Introduction / William J. Hurst, Thomas B. Gold, and Jaeyoun Won -- Broadening the debate on xiagang : policy origins and parallels in history / Lei Guang -- Xiagang and the geometry of urban political patronage in China : celebrated state (once-) workers and state chagrin / Dorothy J. Solinger...

Are jobs enough for economic mobility? -- From the old to the new economic mobility -- The parents: their backgrounds, lives and locations -- The children: their lives and worlds -- Workforce development: systems and networks -- Yesterday's firms and today's families: connects and disconnects...

"A pretty fair representation of the American people" : the great uprising and pictorial order in Gilded Age America / Joshua Brown -- "Our rights as workingmen" : class traditions and collective action in a nineteenth-century railroad town, Hornellsville, N.Y., 1869-82 / Shelton Stromquist --...

Coming to work in the city -- A job for a working man -- Dredging and drudgery -- A job for a working woman -- The living wage -- The hard work of being poor -- The consequence of failure -- The market's grasp

"This remarkable book looks at hundreds of autobiographies penned between 1760 and 1900 to offer an intimate firsthand account of how the Industrial Revolution was experienced by the working class. The Industrial Revolution brought not simply misery and poverty. On the contrary, Griffin shows...