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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Apollo in the Forge of Vulcan, by Diego Velázquez, 1630. Museo del Prado, Madrid.

Lost Tools

By Donovan Hohn

A tour of the antique tool trade confirms that they just don’t make things like they used to.

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Map

Cornering the Market

The countries that rule the industries.

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c. 1923 | Paris

Mutual Interest

The courting of Marie Curie.More

c. 30 BC | Lombardy

Work Ethic

Virgil on the relentless efforts of early man.More

1899 | Chicago

Spending Time

Thorstein Veblen considers the nonproductive consumption of time.More

Charts & Graphs

Workplace disasters.

Mistakes Were Made

Workplace disasters.

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American novelist and short story writer Richard Yates.

English author Robert Southey.

Portrait of Chinese Daoist Zhuangzi.

American author Tom Wolfe.

American musician Charles Mingus.

American poet Robert Frost.

Painted portrait of Florentine statesman and philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli.

Black and white photograph of German-language writer Franz Kafka.

Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

—Theodore Roosevelt, 1903

Portrait of Philip Dormer Stanhope wearing a blue sash.

Missing contributor image silhouette

Philip Dormer Stanhope & Louis C.K.

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