"Forging America illuminates the fate of labor in an era when industry, manhood, and independence began to take on new and highly charged meanings. John Bezis-Selfa argues that the iron industry, with its early concentration of capital and labor, reveals the close links between industrial and political revolution. Through means ranging from religious exhortation to force, ironmasters encouraged or compelled workers - free, indentured, and enslaved - to adopt new work styles and standards of personal industry."--Jacket.