Pages: 608

ISBN-13: 0807875864

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Master and servant acts, the cornerstone of English employment law for more than four hundred years, gave largely unsupervised, inferior magistrates wide discretion over employment relations, including the power to whip, fine, and imprison men, women, and children for breach of private contracts with their employers. The English model was adopted, modified, and reinvented in more than a thousand colonial statutes and ordinances regulating the recruitment, retention, and discipline of workers in shops, mines, and factories; on farms, in forests, and on plantations; and at sea. This collection presents the first integrated comparative account of employment law, its enforcement, and its importance throughout the British Empire. Sweeping in its geographic and temporal scope, this volume tests the relationship between enacted law and enforced law in varied settings, with different social and racial structures, different economies, and different constitutional relationships to Britain. Investigations of the enforcement of master and servant law in England, the British Caribbean, India, Africa, Hong Kong, Canada, Australia, and colonial America shed new light on the nature of law and legal institutions, the role of inferior courts in compelling performance, and the definition of "free labor" within a multiracial empire. Contributors: David M. Anderson, St. Antony's College, Oxford Michael Anderson, London School of Economics Jerry Bannister, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia M. K. Banton, National Archives of the United Kingdom, London Martin Chanock, La Trobe University, Australia Paul Craven, York University Juanita De Barros, McMaster University Christopher Frank, University of Manitoba Douglas Hay, York University Prabhu P. Mohapatra, Delhi University, India Christopher Munn, University of Hong Kong Michael Quinlan, University of New South Wales Richard Rathbone, University of Wales, Aberystwyth Christopher Tomlins, American Bar Foundation, Chicago Mary Turner, London University


Book Synopsis Masters, Servants, and Magistrates in Britain and the Empire, 1562-1955 by : Douglas Hay

Download or read book Masters, Servants, and Magistrates in Britain and the Empire, 1562-1955 written by Douglas Hay and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2005-10-12 with total page 608 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Master and servant acts, the cornerstone of English employment law for more than four hundred years, gave largely unsupervised, inferior magistrates wide discretion over employment relations, including the power to whip, fine, and imprison men, women, and children for breach of private contracts with their employers. The English model was adopted, modified, and reinvented in more than a thousand colonial statutes and ordinances regulating the recruitment, retention, and discipline of workers in shops, mines, and factories; on farms, in forests, and on plantations; and at sea. This collection presents the first integrated comparative account of employment law, its enforcement, and its importance throughout the British Empire. Sweeping in its geographic and temporal scope, this volume tests the relationship between enacted law and enforced law in varied settings, with different social and racial structures, different economies, and different constitutional relationships to Britain. Investigations of the enforcement of master and servant law in England, the British Caribbean, India, Africa, Hong Kong, Canada, Australia, and colonial America shed new light on the nature of law and legal institutions, the role of inferior courts in compelling performance, and the definition of "free labor" within a multiracial empire. Contributors: David M. Anderson, St. Antony's College, Oxford Michael Anderson, London School of Economics Jerry Bannister, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia M. K. Banton, National Archives of the United Kingdom, London Martin Chanock, La Trobe University, Australia Paul Craven, York University Juanita De Barros, McMaster University Christopher Frank, University of Manitoba Douglas Hay, York University Prabhu P. Mohapatra, Delhi University, India Christopher Munn, University of Hong Kong Michael Quinlan, University of New South Wales Richard Rathbone, University of Wales, Aberystwyth Christopher Tomlins, American Bar Foundation, Chicago Mary Turner, London University