The North Carolina Railroad, 1849–1871, and the Modernization of North Carolina by Allen W. Trelease

Abstract

378 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE craftsmen made to improve productive efficiencies, such as the use of sewing machines and other human-powered machinery. But he says relatively little about evolutions in the labor processes of craft shops. Craftsmen competing with factory producers were no doubt driven to such efficiency measures as piecework, labor subdivision, and hiring semiskilled men. If so, the workforce skill that we (and Winpenny) ascribe to craftsmanship was both narrowed and diluted to the point at which a craft designation for such work is suspect. Although such measures are noted at isolated points, we never learn the full criteria by which Winpenny excluded such specialized or semiskilled workers from his tables of the crafting population. Many readers will wish the study had more economic analysis on how craftsmen survived in competition with larger manufacturers, and others will wonder how representative Lancaster’s experience was. Winpenny’s book is a revisionist’s account of an important topic, and, like many such works, it is better at raising questions than answering them. John K. Brown Mr. Brown is a doctoral candidate in American history and the history of technology at the University of Virginia. He is completing a dissertation on the history of the Baldwin Locomotive Works. The North Carolina Railroad, 1849—1871, and the Modernization ofNorth Carolina. By Allen W. Trelease. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. Pp. xvi + 486; illustrations, tables, notes, bibliography, index. $37.50. This book relates the history of a 200-mile railroad running east and west across North Carolina between Goldsboro and Greensboro. It was built largely with state money because most investors wisely assumed it would not likely prove profitable in the traffic-poor antebellum South. In time, such pessimistic opinions were disproved and the railroad was leased to the Richmond & Danville, a predeces­ sor of the present-day Norfolk Southern Railway. The author presents a competent and readable corporate history that goes beyond what we might expect from such a regional study. Traditional corporate histories tend to dwell on finance and construc­ tion and then drift off into high-level management strategies or merger entanglements. Allen Trelease has chosen instead to devote much of his text to matters of traffic, operations, and the workaday life of the employees. This is the strength of the study, in my opinion, and one I hope others will follow. A fine set of tables following the text offers an informative statistical view of the North Carolina Railroad. John H. White, Jr. Mr. White is senior historian at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. ...