Taylor on Mulligan, _The Shoemakers of Lynn, Massachusetts, 1850-1880: The Family during the Transition from Hand to Machine Labor_

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Published by EH.NET (August 2007)

William H. Mulligan, Jr., _The Shoemakers of Lynn, Massachusetts, 
1850-1880: The Family during the Transition from Hand to Machine 
Labor_. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2006. vii + 156 pp. $100 
(cloth), ISBN: 0-7734-5586-8.

Reviewed for EH.NET by Christiane Diehl Taylor, Department of 
History, Eastern Kentucky University.


With the shoemaking families of Lynn, Massachusetts serving as his 
sample, William H. Mulligan Jr., Professor of History at Murray State 
University in Kentucky, examines the effects of rapid mechanization 
on the family lives of skilled American workers in regard to 
household and family size, fertility, and the family's role in skill 
transmission. Although he raises a number of interesting 
observations, his conclusions tend to reinforce rather than add to 
historians' understanding of industrialization's effects on families.

Mulligan begins by tracing the development of the Lynn shoe industry 
prior to 1850. Drawing upon 1970s sources dealing with early 
industrialization and the New England shoe industry, including the 
work of Mary Blewett, Alan Dawley, Tamara Hareven, and Stuart Blumin, 
he characterizes shoe production as pre-industrial in that it was a 
putting out system in which the families of cordwainers toiled in 
ten-footers located near their homes, with female family members 
serving as binders and male members as jours, i.e. those who made the 
soles for shoes and then attached shoe uppers to the soles. These 
families worked for independent contractors who supplied the 
materials and sold the finished product. Although Mulligan aptly 
notes that the barriers to becoming a contractor remained relatively 
low in that entry required only enough capital to pay for raw 
materials and having an ample supply of market contacts, larger 
contractors dominated Lynn shoe production. In making his claim 
regarding larger contractors and his argument that female employment 
was more prevalent in Lynn than in other New England shoe production 
areas, Mulligan relies on the 1832 McLane Report of U.S. 
Manufactures, which includes only sixty-one Lynn shoe firms. 
Therefore, the conclusions that he can draw from such a sample are 
directional rather than definitive in nature. He also does not 
explain why Lynn employed more females.

The issue of sample size also affects the conclusions that Mulligan 
can draw from his demographic analysis of Lynn families in 1850. 
Based on manuscript census data, he argues that households were as 
likely to be comprised of nuclear families as they were families 
augmented with servants or boarders and lodgers, who were often 
related to the resident family. Among cordwainers, boarders and 
lodgers were more evident when either female or offspring employment 
were absent, namely during initial childbearing years and later in 
life when children had established their own households. Females in 
cordwainer households had fewer children and had them in a 
significantly shorter time-span than other families in similar 
economic circumstances. This was because these women worked as 
binders and therefore limited the number of years in which 
child-bearing and -rearing demands prevented their employment. 
Although Mulligan uses a total sample of 1,500 individuals, much of 
his analysis is based on 238 households, which he breaks down even 
further by household type (nuclear, extended, etc.), age cohort, and 
profession and then cross-tabulates. The resulting data sets are 
small and make his conclusions statistically directional at best. The 
lack of income data also makes it impossible to compare the economic 
circumstances of Lynn households with any degree of certainty. The 
presence of additional income sources within an unskilled household 
could offset the income differential between skilled and unskilled 
household heads.

Prior to carrying out a similar demographic analysis of Lynn families 
and households in 1880, Mulligan draws upon technological and company 
histories and _The Dictionary of American Biography_ to summarize the 
mechanization of shoemaking. While machinery was used to prepare the 
materials used in shoemaking prior to 1850, the mechanization of shoe 
production began with the introduction of sewing machines during 
1850s and was not complete until 1890. Mulligan raises two key but 
already familiar observations during this discussion. The successful 
mechanization of the shoe industry required a convergence of factors, 
namely an increase in demand, technological improvements, and a means 
to facilitate technological adoption. In the case of the shoe 
industry, McKay Associates, which developed critical pieces of 
machinery for the industry, leased their equipment, serviced it, and 
trained the operatives, all for very reasonable fees. Thereby McKay 
reduced the capital investment and risk for shoe manufacturers.

For his examination of the effects of mechanization on family and 
household size and fertility, Mulligan employs the 1880 census and 
concludes that former cordwainer families now resembled their 
unskilled counterparts in terms of fertility and family and household 
size. In very few instances does he make comparisons between 1880 and 
1850 data. Although job classifications had changed by 1880, he does 
not aggregate his classifications so that direct comparisons are 
possible. Moreover, he classifies households and families differently 
than in 1850, thereby further hindering direct comparison. Once 
again, given the small size of the groups comprising his 
cross-tabulations, his conclusions are statistically directional at 
best. Because there is no income data or other evidence of economic 
status in 1880 presented, it is problematic to attribute such 
demographic changes solely to women's unemployment and the resultant 
need for other family and household members to contribute to 
household income. Mulligan does use the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor 
Statistics from 1875 to discuss the cost of living of thirty-six Lynn 
shoemaking families and concludes that single wage earner families 
could not meet cost of living expenses and that only in families in 
which children were employed did income exceed living costs. Neither 
is this new information nor does it compensate for the lack of 1880 
income data

Mulligan concludes by discussing how mechanization affected familial 
transmission of job skills. Employing such primary sources as the 
_Vital Records of Lynn, Massachusetts_, the _Register of the Lynn 
Historical Society_, census records, firm correspondence, and 
diaries, he notes that while children still followed their elders 
into the shoemaking trade, assuring acquisition of the necessary job 
skills fell to the factory rather than the family. Families now 
served as the informational sources for job and housing 
opportunities. Once again, while important observations, they echo 
previous scholarship.

Such reiteration and lack of statistical rigor erode the value of 
Mulligan's study. Moreover in his final chapter, he notes that 
mechanization did not alter the structure of families in any 
significant way. Given his focus, this statement should spur the 
reader to ask: given its price of nearly $100, just how much does 
this volume truly enhance my understanding of family life during 
industrialization?


Christiane Diehl Taylor's research interests center on social 
capital. She is currently completing a history of corporate wives in 
the twentieth century.

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