Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-d5ftd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-08-20T07:54:23.023Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Enforcement In Apprenticeship Contracts: Were Runaways a Serious Problem? Evidence from Montreal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Gillian Hamilton
Gillian Hamilton
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Toronto, Department of Economics, 150 St. George St., Toronto M5S IAI, Canada.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Historians argue that in late eighteenth-century North Aerica, apprentices often ran away form their masters. Masters’ inability to write enforceable contracts, the argument goes, sparked the decline of traditional apprenticeships. This article addresses the issue of enforcement. I analyze an apprentice’s incentive to run away and the role of enforcement with detailed archival evidence form Montreal. These data cast doubt on the claim that masters were unable to construct enforceable contracts and call into question the severity of a runaway problem.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 55 , Issue 3 , September 1995 , pp. 551 - 574
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Audet, Pierre. “Apprenticeship in Early Nineteenth Century Montreal, 1790–1812.” MA. thesis, Concordia University, Montreal, 1975.Google Scholar
Bridenbaugh, Carl. The Colonial Craftsman. New York: New York University Press, 1950.Google Scholar
Burgess, Joanne. “Work, Family and Community: Montreal Leather Craftsmen, 1790–1831.” Ph.D. diss., Université du Québec è Montréal, 1987.Google Scholar
Carmichael, H. Lorne. “Self-Enforcing Contracts, Shirking, and Life Cycle Incentives.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 3, no. 4 (1989): 65–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cloud, Patricia, and W. Galenson, David. “Chinese Immigration and Contract Labor in the Late Nineteenth Century.” Explorations in Economic History 24, no. 1 (1987): 22–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elbaum, Bernard. “Why Apprenticeship Persisted in Britain But Not in the United States.” this JOURNAL 49, no. 2 (1989): 337–49.Google Scholar
Grubb, Farley. Runaway Servants, Convicts and Apprentices Advertised in the Pennsylvania Gazette, 1728–1796. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1992.Google Scholar
Grubb, Farley. “The End of European Immigrant Servitude in the United States: An Economic Analysis of Market Collapse, 1772–1835.” this JOURNAL 54, no. 4 (1994): 794–824.Google Scholar
Hamilton, , Gillian, . “Contract Incentives and Apprenticeship: Montreal, 1791–1820.” Ph.D. diss., Queen’s University, Canada, 1993.Google Scholar
Hamilton, , Gillian, . “The Efficiency of the Market for Apprentices in North America: Contract Length and Information.” Working Paper, University of Toronto, No. 9419, 1994.Google Scholar
Hardy, Jean-Pierre, and Ruddel, David-Thiery. Les Apprentis Artisans à Québec, 1660–1815. Montreal: Presses de l’niversité du Québec, 1977.Google Scholar
Hogg, , Laing, Grace. “The Legal Rights of Masters, Mistresses and Domestic Servants in Montreal, 1816–29.” M.A. thesis, McGill University, Montreal, 1989.Google Scholar
Jacoby, , Daniel, . “The Transformation of Industrial Apprenticeship in the United States.” this JOURNAL 51, no. 4 (1991): 887–910.Google Scholar
Lachance, , Paul, . Kinship and Immigrant Apprentices’ Chances in New Orleans, 1810–1840. Mimeo, University of Ottawa, 1986.Google Scholar
Lindert, , Peter, . Fertility and Scarcity in America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978.Google Scholar
McKee, , Samuel, JrLabor in Colonial New York, 1664–1776. New York: Columbia University Press, 1935.Google Scholar
Meaders, , Daniel, . Eighteenth-Century White Slaves: Fugitive Notices. Vol. 1: Pennsylvania, 1729–1760. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Michaud-Frejaville, F. “Bons et Loyaux Services: Les Contrats ďApprentissages en Orléanais (1380–1480).” In Les Entrées Dans La Vie: Initiations et Apprentissages, edited by the Société des Historiens Médiévistes de l’Enseignement Supérleur Public, XIIe Congrès, 183–208. Nancy: Presses Universitaires de Nancy, 1982.Google Scholar
Montreal. Canada. Archives Nationales du Québec a Montréal (ANQM).Google Scholar
Montreal Gazette, various dates.Google Scholar
Montreal, . Rules and Regulations of Police for the City and Suburbs of Montreal. Montreal: James Lane, 1817.Google Scholar
Moogk, , Peter, . “The Craftsmen of New France.” Ph.D. diss., University of Toronto, 1973. Ottawa. National Archives of Canada.Google Scholar
Quimby, , M. G, Ian. Apprenticeship in Colonial Philadelphia. New York: Garland Publishing, 1985.Google Scholar
Rock, , B., HowardArtisans of the New Republic: The Tradesmen of New York City in the Age of Jefferson. New York: New York University Press, 1979.Google Scholar
Rock, , B., Howard, ed. The New York City Artisan 1789–1825: A Documentary History. New York: State University of New York Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Rorabaugh, , J., WilliamThe Craft Apprentice: From Franklin to the Machine Age in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Ruddel, , T., David “Apprenticeship in Early Nineteenth Century Quebec, 1793–1815.” M.A. thesis, University of Laval, 1969.Google Scholar
Seybolt, , Francis, Robert. Apprenticeship and Apprenticeship Education in Colonial New England and New York. New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1969.Google Scholar