Minding the Machine: Languages of Class in Early Industrial America (review)

The role of class in American history perhaps has been the most continuous debate among American historians in the past century. After Charles Beard claimed that economic motivations were the primary forces in the minds of the drafters of the U.S. Constitution, historians have argued over whether class existed and, if it did, how prominent a part it played.

Those who have downplayed the role of class have tended to see the United States as a society where the middle class predominated almost from its beginnings. Thus America had no Revolution of 1848, no labor party with a realistic chance of winning national elections, no harsh divisions dividing society. Even in Congress today, opponents of tax bills that might seem to benefit one sector of society are excoriated for attempting to initiate or re-initiate class warfare in America.

Stepping into this debate, Stephen P. Rice attempts to analyze the debate in America over class prior to the Civil War, a time when, while most production remained hand production, machines were being introduced into many smaller shops, and factories for textiles, and then sewing machines and printing presses, were becoming more and more common. This in part triggered heated class rhetoric among labor radicals such as Thomas Skidmore and George Evans, as well as citywide strikes and the appearance in 1829 of a Workingman's Party. To counter ideas proposing redistribution of property or dispersal of free land to all workers, a rising yet small middle class emerged, made up of small manufacturers, foremen, editors, clerks, and others, who more and more did "head" work rather than labor with their hands. To alleviate class tension, the middle classes offered ideas that would provide harmony in the workplace.

Rice begins with a discussion of the ideas that the onset of mechanization and factories brought to America, regarding whether machines would reduce workers to slaves of the machine or free them from drudgery. The middle-class response emphasized that regardless of the extent of mechanization, humans would be needed to oversee the machinery. The order that mechanization created might bring order and discipline into the lives of the working class.

Rice next discusses the rise of the mechanic institutes that sprung up throughout the country, with their accompanying journals, classes, lecture series, and apprentices' libraries. Behind these institutes was the concept of a harmonious relation between head and hand, between workers and managers. The idea was that once workers better apprehended the operations and laws of physics behind the machines on which they worked, they would defer to those who best understood the complex mechanization. To some extent this represented a shift of emphasis to moral training and obedience in order that members of the working class would better fit into their assigned places in society.

A further development was the Manual School Labor Movement, which emphasized physical as well as mental health. This was aimed as much at the middle class as at the working classes. Stating the need for both mental and physical work and the harmony between both, this new emphasis on physical training, exercise, and overall care of the body would reduce the distinction between rich and poor in society. Both were needed, and all classes needed work for both their heads and their hands. A number of schools were begun, most notably Oberlin College, where students would spend some of their time at work, emerging as well-rounded graduates to become respected managers.

Similar to this campaign was the movement for physical education throughout the nation that was made most famous by noted figures such as Sylvester Graham, known for his vegetarian diet and emphasis on sexual moderation, and Catherine Beecher, the teacher of teachers and giver of advice to Americans, who also warned of the dangers of sedentary urban living. The overall emphasis of this widespread movement was that the human must always control the...