Document Type
Working Paper
Publication Date
11-2000
Publisher
Boston University School of Law
Language
en-US
Abstract
Were ordinary factory workers unskilled and was technology "de-skilling" during the Industrial Revolution? I measure foregone output to estimate the human capital investments in mule spinners and power loom tenders in ante-bellum Lowell. These investments rivaled those of craft apprentices, suggesting a different view of industrial technology. Accounting for skill, multi-factor productivity growth was negligible, contrary to previous findings. From 1834-55, firms made increasing investments in skill, allowing workers to tend more machines and generating rapid growth of per-capita output. This growing investment was motivated partly by changing factor prices and more by a changing labor supply. Calculations show that firm policy and social conditions, including literacy, influenced the investment in factory skills. When skills are considered, technological change at Lowell appears as a broad social process, dependent as much on innovation in institutions as on invention of machines.
Recommended Citation
James Bessen,
The Skills of the Unskilled in the American Industrial Revolution
(2000).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/3326
