Modern Revivals in Economic & Social History S.
2 total works
This book describes the working and living conditions of workers, especially those in the cutlery and tools, steel and engineering trades, in Sheffield between 1850 and 1939. Housing and public heath, real wages and cyclical variations in wages, and trade union history, including the well-known "outrages", receive particular attention. Sheffield produced for a world market and its prosperity was affected by world economic conditions, the rise of rival producers overseas and the armaments booms of the two world wars among other factors. As the largest industrial city in Britain, with a high proportion of well-organized skilled male workers, Sheffield became the first major city in Britain to be controlled by Labour and the influence of its social structure on local and national political representation, first through the Liberal Party and then through Labour, forms a major theme.
Studies of the industrial revolution often ignore the problems of the management of large works - these were new, since earlier examples of controlling large numbers of men, such as armies of the builders of the pyramids, did not have to show a profit. The main problems are seen to have occurred in the management of labour, and in the construction of account which would help arrive at correct decisions. The owner-managers of the day had little to go on, and had to be as innovative as in the better-known technical innovations field. Some leading entrepreneurs developed satisfactory solutions, but management continued to be considered an art rather than a science, with little systematized knowledge.