Looking for Work, Searching for Workers: American Labor Markets during Industrialization

by Joshua L. Rosenbloom

Overview

This book examines the history of institutional changes in U.S. labor markets during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It combines a detailed historical description of how these institutions worked and evolved with a thorough analysis of quantitative evidence that reveals their implications for geographic wage convergence and market integration. This account illustrates both the importance of institutions as determinants of national economic performance and the importance of market forces in establishing the context of late nineteenth century labor history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521807807
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	04/04/2002
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.18(w) x 9.33(h) x 0.67(d)

Table of Contents

1. Labor markets and American industrialization; 2. Job seekers, employers, and the creation of labor market institutions; 3. Employment agencies and labor exchanges: this impact of intermediaries in the market for labor; 4. Markets for skilled labor: external recruitment and the development of internal labor markets; 5. One market or many? Inter-city and inter-regional labor market integration; 6. Labor market integration and the use of strikebreakers; 7. Labor market institutions and American economic growth: lessons from the nineteenth century.

Editorial Reviews

This book describes how industrialization destabilized the American labor market, and considers the ways that bosses and workers responded to the demands of (what was then) the new economy. It describes the networks of communication and assistance that mobilized and redistributed large numbers of people in the years between the Civil War and World War I. Rosenbloom teaches economics at the University of Kansas. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

"Joshua Rosenbloom has provided a superb study of the operations of the U.S. labor market between the Civil War and World War I. The book weaves fascinating descriptions of the various ways in which employers and workers established connections together with clear summaries of an extensive amount of background quantitative work. The book is beautifully written and can be used by economist, historians, and students to obtain a clearer understanding of how markets work." Price Fishback, University of Arizona

"Rosenbloom writes very well, with an easy, graceful style, and he has a knack for the telling anecdote...Looking for Work is a well-written, engaging summary of an important body of research on the evolution of American labour markets. Economic historians and labour economists will want to have it on the shelf as a convenient reference." Industrial Relations

"...should be of interest to any serious student of North American labor history and labor market development." Canadian Journal of Sociology Online

"Joshua Rosenbloom has provided a superb study of the operations of the U.S. labor market between the Civil War and World War I. The book weaves fascinating descriptions of the various ways in which employers and workers established connections together with clear summaries of an extensive amount of background quantitative work. The book is beautifully written and can be used by economist, historians, and students to obtain a clearer understanding of how markets work." Price Fishback, University of Arizona

"In Looking for Work, Searching for Workers, Joshua Rosenbloom offers a persuasive and original analysis of American labor market institutions during an inmportant formative period. The highlights are the role of employer recruitment; geographical path dependence in labor markets; the trade-off between geographic mobility and investments in skill. A real breakthrough in the quest for a synthesis of economics and history." Gavin Wright, Stanford University

"This valuable study examines the interplay of market strictures, wage rates, and worker characteristics from the 1860's to the 1910's.... [T]he result is a convincing explanation of the nature of emloyment patterns in the U.S. Altogether, the books adds to understanding the sociological and historical context of labor markets during the era of industrialization. Recommended for academic collections, upper-division undergraduate through faculty." Choice

"Rosenbloom has given us a fantastic tour through the labor markets of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries." Business History Review

"Joshua Rosenbloom provides a superb study of the operations of the U.S. labor market between the Civil War and World War I. The book weaves fascinating descriptions of the various ways in which employers and workers established connections together with clear summaries of an extensive amount of background quantitative work....This is an excellent book with a tremendous wealth of valuable material." Journal of Economic History

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