The Glassworkers of Carmaux: French Craftsmen and Political Action in a Nineteenth-Century City

By Joan Wallach Scott

Book Overview

This award-winning study analyzes in close detail the experiences of glassworkers as mechanization transformed their trade from a highly skilled art to a semiskilled occupation. Arguing that changes in the organization of work altered the lifestyle and political outlook of the glassworker, Joan Scott uses local archival materials and demographic records to reconstruct the experience of ordinary workingmen.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674354419
• ISBN13: 9780674354418
• Release Date: October 1980
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.6" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Scott gives French Socialism a Human Face

Q: Socialism in the face of rapid industrialization? How can a student of the 19th century world come to appreciate the human qualities of such a struggle? The answers given by most historians are far too simple, a point which Joan Scott brings to light through her highly analytical, and yet delightfully readable account of the history of one French city. Her comparative analysis of the many significant, subtle cross-currents finally makes the conflict between Socialism and Industrial-Age progress clearly understandable.