Canadian Railways as Manufacturers, 1850‑1880

Craven, P. D.; Traves, Tom

doi:10.7202/030909ar

Cited by 6 publications

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The Power of Shop Culture

Olssen¹,

Brecher²

1992

Int Rev of Soc His

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This paper investigates the history of the labour process in New Zealand's state-owned railway workshops and questions the idea that large-scale industry inevitably destroyed whatever agency skilled workers had enjoyed. It also shows that relations of production vary with the political and cultural contexts. Craft control of the labour process survived in New Zealand's state-owned railway workshops and the union played only a minor role. Job control was more important in achieving bureaucratic instead of autocratic control over such matters as hiring and firing; the retention of apprentice-based crafts; the institutionalization of seniority; and in resisting both de-skilling and the "premium bonus". The strength and vitality of shop culture, based on craft control of the labour process, also survived and modified the Government's vigorous attempt to introduce "scientific management". In brief the article concludes that productive processes do not inevitably determine social relations of production, that capitalism has been neither homogeneous nor uniform, and that mechanization never inevitably results in de-skilling.In recent years historians in various countries have devoted considerable attention to the development of the labour process and the organization of work. These studies have aimed to explore the relation between social structure and the material production process and to ascertain the extent to which workers enjoyed agency in determining how work was done. Some of the empirical studies appeared to point in contradictory directions but a consensus has emerged among labour historians which suggests that the development of large-scale industry destroyed whatever agency the workers had enjoyed. The study of labour process, in short, has increasingly ended in pessimism about the capacity of workers to shape the labour contract on the job and has ignored the possibility that "relations of production will differ markedly from one political and cultural context to the next." 1 Railway Workshops, where locomotives, cars and wagons are ' The quotation is from William Lazonick, Competitive Advantage on the Shop Floor

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The Power of Shop Culture

Olssen¹,

Brecher²

1992

Int Rev of Soc His

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Ontario railways before 1880: a scrap-iron bonanza

McIlwraith¹

2006

PIE

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The construction of the first generation of railways in Ontario, Canada, was undertaken without the benefit of adequate capital investment. The result was cheaply-built track and rolling stock that wore out with unanticipated rapidity. Substantial replacement and design changes became a part of the railroad-building process. The failure -sometimes with catastrophic results -of poor quality iron rails, wheels, boilers and castings of every description yielded a steady flow of scrap iron from before 1860 onward, and estimates its volume form a central aspect of this paper. Railroad scrap peaked in the 1870s as hundreds of miles of new, more durable steel rails replaced iron ones. This surge of scrap iron fed a flourishing foundry business in southern Ontario late in the 19th century, and quite possibly retarded the establishment of Canada's domestic steel industry.

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Measurement, Myth, and Reality: Reflections on the Economic History of Nineteenth-Century Ontario

McCalla

George

1986

Journal of Canadian Studies

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In 1780 Ontario was little more than a military base and fur trade way-station; by 1900 it was an altogether modern industrial economy. In just over a century a new economy was founded, grew substantially in population and output, and developed markedly, as evidenced by structural changes in the economy and rising levels of per capita income. Rather little is known about many dimensions of this economic transition. In this paper the authors discuss some of the major elements in the debate about the nature of Ontarios development, and indicate their priorities in the specification of a research agenda on Ontarios economic history

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Canadian Railways as Manufacturers, 1850‑1880

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

The Power of Shop Culture

The Power of Shop Culture

Ontario railways before 1880: a scrap-iron bonanza

Measurement, Myth, and Reality: Reflections on the Economic History of Nineteenth-Century Ontario

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