Lost Art Press

Remarks and Suggestions by Individual Mechanics Relating to Apprenticeships, Employment of Boys in Shops and Factories, State of Trade, and Conditions in General of the Wage-Workers. 1884

From a Wood Turner.
So far the year 1884 has been very hard for workingmen in this city. Trade has been in a deplorable condition for six or seven months, during that length of time there have been in this place from thirty-five hundred to four thousand idle men, and a large number are still unable to obtain work. I have been out of work for five months of this year. The educational facilities of the city are good, but are not taken advantage of as they should be by a great number. Boys are put to work as soon as they can obtain employment, quite a number being under fourteen years of age.

From a Cooper.
The men employed with me are in moderately fair circumstances only. Their education is quite limited. They usually live up to their earnings. This last season they have been compelled to lose considerable time, from the fact that the mill has not been running full time, the low price of flour not warranting the firm in doing so. But I think, generally speaking, the cooperage business has been better in some other parts of the State than it has been at this point, and it is probable that coopers have done better than usual.

From a Pattern-maker.
Owing to business depression, our shop is nearly closed up, with no prospect of improvement at present. The financial condition of the mechanics of our shop is very good, over half of them owning property. They also have a good common school education. If all the boys who learn trades were classed and paid according to capability, and not according to the length of time they have served, I think we should have less snide workmen, and that they would learn faster. As it is now, they are paid according to the length of time they have been at the trade, with no inducement to become skilled workmen until they are journeymen, and then they see their error when it is too late. They seldom get over their old way of working, and frequently abandon the business entirely.
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Remarks and Suggestions by Individual Mechanics Relating to Apprenticeships, Employment of Boys in Shops and Factories, State of Trade, and Conditions in General of the Wage-Workers. 1884

From a Carpenter,
As regards apprentices, they are unknown in this city. A boy cannot be got into any place to learn a trade. The mechanics that we have now-a-days have not served an apprenticeship. A mechanic hires a laborer to help him do his work. For instance, a molder needs a helper to mold a horse-power wheel, or a mower wheel; or a blacksmith needs a striker. These helpers and strikers are kept at the same kind of work year in and year out, till they become more or less skilled in that one thing, and then they are journeymen, cheap journeymen. So with carpenters. The foreman has a laborer that he can use on a bench to take off the corners of rails, posts, etc., with a jack plane, and after a while he can plane off a smooth surface. Then he is a mechanic, ready to take the place of the man that has served an apprenticeship, though, in fact, he has no practical knowledge of the trade whatever.

From a Carpenter.
The past summer has been the dullest I ever saw. I have not worked four-fifths the time. I charge a great deal of this to the piece-work system. It would benefit the working classes wonderfully if that system could be abolished in this country.

From a Wood-Worker.
The financial condition of the laborers of this place is not very good. Our shops (agricultural) have been idle for nearly four months, and consequently workmen are out of money. Other shops are running on short time. If work does not improve before spring I think there will be a great deal of suffering, and the prospects for; an improvement are not very good. The social and educational condition of the laboring class of this town is good. We have excellent schools, and they are well attended by all classes of our people.
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Asked whether or not they handled American wares, one of the members of an Edinburgh wholesale firm dealing extensively in implements and sundry articles of steel, iron, and wood answered: “O, yes; largely; come into our warerooms and see for yourself.”

Leading the way, he pointed to rows of boxes in the first room we entered, remarking: “These are American axes—the best and the cheapest in the world.” Around the wall, standing ten deep, were ranged forks of all descriptions for the farmers’ use, and heaped on the floor were thousands of handles for hayforks, hoes, picks, axes, spades, and shovels. Observing a notebook in my hand, he said: “If you put down everything in our place that is American, you will fill the book.” This was soon apparent.

Going into another room and directing my attention to shelves bending with the weight of packages, and to dozens of boxes at either end, he informed me that this was a recent importation, something new for his firm—10 tons of bolts and nuts from the United States. In every part of the great establishment most of the articles were American made, including hay knives, lawn mowers, saws, files, wheels, hubs, spokes, rims, spades, shovels, rakes, washing machines, washboards, and wringers.
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