This study analyzes in close detail the experiences of glassworkers as mechanization transformed their trade from a highly skilled art to a semiskilled occupation. Ms. Scott argues that changes in the organization of work altered the life style and political outlook of glassworkers. These changes also created a new identity for them as residents of Carmaux, a city in the Department of the tarn in southwestern France. Once an isolated group of itinerant workers within the city, glassworkers became active trade unionists and militant socialists in the 1890s.

This study analyzes in close detail the experiences of glassworkers as mechanization transformed their trade from a highly skilled art to a semiskilled occupation. Ms. Scott argues that changes in the organization of work altered the life style and political outlook of glassworkers. These changes also created a new identity for them as residents of Carmaux, a city in the Department of the tarn in southwestern France. Once an isolated group of itinerant workers within the city, glassworkers became active trade unionists and militant socialists in the 1890s.

Research on the frontiers of urban studies was the subject of a conference on nineteenth-century cities held in November 1968 at Yale University. These papers from the conference attempt to define what is coming to be known as the "new urban history." The cities studied range from small communities - such as Springfield, Massachusetts, and Poughkeepsie, New York - to giants like Philadelphia, Chicago, and Boston. While the majority of the contributions deal with American cities, four essays examine cities in Canada, England, France, and Colombia. The studies focus on the dimensions of mobility and stability in the social structure of nineteenth-century cities. Within this general frame, the essays explore such areas as urban patterns of class stratification, changing rates of occupational and residential mobility, social origins of particular elite groups, the relations between political control and social class, differences in opportunities for various ethnic groups, and the relationships between family structure and city life. In all these fields, the authors relate sociological theory to the historical materials; a complex yet readable, interdisciplinary portrait of the origins of modern city life is the result.

The dynamics of local politics come to life in this exploration of business, labor, and political life in two small Ohio River cities. New Albany was a steamboat construction site; there, native-born artisans were militant about their rights and involved in party politics. This involvement decreased with the appearance of factories. By contrast, the large German working class that settled in Evansville continued to protest changes in working conditions in the industrial era, fearing a return to the misery of Germany in the famine years. Politicians and workers responded to each other in both cities. Coalition building was a nearly constant and perilous project for party leaders, and workers engaged in the process with great gusto. Lawrence Lipin argues that working-class participation in party politics played an essential role in creating a political environment friendly to working-class protest.

One of the central questions facing scholars of Appalachia concerns how a region so rich in natural resources could end up a symbol of poverty. Typical culprits include absentee landowners, reactionary coal operators, stubborn mountaineers, and greedy politicians. In a deft combination of labor and business history, Glass Towns complicates these answers by examining the glass industry s potential to improve West Virginia s political economy by establishing a base of value-added manufacturing to complement the state s abundance of coal, oil, timber, and natural gas. Through case studies of glass production hubs in Clarksburg, Moundsville, and Fairmont (producing window, tableware, and bottle glass, respectively), Ken Fones-Wolf looks closely at the impact of industry on local populations and immigrant craftsmen. He also examines patterns of global industrial restructuring, the ways workers reshaped workplace culture and political action, and employer strategies for responding to global competition, unreliable markets, and growing labor costs at the end of the nineteenth century. "

In the struggle between "social" and "cultural" thinking, the refusal to choose sides can be a radical and vital move