The formation of class fractions in the Gilded Age

Abstract Data available from employment records of manual labour occupations in larger northeastern American cities in the years 1890 and 1900 are used to support an argument in contrast to human capital theory that economic discrimination can be explained as the rational behaviour of identifiable groups in particular market positions. Craft unionists from 1900 on, particularly in the building trades, satisfied at least minimal criteria to be regarded as a distinctive stratum or class fraction. Craft union workers utilized organizational capacities based on ethnic solidarity and barriers to entry in order to develop a distinctive stratum of skilled labourers, wage differentials reflecting at least partly craft unions' capacity to control access to training and employment.