Masters to Managers: Historical and Comparative Perspectives on American Employers

261 Pages·1991·4.596 MB·English

by  Sanford M. Jacoby

Masters to Managers

MASTERS TO MANAGERS
Historical and Comparative Perspectives
on American Employers
EDITED BY
Sanford M. Jacoby
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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York Oxford
Copyright © 1991 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Masters to managers ; historical and comparative perspectives on
American employers / edited by Sanford M. Jacoby.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-231-06802-6 (alk. paper)
1. Industrial relations—United States—History—Case studies.
I. Jacoby, Sanford M.
HD8066.M36 1991 331'.0973—dc20
90-2151
CIP
Casebound editions of Columbia University Press books are Smyth-sewn
and printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper
0
Printed in the United States of America
c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Contributors vii
Editor's Preface ix
Masters to Managers: An Introduction 1
Sanford M. Jacoby
I. MANAGING THE WORKPLACE
1. The Transition from Outwork to Factory Production
in the Boot and Shoe Industry, 1830—1880 21
Jens Christiansen and Peter Philips
2. Studying Work: Personnel Policies in Philadelphia Firms,
1850-1950 43
Walter Licht
3. Scientific Management and the Workplace, 1920—1935 74
Daniel Nelson
4. Ford Welfare Capitalism in Its Economic Context 90
Daniel M. G. Raff
II. POLITICS AND LABOR MARKETS
5. Getting It Together: The Metal Manufacturers
Association of Philadelphia, c. 1900-1930 111
Howell John Harris
v
vi Contents
6. The Closed Shop, the Proprietary Capitalist, and the
Law, 1897-1915 132
Daniel R. Ernst
III. COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES
7. The Decline of Paternalism and the Making of the Employer
Class: France, 1870-1914 153
Gerald Friedman
8. American Exceptionalism Revisited: The Importance
of Management 173
Sanford M. Jacoby
Notes 201
Index 243
Contributors
Jens Christiansen, Associate Professor, Economics Department, Mt.
Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts.
Daniel R. Ernst, Associate Professor, School of Law, Georgetown Uni­
versity, Washington, D.C.
Gerald Friedman, Assistant Professor, Economics Department, Uni­
versity of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts.
Howell John Harris, Lecturer in American History, Department of
History, University of Durham, Durham, England.
Sanford M. Jacoby, Associate Professor, Anderson Graduate School of
Management, University of California, Los Angeles, California.
Walter Licht, Associate Professor, Department of History, University
of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Daniel Nelson, Professor, Department of History, University of Akron,
Akron, Ohio.
Peter Philips, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Univer­
sity of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.
Daniel M. G. Raff, Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Business
Administration, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts.
vii

Editor's Preface
This volume introduces specialists and general readers to recent his­
torical scholarship on American employers. It displays the range, of
work presently being done and provides a framework for locating the
research in the larger scheme of American industrial h'^tpry Fallow­
ing an introduction the book is divided into three parts that represent
different levels of analysis. The essays in Part One. “Managing the
Workplace/' look at employer activities at the point of production. In
Part Two. “Politics and Labor Markets,” the focus shifts to the world
outside the firm and to interemplover relations. Finally, Part Three
“Comparative Perspectives ” compares American employers with their
counterparts in other industrial countries. Each section begins with a
brief overview of the material it contains.
I wish to thank all the contributors to this book. By reading and
commenting on each other's work, they made this a more cogent and
collective effort. For her encouragement of this project, I also thank
Kate Wittenberg of Columbia University Press. Other forms of sup­
port—secretarial, financial, intellectual, and emotional—were pro­
vided by Wilma Daniels, Maury Pearl, Rose Pressey, the UCLA Insti­
tute of Industrial Relations, Alexander and Margaret Jacoby, and
Susan Bartholomew. I am grateful to all of them.
Sanford M. Jacoby
ix