With the addition of Kale Vogt to our staff at Lost Art Press, I have been pondering the meaning and implications of the word “apprenticeship.”
For me it is a real thing. Apprenticeship requires papers that lay out an agreement. Something like: I will do this. You will do that. And in the end, this is where we will be.
I bristle at people who use the term “apprenticeship” in a casual way. As if it were something that could be completed in a few weeks or months of training. That’s not the way I see it. After traveling and teaching in Germany for the last 15 years, I have developed a respect for their system.
There are rules. And following them (or not) ends with opportunities (or problems).
And while I believe in the system, I am a bit shy about its terms. I would never use the word “master” to describe a person unless he or she possessed a meisterbrief. Even then, the word “master” is problematic in America because of its association with slavery.
And then we have the word “journeyman.” What about the women who have been engaged in the trade for centuries?
All this is to say: I want to train Kale in a traditional way without traditional labels. What does that mean exactly? Stay tuned.
On the Abuse of Apprentices
The other aspect of apprenticeship that is troubling is the abuse. I know that Jane Rees is working on a book on woodworking apprenticeships, and I hope she will find examples where the apprentices were treated with respect and honor.
However, most of the old sources I know of paint apprenticeship as time of abuse and manipulation.
Then there’s the alcohol.
One of the books in our library is a doozy: “The Philosophy of Artificial and Compulsory Drinking Usage in Great Britain and Ireland” (1839). It was published by the teetotalers of the time and was an account of how alcohol was used to control and wreck the working people of the United Kingdom.
What is “drinking usage?” It is a social or business norm where drinking is required. You enter a shop as an apprentice, so you must pay a “footing.” The payment is used in drink for your shopmates. You are taught to dovetail and therefore must pay another fee in alcohol to learn that skill.
What if you refuse to pay? You are sent to “Coventry.” When a worker is sent to Coventry, no one will help them with their work, answer questions or even acknowledge them. And if the poor sod complains to the owner of the shop, then the fees and abuse are doubled.
For the last few days, I have revisited “The Philosophy of Artificial and Compulsory Drinking Usage in Great Britain and Ireland” and pulled out some of the more interesting accounts of what happened to apprentices in Scotland, Ireland and England.
Settle in, because this will probably stop any historical fantasy of traveling back in time to become Duncan Phyfe’s apprentice. We start in Scotland.
Scotland
Scarcely has the stripling commenced his apprenticeship, in some towns, to the business of the joiner or cabinet-maker, than he is informed that the custom of the shop is to pay a sum as an entry, or footing, to be disposed of in drink by the workmen.
He receives charge of the fire in the premises; and at every failure of kindling, mending, or extinguishing at night, he is fined in a small sum, to be expended in whisky: failure in putting out candles at the proper time, or in watching the work at meal-hours, and a number of other petty offences, are met by small amercements for the same purpose.
A journeyman carpenter, in a town north of the Forth, having declined to pay the customary drink-money, found one morning his tools removed.
He received no satisfaction, but in about three months they were found in the side of a dunghill, which was being taken away for agricultural purposes.
Interestingly, at this time, it was unthinkable to drink alone (except in America).
In Scotland there still exists a loathing terror, even in the regular drunkard, at being considered a solitary drinker; and, but for the amazing number of drinking usages, (so convenient for Scotch topers) this would be an element of transcendent usefulness in temperance reformation.
A cabinet-maker assured me, that such as would not comply with the drinking usages in the shops in which he had wrought, were outlawed (the same as being put into ‘Coventry’); that pieces of wood were thrown at them by their fellows, and that their tools were hid as frequently as possible, to make them comply. Another cabinet-maker informed me that his slippers had been frequently nailed to the floor in front of his bench, during his absence at meals, because he would not regard the oppressive usages of his trade.
There is a bailie in the shop in which he works, and when a court is to be held, the ‘hold-fast’ is used as a bell, to summon the men to attend.
Ireland
Not surprisingly, many of the same abuses occurred in Irish shops.
Although the habit of taking a dose of whisky in going to work, technically called a “morning,” be not in general compulsory, yet it is rendered somewhat of this character, when the custom of treating in reference to the morning dram has obtained in any workshop.
