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Graduate Work
Graduate Work
Skills, Credentials, Careers,
and Labour Markets

Gerbrand Tholen

1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© Gerbrand Tholen 2017
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
First Edition published in 2017
Impression: 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics
rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America
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Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials
contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
This book is dedicated to the loving memory of my mother and father,
Grietje Tholen (1944–1989) and Hein Tholen (1939–2016).
Acknowledgements

This book is the culmination of a three-year study into the UK labour market
for graduates (2012–2015). The idea for this project emerged from a realization
that in the last decade very few novel sociological approaches were trying to
come to terms with how the current labour market for graduates is organized,
and how the competition for graduate work can be understood within the
wider economic and social context. What was evident to me, I thought, was
the need for an update, a renewal, or potentially transcendence of existing
attempts to theoretically explore the relationship between credentials, skills,
jobs, and the work process for graduate workers. This is clearly easier said than
done. The empirical work that followed examined what the university-
educated do at work within four graduate occupations. Making sense of their
stories and perceptions has been a demanding but ultimately rewarding chal-
lenge. Because of this intellectual struggle, it took me a long time to write this
book. I really hope it will be of use to those interested in what graduate work
represents in the twenty-first century.
Throughout the research and writing process, I have received the help and
guidance of various individuals and institutions. I wish to particularly thank
Phil Brown who has given me a lot of encouragement and wisdom over the
years and provided helpful feedback on the book manuscript.
During the research project, I was a member of the Centre for Skills, Know-
ledge and Organisational Performance (SKOPE) at the Department of Edu-
cation at Oxford University which was an excellent place to work. The
stimulating intellectual environment and practical support the Centre has
provided me with have been invaluable. I would therefore like to thank every-
one who works (or has worked) at SKOPE. They include Ken Mayhew, Marta
Mordarska, Stephanie Wilde, Ewart Keep, Craig Holmes, Maia Chankseliani,
Hubert Ertl, Emma Miller, and Jennifer Allen. A very special thanks goes to
Susan James Relly, who has been a great help throughout the project and
thereafter. I also greatly appreciate her valuable comments and suggestions
on the manuscript. I also received support from Chris Warhurst, Oliver Cowan,
Linacre College and my colleagues in the Department of Sociology at City,
University of London. Sam Osborne created the superb illustration on the front
cover of the book.
Acknowledgements

This book also could not have been written without the financial support
obtained from the British Academy. The BA Postdoctoral Fellowship I received
made it possible to dedicate all the necessary time and effort to this study.
I would like to thank Oxford University Press for giving me the opportunity
to write this book and editors David Musson and Clare Kennedy for their
patience and guidance.
I am extremely thankful to my research participants, whose stories this book
is based on, for their willingness and candour to share the intimacies of their
working lives with me. Through their generosity with time and their openness
and honesty, they passed on great insights into their occupations.
Finally, I am deeply grateful for the support and love of my wife Ankeeta and
our daughter Iris.

viii
Copyright acknowledgements

Excerpt from
The Schooled Society: The Educational Transformation of Global Culture
by David P. Baker
Copyright © 2014 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. Univer-
sity. All rights reserved. Used by permission of the publisher, Stanford Uni-
versity Press, http://sup.org
Contents

List of Figures xiii

List of Tables xv

1. Introduction 1

2. The Contested Nature of Graduate Labour 14

3. The Changing Graduate Labour Market 29

4. Recruitment and Selection of Graduate Workers 42

5. The Role of Education 63

6. Skills and Knowledge 87

7. Graduate Occupations 112

8. Graduates’ Careers 142

9. The Ideal of the Graduate Worker 166

References 189
Index 215
List of Figures

3.1 Share of graduates in 25–64-year-old population range (%) in 2001

and 2014 for selected OECD countries 30
3.2 Share of graduates in 24–34-year-old population range (%) in 1991,
2001, and 2014 for selected OECD countries 30
9.1 The role of education for graduate occupations 182
List of Tables

3.1 Occupational change in the UK between 2000 and 2015 31

3.2 Share of UK graduates employed for major occupational groups in 2002,
2009, and 2015 36
3.3 Absolute graduate employment for major occupational groups for April
to June 2015 36
1

Introduction

In short, the shift in America’s workforce has not been from factories to
fast-food outlets. Rather, the key growth in U.S. employment has come in
offices and non-office settings like hospitals and schools that provide
higher-skill services; nearly two-thirds of Americans now work in these
higher-skill workplaces. The U.S. economy’s largest and fastest growing
sectors—business services, finance, healthcare, and education—are service
sectors that have been clamoring for more educated workers and powering
the dramatic upskilling of America’s occupational structure. The rising
value of education and training—especially postsecondary education and
training—has been caused by the ongoing growth in these post-industrial
service jobs. Advances in information technology and the rise of complex
consumption and production networks have also been key factors in
America’s economic growth since the 1960s. This expansion of technology
has only increased the demand for educated workers who can utilize that
technology.
(Anthony P. Carnevale and Stephen J. Rose, 2015, p.16)

Schooled individuals are capable of (accustomed to and expected to use)

certain kinds of skills, particularly those flowing from academic intelli-
gence, which less-schooled or unschooled individuals tend not to be.
Work is increasingly organized around these skills, and this process is
sustained by formal organizations that contain significant numbers of
jobs. This is not to say that the educated worker is a “naturally” more
productive worker in every type of workplace, as cruder versions of the
human capital view suggest. Rather, the educated worker is the definition
of productive in the educated workplace. Worker and jobs dynamically
change together as the full impact of the education revolution unfolds.
(David P. Baker, 2014, p.155; emphasis in original)

In these two rather long quotes, scholars aim to tackle how the growth in
(higher) education drives changes in the workplace and vice versa. Indeed, a
key question for all sociologists of work and education as well as many other
Graduate Work

