Here's an invitation to give me some free knowledge/advise on an issue of genealogy. I've done a bit of desultory inquiry into the particulars about my ancestors though I have to admit that I haven't worked that hard at it.
Anyway, the topic is occupations, particularly labor, particularly skilled labor. Start with my father's family. They were hill-country Yankees from Central New Hampshire, i.e., in and around Newbury. I've more or less assumed they were farmers (what else was there?) though I do remember being told that my father's own father was a shoe worker. And by all accounts, a successful one. It is said that he wore a white shirt to work--same shirt all week different collar each of six days. My father, who had modest white-collar (!) jobs once told me that his father the shoe worker probably earned more money (inflation adjusted) in the 20s than he, my father, earned in the 50s.
Meanwhile my mother's family were Swedish immigrants. Her mother's parents (my great-grandparents) fetched up in Rhode Island a bit before 1870. Rhode Island? An odd place for a Swedish immigrant? The thing I heard when young was "well, we knew people there." But I think I may have a better answer: velvet mills. From what I read, there were indeed mills for the production of velvet in that part of the world. Pressing out into uncharted territory, I gather that the manufacture of velvet was a high-skill occupation. I'm, wondering if it might have been the kind of trade for which the Americans actually recruited--in the sense of "paid the freight of"--European immigrants. Actually, the Swedish GGF died after just a few years, but the family seems to have held onto a modest respectability notwithstanding.
This version puts both my Yankee grandfather and my Swedish great-grandfather in factory jobs where they made pretty good money. I once said "artisan labor," but I don't think that would be right. Not artisans but I gather there were some factory jobs where you needed reasonably skilled factory hands, as distinct from artisans.
Can anyone enlighten me further? I know that most genealogy is fantasy and I know that right now I am spinning threads out of my own gizzard, but I'd be delighted to pin down a more granular account if anybody can offer one.
Anyway, the topic is occupations, particularly labor, particularly skilled labor. Start with my father's family. They were hill-country Yankees from Central New Hampshire, i.e., in and around Newbury. I've more or less assumed they were farmers (what else was there?) though I do remember being told that my father's own father was a shoe worker. And by all accounts, a successful one. It is said that he wore a white shirt to work--same shirt all week different collar each of six days. My father, who had modest white-collar (!) jobs once told me that his father the shoe worker probably earned more money (inflation adjusted) in the 20s than he, my father, earned in the 50s.
Meanwhile my mother's family were Swedish immigrants. Her mother's parents (my great-grandparents) fetched up in Rhode Island a bit before 1870. Rhode Island? An odd place for a Swedish immigrant? The thing I heard when young was "well, we knew people there." But I think I may have a better answer: velvet mills. From what I read, there were indeed mills for the production of velvet in that part of the world. Pressing out into uncharted territory, I gather that the manufacture of velvet was a high-skill occupation. I'm, wondering if it might have been the kind of trade for which the Americans actually recruited--in the sense of "paid the freight of"--European immigrants. Actually, the Swedish GGF died after just a few years, but the family seems to have held onto a modest respectability notwithstanding.
This version puts both my Yankee grandfather and my Swedish great-grandfather in factory jobs where they made pretty good money. I once said "artisan labor," but I don't think that would be right. Not artisans but I gather there were some factory jobs where you needed reasonably skilled factory hands, as distinct from artisans.
Can anyone enlighten me further? I know that most genealogy is fantasy and I know that right now I am spinning threads out of my own gizzard, but I'd be delighted to pin down a more granular account if anybody can offer one.