Gestion et organisation du travail dans les compagnies de chemins de fer, des origines à 1860

The Management and Organization of Work in Railroad Campanies from their Origins to 1860. The railroad revolution mobilized not only capital but also men and techniques. How did the companies invent management Systems, an organization for work, and tools of mobilization, not to mention the integration of personnel? In the course of this pragmatic apprenticeship period, directors and engineers invented piecemeal management methods, often by way o response to a particular event or conjuncture. Certain characteristic features of railroading and its professional cultures were gradually forged on the basis of the weighty principles of hierarchy, security, reglementation, and discipline, as well as of the social isolation of a young company, progressively bound by the golden chains—well designed and tempered, however—of the Companies' first social institutions. This article uses a genetic approach in the a posteriori clarification of the "French Rail System 's" sturdy structural traditions.Ribeill Georges. Gestion et organisation du travail dans les compagnies de chemins de fer, des origines à 1860. In: Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations. 42ᵉ année, N. 5, 1987. pp. 999-1029