Torry D. Dickinson
Published: 1995
Total Pages: 256
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This historical and sociological book makes the argument that, for about 90 years following the rise of steam-powered industry in the United States, low-to moderate-income households continued to rely on extensive informal, non-waged work to supplement low wages. As households became more dependent on wages earned by higher-paid adult males and on the consumption of market goods, informal work and local markets organized by working people began to decline. Dickinson documents this process of transformation through archival research, as well as by reviewing secondary materials. The consequences of the long-term transformation of work are examined in relation to contemporary social identity movements and policy choices. Using historical analysis, CommonWealth also shows how the gender hierarchy was transformed; it demonstrates how the "postmodernist" and post-structuralist gender categories came onto the historical stage in an urban-industrial region. Social change is looked at through informal relations and networks that center around non-waged or informal work, institutions and structures as they relate to wage labor and the state, and social change efforts initiated at the grassroots and "state" or policy levels.
