From Artisan to
Worker
Part 1
Mr. O’Brien
HISTORIOGRAPHY OF
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
 Before the 1970s vs 1960s
and after
 Now called “Market
Revolution”
 Prominent new labor historians
 E.P. Thompson
 Herbert Gutman
WHY IS NJ IMPORTANT?
 Transportation networks 
 Morris Canal
 Stage Coach
Urban centers/centers of
commerce
 Newark
 Delaware Valley
 Proximity to NY and Philly
WHY
NEWARK?
Newark, (east of Mulberry St. 1820-5).
1820-1825
Source: : I. N. Phelps Stokes
Collection of American Historical
Prints.
CAREER STAGES
 Divided into three
categories
1. Apprentices
2. Journeymen
3. Masters
 Tradition held that each
artisan should have the
opportunity to pass
through all three stages
during his productive life
APPRENTICESHIP
 Apprenticeship began in early teens and provided essential training for
individual’s specialty
 Fee had to be paid for entering an apprenticeship and an iron clad
contract bound the apprentice to his master for a specified period of time
 Tradition attempted to insure fair treatment for the apprentice
 Master was required to feed and house him and provide necessary
level of training for participation in the trade
JOURNEYMEN
 Apprentice usually became a
journeyman after training was
completed
 Worked for wages, often
supplemented by food and
housing provided by the master
 After an appropriate number of
years, during which the journeyman
was supposed to save money,
presumably to buy or inherit a shop
and equipment and become a
master
 Artisans had a social and economic
ladder that they climbed as they
gained skill and capital
URBAN ARTISANS
 Prior to the Industrial Revolution, most
manufacturing was done by urban
artisans
 Skilled craftsmen who lived in cities
 Worked with simple tools
 Worked in their homes or in small
shops
 Apprentices performed menial work
 Most of the rest of the work done by
the artisan himself
 Real skill was required
 Necessitating a period of training
ONE BIG FAMILY
 Family life and work were
intertwined
 Wives sometimes helped with
work, kept accounts, and sold
finished products
 Family lived in the shop
 Either in a back room or in the attic
 Masters often housed and fed
their journeymen and
apprentices
 Creating a large extended family
 Little life outside this extended
family
ARTISAN WORK CULTURE
 Artisans, armed with a
skill, were accustomed to
control of their work
conditions, including the
hours worked and the
pace.
 Artisans routinely mixed
recreation and labor
together
GUILDS
 Each urban trade had its guild
and most had the legal power
to deny a worker the right to
practice a trade unless he was
a member of the organization
 Guilds existed to protect the
standard of living and
economic opportunities of its
members, not to maximize
production, as well as to
provide what we today call
“benefits” to the skilled artisans
of that trade