American Artisans: Crafting Society Identity, 1750-1850 (Cambridge St.in Int'l Relations; 42)

Given the fundamental changes that transformed American society in the years between Benjamin Franklin's apprenticeship in a printer's shop and mid-19th-century efforts to organize labouring men and women, no social group offers a more interesting spectacle than skilled tradesmen or artisans. They came from various ethnic backgrounds (some worked in slavery), took their religion and politics seriously, lived mostly in cities but also in the countryside, and in many cases became pillars of their communities.