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factory ever built, a testament to human countryside to draw labor from. The of the sun, but by the clock. Instead of
ambition, problem solving and creativ- women tended to be young, unmar- spending the day with a relatively small
ity. Another Ford plant, Highland Park, ried, well educated and used to doing number of friends and family members,
where the workforce numbered 55,300, hard work. Additionally, to the mill the factory worker interacted in some
seemed small by comparison. owners’ liking, they also were a revolv- form with thousands of strangers. The
ing labor force. If and when they ability to do highly structured, largely
Freeman treats at length the prominent
role of women in factories, especially became unhappy or economic condi- repetitive work, often in harsh condi-
after concentrated manufacturing made tions deteriorated, they could return to tions and for low pay, became prized.
the leap from the “old” England to the their families rather than staying nearby In 1914, Henry Ford’s assembly line
“new.” European writers visiting New and fomenting discontent and disorder. reduced the time needed to assemble
England textile centers such as Lowell Paternalistic mill owners did their a car from twelve and half hours to
in the mid-nineteenth century were best to provide morally uplifting and ninety-three minutes, but also lead to
often struck by the sharp contrast of culturally enlightening environments, a nervous condition that employees
the soot-belching urban factories in with some mills even publishing labeled “Forditis,” as well as a stagger-
ing employee turnover rate of 370%.

Factory work proved more physically
The United States lost nearly five and psychologically demanding than
other types of labor. A “desirable”
million factory jobs between worker was no longer one with deep

2000 and 2016. In 1970, more knowledge and a mastery of a craft, but
one possessing speed, manual dexterity
than a quarter of U.S. employees and endurance. This shift in how work
was done and the required attributes
worked in manufacturing. of those doing it may have reached
its apotheosis in Frederick Winslow
By 2010, only 1 in 10 did. Taylor’s “Scientific Management,”
which posited that there was “one best
way” to do a job. Workers’ autonomy
was reduced, and more cognitively
English cities such as Lancashire and journals of poetry and fiction and host- demanding tasks such as work plan-
Manchester. In Society, Manners and ing lectures. For these workers, the mill ning and coordination became strictly
Politics in the United States: Being a Series gave them an opportunity prior to the province of management. Contrast
of Letters on North America, Michael marriage to broaden their perspec- this approach with what contempo-
Chevalier, a French political economist, tives, lead a more cosmopolitan and rary management scholarship counsels
described manufacturing as “the canker independent life, and to assist them- regarding increasing work motivation
of England,” while he found the sight selves and their families financially. and job satisfaction—paying workers
of Lowell to be “new and fresh like an Unfortunately, jobs in the mills were equitably and giving them a sense of
opera scene.” Freeman informs us that strictly segregated by sex, with women autonomy, purpose, and progress.
in some New England mills, women holding almost all of the jobs involving
constituted 85% of the workforce. As operating machinery, and men doing
a point of comparison, today across all of the construction and holding all
the United States women account for of the management positions.
29% of manufacturing employment. Freeman also shows how the shift from
Mill owners in New England largely an agrarian economy to a manufactur-
recruited young women from farms as ing economy impacted the nature and
a workforce due to a paucity of alter- meaning of work. The physical condi-
natives. Owners sought to avoid the tions, organization and the required
social disapproval that accompanied competencies of employees in a factory
the wholesale employment of children. differed drastically from those on a Todd Harris is Assistant Professor in the
Contrary to Britain, New England farm. For example, for the first time, an Department of Management.
did not have large numbers of urban employee’s schedule was dictated not
male workers or an over-populated
by the seasons and the rising and setting

36 Bridgewater Review