A young worker at the C & NW RR 40th Street shops, Chicago, Ill, photograph by Jack Delano, 1942. Library of Congress.

A young worker at the C & NW RR 40th Street shops, Chicago, Illinois, 1942. Photograph by Jack Delano. Library of Congress.

Lines of Work

Volume IV, Number 2 | spring 2011

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Women become skilled shop technicians after careful training in the school at the Douglas Aircraft Company plant, Long Beach, CA, photograph by Alfred T. Palmer, 1942. Library of Congress.

Preamble

The Servant Problem

By Lewis H. Lapham

It is man’s nature to be doing something, or at least to fancy that he’s doing something, but to what purpose?

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Idle Hours, by Julian Alden Weir, 1888. The Metropolitian Museum of Art. Gift of Several Gentlemen, 1888

The Mother of Possibility

By Sven Birkerts

Idleness is what happens when we thwart the impulse to plan forward, and instead enjoy the present.

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Map

Cornering the Market

The countries that rule the industries.

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1976 | Pagsanjan

Set Decoration

Behind the scenes of a filmmaker’s apocalypse.More

c. 1923 | Paris

Mutual Interest

The courting of Marie Curie.More

c. 1330 | Kyoto

Cost-Benefit Analysis

Yoshida Kenkō on getting one’s priorities in order.More

Charts & Graphs

Time Management

Daily work schedules.

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Engraving of Pliny the Elder.

Photo of stone Aristotle statue face

Ukrainian-born Russian novelist Nikolai Gogol.

Portrait bust of presumed author of the Iliad and the Odyssey Homer.

Engraving of Scottish economist Adam Smith.

Seated man with a large white beard wearing a dark suit

Lewis Lapham at his desk

American feminist, activist, and editor Gloria Steinem.

God sells us all things at the price of labor.

—Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1500

Color painting early Chinese philosopher Mengzi.

Black and white photograph of a young John Ruskin wearing a suit.

Mencius & John Ruskin

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