From the

Alnerican System
to Mass Production,
1800-1932 -_1,

1'
H

ii?
From the
AMERICAN SYSTEM to
1%h4ERlCD\bJSYTYTEk4ro
MASS PRODUCTION
MASSPRODUCTKHQ
1800-1932
1800—193Z
 an
QW M

STUDIES IN INDUSTRY AND SOCIETY

Glenn Porter, General Editor

Published with the assistance of the

Hagley Museum and Library

l. Burton W. Folsom, Jr.

Urban Capitalists: Entrepreneurs and City Growth
in Pennsylvania’s
Pennsylvania's Lackawanna and Lehigh Regions, 1800-1920
18004920

2. John Bodnar
Workers’ World: Kinship, Community, and Protest
Workers'
an'1ndustrial Society, 1900-1940
in an-Industrial

3. Paul F. Paskoff
Industrial Evolution:
Evolution." Organization, Structure,
and Growth of the Pennsylvania Iron
Industry, 1750-1860

4. David A. Hounshell
From the American System to Mass Production, 1800-1932:
The Development of Manufacturing Technology
in the United States

5. Cynthia J. Shelton
The Mills of
ofManayunk:
Manayunk: Industrialization and Conflict
Conflict
in the Philadelphia Region, 1787-1837
From the
AMERICAN SYSTEM to
to
MASS PRODUCTION
1800-1932
I 800-I 93 Z
The Development of Manufacturing
Technology in the United States

[)A.VID
DAVID A. HOUNSHELL
I-IQUNSI-IELL
THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY PRESS/Baltimore and London
]OHNS HQPKINS
This book was originally brought to publication with the generous
assistance of the Hagley Museum and Library.

© 1984 by The Johns Hopkins University Press

All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
Originally published, 1984
Johns Hopkins Paperbacks edition, 1985
9 8 7

The Johns Hopkins University Press

2715 North Charles Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363
2l218-4363
www.press.jhu.edu

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Hounshell, David A.
From the American system to mass production, 1800--1932.
1800-1932.

(Studies in industry and society; 4)

Bibliography: p. 385
Includes index.
1. Mass production——United States—-History. I.
production-United States-History. l. Title.
II. Series.
ll.
TS149.H68 1983 338.6'5'0973 83-16269
ISBN 0-8018-2975-5
ISBN U-8018-3158-X
0-8018-3158-X (pbl<.)
(pbk.)

A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library
Library.

Title page illustration:

illustration.‘ Detail of South Wall, Detroit Industry,
Diego Rivera. Detroit Institute of Arts, 1932-33.
193Z—33. (Founders
Society Purchase, Edsel B. Ford Fund & Gift of Edsel B. Ford.
Courtesy of Detroit lnstitute
Institute of Arts.)
 To Eugene S. Ferguson
Teacher, scholar, and friend
Handicrafts
Handicmfts and methods of production thatfollow
that follow
hanclicraft.s',
the precedent of handicrqfts, serve best aristocrat.-y
an aristocmcy
of consumers, <Fhile
while factories serve best the
consumption of a clemocracv
democracy,
-~Victor S. Clark, Historv
--VictorS. I-listory of'Manufuc/Ures
of Manufactures in the United States (1916)

[flI could give every Russian just one American

If
book, I1 would choose the Sears, Roebucl<
Roebuck catalogue.
AAttributed
-Attributed to Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Contents
c::ontents

Tables
Figures and T abies XI
Xl

Foreword X'\,'
X41
Acknowledgments xix
XlX

Introduction l
1.
I. The American System of Manufactures in the
Antebellum Period 15
I5

2.
Z. Toe Sewing Machine and the American System of
The
Manufactures 67
3. Mass Production in American Woodworking Industries:
A Case Study 125
I25

4. The
Tire McCormick Reaper ‘Works
Works and American
Manufacturing Technology in the Nineteenth Century 153

5. From the American System toward l'v1ass

Mass Production:
The
Tae Bicycle Industry in the Nineteenth Century 189

6.
61. The Ford Motor Company and the Rise of Mass
Tine
Production in America 217
Z17

7. Cul~de~sac:
Cul-de-sac:The Limits of Ford
Fordism
ism and the Coming of
"Flexible
“Flexible Mass Production”
Production" 263