labour market experts remains how to understand the way the two forces
impact each other. With the stark growth of higher education in recent
decades came the growth of the number and share of workers with university
degrees within the labour market. Mass higher education is not without its
critics (see Attwell and Lavin, 2007), yet there exists a powerful idea that
graduate workers that have attended university are a distinct category of
workers with the advanced skills to succeed in the modern economy. Further-
more, it is thought that their growth in numbers is matched by a growth in the
labour demand for their skills within a knowledge-based economy.
Some, like Carnevale and Rose, assume that in a post-industrial economy,
more education means more skilled workers in the labour force yielding
higher productivity, which leads to improved economic performance and
higher relative wages for the educated. Others, like Baker, feel that education
is shaping work fundamentally and makes university-associated advanced
skills key assets in the modern workplace. Both see the growth in participation
in higher education in recent decades as a logical step towards a high-skilled,
high-waged economy.
In this book, I argue that both make the same mistake. The growth of higher
education has not been the main leitmotiv within the world of work, neither
as a catalyst of labour market demand nor in itself shaping skill use, job
content, or working conditions in a particularly major way. This is not to
say that for an increasing number of people higher education is not shaping
their lives as they participate in higher learning.
Can we talk about graduates as a meaningful labour market grouping? What
do they have in common? How has higher education (HE), in itself, shaped
their skills, knowledge, and labour market status and power? This book tries to
find some answers to these questions by examining how we can understand
the graduate labour market as a social phenomenon, focussing mainly on the
United Kingdom. In doing so, it provides a distinct sociological contribution
to an ongoing debate on the extent that the modern economy is defined by
the skills, knowledge, and contributions of graduate workers.
I take the position that the meanings of graduate labour and graduate work
are not fixed but under continuous change due to economic, technological,
and educational social changes which alter our understanding of their defin-
ition, their value, and their function within the wider economy. As with any
other type of labour market, the labour market for graduates should not
merely be understood as a result of supply and demand forces (as neoclassical
economics would have it). Who gets which jobs and why is predominantly
not a technical discussion of how features of human capital such as skills are
matched with jobs. Instead, the labour market is understood as being socially
constructed by those who compete for jobs as well as employers and stake-
holders. Individuals try to advance their interest through the application of

2
 Introduction

the available resources. Akin to the struggle for material resources, actors
participate in symbolic struggles to define other actors’ understanding on the
nature and rules of the labour market. Following Bourdieu (1984) I assume that
individuals’ cognition of the world is shaped by the terms, concepts, and
categories created through a conflictual interest struggle. Powerful actors try
to legitimize these classifications and categorizations in order to maintain
their position within the hierarchy. Once the world view expressed in particu-
lar categorizations is accepted, domination is achieved and relatively easily
maintained. This symbolic inequality is furthermore strengthened by wider
cultural processes through which, for instance, individuals and groups identify
themselves, and are identified by others, shaping and legitimizing systems of
categorization (Lamont et al., 2014).
In the book, I argue that there is no valid reason to assume that graduate
labour necessarily constitutes a special type of skilled and high-status labour,
distinct through its association with higher education. Neither do university
degrees play the same type of role across the whole of the graduate labour
market. To rather deconstruct the consensual view that associates and often
conflates knowledge worker, skilled worker, and graduate worker, the book
focuses on four key questions that encapsulate some of the most important
areas of contention and misunderstanding. These are:

What is a graduate occupation?

What is the role of education for graduates in the labour market?
What are graduate skills?
What are graduate careers?

Graduates now make up between 20 and 35 per cent of the workforce in

most Western countries. Although concentrated in what are deemed highly
skilled occupations, they work in various types of workplace and sectors. How
can we understand something that is large and widespread and multifaceted,
that is, the labour market for all these graduates?

What Happened to the Graduate Labour Market?

The labour market for graduate workers has never been so under pressure and in
flux. A range of trends are changing the work of, and the demand for, graduate
workers. In an earlier work, I identified seven key trends affecting the graduate
labour market (see Tholen, 2014). These are still of key importance today. They are:

1. The fast expansion of higher education

The vast increase in supply of workers with higher education in recent
decades in the UK and worldwide has created an abundance of highly

3
Graduate Work

skilled workers, leading to questions as to whether demand for these workers

has kept up.
2. The recession and the widespread effects on the general labour market
The 2008 recession, which affected most Western economies, in the UK
context led to extensive austerity measures. Flexicurity measures have
increased the labour market’s flexibility and deregulation (Heyes and Lewis,
2014). Western labour markets have recovered in a fragmented way, with a
high incidence of long-term unemployment and failing job growth. Although
graduates tend to be less affected than lower-educated workers during a down-
turn, they still are dealing with the same economic landscape.
3. Global economic integration
Globalization has fundamentally changed the nature of not only low-skilled
work but also other types of white-collar work such as professional work. The
global economy relies on the ease of relocating parts of company production
processes, making offshoring and global competition for advanced skills
increasingly based on quality and price (Brown et al., 2011).
4. The emergence of new graduate occupations
A growing number of jobs are now ‘partially graduate’ (Brynin, 2013),
meaning that graduates are entering occupations that were traditionally not
pursued by graduates. In addition, new occupations emerge in which the
majority of workers are graduates; this ‘graduatization’ of the labour market
differentiates the meaning or value of formal higher education credentials
and skills.
5. New types of work organizations and technological change
Liberalization, technological innovation, and mobile production systems
have turned markets in which even smaller companies operate into volatile,
ever-evolving globally competitive arenas. Management systems are in place
that change the content of many graduate-level jobs and careers. Within the
UK, the rise of non-standard employee contracts and self-employment needs
to be mentioned. There is evidence to suggest that technological change in
general and computerization in particular are changing the nature of work of
graduates (e.g. professions, Susskind and Susskind, 2015), as well as both
negatively and positively impacting the demand for particular graduate occu-
pations (Frey and Osborne, 2013).
6. The war for talent and the elite labour market
Many organizations increasingly rely on a limited number of graduate
employees that are deemed ‘talented’. These well-paid and fast-tracked posi-
tions are much coveted but the competition for these jobs is demarcated from
the rest of the graduate labour market. Access is to a large extent closed off to
most graduates, irrespective of their skills, knowledge, and abilities.

4
 Introduction

7. Increasing wage differentiation

According to most studies, wage premiums of graduates over non-graduates
have continued in recent decades. Yet wages for UK graduates have dispersed
in the last decade. It is most likely that some graduate occupations have
seen their rewards increase rapidly, whereas others have stagnated. But also
within occupations there is increasing wage inequality. We cannot assume
that the increase in rewards for some graduates is fully or necessarily caused
by an increasing demand for advanced academic skills. Here the role of
institutions, organizational change, and closure strategies of certain profes-
sions are major forces.

These changes have made the graduate labour market increasingly elusive to
understand and in this book I am making an attempt to shine a light on the
four questions posed earlier. To explore the nature of modern graduate work
I draw on a detailed investigation into four graduate occupations: software
engineers, laboratory-based scientists, financial analysts, and press officers.
The book uses these four occupations to develop a renewed sociological
understanding of graduate work and the labour market for graduate workers.

The Study

During a three-year period four in-depth occupational case studies were com-
pleted. The decision to use occupation as a unit of analysis was not the
obvious choice. Much of the existing research has focused on large-scale
surveys and statistics distinguishing labour market outcomes according to
different levels of education. Having a strong interest in what people do all
day at work, akin to Studs Terkel’s (1972) classic US study on the working lives
of workers in various occupations (see Biggs, 2015 for a similar but more recent
and UK-focused investigation), I made a conscious choice to use occupations
as the level of analysis when I designed the study. There is a risk that occupa-
tions are not the right approach to understand the graduate labour market.
Concentrating on very specific workers who work perhaps under very specific
conditions does not tell us much. We also know how important organizations
are in unequal labour market outcomes (e.g. Tomaskovic-Devey, 2014;
Sakamoto and Wang, 2017). Yet, occupations matter within work; they are
important in how workers understand their own work, their organization, the
division of labour, and the power and status of workers. Occupations convey a
much wider status of resources and opportunities. They are an important
conduit for social reproduction (Jonsson et al., 2009), and thus represent
meaningful categories through which workers relate to the labour market.

