Minding the machine : languages of class in early industrial America / Stephen P. Rice.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rice, Stephen P. (Stephen Patrick), 1963-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social classes--United States--History--19th century.

Social classes.

Industrial revolution--United States--History--19th century.

Industrial revolution.

Work in literature.

Social classes in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (256 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley, Calif. ; London : University of California Press, c2004.

Language Note:

English

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

In this innovative book, Stephen P. Rice offers a new understanding of class formation in America during the several decades before the Civil War. This was the period in the nation's early industrial development when travel by steamboat became commonplace, when the railroad altered concepts of space and time, and when Americans experienced the beginnings of factory production. These disorienting changes raised a host of questions about what machinery would accomplish. Would it promote equality or widen the distance between rich and poor? Among the most contentious questions were those focusing on the social consequences of mechanization: while machine enthusiasts touted the extent to which machines would free workers from toil, others pointed out that people needed to tend machines, and that that work was fundamentally degrading and exploitative. Minding the Machine shows how members of a new middle class laid claim to their social authority and minimized the potential for class conflict by playing out class relations on less contested social and technical terrains. As they did so, they defined relations between shop owners-and the overseers, foremen, or managers they employed-and wage workers as analogous to relations between head and hand, between mind and body, and between human and machine. Rice presents fascinating discussions of the mechanics' institute movement, the manual labor school movement, popular physiology reformers, and efforts to solve the seemingly intractable problem of steam boiler explosions. His eloquent narrative demonstrates that class is as much about the comprehension of social relations as it is about the making of social relations, and that class formation needs to be understood not only as a social struggle but as a conceptual struggle.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. The Antebellum Popular Discourse on Mechanization

2. Head and Hand: The Mechanics' Institute Movement and the Conception of Class Authority

3. Hand and Head: The Manual Labor School Movement

4. Mind and Body: Popular Physiology and the Health of a Nation

5. Human and Machine: Steam Boiler Explosions and the Making of the Engineer

Epilogue

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 199-221) and index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN:

9786612356377

9780520926578

0520926579

9781282356375

1282356372

9781597347549

159734754X

OCLC:

475928573