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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Idle Hours, by Julian Alden Weir, 1888. The Metropolitian Museum of Art. Gift of Several Gentlemen, 1888

The Mother of Possibility

By Sven Birkerts

Idleness is what happens when we thwart the impulse to plan forward, and instead enjoy the present.

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Map

Cornering the Market

The countries that rule the industries.

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c. 1923 | Paris

Mutual Interest

The courting of Marie Curie.More

1802 | Manchester

Satanic Mill

Robert Southey observes the unsettling status quo.More

1714 | London

The Hive Mind

Bernard Mandeville’s fable of the bees.More

Charts & Graphs

Teamwork

Getting it done with a cast of thousands.

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Portrait bust of presumed author of the Iliad and the Odyssey Homer.

British philosopher, logician, and social critic Bertrand Russell.

Black and white image of Greek biographer and writer Plutarch.

Black and white photograph of English poet and librarian Philip Larkin.

Engraving of Scottish economist Adam Smith.

The workers are the saviors of society, the redeemers of the race.

—Eugene V. Debs, 1905

Color painting early Chinese philosopher Mengzi.

Black and white photograph of a young John Ruskin wearing a suit.

Mencius & John Ruskin

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