5
Graduate Work

The goals of the case studies were to provide detailed vignettes of what
workers do at work and how they think about their work within four occupa-
tions that are considered to be graduate occupations. In doing so, the case
studies are able to provide valuable insights into the nature of graduate work
and the so-called graduate labour market. Unlike some sceptical voices (e.g.
Holmes and Mayhew, 2015), I strongly belief that in-depth case studies are
able to elucidate greater understanding about the nature of graduate work in
general through their strong focus. It is true that these four occupations can
never be seen as ‘representative’ of the whole graduate labour market, nor are
they intended to be. They are used to investigate how the work that graduates
perform is organized, understood, and negotiated within their occupational
contexts and how higher education interacts in those. The in-depth nature
also provides scope for meaningful comparison of the work of graduates.
Much of the existing research on the graduate labour market relies predom-
inantly on statistical data that is often based on large-scale surveys. These studies
provide valuable knowledge about many aspects of the graduate labour market.
For instance, they are able to explore in detail the relationships between a
multitude of social factors such as social class, gender, degree, educational
institution, and labour market outcomes for various graduate populations. Yet
in doing so, they lack the detail and depth to explore how, within a single
occupation, the role of graduates functions within the work process as well as
in recruitment and selection. Also too often the focus is on early career outcomes
and does not take into account further career trajectories or the work of more
experienced graduate workers. In this study, the four case studies together
construct an empirical base upon which we can theorize the labour market for
graduates, accepting the difficulty in ascertaining its external validity.
The fieldwork took place between January 2013 and May 2015. Over this
period a total of 107 interviews were conducted. The majority of these were
with graduate workers in the four occupations. In addition, employers, HR
managers/recruiters, non-graduate workers, and higher education lecturers
from relevant fields were interviewed. Participants were selected and recruited
purposefully from available LinkedIn profiles to allow significant variation in
terms of sector, age, gender, and educational background. A small minority
were recruited through snowball sampling. Participants were located all over
the United Kingdom, although the majority were in the south of England.
There was considerable spread in terms of age and career stages. The gender
balance was somewhat skewed towards males (N = 65), particularly in software
engineering and lab-based science.
The semi-structured interviews explored:

• How and where graduates obtain their skills;

• How the competition to enter the occupation is organized;

6
 Introduction

• What the roles of degrees and other credentials are within the competition;
• The employability strategies of those who enter the occupation;
• The skills demanded by employers to access the occupation;
• The influence of the 2008 recession on the occupation;
• The influence of the global labour market on the competition for jobs
causing changes to the labour process;
• The effects of the influx of graduates into the labour market;
• The skills and abilities that are utilized in the work process; and
• How careers are developed and maintained within the occupation.

The interviews were fascinating and insightful. The interviewees were very
generous with their time and effort to explain to me how they understand their
work and the labour market. Overall, they have provided me with sophisti-
cated accounts of their work in which they articulate their view of their own
work, their work identity, and the day-to-day work experience. Through care-
ful data analysis I have aimed to make sense of their narratives, highlighting
both commonalities as well as differences within the occupation as well as
between occupations. All the participants have been given pseudonyms.

The Four Occupations

The four graduate occupations have been carefully selected, albeit without
fully knowing what I would find. Their work reflects many of the economic
and employment changes that the graduate labour market has undergone,
outlined earlier in this chapter. There are some potential weaknesses in this
selection. Although sufficiently different, three of them at first glance rely on
Science, Technology, and Mathematical scientific knowledge and skills. And
although they are almost unequivocally seen as graduate occupations, none of
them could be regarded as a traditional graduate occupation or profession.
I will succinctly introduce each of them.

Software Engineers
It feels like software engineers have been a permanent fixture within the
occupational landscape, but it is important to realize how novel the occupa-
tion actually is. Software engineering has made a stellar rise in the last three
decades, during which time the concept of software engineering became
a distinct occupation within the information technology field. Software
engineers have inherently been associated with the economy of tomorrow,

7
Graduate Work

and few occupations have more often been associated with the so-called
‘New Economy’ than this one. Software developers are seen as typical know-
ledge workers (Reich, 1991; Scarborough, 1999; Castells, 2000). This may be
due to the ubiquitous nature of software applications embedded within
a growing number of devices, technologies, and processes, as well as the
ever-increasing role of the Internet over our lives.
Many perceive coding skills to be in growing demand for the future. Regu-
larly, commentators argue that children should learn to code from an early age
in order to promote future economic competitiveness, or that individuals
must learn to function within a networked society or face being ‘intellectually
crippled’ (Naughton, 2012). Recently, the UK government has replaced the
old Information and Communication Technology (ICT) curriculum with a
renewed focus to teach children as young as five to learn to code (Gove, 2014).
The occupation consists of a variety of roles in almost every sector imagin-
able. Next to software engineer, their job title can be ‘programmer’ or ‘software
developer’.1 In essence, the task of software engineers is the designing, devel-
opment, testing, and evaluation of software. This involves writing the code
(program) that creates software that fulfils the users’ needs and satisfies the
requirements of customers or managers/team leaders. This means instructing
a computer, line by line, how to perform a desired function. Before engineers
start coding they analyse first the needs of the user/client, after which they
commence to design, construct, test, and maintain computer applications
software or systems (or some of these activities). A large part of the role is trying
to understand what is needed and communicate with various stakeholders
within organizations. There are a wide set of characteristics that good software
needs to fulfil. An important quality standard distinguishes functionality, reli-
ability, operability, performance efficiency, security, compatibility, maintain-
ability, and portability (as well as sub-characteristics within these) (ISO, 2011).
So, software engineers want to produce code that is correct and robust, as well as
easy to reuse and to improve.2

Laboratory-based Scientists
For this study, only scientists working in pharmaceutical and biotechnological
commercial companies were selected. No scientists working at universities
were interviewed. This was to create some homogeneity within a wide scien-
tific community of researchers. The study also focused on graduate workers
and not postgraduate workers (despite the latter’s ubiquity in those sectors).
The two industries encompass research working on a wide range of scientific
projects examining a wide range of topics. Whereas the modern pharmaceut-
ical industry originated in the mid-nineteenth century, the biotechnology

8
 Introduction

industry is relatively new and with its application and production rapidly
expanding.
Sociologists of work have been treating the work of laboratory scientists
with much interest (e.g. Kerr et al., 1977; Owen-Smith, 2001; Smith-Doerr,
2005; Wagner, 2006) as well as sociologists of science; many have aimed to
describe how science is ‘performed’ and knowledge is created within the
laboratory setting (Lynch, 1985; Latour and Woolgar, 1986; Latour, 1987;
Amann and Knorr Cetina, 1988).
The scientists in the study exclusively work in corporate environments,
working on applied scientific projection using the principles, rules, and
methods of science and in particular experiments to solve problems or com-
plete tests. Within the biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies the
research labour force is made up of scientists, technicians, and managers
with various education levels. Scientists tend to have wide educational back-
grounds yet the majority are within the life sciences, in particular chemistry
and biology. Scientists are not necessarily involved in all steps of the research
process, for instance some mainly interpret designs or operational test results,
calibrate scientific or technical equipment, or advise customers on the use of
products or services.

