Musgrave, E C (1988) The building industries of eastern brittany, 1600-1790. PhD thesis, University of Oxford, UK.
Abstract
The aim of the thesis is to examine the organisation and development of the building industries of eastern Brittany during the last two centuries of the ancien regime. A large part of the work is concerned with the identification of the structure of the industry in both town and countryside on both `high status' and vernacular sites. The component parts of this heterogeneous industry are examined in detail, from contractors to individual artisans, as are their working relationships with each other and with their employers. Attention is also given to the peripheral trades involved in construction, notably those producing raw materials, in terms of their geographical location and the varieties of exchange mechanisms used to provision building sites and thus link the two activities together. Once the component parts of the industry and its subsidiaries have been identified, their development over time has been examined. Of particular interest is the question of structural change caused by the emergence of entrepreneurial capitalism in both construction and the exchange of raw materials. Other factors of structural change such as changing costs of wages and prices and increased demand for construction will also be examined and their relative importance assessed. Several themes of social history have also been examined, to illustrate how the documentary evidence for building can be used to identify wider social themes. Thus, topics such as the working conditions of 18th century artisans, the role of women in the arts mecaniques and the geographical origin and movement of building artisans have been examined in some detail. Finally, the study of the building industry allows us to make observations about the nature of the wider pre-industrial Breton economy, principally in terms of the extent of regional compartmentalisation and autarky. A study of construction not only illustrates the economic fragmentation of ancien regime Brittany but shows how rural industries helped to maintain this by providing employment locally and reducing the need for population movements to the larger towns in search of work.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | emergence; employment; fragmentation; population; social history; wages; women; working conditions |
| Index terms: | working conditions, women, building industry, employment, emergence, evidence, population, fragmentation, building site, movement, social history, wages, relative importance |
| Subjects: | demography, business economics, evaluation and assessment methods, health behaviours and lifestyles, management, site and location studies, employment law, sociology, systems engineering, industry analysis, business, risk assessment |
| Topics: | Organizational Design, Human Resources, Urban Studies, Research Practice, Legal Issues, Risk Management, Engineering Principles, Geographical Context |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here