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

by Joshua L. Rosenbloom

• ISBN13: 9780521002875
• ISBN10: 0521002877
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-03-25
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The dynamic character of American industrialization produced imbalances between the supply of and demand for labor across cities and regions. This book describes how employers and job-seekers responded to these imbalances to create networks of labor market communication and assistance capable of mobilizing the massive redistribution of population that was essential to maintain the rapid pace of the nation's economic growth between the Civil War and World War I. It combines a detailed description of the emerging labor market institutions with a careful analysis of a variety of quantitative evidence to assess the broader economic implications for geographic wage convergence and for American economic growth. Despite an expansion in the geographic scope of labor markets at this time, the evidence suggests that labor market institutions reinforced regional divisions within the United States and left a lasting impact on the evolution of many other aspects of the employment relationship.

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables	ix
Preface	xiii
Labor Markets and American Industrialization	1	(13)
Job Seekers, Employers, and the Creation of Labor Market Institutions	14	(32)
Employment Agencies and Labor Exchanges: The Impact of Intermediaries in the Market for Labor	46	(34)
Markets for Skilled Labor: External Recruitment and the Development of Internal Labor Markets	80	(34)
One Market or Many? Intercity and Interregional Labor Market Integration	114	(33)
Labor Market Integration and the Use of Strikebreakers	147	(26)
Labor Market Institutions and American Economic Growth: Lessons from the Nineteenth Century	173	(9)
References	182	(13)
Index	195