Financial Analysts
The role of financial analyst is not easily summarized because of the wide
application of the job title. The usage of the term for many is of a financial
expert who aids investors and asset managers with their investment choices
through numerical and statistical analysis. One can find these workers in
banks, hedge funds, investment banks, institutional investors such as pension
funds, etc. They assess the performance of stocks, bonds, and other types of
investments and/or focus on equity, debt, or risk. Here they are involved in
making buy and sell recommendations, sometimes specializing in a single
sector or industry.
Alternatively, financial analysts offer a support role within an organization.
In other words, investment is not the core business of the organization, but
the analyst fulfils the financial analysis needs the organization may have,
using the same research skills to assess financial aspects of the organization
itself or stakeholders, competitors, or other contexts. This tends to involve
examining financial statements and data and making projections about the
future financial welfare of a company or departments. Although aligned with
the role of the accountant there is a distinction when it comes to analysing the
finances rather than putting the accounts together. Much of the sociological
literature focuses on the first type of workers (e.g. Knorr Cetina, 2011).

9
Graduate Work

According to the O*NET database (2016), the most important tasks are
(a) drawing charts and graphs, using computer spreadsheets, to illustrate
technical reports; (b) informing investment decisions by analysing financial
information to forecast business, industry, or economic conditions; (c) moni-
toring developments in the fields of industrial technology, business, finance,
and economic theory; (d) interpreting data on price, yield, stability, future
investment-risk trends, economic influences, and other factors affecting
investment programmes; and (e) monitoring fundamental economic, indus-
trial, and corporate developments by analysing information from financial
publications and services, investment banking firms, government agencies,
trade publications, company sources, or personal interviews.
Wansleben (2012) observed that financial analysis emerged as a twentieth-
century profession with the rise of the financial sector. In the US, the demand
for financial analysis increased with the sharp increase in share ownership in
the 1950s and the corresponding need of investors for information. Around
this time various professional associations for financial analysts emerged,
providing professional training and qualification. In the UK context, the
American-based CFA Institute has become the most important (global) pro-
fessional association.

Press Officers
The occupation of press (or related media/communication) officer is firmly
grounded within the public relations (PR) field. The latter is defined by the
UK’s Chartered Institute of Public Relations (2016) as ‘the discipline that looks
after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding and support and
influencing opinion and behaviour. It is the planned and sustained effort to
establish and maintain goodwill and understanding between an organization
and its publics.’ The press officer role is there to create and maintain a
favourable public image for the organization they represent through dealing
with the media and, in particular, the press. Traditionally, this has happened
through designing media releases which shape public perception of their
organization’s work and goals. Yet the modern press officer also deals with
online social media inquiries and discussion, along with building relations
with various journalists and media representatives as well as the public directly.
Most medium-size organizations and larger, as well as many smaller organiza-
tions, do have an employee dealing with press inquiries or media engagement
(this role is sometimes combined with marketing tasks). Some organizations
outsource their relations with the media to external PR agencies, whilst others
employ a press officer or a press team in-house to deal with press inquiries and
increasingly with other types of (social) media.

10
 Introduction

It is believed that PR became a paid profession as early as the 1900s (Heath,

2006), yet in Europe PR was relatively undeveloped until the 1950s and 1960s
(Watson, 2012). From that point onwards various PR roles such as media
manager, communication director, and press officer emerged. The PR profes-
sion is now a female-dominated profession within the UK context (Aldoory
and Toth, 2002) but career progression has nonetheless been problematic for
women (Fröhlich and Peters, 2007; L’Etang, 2006).

Outline of the Book

The book is organized as follows. Chapter 2 discusses the existing conceptual

understandings of the graduate labour market. I outline a dominant main-
stream narrative that highlights a distinctive nature of graduate work and the
perceived close relationship between graduate workers and so-called know-
ledge workers. In opposition, there are a number of academic contributions
that have skilfully articulated how this prevailing discourse shows important
flaws. Despite these critiques, I argue that currently useful alternative imagin-
aries of the graduate labour market are incomplete or have not caught on.
Chapter 3 outlines some important changes in the UK graduate labour mar-
ket using some available statistics matched with findings of various empirical
studies. The chapter exhibits the stark growth in the share of graduates within
the general labour market and reviews some of the evidence on whether supply
has kept up with demand. The chapter then examines what type of job uni-
versity graduates work in and the wages they receive for their labour. I argue
that the graduate labour market has fundamentally changed and the hetero-
geneity in labour market outcomes has yet to be fully acknowledged.
Chapter 4 is the first of the empirical chapters and examines the recruitment
and selection process within the four graduate occupations. It shows that this
process is distinctly different between occupations. Rather than a straightfor-
ward matching process it can be only understood as deeply contextualized
and situational. Hard skills and knowledge associated with higher education
do not have a privileged status within the recruitment and selection process.
Chapter 5 examines the role of education within the four occupations in
more detail, assessing whether HE shapes the graduate labour market in the
fundamental way it is often assumed. For each occupation it outlines the
meaning of HE within the occupation, the function of university credentials,
and the extent HE drives career progression. The case studies show HE shapes
work in a more modest way than it is generally understood to do. Qualifica-
tions are not always merit-based signallers to employers. Also, credentialism
has not disappeared.

11
Graduate Work

In chapter 6, I examine the skills demanded and deployed in graduate work.

