| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.2

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Looking for Work, Searching for Workers: American Labor Markets during Industrialization. By Joshua L. Rosenbloom. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. xvi, 208 pp. Cloth, $55.00, ISBN 0-521-80780-8. Paper, $20.00,ISBN 0-521-00287-7.)

Joshua L. Rosenbloom's excellent study of American labor markets has far broader implications than its modest title suggests. While his book appears to have all the attributes of a narrowly focused exercise in quantitative economics—mathematical modeling, multivariate regressions, econometric estimates—Rosenbloom makes this evidence the foundation for sweeping historical conclusions about the course of industrialization.

His central focus is the labor market institutions that matched job seekers with employers from 1850 to 1930. By the latter date, he finds an integrated national system for labor recruitment, but this outcome is no simple demonstration of market theory. As theory would predict, labor markets "are embedded in specific institutions that serve to channel information, establish prices, and bring buyers and sellers together," but Rosenbloom underlines the fact that "such markets do not simply emerge full-blown but must be created by self-interested individuals" (p. 2).

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