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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1992 | Chicago

Always Be Closing

David Mamet’s death of a real estate salesman.More

1839 | Stonegappe

Hands Full

Charlotte Brontë overworked and overwhelmed.More

1899 | Chicago

Spending Time

Thorstein Veblen considers the nonproductive consumption of time.More

Charts & Graphs

The Worst Jobs in the World

A matrix of unsavory employment.

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American poet Theodore Roethke.

Black and white image of English scholar, writer, and clergyman Robert Burton.

Photograph of African-American poet and writer Langston Hughes.

Black and white photograph of English poet and librarian Philip Larkin.

Professor of critical theory and cultural history Ben Kafka.

Chinese-American journalist Leslie T. Chang.

Roman playwright Terence.

Photograph of Thorstein Veblen

It is shameful and inhuman to treat men like chattels to make money by, or to regard them merely as so much muscle or physical power.

—Pope Leo XIII, 1891

Mencius & John Ruskin

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Lapham’sDaily

Apollo and Marsyas and the Judgment of Midas, by Melchior Meier, 1581. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of Phyllis Massar, 2011.

Roundtable

The Living Envelope

By Pablo Maurette

The fascination with skin—and its removal. More

DÉjÀ Vu

Stolen Water Is Sweet

2019:

Thieves steal water from Canadian icebergs.

c. 96:

Rome steels itself for the possibility of “puncturers.”

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The World in Time

Alan Rusbridger

Lewis H. Lapham talks with Alan Rusbridger, author of Breaking News: The Remaking of Journalism and Why It Matters Now. More

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