The case studies reveal that a rich tapestry of relevant skills, abilities, and
knowledge were mentioned as being important by those within the four
occupations. Despite the dominant ideas that skills associated with HE shape
the skills demands of graduate occupations, within the four occupations this is
hardly the case. Instead, a wide range of skills as well as a working together of
hard and soft skills are needed to perform the role. Also, how the skills used at
work are socially constructed within the four occupations is not uniform.
A further rethink of the notion of ‘graduate skills’ is needed.
The concept of a ‘graduate occupation’ is explored in chapter 7. What sets
apart the occupations that are defined as graduate occupations? In the chap-
ter, I highlight the great variance within occupations in terms of skill use, job
tasks, and job discretion depending on the size of the organization, the sector
of employment, and due to the fluidity in job titles. The chapter then looks at
the possibilities for graduate occupations to move toward professionalization.
Many workers with a university education may not have either the organiza-
tional power, occupational identity, or knowledge base upon which profes-
sionalization may succeed.
Chapter 8 deals with the careers of graduate workers. The chapter maps out
common career trajectories within the four occupations as well as how gradu-
ate workers in the occupations understand their careers. The chapter compares
the findings of the case studies with the influential notion of the ‘boundaryless
career’, observing both similarities as well as stark differences. There still exist
technical, sectorial, and occupational boundaries. The chapter distinguishes
how graduate workers in the four occupations remain employable, improve
their employability, and understand the competition for jobs. Many graduate
workers experience a fractured career path and try to anticipate the future
through investment in skills or networks. Yet there is nothing intrinsic that
warrants set career paths linked to their graduate status, skills, or qualifications.
The ninth and final chapter concludes this book and aims to bring the
previous chapters together in order to make sense of the phenomenon that
is called the graduate labour market. It explains how the evidence from the
four case studies repudiates many of the assumptions of the dominant dis-
course on graduate labour. I argue that the representation of the graduate
labour market as unproblematic, high skilled, knowledge-based, and inde-
pendent from non-graduate work can be partly explained by how categoriza-
tion takes place within the labour market. Through what I call ‘symbolic
closure’, closing off opportunity based on persuasion and forms of meaning,
concepts like graduate work, graduate occupation, graduate skills, and gradu-
ate labour market are far from neutral but at the centre of a struggle for labour
market advantage over other participants. The roles of university credentials,
skills, and knowledge are symbolically constructed within each occupational

