Colonial Apprenticeship | Popular Woodworking Magazine

A short historical past of a not-so-romantic woodworking schooling system.

Ever because the renewal of curiosity in woodworking within the 1970s, particularly amongst amateurs and small-shop professionals, there was discuss of reestablishing an apprenticeship program much like what existed a whole bunch of years in the past. But what was that apprenticeship system like?

To describe it I’m going to go a bit of off my normal subject of ending, as a result of outlets earlier than the American Revolution have been small, and ending was too easy and too small part of the job to have spawned a specialised “finisher” craft. Those who did the ending have been the woodworkers themselves ,who have been often divided into specialised classes: cabinetmakers, chairmakers, joiners, clockmakers, turners, and many others.

And these woodworkers have been part of the bigger artisan/mechanic class (artisans have been sometimes called “mechanics” on the time), which included all expert craftsmen, from tailors and shoemakers to silversmiths. So any dialogue of finisher apprenticeship is known as a dialogue of craft apprenticeship typically.

The English Guilds

Beginning within the Middle Ages in Europe, every craft organized itself into its personal guild composed of masters and journeymen to guard the pursuits of the members. By controlling the variety of apprentices admitted and the schooling requirements – for instance, the requirement to supply a “masterpiece” on the finish of the coaching – guilds have been closed labor markets that have been in a position to hold wages and requirements excessive.

Apprenticeships served a a lot bigger function, nevertheless, than simply job coaching the place the particular abilities (“art”) and particular data (“mystery”) have been handed down from one technology to the following.

Boys (they have been virtually at all times boys) have been simply 12 to 14 years previous after they have been apprenticed to a grasp craftsman. So an apprenticeship was additionally meant to instill a correct ethical improvement overseen by the socially accredited grasp and was a method of management over potential socially disruptive youngsters.

Not each boy grew to become an apprentice, in fact. Farmers’ sons often grew to become farmers. Sons of the rich leisure class have been often educated to affix that class. Many boys grew as much as be a part of the rising service provider class. And many boys from poor households grew as much as do handbook labor, be a part of the army, change into servants, and even change into beggars.

There was a hierarchy among the many crafts, decided partly by the craft’s incomes energy and partly by what it value to arrange as a grasp. For instance, having accomplished an apprenticeship as a tailor, all an individual wanted to begin a enterprise was needle and thread, and a tape measure.

In distinction, a cabinetmaker required a big array of instruments, so it was uncommon {that a} graduating apprentice might afford to arrange a store. Almost at all times, he needed to work a few years as a journeyman to save lots of up the funds.

The time period “journeyman” derives from the necessity of the graduated apprentice to journey to wherever he might get one of the best wages.

Colonial America

Colonial America was made up of English colonies, in fact, so the legal guidelines and traditions of England utilized right here as nicely. But although the apprenticeship path to studying a craft and growing correct ethical requirements flourished, particularly within the Northern colonies, guilds by no means took maintain.

The causes have been a scarcity of expert labor, free land to the west, huge distances, and a poorly developed authorized system. Whereas in England it was uncommon for an apprentice to run away from a grasp earlier than he had realized the craft (he would by no means discover employment elsewhere), it was not unusual in America.

You might recall the story of Benjamin Franklin working away to Philadelphia from his printer apprenticeship in Boston lengthy earlier than he had accomplished his coaching. Once in Philadelphia, he represented himself as a journeyman printer and had no hassle discovering work.

In America, you have been then (and you continue to are at present) who you say you might be – as long as you’ll be able to pull it off.

The value that was paid for this freedom was a decrease high quality of workmanship total than existed in England. We have quite a few examples of very high-quality furnishings items which have survived from the Colonial interval, so it’s possible you’ll not have considered the colonists’ abilities as under par. But the talents of many have been, and their furnishings hasn’t survived.

While you’re considering this, take into account that most of the craftsmen working in America had been educated in England or elsewhere. It’s nonetheless that manner. For instance, in a craft I do know quite a bit about, a extremely disproportionate share of probably the most expert furnishings restorers within the U.S. at present have been educated some place else.

Also, the crafts have been extra extremely developed within the Northern colonies than within the South. In Southern colonies, a great deal of the labor, expert or not, was carried out by indentured servants or slaves. The apprenticeship system wasn’t practically as nicely developed.

The Life of an Apprentice

Building trades. These illustrations present apprentices at work in a turning store and cabinetmaker’s store. From “The Panorama of Professions and Trades; or Every Man’s Book” by Edward Hazen (1837). The e book – available free online – is an interesting romanticized learn on educating kids for future professions.

Apprenticeship in America may very well be very exhausting, partly as a result of the grasp himself is perhaps poor and partly as a result of masters typically took benefit of apprentices, making them do menial chores for years with out educating them something concerning the craft.

In the colonies, there was at all times the likelihood that the apprentice may run away, so masters typically held again coaching till the later years to attempt to hold this from occurring.

Moreover, apprentices have been typically poorly fed and overwhelmed. Remember that they have been solely kids.

Apprenticeship often started with a brief trial interval, from weeks to half a yr, for the grasp and the daddy of the boy to determine in the event that they needed to proceed the connection. Then a contract was signed by the grasp and the daddy, which often specified that the grasp would feed, dress and home the boy and educate him the craft. The grasp may also be required to supply a basic schooling.

In England the daddy would often should pay a charge to the grasp. In America this was most frequently the case solely with the higher-status crafts.

At the tip of the contract interval, which may very well be for so long as seven years, the grasp would supply the “graduated” apprentice with a swimsuit of garments and ship him on his manner.

Sometimes, the grasp would comply with pay journeyman’s wages to the apprentice in his remaining years.

But the other was additionally widespread. It was cheaper to maintain an apprentice than to rent a journeyman, so masters typically had apprentices doing journeyman’s duties for so long as they may get away with it. Their success with this often had one thing to do with the state of the economic system on the time: Did the apprentice produce other alternatives?

Apprenticeship Today

When we consider apprenticeship within the 20th and 21st centuries, we don’t imply for it to be as all-encompassing because it was within the 17th and 18th centuries. We often imply for it to be a commerce off: working at no cost, or a minimum of for little or no pay, for a reasonably quick time, in return for instruction within the craft.

This could be very totally different from what apprenticeship used to imply.