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The Social Basis of the American System of Manufacturing*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

John E. Sawyer
John E. Sawyer
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Extract

Of The many tasks confronting economic history, none are more shrouded in uncertainty than those encompassed in the theme “Institutional and Cultural Factors in Economic History.” We have in general treated these factors respectfully, but as a profession we have preferred to work in areas more clearly defined and with tools more fully developed. As a result few areas have received less sustained attention than the zones where we must seek the interplay of economic, social, and cultural forces.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , Fall 1954 , pp. 361 - 379
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1954

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References

1 A gradually changing range of functions has been successively handled by the European Cooperation Administration, the Mutual Security Administration, and, since August 1953, by the Foreign Operations Administration. In another connection I have had occasion to review certain aspects of this experience, and I should like to indicate my debt to the officials here and abroad who discussed these problems with me.

2 These missions, varying in size and composition and in the length of their visit from a few weeks to more than a year, have generally published their reports through their respective national productivity agency or under the auspices of the O.E.E.C. They include both “industry” reports and reports of “specialists” on particular functions (like training, accounting, packaging, materials handling, and so forth). Since 1953 the F.O.A. has broadened the program to include a growing number of non-F.uniiH.an missions.

3 Hutton, Graham, We Too Can Prosper: The Promise of Productivity (London: Allen and Unwin, 1953), p. 18.Google ScholarRostas, L. in his earlier and more formal study is primarily concerned with problems of method and measurement of physical and technical factors, and only briefly refers to the dimensions we are pursuing.- Comparative Productivity in British and American Industry, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, Occasional Papers, XIII (Cambridge: The University Press, 1948), pp. 66–67Google Scholar.

4 Though not a complete selection, see such diverse reports from this series as those on The Brassjoundry, Building, The British Cotton Industry, Machine Tools, Retailing, Trade Unions, or the Training of Supervisors; or any of the additional titles cited below.

5 Building, p. 63. Sec also the Introduction and pp. 55-56. This Report can at once illustrate the emphasis in question and some of the cautions in order in using this material.

6 All references in this section are to the Reports indicated in the British (A.A.CP.) series. What cannot be reproduced here is the weight of emphasis arising from repeated attention to these themes.

7 See, for example, Aspects de I'entreprisc amcricmne or L'Industrie de la Machine-Oulil in the French scries, published by La Société Auxiliaire pour la Diffusion des Editions dc Productivité (S.A.O.E.P.) in Paris.

8 Primarily worked out, according to Roc, Joseph W.. in England and New England in the decades between 1800 and 1916), English and American Tool Builders (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1916), pp. 4–5Google Scholar and ff. In these early decades, of course, “tolerances” in no way approached those associated with precision manufacturing today.

9 On the laucr phase the early history of the Connecticut clock industry offers an interesting example of the cases in which a market had to be created in order that the economics of quantity manufacture might be realized.

10 Most notably in the writings and researches of Roe., Joseph W.Fitch, Charles H., liurn, D. L., Usher, A. P., Clark, V. S., Cole, A. H., Dcyrup, Felicia, and others, conveniently cited and briefly summarized in the Bibliography of the very useful recent book by George R. Taylor, The Transportation Revolution, 1815-1860 (New York: Rinehart and Co. 1951). pp. 220Google Scholar ff. and 418-24. To titles there listed may be added two additional books of a somewhat different nature, Giedion, Siegfried. Mechanization Takes Command (New York: Oxford University Press, 1948Google Scholar and Mirsky, Jcannette and Nevins, Allan, The World of Eli Whitney (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1952)Google Scholar.

11 Eli Whitney, for example, thus wrote in 1812 (somewhat naively and boastfully; in seeking a new government contract for 15,000 muskets:

The subscriber begs leave further to remark t!iat he has for the last 12 years been engaged in manufacturing muskets; that he now has the most respectable private establishment in the United States lor carrying on this important branch of business. That this establishment was commenced and has been carried on upon a plan which is unknown in Europe, and the great leading object of which is to substitute correct and effective operations of machinery for that skill of the artist which is acquired only by long practice and experience; a species of skill which is not possessed in this country to any considerable extent.— , Roc, English and American Tool Builders, pp. 132–33. Such contracts and financing played a critical part in Whitney's remarkable early development of quantity manufacturing on the principle of interchangeable partsGoogle Scholar.

12 For an interesting discussion of the curly phases of this, which already had considerable momentum by 1830, see Rczneck, Samuel, “The Rise of Industrial Consciousness in the United States, 1760-1830,” Journal of Economic and Business History, IV, No. 4 (08 1931), 784–811Google Scholar.

13 Curti, Merle, “America at the World Fairs, 1851-1893,”American Historical Review, LV, No. 4 (07 1950), 833–56, provides an instructive overview of the longer period and many leads into the literature. The American showing in 1851 was both late and very incomplete. The comments below draw on the official ami unofficial materials arising from the five exhibitions held between 1851 and 1867CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 See the remarks of James Nasmyth quoted below, p. 377.

15 Fitch, Charles H., “Report on the Manufactures of Interchangeable Mechanism,” Tenth Census of the United States [1880]: Manufactures, II, 619–20Google Scholar.

16 Parliamentary Papers, House of Commons, Accounts and Papers (21), 1854-1855, L. For convenience, page references follow those of the Report itself. D. L. Burn summarized many of the essentials of both this Report and those of the British Commissioners to the New York Industrial Exhibition of 1853 in an interesting article nearly twenty-five years ago, “The Genesis of American Engineering Competition, 1850-1870,” Economic History, II (January 1931), 292-311. For our purposes they deserve attention in their entirety.

17 Committee on Machinery, pp. 38 and 43. (The verb “assemble” is regularly put in quutcv) They were particularly impressed by an ingenious sequence of sixteen machines for producing gunstucks. “devised and set to work with its present dejircc of perfection.” In the course of their trip they placed orders for approximately $100,000 worth of tools and equipment (1854 dollars).

18 Ibid., pp. 8-12.

19 Ibid., pp. 11-12. A later passage duly explains that the keys were not identical.

20 Ibid., pp. 13-20. Also see Chapter iv (or fuller discussion of the manufacturing of many of these items. Particularly interesting for our purposes are those on pails, nails, spikes, screws, or. for the break with craft traditions, melodions.

21 Ibid., p. 32.

22 Ibid., p. 84.

23 Though underrating the case in omitting the factor of established overseas markets, population figures by “countries” crudely reflect the relatively smaller market of American producers through the first half of the century at compared to those in leading European countries. Thus for 1850 population fur the United States is given 23.2 millions, 27.5 for the United Kingdom, and 35.8 for France.-, W. S. and Woytinsky, E. S., World Population and Production (New York: Twentieth Century Fund. 1953). p. 44Google Scholar.

24 These observations arc based nn each ami all of the three bodies of evidence mentioned at tin licuinninK “f the preceding paragraph.

25 ”Before a Parliamentary Selett Committee on Small Arms, 1854. XVIII, Q. 1367. as quoted inGoogle ScholarHum, L.. “The Genesis of American Engineering Competition.” 296–97Google Scholar.

26 Loc., Cit. p. 38.

27 Ibid., p. 85. At another point, however, higher absenteeism is mentioned.

28 New York Industrial Exhibition: Special Report of Mr. George Wallis. Parliamentary Papers. House of Commons. Command Paper, 1854. XXXVI. p. 3 (of Mr. Wallis' Report). The balance of his introduction or the “Conclusion” of the corresponding Report by Joseph Whitworth offer impressive testimony in this vein.