12
Another random document with
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table, with which it was furnished, were located centrally, and so
crossed each other exactly under the spindle. It was therefore
impossible to use a boring-bar in this tool, and its usefulness was
ridiculously disproportioned to its size. The contrast between it and
the Smith & Coventry drill, which was set in its place, was really
wonderful. We had no trouble in disposing of this and all other
rejected tools to parties who were delighted to get them cheap. It
took us about six months to get rid of all the rubbish and fill the
works with the best tools then obtainable, though still deficient in
many respects, as, for instance, the great planer, which had only one
cutting tool on the cross-slide, whereas a planer of that size should
be provided with four cutting tools—two on the cross-slide and one
on each upright, and should be twice as heavy.
One of the first engines we sold was to D. M. Osborne & Co., the
celebrated makers of mowers and reapers in Auburn, for driving their
rolling mill. This was 18×30-inch engine, making 150 revolutions per
minute, and was the fifth engine I had furnished to different
industries in my native town.
Twenty-five years afterwards I saw this engine running. They had
increased its speed. By means of a large ball on projections of the
forked lever they were able to vary the speed from 200 revolutions to
250 revolutions per minute, according to the sizes they were rolling.
I observed that, as our facilities for doing work were increased, the
belief that I was unable to execute orders became general through
the country, and applications, at first numerous, dwindled to almost
nothing. United and well-directed action would soon have put a new
face on matters, but now I was to meet with obstacles that time could
not overcome.
Mr. Merrick was an amiable and high-toned gentleman, whose
sole aim was to do his duty; but he was exactly the wrong man for
the place. He was not an engineer or mechanic. In the firm of S. V.
Merrick & Sons he had been the office man. He was entirely a man
of routine. He seemed obtuse to a mechanical reason for doing or
not doing anything. Of course he knew nothing about my business.
He was impressed with the idea of the omnipotence of the president,
which in his case was true, as the directors would unanimously
approve of whatever he might do. He at once deprived me of the
power of appointment and discharge in my own department,
arrogating all authority to himself. In addition he was naturally a very
reserved man, I may say secretive. He consulted me about nothing. I
never knew what he proposed to do or was doing until I found out
afterwards. He had grandly confessed his first two blunders, but
unfortunately he continued to make mistakes equally serious to the
end of the chapter.
About the first order we had was from a company formed for
lighting the streets in Philadelphia with arc lights, of which Thomas
Dolan, a prominent manufacturer in Philadelphia, was president. Our
order was for eight engines, 8×16 inches, to drive eight Brush
dynamos each of 40-light power. The order was given to Mr. Merrick.
I never saw Mr. Dolan; his own mill was at the northern end of the
city, and he met Mr. Merrick by appointment at lunch in the business
center, to which conferences I was never invited. When the plant
was in operation I heard incidentally that they had a new engineer at
the electric-light works, and I thought I would go up and make his
acquaintance. I went the same evening. I was met at the door by a
stranger who politely showed me the plant. I did not introduce
myself. He asked me if I were interested in electric lighting. I told him
I was not but might be. He said it was his duty to warn me against
the use of high-speed engines; he should not have advised these,
but found them already installed when he took charge of the place,
and he was doing the best he could to make them answer for the
present, but the works would be greatly enlarged after a while, when
these engines would be gotten rid of and proper engines substituted
in place of them. He called his assistant to corroborate his statement
of the difficulty they had in getting along with them. I listened to these
outrageous falsehoods and looked around and saw the eight
engines running smoothly and silently at 280 revolutions per minute,
each engine exerting the power of four engines of the same size, at
the old maximum speed of 70 revolutions per minute, and giving
absolutely uniform motion without a fly-wheel, and said nothing.
The next morning I made an early call on Mr. Dolan at his office. I
introduced myself to him, although I think he knew me by sight. I told
him the state of affairs I found at the electric-light station and
received from him in reply the following astounding statement. He
said: “Mr. Porter, when this company was formed I selected the
Southwark Foundry as our engineers. I had previously become
acquainted with the running of some of your engines and had come
to the conclusion that they were just what we needed; accordingly I
ordered our first engines from you. I assumed the engineering
department of this enterprise to be in your hands, and that you would
be represented here by an engineer selected by yourselves and
devoted to your interest. Accordingly, when your men had finished
their job I applied to your president to send me an engineer. He sent
me a workman. That was not the kind of man I asked him for; the
engines were in charge of workmen already from your own works. I
wanted an educated man who could represent us in the courts and
before the city councils—in short, an engineering head for this
business, now in its infancy, but which was expected to grow to large
proportions. He ought to have known what I wanted, or if he did not
he should have asked me; his whole manner was entirely indifferent,
he seemed to take no interest in the enterprise.
“Seeing I could get no help from Mr. Merrick, I applied to William
Sellers for an engineer. He sent me a young man from his drawing-
office, and I soon found out he was not the man I wanted; he knew
nothing about a steam-engine—was merely a machine-tool
draftsman—so I found I must rely upon myself. The only man I could
think of was this man I have. He had done some good work for me
two or three years ago in repairing one of my engines, so I offered
him the position, which he accepted. I knew nothing of his
engineering preferences; he seems to be doing very well, and I am
afraid he will have to stay;” and stay he did.
The result was most remarkable. A demand for electric-lighting
plants was springing up in all parts of the country. This became
widely known as a pioneer plant, and was visited daily by parties
who were interested in such projects. These visitors were met at the
door by the engineer and his assistant and were warned, just as I
was, to have nothing to do with a high-speed engine. They were
always business men, quite ignorant of machinery, and with whom
the testimony of two practical men who had experience with the
engines and were actuated in their advice by a sense of duty was
conclusive. The result was that we never had a single application to
supply engines for electric lighting. Yes, we did have one application;
a man came into the office when I was there alone and gave me an
order for his mill and apologized to me for giving it. He said the place
where he was obliged to locate his lighting plant was so limited, he
found he could not get in the engine he wanted.
This result I felt especially exasperated at when a year afterwards
the secretary of the lighting company, who had his office at the
station, told me that he had done something of which he knew his
directors would not approve; he had sold every light they were able
to furnish. He had felt safe in doing this, because no one of the
engines had failed them for an instant. For his part he could not see
what those men were there for—they had absolutely nothing to do
except to start and stop the engines as required and attend to the
oiling. Their principal occupation seemed to be waiting on visitors.
This great disaster would have been avoided if Mr. Merrick had
conferred with me with respect to Mr. Dolan’s most important
request. We should have had a man there who would have told the
truth about the engines, and would have impressed every visitor with
the enormous advantage of the high-speed engine, not only for that
service, but also for every use to which steam power can be applied.
It will be observed that this disaster was widespread and
continuous. It not only caused a great immediate loss, but its
ultimate injury was beyond all computation. Its effect was that the
Porter-Allen engine was shut out of the boundless field of generating
electricity for light and power purposes, a field which was naturally its
own.
The following story is too good to keep, although the incident had
no effect that I am aware of to accelerate my downward progress.
While in Newark I had built for Mr. Edison an engine for his
experimental plant at Menlo Park. The satisfaction this engine gave
may be judged by what follows: One day I had a call from Mr.
Edison, accompanied by Charles L. Clarke, his engineer. They had
been walking very rapidly, and Mr. Edison, who was rather stout, was
quite out of breath. As soon as they were seated, without waiting to
recover his wind Mr. Edison began, ejaculating each sentence while
catching his breath: “Want a thousand engines.” “Thousand
engines.” “Want you to make the plans for them.” “Have all the shops
in New England working on the parts.” “Bring them here to be
assembled.” “Thousand engines.” In the conversation that followed I
gently let Mr. Edison down, not to the earth, but in sight of it. The
result was that two or three weeks afterwards I was injudicious
enough to accept from him an order for twenty-four engines, luckily
all of one size and type. This was to be a rush order, but it called for
new drawings and patterns, as he wanted a special proportion of
diameter and stroke, larger diameter and shorter stroke than those in
my table. Before the drawings and patterns were completed, Mr.
Edison, or the people associated with him, discovered that they had
no place to put more than six of these engines, so the order was
reduced to six. These were for a station which was being prepared
on the west side of Pearl Street, a few doors south of Fulton, New
York City. Three of these engines were finished first. After they had
been running a few days a defect of some kind, the nature of which I
never knew, was discovered, and Mr. Edison’s attention was called
to it. He charged it to the engine, and exclaimed impetuously, “Turn
them out, turn them out!” It was represented to him, however, that
they could hardly do this, as they were under contract for a
considerable amount of light and power, and the current was being
furnished satisfactorily. “Well,” said he, “we’ll have no more of them
at any rate,” so the order for the remaining three engines was
countermanded, and three Armington & Sims engines were ordered
in place of them. When these were started the same difficulty
appeared with them also. A fresh investigation disclosed the fact that
the difficulty was entirely an electrical one, and the engines had
nothing to do with it. Mr. Clarke claimed that had been his belief from
the beginning. So the thousand engines dwindled to three engines
sold and three thrown back on our hands. The two triplets ran
together harmoniously until in the development of the electrical
business that station was abandoned.
Directly after we began to do work, Mr. E. D. Leavitt brought us the
business of the Calumet and Hecla mine. This was then the largest
copper mine in the country, owned by a Boston company of which
Mr. Agassiz, son of the great naturalist, was president. He brought it
to me personally on account of his admiration for the engine, and
also for the character of work which I had inaugurated. His first order
was for an engine of moderate size. While that was building he
brought us a small order for a repair job, amounting perhaps to a
couple of hundred dollars. That work was spoiled in the shop by
some blunder and had to be thrown away and made over again. By
accident I saw the bill for that job; a green boy brought it from the
treasurer’s desk for Mr. Merrick’s approval. We both happened to be
out, and by mistake he laid it on my side of the table. I came in first,
picked it up and read it, and saw that it was for the full amount of the
material and work that had been put on the job. It seemed to me
quite double what it ought to be. I laid it on Mr. Merrick’s side and,
when he came in, told him how I came to see it, and I thought it
should not be sent, being so greatly increased by our own fault.
“Oh,” said he, “they are rich; they won’t mind it.” I said: “That is not
the question with me; I don’t think it is just to charge our customers
for our own blunders.” He smiled at my innocence, saying: “If a
machine-shop does not make its customers pay for its blunders, it
will soon find itself in the poorhouse.” “Well,” said I, “I protest against
this bill being sent.” However, it was sent, and in the course of a few
days a check came for the full amount, and Mr. Merrick laughed at
me. Weeks and months passed away and we had heard no more
from Mr. Leavitt, when I met him in New York at a meeting of the
council of the Society of Mechanical Engineers. When the meeting
was over he invited me to walk with him, and said to me: “I suppose
you have observed that I have not visited the Southwark Foundry
lately.” I told him I had observed it. He then said: “Do you remember
that bill?” I told him I did very well, and how vainly I had protested
against its being sent. He said: “When that bill was brought to me for
approval, I hesitated about putting my initials to it until I had shown it
to Mr. Agassiz. I told him what the job was and the bill was quite
twice as large as I had expected. He replied, ‘Pay it, but don’t go to
them any more,’ and I have taken our work to the Dickson
Manufacturing Company at Scranton.” I realized that I had lost the
most influential engineering friend I had since the death of Mr.
Holley. I heard some years after, and believe it, though I do not
vouch for its correctness, that the work sent to the Dickson
Manufacturing Company through Mr. Leavitt had in one year
exceeded one hundred thousand dollars.
 E. D. Leavitt

