Waukesha High School - Megaphone Yearbook (Waukesha, WI)

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The following table serves as a rough indication of certain of the old skills which the machine displaced in part and the new skills which the machine has created. On the assumption that Rabinowitz is correct, and that there has been no net decline in handicrafts, is there any doubt that the workers of the Power Age are, in the aggregate, more skilled, if more specialized, than the artisans of any previous culture? The old hand skills: Spinning Smithing Stone-working Glass-blowing Weaving Vvfood-working Pottery-making The household arts Ship-building Printing The new Power Age skills: Engine driving Production pre-planning Airplane-making Track inspecting Sanitary engineering Flying Chauffeuring Medical. dental and surgical Modern navigating Garage work work Modern tool-making Steel construction work Machine printing work Accounting Electric power servicing Radio engineering Stenographic work Telephone and telegraph work Laboratory research Camera and motion picture Prospecting and drilling work Caisson work Barbering and hair-dressing Publicity work The list of modern skills could be indefinitely extended, utterly overwhelm- ing in volume and variety the skills which have declined. The principle often touched upon earlier applies here and with equal force. When the machine X , VN Page One Hundred Five controls the man, his skill evaporates: when he guides or controls the machine-as in many of these new occupa- tions-his skill remains, and may even be enhanced. There is one department where it seems to me that skill has been lost with no offsetting compensation. We have taken many of the housewife's tasks into the factory and left her to gossip, rCour1esy of Jose Gorostiza. Secretary of Public Education. Mexico Crityj The same moody power of Orozco and the same powerful rhythm are evident in this mural. Both Orozco and Diego Rivera glorify labour: they are the Soviets of Modern Art. This mural is one of the group in the National Preparatory School, Mexico City.

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sterling silver work, but it can enor- mously assist him. lnstead of chasing a bowl with his own muscles, he now uses a hammer driven by electricity- but as heretofore he guides its every stroke. ln background work, the machine can improve the craftman's performance: an automatic gauge can be set for strokes softer and more even than human eye and hand can emulate. ln the manufacture of airplanes, as we have seen, the craftsman is still the major factor. Skilled cabinet makers, instrument makers, painters, carpen- ters. planing mill operators, welders, tinsmiths, coppersmiths, seamstresses HARVEST -work with the best of inspected materials upon a ship whose individuality they come to know and love. This is the game for me. Do you think l could ever go back to house plumbing after watching a ship I worked on, hop off? said a young plumber's assistant. Four hundred persons following twenty-one trades take 18,000 man hours to build a three-motored plane. Their pay is high: their working conditions admirable, their adrenalin active by virtue of the flying kick. . . . Somehow they put me in mind of the builders of Chartres. It is sad to think of mass production hanging. like a sword of Damocles, above their heads. The Fisher Body Corpor- ation used to employ the finest class of skilled workers. When it was bought by General Motors in l9Zl, many skilled occupations were displaced by machines, conveyors, and repetitive, specialized work. The sword had fallen. XVhile the building trades are the outstanding example of the craftsman defying the machine, the situation has begun to change, particularly in steel construction work. In the last generation the art of the mason, the carpenter, the bricklayer, has suffered an ever-increasing dilution with common labour plus machinery. Steel frames, artificial stone, new metal ceilings, doors, casings bases, shelvings, new paint compounds-all have driven building construction more and more into the factory, leaving less and less upon the job. The craftsman is turning into an assembly man-bolting together the standard parts which the factory makes. But the analogy cannot be pressed too far. Meanwhile a galaxy of new machines has appeared to aid construction work-pneumatic riveters, electric welders, stone chippers, hoisting engines, power picks, grab lines, convey- ors, concrete mixers, gravity towers, cement guns, paint sprayers, floor scrapers, nailing machines. To operate these devices, new skills are required, of which that of the steel bird referred to earlier is one of the most dramatic. Page One Hundred Four

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To Our F0rqfatlu'1's- The Europcun Immigrants