Coercion, Contract, and Free Labor in the Nineteenth Century

by Robert J. Steinfeld

• ISBN13: 9780521774000
• ISBN10: 0521774004
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-02-05
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This book presents a fundamental reassessment of the nature of wage labor in the nineteenth century, focusing on the use of sanctions 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. 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.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations and Tables	ix
Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction: Free Wage Labor in the History of the West	1	(28)
PART ONE: AMERICAN CONTRACT LABOR AND ENGLISH WAGE LABOR: THE USES OF PECUNIARY AND NONPECUNIARY PRESSURE
``Free'' Contract Labor in the United States: An Anti-essentialist View of Labor Types I	29	(10)
``Unfree'' Wage Labor in Nineteenth-Century England: An Anti-essentialist View of Labor Types II	39	(46)
Explaining the Legal Content of English Wage Labor	85	(17)
Struggles over the Rules: The Common Law Courts, Parliament, the People, and the Master and Servant Acts	102	(65)
Struggles under the Rules: Strategic Behavior and Historical Change in Legal Context	167	(25)
Struggles to Change the Rules	192	(42)
Freedom of Contract and Freedom of Person	234	(19)
PART TWO. ``FREE'' AND ``UNFREE'' LABOR IN THE UNITED STATES
``Involuntary Servitude'' in American Fundamental Law	253	(37)
Labor Contract Enforcement in the American North	290	(25)
Conclusion	315	(8)
Index	323