Joshua L. Rosenbloom – författare

The dynamic character of American industrialization produced imbalances between the supply of and demand for labor across cities and regions. This book describes how employers and job-seekers responded to these imbalances to create networks of labor market communication and assistance capable of mobilizing the massive redistribution of population that was essential to maintain the rapid pace of the nation's economic growth between the Civil War and World War I. It combines a detailed description of the emerging labor market institutions with a careful analysis of a variety of quantitative evidence to assess the broader economic implications for geographic wage convergence and for American economic growth. Despite an expansion in the geographic scope of labor markets at this time, the evidence suggests that labor market institutions reinforced regional divisions within the United States and left a lasting impact on the evolution of many other aspects of the employment relationship.

The dynamic character of American industrialization produced imbalances between the supply of and demand for labor across cities and regions. This book describes how employers and job-seekers responded to these imbalances to create networks of labor market communication and assistance capable of mobilizing the massive redistribution of population that was essential to maintain the rapid pace of the nation's economic growth between the Civil War and World War I. It combines a detailed description of the emerging labor market institutions with a careful analysis of a variety of quantitative evidence to assess the broader economic implications for geographic wage convergence and for American economic growth. Despite an expansion in the geographic scope of labor markets at this time, the evidence suggests that labor market institutions reinforced regional divisions within the United States and left a lasting impact on the evolution of many other aspects of the employment relationship.

This book challenges the static, ahistorical models on which Economics continues to rely. These models presume that markets operate on a "frictionless" plane where abstract forces play out independent of their institutional and spatial contexts, and of the influences of the past. In reality, at any point in time exogenous factors are themselves outcomes of complex historical processes. They are shaped by institutional and spatial contexts, which are "carriers of history," including past economic dynamics and market outcomes.To examine the connections between gradual, evolutionary change and more dramatic, revolutionary shifts the text takes on a wide array of historically salient economic questions—ranging from how formative, European encounters reconfigured the political economies of indigenous populations in Africa, the Americas, and Australia to how the rise and fall of the New Deal order reconfigured labor market institutions and outcomes in the twentieth century United States. These explorations are joined by a common focus on formative institutions, spatial structures, and market processes. Through historically informed economic analyses, contributors recognize the myriad interdependencies among these three frames, as well as their distinct logics and temporal rhythms.

The essays in this book use the analytical tools and theoretical framework of economics to interpret quantitative historical evidence, offering new ways to approach historical issues and suggesting entirely new types of evidence outside conventional archives. Rosenbloom has gathered together seven essays from leading quantitative economic historians, illustrating the breadth of scope and continued importance of quantitative economic history. All of the chapters explore in one way or another the economic and social transformations associated with the emergence of an industrial and post-industrial economy, with most focusing on the transformations of the US economy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the technological innovations that factored into this transformation and the relationship between industrialization and rising wealth inequality.

This book sheds new light on one of the most debated questions in economic history: Why did Britain lead the way in the First Industrial Revolution? It does so by examining Britain’s technological breakthroughs, especially steam power, in a global comparative context.From the early modern period to the beginning of the 20th century, the book explores how Britain pioneered the first general-purpose technology of the modern era and how it spread to five other economies: Italy, the Dutch Republic, China, the United States, and Belgium.Using various methodological approaches, the authors trace delays and distinctive national trajectories in adopting British innovations. The result is a nuanced picture of technological invention, energy transitions, and the institutional factors that shaped industrialization across regions. This book will appeal to scholars, researchers, and students interested in the little and Great Divergence debates, technological change, and the global history of industrialization.