Some time previous to these events, Mr. Merrick had done a very
high-handed thing. Assuming supreme power as president of the
company, he had invaded my department, and, without a word to
me, had appointed over Mr. Goodfellow a superintendent to suit
himself, reducing Mr. Goodfellow to be general foreman of the
machine-shop, to take his orders from the new superintendent and
not from me, whereupon Mr. Goodfellow resigned, and accepted a
position as master mechanic in the Pennsylvania Steel Works, and
by his advice the engine ordered by them from me was taken from
the Southwark Foundry in its incomplete condition and finished by
themselves under Mr. Goodfellow’s direction. Mr. Merrick then filled
Mr. Goodfellow’s place with another friend of his own as general
foreman, a man who would have been as valuable as a stick of wood
but for his incessant blunders. I was fully alive to the arbitrary nature
of this usurpation, but was entirely helpless, knowing perfectly well
that the directors would sustain the president in whatever he did.
With the coming of the new superintendent, the fatal change took
place. He came, first of all, full of the superiority of Philadelphia
mechanics, and, second, feeling that in the nature of things I must be
entirely ignorant of anything mechanical. I was nothing but a New
York lawyer; never did a day’s work in a shop in my life; had gone
into a business I was not educated to and knew nothing about. My
presuming to give orders to mechanics, and Philadelphia mechanics
too, filled him with indignation. He would not take an order from me
—perish the thought—and as for my drawings, he would depart from
them as much as he liked.
All this appeared by degrees. I observed on the floor several
cylinders fitted up, in which the followers for the piston-rod stuffing-
boxes were made sliding fits on the rods. I asked him why he had
made them in this way when they were drawn and figured to be
bored ¹⁄₃₂ inch larger than the rod. He replied, “Because this is the
way they ought to be.” I told him every one of them would be fired
before the engine had run an hour; that I wanted him to bore those
followers to the drawings, as well as the cylinder heads back of the
stuffing-boxes. “It shall be done, sir,” said he. On examining them
after this had been done, I found he had turned as much off from the
outside of the followers as he had bored out of the hole. I asked him
why he had done that. He said he supposed if I wanted the inside to
be loose, I wanted the outside to be loose too. I told him I did not. He
asked me why. I told him he was not there to argue with me; I
wanted him to throw those followers away and make new ones
precisely to the drawings, and I saw to it myself that it was done. I
went to Mr. Merrick about this matter, and can the reader imagine
what his reply was? “My advice to you, Mr. Porter, is to leave all such
matters to the superintendent.” Think of it; an amateur president
assuming the direction of my business, and giving such advice to
me, who never had left the least thing to anybody, and without
considering the fact that the action of his superintendent would be
ruinous, except for my interference. I realized that I was absolutely
alone, but I felt very much like fighting the whole world. The above
incident is a fair sample of my constant experience. I was on the
watch all the time. Many times I required the work to be done over
when the superintendent departed from my drawings, and in doing it
over he generally contrived to ruin the job, and would say, “Just
according to your orders, sir.” I was reminded of a story told of Dr.
Beman, a minister of Troy, N. Y., whose wife was peculiar, to say the
least. On a certain occasion the presbytery met in Troy, and one
evening he invited its members to his house, and told his wife to
provide just a light supper. When they were ushered into the supper-
room there was nothing on the table but lighted candles. “A light
supper,” said she, “just as you ordered, sir.”
 Samuel T. Wellman

I proposed to appoint an inspector to represent me. The general

foreman said if an inspector were appointed he should resign, and
Mr. Merrick forbade it. Was ever a man in so helpless and ridiculous
a position?

February 2nd Porter-Allen Engine—40×48

Otis Iron and Steel Co.
93 Rev. Cleveland,
84 Lbs. } April 14, 1882

The second of the large engines which I finished was for the Otis
Steel Works. I went to Cleveland myself to start the engine and
found that Mr. Wellman, the general manager, had it running already.
Mr. Otis, the president, was very much pleased with it, and well he
might be. This was the first mill to roll plates from the ingot to the
finish without reheating. These were the kind of diagrams it made. It
will be observed that these were taken at different times and under
different pressures. Unfortunately the right hand one is the only
diagram I have from the crank end of the cylinder. In rolling these
heavy plates the changes were made instantaneously from full load
to nothing and from nothing to full load. The engine made 93
revolutions per minute, and it will be seen that the changes were
made by the governor in a third of a second or less, the speed not
varying sensibly. Mr. Otis said to me: “Oh, Mr. Porter, what shall I do
with you? You cannot imagine the loss I have suffered from your
delay in furnishing this engine.” I said: “Mr. Otis, you know the
terrible time I have had, and that I have done the very best I could.”
“Yes,” he said, “I know all about it.” He had, in fact, been to
Philadelphia and seen for himself. He added: “You make a small
engine suitable for electric lights; what is the price of an engine
maintaining twenty-five arc lights?” I told him $1050. “Well,” said he,
“you strike off the odd fifty and let me have one for a thousand
dollars, and we will call it square,” so I had some sunshine on my
way. I present a portrait of this just man. The engine is now running
as good as new after twenty-five years, and the company five or six
years afterwards put in another 48×66-inch to drive a still larger train.
I had a funny experience at the Cambria Works which has always
seemed to me to have been prophetic. In August, 1881, the Society
of Mechanical Engineers held a meeting in Altoona, and the
Pennsylvania Railroad Company gave us an excursion to Johnstown
to visit the works of the Cambria Company. The anticipations of the
members were expressed by Jackson Bailey, then the editor of the
American Machinist. As I was going through a car in which he was
seated he called out to me, “This is your day, Porter.” The party was
taken in charge by Mr. Morrell, the general manager. Our route took
us first to their new blast-furnaces, where considerable time was
spent in examining their new and interesting features. Next we came
to my second engine, started some two months before. The engine
was just being slowed down; we were told there were not yet
furnaces enough to keep the train running continuously, so they were
shut down from half an hour to an hour between heats, and a heat
had just been run off. We went next to see my rail-mill engine, which
had raised the output of that mill 150 per cent. That too had been
shut down. They had just broken a roll, a most rare accident and one
which I had never before seen or heard of there. “Well, gentlemen,”
said I, “at any rate I can show you my engine driving a cold saw.”
Arrived at the spot, we found that all still, and were told that sawing
cold rails was not a continuous operation, we had hit upon the noon
hour, and the men had gone to their dinner. That was the end of the
show, as far as I was concerned. The Gautier Works were a mile
away and were not included in our visit, so we were entertained with
the great blooming-mill in operation and the casting of the enormous
ingots for it, and after the customary luncheon and speeches we
returned to Altoona.
 Charles A. Otis

One day the superintendent came into the office and told me he
had tried my machine for facing nuts and it would not work. I felt
disappointed, because I had confidence in it. I went out to see what
the matter was, and at a glance I saw that it had been ingeniously
arranged not to work. The feed had been made rapid and the cutting
motion very slow, so that the tools could not take their cuts and the
slow-moving belt ran off the pulleys. I did not reduce the feed-
motion, but increased the speed of the cutters and the belt some
eight or ten-fold, when the trouble vanished. I never knew anything
to work better than that tool did.
 Porter-Allen Engine 40″×48″ #207
Dash pot for Governor.

