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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A Talent for Sloth

By Philip Connors

Ten years as a lookout on a fire tower requires a particular aptitude for idleness.

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Map

Cornering the Market

The countries that rule the industries.

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1776 | London

Divide and Conquer

Adam Smith’s parable of the pin maker.More

c. 1548 | Geneva

Assigned Positions

John Calvin explains how to find your vocation.More

c. 335 BC | Henan

Skilled Labor

A Chinese butcher masters his craft.More

Charts & Graphs

Sexual harassment in the workplace.

Cruel and/or Unusual

Sexual harassment in the workplace.

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British writer Bernard Mandeville.

Professor of critical theory and cultural history Ben Kafka.

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

Image of Japanese poet and essayist Yoshida Kenko.

Engraving of Scottish economist Adam Smith.

Painting of François Rabelais.

French art historian and member of the French Resistance Agnès Humbert.

French author Émile Zola.

God sells us all things at the price of labor.

—Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1500

Martin Luther & Bertrand Russell

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