HIST 407/507
European Artisans
Fall Term 2006
Introduction
This seminar is concerned with the historical experience of artisans in Europe , from the Middle Ages through the end of the nineteenth century. By “artisans” are meant manual workers who labored with their hands, largely in urban contexts and originally with materials, techniques and skills, learned through apprenticeship, that were regulated by custom and, very often as well, by law. Excluded from consideration in this seminar are workers in agriculture (normally called “peasants”), and wage-earning workers in factories or mines. Thus the “artisans” studied in this seminar were handicraft workers with a strong sense of their craft or “trade.”
The seminar addresses a variety of features of artisan experience, including family, culture, and community as well as work. It does so in two very broad topical or context areas. These are (1) pre-industrial urban artisans organized in guilds, confraternities and independent associations (eg journeymen brotherhoods) and (2) “radical artisans” of the modern era. The seminar sessions and common readings are divided more or less equally between these two broad topical areas. In addition, for each topical area (1) and (2), two kinds of common readings are given. One set of readings addresses social, institutional and political history of artisans of several European countries considered thematically. For pre-industrial urban artisans, the book James R. Farr, Artisans in Europe, 1300-1914 provides this overview; for radical artisans, the book Iorwerth Prothero, Radical artisans in England and France , 1830-1870 does the same. The second kind of reading concerns individual life stories of artisans. For the pre-industrial period, the book Paul S. Seaver Wallington's World is the life story of an artisan of London , during the period of the Protestant Reformation, and its focus is on the religious beliefs and practices of this artisan as well as on other aspects of his life story and experience: family, work, community, etc. For the “radical artisan” period, The French Worker , ed. Mark Traugott, a collection of autobiographical selections authored by French artisans, provides multiple windows on experience told as first-person narrative. Thus the intention of the common readings for the seminar is to provide at once an overview/introduction to the main themes of artisan history under the two rubrics mentioned above, and some encounter with primary sources for observing and reflecting upon artisan experience.
Method of the Course
The course meets in one session each week (Wednesday, 15:00 – 17:50). The readings assigned for that session will be discussed by seminar participants. This discussion will normally be preceded by open-ended reflection upon a specific theme or topic of the readings by one participant. Each participant will take a turn in doing this. This presentation will be the first of two “oral reports” required of each student in the seminar for the term. Another part of the seminar session will be devoted to one of the following: (1) guest presentations or visits to materials collections relating to artisan history or craft; (2) individual presentations by students on their research paper topics, based on at least one of the books the student will use in the paper. For each student this presentation will be the second of two required “oral reports.” Organization and scheduling of the two oral reports will be done in the first two sessions of the course.
As a aid to reflecting upon the readings of each week and for the purpose of assessing ongoing student performance in doing these readings, each student will keep a personal journal or log of notes and thoughts about those readings. In the journal entry, the student may develop any topic or topics she or he wishes on the readings. The journal in this sense is “personal” in terms of the approach taken, as long as the entries provide evidence of doing the reading each week. The journal will be brought to class and used to contribute to the common discussion in the seminar session. The journal will also be evaluated at mid-term and at the end of the term, as evidence of the student's personal investment in reading the assigned course material.
The main individual project of each student for the term is the design, research and writing of the seminar research paper. Details of the paper are described below. The paper will be developed in separate stages. Each stage is required and completion of each by the specified due date is expected. No paper submitted without completion of each stage will be accepted.
The major assignment of the seminar is the completion of a research paper of approximately 2500 to 3500 words (10-15 pages). The topic of the paper may address any topic, any period, of any European country or region, relevant to the broad theme of the course: European artisans. The number and nature of sources used for the paper will vary depending on the topic and the sources used. A minimum for all papers is the use of at least two book-length scholarly studies from which an extensive share of the paper is drawn (for knowledge of the topic, thesis or argument of the paper, background to the topic). In addition, other sources are required – historical documents or other original sources, articles in scholarly journals, visual materials, other books or chapters in books. The number of these depends on the topic and sources. For instance, a paper planning to make significant use of documents or other original text materials (including autobiographies), or of materials in foreign languages, may involve either a smaller number of additional sources or fewer pages of the latter. Both topic of the research paper and the sources used for it require the instructor's approval. For this purpose the statement of the topic and the gathering of sources constitute essential stages in the process of developing the paper, by each due date as specified below.
Bibliographies pertaining to various aspects of the history of European artisans will be distributed to assist in the development of a topic and identification of relevant sources. In addition, bibliographical references in James R. Farr, Artisans in Europe, 1300-1914 and Iorwerth Prothero, Radical artisans in England and France , 1830-1870 provide further sources for this purpose. All of these are guides and do not exhaust available materials on possible topics. In fact, all students should plan to invest extensive time, in the first few weeks of the course, exploring on their own collections in two libraries on campus – Knight main library, and the AAA library in Lawrence Hall -- to identify topics and sources of possible interest for their course paper.
HIST 407/507 European Artisans
CRN 14386/14402
W 15:00-17:50
373 McKenzie
Weekly Readings
References :
Artisans in Europe : James R. Farr, Artisans in Europe , 1300-1914
Radical Artisans : Iorwerth Prothero, Radical artisans in England and France , 1830-1870
The French Worker: Mark Traugott, The French Worker: Autobiographies from the Early Industrial Era
Wallington's World : Paul S. Seaver, Wallington's World: A Puritan Artisan in Seventeenth-Century London
Sept. 27 Introduction to Topic and Course, Tour of Libraries (Knight Main, AAA)
Oct. 4 What Is an Artisan?
Artisans in Europe : Introduction, The Meaning of Work, The Craft Economy (intro, chs 1-2 pp. 1-94)
Paul Greenhalgh, “The history of craft” in Peter Dormer ed., The Culture of Craft: Status and Future , ch. 2 [ electronic reserve ]
Oct. 11 Artisan Work and Life in Pre-Industrial Economies
Artisans in Europe : The Workplace (ch. 3, pp.95-158)
Wallington's World : chs. 1-3
Oct. 18 Guilds, Family and Pre-Industrial Association
Artisans in Europe : Authority and Resistance I and II (chs. 4-5, pp. 159-221)
Wallington's World : chs. 4-5
Oct. 25 Confraternity and Culture
Artisans in Europe : Communities, Festivities (chs. 6-7, pp. 222-275)
Wallington's World : chs. 6-7
Nov. 1 Radical Artisans
Artisans in Europe : Epilogue ch. 8
Radical Artisans : Introduction, Radicalisms, Trade Unionism, (Intro, chs 1-3, pp. 1-93)
The French Worker : Jacques Etienne Bedé
Nov. 8 Radical Artisans and Social Ideologies
Radical Artisans : Work and Radicalism, Socialism, Co-operation (chs. 4-6, pp. 94-174)
The French Worker : Suzanne Voilquin, “Memories of a Daughter of the People,” in Claire Goldberg Moses and Leslie Wahl Rabine, eds. Feminism, Socialism and French Romanticism [ electronic reserve for HIST 336 ]
Nov. 15 Radical Artisans and Class
Radical Artisans : Class and radicalism, Political action and organization (chs. 7-8, pp. 175-229)
The French Worker : Martin Nadaud
Nov. 22 Radical Artisans and Culture (1)
Radical Artisans : Education and civilization, the culture of radical clubs (chs. 9,11 pp. 230-245, 281-312)
The French Worker : Agricole Perdiguier
Nov. 29 Radical Artisans and Culture (2)
Radical Artisans : Religions and philosophy (ch. 10, pp. 246-280)
The French Worker : Norbert Truquin, Jeanne Bouvier