And apprentices had it the worst.
If the apprentice be dilatory in coming forward with the footing, the men will show him nothing of the business; if he ask a question, they will “shy the answer;” they will cease to teach, and the master not being always present, the boy will remain untaught: this circumstance is what weighs most with parents, and even widowed mothers will stretch every nerve to provide for the apprentice footing.
And it wasn’t just the apprentices who were abused. The suppliers who sold glue or other materials to the shop were also pressed for alcohol.
Those dealers that supply a workshop with articles necessary in the trade, find it absolutely requisite to treat or “mug” the men, otherwise they will complain of the items supplied; thus in the trade of nails, wood, putty, and other articles, lovers of drink have it in their power in various ways to deprive sober men of their place or job, by false complaints, and oblique hints. We shall often have occasion to notice this circumstance.
The iron of the plane is sometimes glued to the wood for non-compliance with drink usages.
The workshop rules extended to every aspect of life, even to the appearance of the workers in the shop. You had to show up to work looking clean and tidy.
“When a man comes to work with a dirty shirt on Monday morning, he incurs a drink fine.”
But even if you do everything correctly, you are going to be fined. And the price to be paid is in alcohol.
When an apprentice comes to be able for man’s work, he is set to a bench and assumes the apron; on this occasion he is fined 1 shilling for drink: when his apprenticeship expires he pays 10s. 6d., which is called “washing him out.” When the apprentice remains in the same shop, he is “washed in,” by 10s. 6d. of a journeyman’s footing. For the first new job he is set to perform, which he has never done before, he pays 1s. for drink; thus for his first chair, bedstead, or veneer work, and this for each new job. When married, a cabinet-maker pays 10s. for drink. Having a child produces a quart of whisky. At each fall of the year there is a way-goose. Teaching any part of the business that is new to the scholar, requires 1s of a drink premium: this is severe on the boys.
What if you cannot pay? What if your family is poor and your friends are penniless? Well, it’s not good.
When a poor boy is unable to pay these demands, and his friends are backward in advancing him the needful funds, he is put under severe discipline; besides being taunted and jeered at continually, he is subjected to a process of coercion denominated “cabbing,” which is so administered as to make it impossible to discover the perpetrators. A favourable opportunity is watched, the lad is approached behind by a man having the cloth that covers finished furniture in his hand; this is dexterously thrown entirely over the head and shoulders; several spring upon him, and by their help the cloth is wound round the culprit’s head in such a way as to prevent sight: his hands are then tied, and he is laid on his face along a bench, his shoes are taken off, and he is sharply beat on the soles of the feet with a flat board.
And there are fines for all manner of small workplace infractions.
When tools are not kept in the right place, there is 3d. or 6d. charged as a drink fine; 6d. for a long beard, or dirty shirt. “Wetting of new clothes;” this is a cant phrase for a libation of liquor on obtaining anything new. The new occupation of a favourite bench costs a quart of whisky at least; sometimes more, for the highest bidder gets the prize: this may be a station near the window, or otherwise particularly convenient.
Glueing the pockets, and tying things to coats, are also tricks imposed on recusants of the usages.
And then there is the talking of the smack. If you engage in insulting other workers, you could be put to trial.
Speaking ill of a shopmate in a public-house, incurs a fine. That all fines may be duly enforced, proceedings of the nature of process or action at law is established. The oldest hand is styled the father of the shop; he presides in the judgment and infliction of these fines. The case is regularly stated, the accused afterwards makes his defence, he is then sent out, and a decision is come to. I have understood that occasionally there is an extraordinary exhibition of native talent at these opportunities. To ring the holdfast is to strike a tool that will emit a sound, in order to convene a court. It is rung three times on a charge against any man.
The book then details the same sort of charges against English shops (though the author cuts the English shops some slack because the author is clearly English). But after reading more than 300 pages of this account – biased as it was – I’ve decided not going to fine Kale for… well… anything.
Like many people learning a trade, Kale observes the activity in the shop and tries to emulate. Megan and I put our tools away every day. Kale puts their tools away every day. We clean up after ourselves at the end of each day. Kale does the same.
I suspect we’ll never have to send Kale to Coventry.
— Christopher Schwarz
