The Bibliothèque de la Ville de Paris (BVdP), owns this rare example of a Livret Ouvrier (Worker’s Record Book, a document used during the First Empire), belonging to Amable Stopin, an apprentice hatter in Paris.
The 10-page booklet includes 11 sheets and a printed text recapitulating the terms of distribution and use of the document, the obligations of the worker and of his employers, followed by handwritten notes relating to the various jobs held by Amable Stopin and validations and annotations made by his various employers.
Louis Joseph Amable Stopin was born in Saint-Omer on 25 August 1780. He married Anne Huguet on 30 March 1814 in Clermont-Ferrand, he had a son, Amable Anselme Paul Stopin, born 20 October, 1818, and a daughter, Louise Stephanie, born in 1820, both in Clermont-Ferrand. Anselm (the son) developed a hatter business and owned a shop at the Palais Royal in the city of Paris, where he died on 25 May 1878 (62 rue des Sablons, in the 16th Arrondissement of Paris). Amable Stopin himself died in Clermont-Ferrand on 21 July 1860. (information found on the website geneatique.net August 3, 2016)
For more information on the Worker’s Record Book and the other “masses of granite” (Napoleonic institutions).