Doing the world's unhealthy work: the fiction of free choice.

While some changes improved the work environment as technological progress transformed industries, by the turn of the century the workplace was often dangerous and unhealthful. Occupational hazards raised ethical issues of freedom of choice for workers, managers, employers, and society. Graebner discusses the rationales commonly offered--that workers were free to choose their employment, that someone had to do the work, and that physically fit workers could adapt to hazardous conditions. He also describes early governmental efforts to prohibit unsafe conditions and the vocational guidance movement's historical approach to occupational choice.