The burning anxiety of the superintendent was to show up my

ignorance. A first-rate chance to do so soon seemed to present itself.
The counterpoise of the governor of the Otis engine dropped
instantly to its seat when a plate struck the rolls and as instantly rose
to the top of its range of action when it left them. This made a noisy
blow which was disagreeable and might in time cause an accident.
Mr. Wellman sent me a sketch of a device he had thought of for
arresting this motion by air-cushions. I told the superintendent to
have that apparatus made and make the air-cushions four inches in
diameter. He said four inches diameter would not answer; they must
be eight inches. “No,” said I, “four inches diameter is ample; make
them four inches.” A few days after he called me into the shop to try
my four-inch air-cushions. I found the apparatus secured in a vise in
a vertical position. I took hold of the lever and lifted the piston; it met
with no resistance until it struck sharply against the end of the
chamber. For a moment I was stunned by the man’s audacity, and
threw the piston up and down again to make sure it was not a
dream. I then turned my back on the superintendent and called to a
boy to find Mr. Fulmer, the foreman of the second floor, and tell him I
wanted him here. In a moment he appeared, and I said to him: “Mr.
Fulmer, I want you to make a new piston for this apparatus and
make it a proper fit; you understand.” Mr. Fulmer bowed assent. I
added: “There will be time to-day to get it into the sand, and it can be
finished early to-morrow. When it is ready for my inspection come
yourself to the office and let me know.” About the middle of the next
forenoon Mr. Fulmer called for me. I went in and found the piston
arrested at each end of its motion by a perfect air-cushion. “All right,”
said I, “see that it is shipped to-day.”
Mr. Fulmer was an excellent mechanic and a man of good general
intelligence; he would have made the piston a proper fit in the first
place if he had not been expressly ordered to make it loose and
useless. The superintendent, on his persistent assumption that I was
a fool, had actually expected me to say when I tried the apparatus:
“Oh, I see, four inches diameter will not do. You will have to make it
eight.”
Some time in 1881 or 1882 I had a queer experience with an
engine for the New York Post Office. It was to take the place of an
engine then running. The engineer of the Post Office informed me
that this engine had a cylinder twelve inches in diameter. I told him it
looked to me from the external dimensions that the diameter must be
fourteen inches and asked him to take off the back head and
measure it for me. He wrote me a few days after that he found that
he could not get the back head off, but I might rely upon it being
twelve inches. So I did rely upon it being fourteen inches, furnished
an engine accordingly, and found it to be the size needed.
Daniel J. Morrell
 Some time after the engine was started I received a line from the
Postmaster saying they were much disappointed in it. They expected
a gain in economy, but they were burning more coal than before,
also that the engine pounded badly. I went to New York to see what
the matter was. The engine seemed to be working all right except for
the knock, so I made my way down to the sub-cellar. There was
nothing there but the boilers and the engineer’s desk. On the cellar
stairs, after I had shut the door behind me, I heard a loud sound of
escaping steam. The boilers were under the middle of the building; a
four-inch steam-pipe ran from them a distance of about eighty feet,
suspended from the ceiling, to a point under the engine, then turned
up through the floor to the under side of the steam-chest. The
exhaust pipe, of the same size, came from the engine through the
floor and was carried parallel with the steam-pipe to the middle of the
building and upward through the roof. The two pipes were about
eighteen inches apart, and in the vertical portions under the ceiling
they had been connected by a half-inch pipe having a globe valve in
the middle of its length. The valve-stem was downward and the valve
set wide open. The noise I heard was caused by the steam rushing
through this pipe. I computed that about as much steam was being
thus blown away as was used by the engine. My first impulse was to
call upon the Postmaster and tell him what I had found, but I decided
not to bother him. I could not reach the valve to close it, but
discovered a box used for a step to an opening in the wall, so I
brought that out and standing upon it was able to close the valve;
then the noise ceased and I put the box back.
There was no one in the cellar but a boy firing the boilers. I asked
him if he knew who put that pipe there. He knew nothing about it, but
supposed our men put it there when they set up the engine. I hunted
up the engineer and asked him the same question, and got the same
answer. I went to the people who did the engineering work for the
Post Office and who had put in the pipes; they knew nothing about it.
I could find out nothing, but had to content myself with telling the
engineer that I had closed the valve and relied upon him to keep it
closed. I asked him what he thought caused the thump in the engine;
he said he had not the slightest idea, but he would try to cure it. I
contented myself with writing to the Postmaster that I had removed
the cause of the waste of steam and hoped he would now find the
engine satisfactory. Soon after Mr. Merrick was in New York for two
or three days. When he came home he said: “I have cured the thump
in that Post Office engine.” “How did you do it?” I asked. He replied:
“I gave the engineer a twenty-dollar gold piece, and when I went to
see it the next morning the thump was gone.” I should add that when
the old engine was taken down I had the back cylinder head
removed, which was done without difficulty, and found the diameter
fourteen inches. “For ways that are dark and tricks that are vain” this
engineer was “peculiar” in my experience.
I had brought with me from Newark an order from the Willimantic
Linen Company, who were manufacturers of cotton thread, for two
engines for quite an interesting application. They were building a
new mill entirely unique in its design, which has never been
repeated, being an ignorant freak. It was a one-story mill 800 feet
long and 250 or 300 feet wide, intended to contain five lines of
shafting. Each line was independent and drove the machinery for all
the successive operations from opening the cotton bales to packing
the spools of thread. These lines of shafting 800 feet long were to be
in the basement and to drive these machines by belts through the
floor, the engine to be in the middle of each line. For this purpose I
supplied a pair of condensing engines, 11 inches diameter of
cylinder and 16 inches stroke, making 350 revolutions per minute,
with their cranks set at right angles with each other in the line of
shafting. These required no fly-wheel and would start from any
position. I had a great deal of trouble with this order on account of
the delay in its execution, so much so that before the first engine
was finished the order for the second one was countermanded, and
this order was placed with the Hartford Engineering Company, a new
concern which was foolish enough to undertake the same speed.
However, after my first engine was started they found themselves
face to face with an impossibility and had to throw up their contract,
whereupon the president of the company became very civil and
asked me to be kind enough to make the second engine for them,
which I was quite happy to do, as I had on hand the peculiar bed for
these engines, which I did not break up after the order was
countermanded, but had it set up against the wall of the shop in