How did working people find jobs in the past? How has the process
changed over time for various groups of job seekers? Are outcomes
influenced more by general economic circumstances, by discriminatory
practices in the labor market, or by personal initiative and competence?
To tackle these questions, Walter Licht uses intensive primary-source
research--including surveys of thousands of workers conducted in the
decades from the 1920s to the 1950s--on a major industrial city for a
period of over one hundred years. He looks at when and how workers
secured their first jobs, schools and work, apprenticeship programs,
unions, the role of firms in structuring work opportunities, the state
as employer and as shaper of employment conditions, and the problem of
losing work. Licht also examines the disparate labor market experiences
of men and women and the effects of race, ethnicity, age, and social
standing on employment.