Division of labor

Examples of Division of labor in the following topics:

• The Factory System

  • Before the 19th century, much labor was performed by skilled artisans working with hand tools.
  • The American System, or Armory System, emerged in the 1820s and involved semi-skilled labor to produce standardized and identical interchangeable parts that could be assembled with a minimum of time and skill.
  • The division of labor was crucial to the transition from small artisan's shops to early factories which made use of non-specialized labor.
  • Early textile factories frequently relied on the labor of women and children .
  • Evans' automated flour mill featured labor-saving elevators, pulleys and belts, an improvement on traditional gristmills.

• Slave Labor

  • Slave labor in the United States - especially on large plantations - consisted of hard manual labor often under brutal conditions.
  • Chattel slavery in the United States, or the outright ownership of a human being and of his/her descendants, was a form of forced labor which existed as a legal institution from the early colonial period .
  • While the majority of slaves performed hard manual labor on farms and plantations, slavery was also seen in the major cities in the forms of house servants.
  • There were two primary types of labor systems seen on plantations: the gang system and the task system.
  • Research suggests that the task system was an offshoot of the division of labor that was already in place in the African tribal systems before the Atlantic slave trade brought the slaves over to the American colonies.

• Conclusion: A Maturing Society

  • Artisans witnessed the methodical division of the labor process in factories.
  • Wage labor became an increasingly common experience.
  • As American economic life shifted rapidly and modes of production changed, new class divisions emerged and solidified, resulting in previously unknown economic and social inequalities.
  • Crowded urban settlements of American day laborers and low-wage workers emerged, and these individuals lived a precarious existence that the economic benefits of the new economy largely bypassed.
  • Still others, who viewed slavery as the most serious flaw in American life, labored to end the institution.

• Conclusion: An Industrializing Economy

  • Artisans witnessed the methodical division of the labor process in factories.
  • Wage labor became an increasingly common experience.
  • American day laborers and low-wage workers lived a precarious existence that the economic benefits of the new economy largely bypassed.
  • Many workers began to question the basic fairness of the new industrial order, and the early origins of the labor movement can be seen in worker strikes and organized protests of this era.
  • The unequal distribution of newly created wealth spurred new divisions along class lines.

• Chesapeake Slavery

  • The economy of the Chesapeake region revolved around tobacco and relied heavily on slave labor.
  • The scarcity of indentured servants meant that the price of their labor contracts increased, and Chesapeake farmers began to look for alternative, cheaper sources of bonded labor.
  • A great deal of support for the system of chattel slavery came from the wealthy white's fear of rebellions from the labor force.
  • Racial slavery even served to heal some of the divisions between wealthy and poor whites who could now unite as members of a “superior” racial group.
  • With the importation of African slaves, most social and economic divisions between wealthy and poor farmers in the Chesapeake increased.

• Work in Industrial America

  • Early labor organizations supported white men over women, African-Americans, and Asians, viewing them as competition.
  • The Knights of Labor, lead by Terence V.
  • Powderley, was the largest and one of the most important American labor organizations of the 1880s.
  • The Knights of Labor had a mixed history of inclusiveness and exclusiveness, accepting women and blacks (after 1878) and their employers as members and advocating the admission of blacks into local assemblies, but tolerating the segregation of assemblies in the South.
  • " The AFL also began one of the first organized labor boycotts when they put white stickers on the cigars made by unionized white cigar rollers, while simultaneously discouraging consumers from purchasing cigars rolled by Chinese workers.

• Poverty in the Colonies

  • The poorest inhabitants of the American colonies tended to be subsistence farmers, day laborers, indentured servants, and slaves.
  • Laborers stood at the bottom of urban society.
  • To meet the increasing labor demands of the colonies, many farmers, merchants, and planters relied on indentured servants.
  • At the time of the rebellion, indentured servants made up the majority of laborers in the region.
  • Racial slavery even served to heal some of the divisions between wealthy and poor whites, who could now unite as members of a “superior” racial group.

• Neglected Americans and the New Deal

  • However, the New Deal hardly addressed the divisions that had existed in the American society long before the Great Depression.
  • While the overall unemployment reached approximately a quarter of the labor force, for black workers, the rate was well over 50%.
  • Moreover, common social norms pushed many women out of the labor market, usually after they got married or started having children.
  • As black families were rarely given the economic opportunity that would allow only one member of the family to work, a much larger percentage of black women belonged to the active labor force.
  • The same two sectors were also consistently excluded from the protective and reform labor legislation of the New Deal.  

• Empowering Labor

  • The New Deal succeeded in introducing a number of laws that empowered labor.
  • The 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is another critical piece of labor legislation passed under the New Deal.
  • Historians estimate that the Act's provisions covered not more than 20% of labor force.
  • FLSA was critical to establishing labor standards that remain the foundation of labor law in the United States.
  • Francis Perkins, the Secretary of Labor in the Roosevelt administration, looks on as Franklin Roosevelt signs the National Labor Relations Act.

• America and WWI

  • Food Administration, the War Industries Board, and the National War Labor Board.
  • The WIB was ordered into a series of divisions that oversaw all aspects of war needs from distribution of raw resources to control of prices on the finished goods to include chemical, steel, textile, rubber, and leather goods.
  • Secretary of Labor William B.
  • Wilson created the National War Labor Board (NWLB) in 1918.
  • While the WIB consisted of military personnel and public servants, the NWLB was composed of civilians, mainly from labor unions, industrial management, and the general public.