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Aspects of Labor Administration in the Early Nineteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

Theodore F. Marburg
Theodore F. Marburg
Affiliation:
University of Nebraska.
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Extract

The striking problem faced by the labor administrator in the early Connecticut button industry was the shortage of native skilled artisans. While unskilled laborers, bookkeepers, and even managers could be drawn from sources in this country, highly skilled artisans were usually available only in England. The shortage of skilled labor thus truly constituted the bottleneck to quality production. In the correspondence of Alexander Hamilton, for the year 1791, there is a letter from one John Mix, pewter buttonmaker of New Haven, reporting that he was going to produce diverse kinds of buttons. This was possible “because we have a person lately from Europe who has the skill perfectly who is a gentleman who is able and has engaged to instruct and teach us everything necessary in the making of them.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , February 1941 , pp. 1 - 10
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1941

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References

1 Cole, Arthur H., editor, Industrial and Commercial Correspondence of Alexander Hamilton (Chicago, 1928), pp. 51–52Google Scholar.

2 Lathrop, William G., The Brass Industry in the United States (Mount Carmel, Conn., 1926), pp. 42–43Google Scholar.

3 In the study of Scovill history generous assistance was given the writer by the General Manager's Office of the Scovill Manufacturing Company.

4 Documents concerning the earliest period of Scovill history are fragmentary, and some of the data on this period are gathered from The Town and City of Waterbury, Anderson, Joseph, editor (New Haven, 1896), vol. ii, pp. 275 ffGoogle Scholar. Volumes i and iii of this work also contain background information on the history of the enterprise.

5 George Dee to Scovill's, July 2, 1831.

6 John A. Coe, “Development of the Brass Industry,” Fifty-Fifth Annual Report of the Connecticut Society of Civil Engineers (1939), p. 86.

7 Lathrop, op. cit., p. 43.

8 James Croft to F. Leavenworth, Jan. 23, 1821, and Sept. 25, 1821; James Croft to Leavenworth, Hayden & Scovill, June 26, 1821.

9 Pape, Wm. James, History of Waterbury and the Naugatuck Valley (Chicago, 1918), vol. i, p. 206Google Scholar; Anderson, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 276.

10 J. M. L. and W. H. Scovill to Israel Holmes, Feb. 23, 1829.

11 A vivid account of Holmes' difficulty in evading the English restrictions on enticing away workmen is given in Anderson, op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 322 ff.

12 Receipt issued to Israel Holmes, Apr. 27, 1829, showed £19 13s 6½d spent for provisions.

13 J. M. L. Scovill to W. H. Scovill, Apr. 13, 1837.

14 W. H. Scovill to J. M. L. Scovill, July 24, 1835.

15 W. H. Scovill to J. M. L. Scovill, Feb. 6, 1836.

16 Ibid., Feb. 8, 1836.

17 W. H. Marshall to W. H. Scovill, Oct. 1, 1836.

18 Contract with Joseph Jeffrey, Sept. 30, 1840.

19 Contract with Marlo B. Frost, Jan. 4, 1841.

20 Contract with John Sandland, Oct. 12, 1825. Sandland was unable to come to this country, however, until several years later.

21 Contract with William Eaves, June 15, 1829.

22 Scovill's to G. Taylor, Apr. 4, 1829.

23 Scovill Manufacturing Company Bulletin, vol. vi, no. 3 (July, 1920), p. 6Google Scholar. Article entitled “One Hundred Years Ago,” including comments by Edward Terrell.

24 From comments of Charles Somers Miller made available in manuscript form through the courtesy of the Somers Brass Company.

25 Edward Nichols to Scovill's, Feb. 25, 1819.

26 W. H. Scovill to J. M. L. Scovill, July 16, 1838.

27 J. M. L. Scovill to W. H. Scovill, Apr. 8 and 11, 1837.

28 Documents Relative to Manufactures of the United States, 22nd Cong., 1st Sess., no. 308, vol. i, p. 1034.

The employment of women and children was rather general in early American industry. Indeed in Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin's report of 1810 there is the statement: “Eight hundred spindles employ forty persons, viz: five men and thirty-five women and children.” (Documents, Legislative and Executive of the Congress of United States. American State Papers, Finance, vol. ii, Report no. 325 on Manufactures, pp. 425-439.)

29 Spencer, Hotchkiss & Co. to Scovill's, Mar. 15, 1833.

30 W. H. Scovill to J. M. L. Scovill, Feb. 6, 1836.

31 John H. DeForest to “Mess Scoville,” Aug. 31, 183S.

32 S. B. Buell to Scovill's, Feb. 5, 1833.

33 J. M. L. Scovill to W. H. Scovill, Mar. 10, 1834.

34 W. H. Scovill to J. M. L. Scovill, Mar. 31, 1835.

35 J. M. L. Scovill to W. H. Scovill, Apr. 19, 1834.

36 W. H. Scovill to J. M. L. Scovill, Aug., 1836.

37 J. M. L. Scovill to W. H. Scovill, Feb. 8, 1836.