| During my career in printing, I met the people with whom I shared membership in a cultural phenomena that I call the society of printers. This account is mainly descriptive of the historical period up to the mid-twentieth century when printing began a generalized move away from its craft origins and towards factory-based mechanical production. But throughout this account, no period in history featured the massive alteration to technology that occurred when printing plate production changed from a mechanical process to a direct-photographic process, and ultimately to electronic digital imaging and desktop publishing.; While concern about the changing nature of work and the subsequent consequences to workers has received broad attention from many authors, none has examined the impact of these changes on the individuals that perform the work, on the social changes in the workplace they engender, or on the effect of these changes in technology on the lives and careers of individual employees and employers where some seemed to thrive on change while others were unable to profit by changing conditions. Bateson describes the problem identified above as, "...a sharp contrast between creativity and standardization, yet even those who work on the factory floors must craft their own lives, whether graceful and assured or stunted and askew."; Since we all experienced technological displacement during our careers, this research is really a case study of that effect. Yet each of these stories vary widely due to individual circumstances, aspects and interest. Since the completion of this study, we know something more about how technological displacement affected the lives, careers and businesses of printing industry owners, managers and employees.; The results of this study suggest that employee retention, better teaching and training methods and improved representation from professional organizations might lead to partial resolution of this effect in the future of American industry. |
