From Apprentice to Journeyman to Partner: Benjamin Franklin's Workers and the Growth of the Early American Printing Trade
M ANY APPRENTICES IN THE EARLY American printing trade must have felt as Chaucer's fabled craftsman did. Beginning at a young age, they commonly spent up to seven years as contractually bound, unpaid laborers. They usually had to promise not to gamble, fornicate, frequent taverns, marry, and buy or sell or divulge secrets of the business. Apprentices worked long hours, often performed menial tasks, and were subjected to beatings—all without pay. Yet apprentices endured the arduous existence because it held for them the promise of eventual self-employment. Their goal was to learn a craft they could practice when their apprenticeship expired. The apprenticeship system was essential to the growth of the early American press. Apprenticeships to printers were a means of vocational education that replenished and augmented the craft's practitioners, thus insuring a sufficient supply of skilled labor through which the "art" (special skill) and the "mystery" (special knowledge) of printing