Concept
Craft
Overview
A craft or trade is a pastime or an occupation that requires particular skills and knowledge of skilled work. In a historical sense, particularly the Middle Ages and earlier, the term is usually applied to people occupied in small scale production of goods, or their maintenance, for example by tinkers. The traditional term craftsman is nowadays often replaced by artisan and by craftsperson.
Historically, the more specialized crafts with high-value products tended to concentrate in urban centers and their practitioners formed craft guilds.
Their skills required an apprenticeship. Craftsmen and craftswomen had a higher status than the unskilled urban poor.
The skill required by their occupation and the need to be permanently involved in the exchange of goods often demanded a higher level of education, and craftspeople were usually in a more privileged position than the peasantry in societal hierarchy. The households of artisans were not as self-sufficient as those of people engaged in agricultural work, and therefore had to rely on the exchange of goods. Some crafts, especially in areas such as pottery, woodworking, and various stages of textile production, could be practiced on a part-time basis by those also working in agriculture, and often formed part of village life.
When an apprentice finished their apprenticeship, they became a journeyman searching for a place to set up their own shop and make a living. After setting up their own shop, they could then call themselves a master of their craft.
This stepwise approach to mastery of a craft, which includes the attainment of some education and skill, has survived in some countries to the present day. But crafts have undergone deep structural changes since and during the era of the Industrial Revolution. The mass production of goods by large-scale industry has limited crafts to market segments in which industry's modes of functioning or its mass-produced goods do not satisfy the preferences of potential buyers. As an outcome of these changes, craftspeople today increasingly make use of semi-finished components or materials and adapt these to their customers' requirements or demands. Thus, they participate in a certain division of labour between industry and craft.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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Syndicalism stands for what is known as industrial unionism as opposed to craft unionism. In this respect, as also in the preference of industrial to political methods, it is part of a movement which has spread far beyond France. The distinction between industrial and craft unionism is much dwelt on by Mr. Cole. Craft unionism ``unites in a single association those workers who are engaged on a single industrial…
Bertrand Russell, Proposed Roads to Freedom
Names Craft several times.
The Greeks occupied themselves much in transcribing towards the time of Amyntas, Philip and Alexander; they continued this craft especially in Alexandria. This craft is somewhat ungrateful. The merchants always paid the authors and the copyists very badly. It took two years of assiduous labour for a copyist to transcribe the Bible well on vellum.
Voltaire, Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary
States what Craft is; names Craft twice.
ACTS xix. 22-41. 22. So he sent into Macedonia two of them that ministered unto him, Timotheus and Erastus; but he himself stayed in Asia for a season.--And the same time, there arose no small stir about that way;--For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, which made silver shrines for Diana, brought no small gain unto the craftsmen;--Whom he called together with the workmen of like occupation, and said…
Jeremy Bentham, Not Paul, but Jesus
States what Craft is; names Craft twice.
Related ideas
- India
- Industrial Revolution
- Apprenticeship
- Middle Ages
- Ottoman Empire
- Tradition
- William Morris
- Anthropologist
- Bangladesh
- Cognitive science
- Peasant
- Division of labour
- Education
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Knowledge.