Coercion, Contract, and Free Labor in the Nineteenth CenturyThis book presents a fundamental reassessment of the nature of wage labor in the nineteenth century, focusing on the common use of penal sanctions in England to enforce wage labor agreements. Professor Steinfeld argues that wage workers were not employees at will but were often bound to their employment by enforceable labor agreements, which employers used whenever available to manage their labor costs and supply. In the northern United States, where employers normally could not use penal sanctions, the common law made other contract remedies available, also placing employers in a position to enforce labor agreements. Modern free wage labor only came into being late in the nineteenth century, as a result of reform legislation that restricted the contract remedies employers could legally use. |
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Contents
Acknowledgments | |
Free Wage Labor in the History of the West | 1 |
AMERICAN CONTRACT LABOR AND ENGLISH WAGE LABOR THE USES OF PECUNIARY AND NONPECUNIARY PRESSURE | 27 |
Free Contract Labor in the United States An Antiessentialist View of Labor Types I | 29 |
Unfree Wage Labor in NineteenthCentury England An Antiessentialist View of Labor Types II | 39 |
Explaining the Legal Content of English Wage Labor | 85 |
Struggles over the Rules The Common Law Courts Parliament the People and the Master and Servant Acts | 102 |
Struggles under the Rules Strategic Behavior and Historical Change in Legal Context | 167 |
Other editions - View all
Coercion, Contract, and Free Labor in the Nineteenth Century Robert J. Steinfeld Limited preview - 2001 |
Coercion, Contract, and Free Labor in the Nineteenth Century Robert J. Steinfeld No preview available - 2001 |
Common terms and phrases
Amendment American argued artificer bill Black Country breach of contract coal coerced coercion colliers Committee on Master common law contract breaches contract enforcement contract labor contract remedies conviction costs criminal sanctions damages decision economic Elcho emphasis added employ employers employment enforce labor agreements England free labor free wage labor freedom of contract hired house of correction Ibid imprisonment indenture involuntary servitude Justice kinds labor contracts labor markets legislation long contracts Lord magistrates Master and Servant ment miners minute contracts monthly contracts months nineteenth century notice obligation Parliament party pecuniary penal sanctions period person plaintiff ployer promise prosecutions punishment Queen's Bench reform repeal rules sanctions for contract Select Committee Servant acts serve slavery specific performance statute term Testimony tion tract Trade Unionism unfree unfree labor wage forfeiture wage labor wage setting wage workers Webb William Dronfield workman XIII:Q