Originally Posted by
Nicholas Lawrence
“U.S. culture” is more than what you see on TV. Outside of LA and New York, millions of Americans do honorable work with their hands, many of them formally trained through vocational programs at the high school level or in trade schools. There are still a fair number of folks who receive that training through a union as well.
The topic is hand tool woodworking. Haven't seen many high school vocational programs teaching hand tool woodworking recently. Hand tool woodworking trade schools are thin on the ground and quite expensive and remote for most. Haven't seen many unions training hand tool woodworkers recently. If you have examples, it would be nice to know about them.
Of course you're right about many trades, but when you reduce to hand tool woodworking, I'd have to say there ain't much out there and what is there is hard to access for a kid in Memphis, say, or Pittsburgh. (I don't know about opportunities in Memphis or Pittsburgh specifically, but don't know of any hand tool woodworking trade schools there and if they have hand tool woodworking in their high schools, I would love to be shown to be wrong. And I'm still looking for the union that teaches hand tool woodworking anywhere.)
Fair winds and following seas,
Jim Waldron