ABSTRACT
Questions about the nature of the relationship between technological change and unemployment were not resolved during our period and even today different perspectives on the issues involved persist. With technology came an increased need for more highly skilled, scarce and specifically trained labor. That combined with capital investments which made it unprofitable to cease production led to new employment practices during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. In the textile industry, the transition frequently entailed unemployment and deterioration in the overall economic position of those directly involved. In the building trades, expansion rather than concentration led to unemployment, loss of independent status and impoverishment for workmen during hard times. Vulnerability to this pattern and the resulting unemployment tended to increase with the division of labor. While some gained from the process of industrial change, others lost and society had to find a way to more equitably distribute the costs of technological unemployment.
