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. Photograph by Jack Delano, 1942. 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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1621 | Oxford

The Devil’s Tools

“As fern grows in untilled grounds...so do gross humors in an idle body.”More

1903 | New York City

Grinding the Axe

For Mark Twain, everyone is a beggar in their own way.More

2010 | Los Angeles

Quality Control

A guide to being naturally beautiful at work.More

Charts & Graphs

Workplace disasters.

Mistakes Were Made

Workplace disasters.

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Black and white image of Greek biographer and writer Plutarch.

Black and white image of American writer Herman Melville.

Color image of English novelist Charlotte Brontë with book in hand.

British author Mary Shelley.

American novelist and short story writer Richard Yates.

Image of Japanese poet and essayist Yoshida Kenko.

Portrait of West African writer and former slave Olaudah Equiano.

God sells us all things at the price of labor.

—Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1500

Mencius & John Ruskin

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