Patterns of Labour: Work and Social Change in the Pottery Industry by Richard Whipp

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 611 Patterns of Labour: Work and Social Change in the Pottery Industry. By Richard Whipp. New York: Routledge, Chapman & Hall, 1990. Pp. x + 248; notes, glossary, bibliography, index. $65.00. Richard Whipp’s history of the British pottery industry between 1890 and 1930 does more than dispel myths promulgated by the Six Towns’ greatest publicist, novelist Arnold Bennett. Patterns of Labour also challenges the assertions of many prominent scholars of indus­ trialization, from Harry Braverman to Eric Hobsbawm. By combining the study of labor and capital with that of community and gender, Whipp demonstrates that “The Potteries” region of North Stafford­ shire was not a backward manufacturing center, replete with the unimaginative managers and docile workers described by Bennett, but a community with a richly textured industrial heritage. Whipp takes a small, highly concentrated industry and tackles big questions in industrial history. The example of The Potteries provides an instructive counterpoint to the managerial revolution thesis. Whipp argues that several related factors, and not simply the rise of professional experts, shaped North Staffordshire and reshaped each other at the turn of the century: the desire of owners and workers to preserve tradition, workplace relations, community and union activ­ ities, technology, and industry structure. Whipp’s challenge to the organizational synthesis is based on his analysis of the “grid” of work, family, and community. This holistic approach also enables him to posit alternatives to several well-established theses about the working class, unionization, and the family. Readers of Technology and Culture may be disappointed to find that technology takes a back seat in this Staffordshire tale. Whipp’s decision to downplay technical change was deliberate, because The Potteries during this period, much as they have been until recent times, were an industry characterized by extreme division of labor and skill hierarchy rather than mechanization. Whipp acknowledges, however, that technology was one of several factors that shaped and reshaped skill and, in turn, indirectly influenced union organization. Whipp’s consideration of skill illuminates the value of multidimen­ sional analysis to industrial history. He takes on the universal deskill­ ing paradigm pioneered by Braverman, Hobsbawm, and David Landes. He argues that in the potbank, the importance of handwork was often enhanced, rather than eroded, in the early 20th century. Throughout the 1800s, factory owners encouraged employees to perpetuate shop customs, hoping to ensure the trust and cooperation necessary for meeting production quotas under flexible specialization. In turn, male craftsmen in various departments held on to tradition to retain workplace autonomy, using a subcontracting system in which they employed kin as assistants. A vicious cycle evolved as owners used family-dominated subcontracting to justify low individual wages and 612 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE entire households entered the work force to earn a family wage. By the early 20th century, the persistenceofthe family wage, high male mortality rates, and limited femalejob opportunities outside the potbanks altered the nature of work, the work force, and collective bargaining in the Six Towns. More and more women entered the potteries and, in tandem, owners introduced improved pyrometric, clay-working, and decorating technologies. Rather than accept paternalism or retreat into privatized homes, male and female potters battled disempowerment through in­ formal workplace allegiances and through formal occupational and in­ dustry groups that took the form of neighborhood-based craft unions. Through these unions, potters redefined old skills, created new skills, and negotiated with owners to acknowledge the value of their dexterity and judgment well into the interwar period. Whipp’s understanding of the process whereby skill is redefined rather than destroyed depends much on his willingness to challenge not only established theses but research methods. Whereas many new social bistorians downplay the importance of institutions, Whipp combines the study of organizations with work and family. Through his extensive use of newspapers, parliamentary publications, and trade union papers, he traces the diffusion of knowledge in multiple settings: home, community, factory, and union. Despite these strengths, Whipp’s study is weak in several areas: his consideration of product diversity, his discussion of labor aristocracy, his comparison of the English and U.S. industries, and his assertion that The Potteries are a microcosm of British industry all...