Online Document Assignment 20

JOSIAH WEDGWOOD

Inventing a New Workforce

Josiah Wedgwood’s success rested on three key factors: superior products, superior marketing, and a superior labor force. His initial breakthrough was the result of technical and artistic innovation, as his unique glazes and designs caught the imagination of Britain’s growing consumer market. As competitors began to copy his products and drive down prices, he maintained his competitive advantage through astute marketing. Wedgwood understood that consumption is as much about aspiration as it is about need. By associating his products with the lifestyles and tastes to which his customers aspired, he greatly enhanced their desirability and, therefore, the prices they could command. Indeed, Wedgwood was as much a pioneer in brand creation and development as he was in industrial production. Nonetheless, his marketing strategies would have been beside the point if he did not also possess a reliable workforce capable of producing consistently high-quality products in sufficient quantities to meet demand. Hence Wedgwood sought to create such a workforce through a combination of strict workplace discipline and a variety of incentives designed to create long-term loyalty.

Wedgwood’s approach to industrial labor was rooted in the belief that the work environment shaped the character of his workers and that to produce the best workers, he first needed to create the right conditions. Wedgwood was not alone in this belief. Looking back from the vantage point of the 1820s and 1830s, contemporaneous observers saw in early industrialization a process that was as much about social transformation as it was about technological transformation—a process in which changes in work conditions were closely tied to changes in workers’ behaviors, values, and abilities. As you review the evidence, which explores early-nineteenth-century reflections on the connection between social and economic change, consider what common assumptions the authors shared. How did they imagine the relationship between workers and their work? Between workers and their employers?

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