8. The Ethos of Mass Production and Its Critics 303

APPENDIX 1,
I. Expression The American
The Evolution of the Expresston
System of Manufactures 331
APPENDIX 2.
Z. Singer Sewing Machine Artifactual Analysis 337
Notes 345
Bibliograph)'
Bibliography .385
385
Index 399

lX
IX
Figures and Tables
Figures
0.1 A Day’s
Day's Output of Ford Model T's,
T’s, 2.4 Punching Out Needle Eyes, Wheeler
Highland Park Factory, 1915 2 and Wilson Manufacturing
0.2 Ford Motor Company, Highland Park Company, 1879 74
Factory Employees, 1915 3 2.5 Willcox & Gibbs Sewing Machine,
U.S. Patent Model, 1858 76
2.6 Brown & & Sharpe Factory, Providence,
1.1
1.11 United States Exhibit at the Crystal
Rhode Island, 1860s
18605 79
Palace Exhibition in London,
2.7 Brown & Sharpe's
Sharpe’s Shop Where
1851 16
Willcox & & Gibbs Sewing Machines
1.2 C0lt‘s London Armory,
Samuel Colt's Armory.
Were Made, 1879 80
1854 18
2.8 Patent Model, Singer Sewing Machine,
1.3 London-Made Colt Revolver 22
l1851
851 83
1.4 North-Made Horse Pistol, Model
2.9 Showroom, I. M. Singer & Co.'s Co.’s
1813 30
Central Office, 458 Broadway, New
1.5 Blanchard’s "Lathe"
Blanchard's “Lathe” to Manufacture
York City, 1857 84
Gunstocks, 1822 36
2.10 I. M. Singer & Co.'s
Co.’s New York
1.6 Portsmouth Blockmaking Machine 37
Factory, 1854 86
1.7
l.’7 Inspection Gauges, United States
2.11 I. M. Singer & Co. Advertisement,
Model 1841 Rifle 45
1857 87
1.8 Samuel Colt's
Colt’s Armory, Hartford,
2.12 Demonstrating the Singer Sewing
Connecticut, 1857 46
Machine, 181850s
5Os 88
1.9 I-1owe’s
Howe's Pinmaking Machine, ca.
2.13 Singer Model A Family Sewing
1838 52
Machine, 1858 90
1.10
1.111 Eli Terry's
Terry’s Patented Pillar and Scroll
2.14 Singer New Family Sewing Machine,
Clock, ca. 1816 53
1865 94
l.U
1.1] Seth Thomas Wooden Clock Gauges
2.15 Singer Manufacturing Company’s
Company's
and Parts, ca. 1838 55
Elizabethport
Elizabethport Factory, 1880 95
1.12:
1.12 Seth Thomas Wooden Clock Striker
2.16 Elizabethport,
Singer Foundry, Elizabethpm1,
Bending Jig, ca. 1838 56
1880 100
1.13 Seth Thomas Wooden Clock Plate
2.17 Singer Forging Shop, Elizabethport,
Drilling Jig, ca. 1838 57
1880 100I00
lves’s Brass Clock, ca. 1838
1.1/1 Joseph lves's
1.14
2.18 Singer Screw Department,
Reconstruction of 1833 Patent
Elizabethport, 1880 101101'
Model 58
2.19 Singer Needle Department,
1.15
11.15 Early Chauncey Jerome Brass Clock
Elizabeth port, 1880 1101
Elizabethport, OJ
Movement, 1839 59
2.20 Singer Polishing Room, Elizabethport,
Elizabethpol1,
Hi Musket Assembly, Springfield Armory,
1.16
1.
1880 102
1852 63
2.21 Singer Japanning (Painting) Operations,
Elizabethport, 1880 102
2.1 Machine Shop, Wheeler and Wilson 2.22 Singer Assembling Room,
Manufacturing Company, 1879 717] Elizabethport,
Elizabethport, 1880 103
2.21
2.2 Assembly Room, Wheeler and Wilson 2.23 Testing Singer Machines,
Manufacturing Company, 1879 72 Elizabethport, 1880 103
2.3 Wheeler and Wilson Sewing Machine, 2.24 Setting up Singer Machines for
ca, 1876 73
ca. Shipment, Elizabethport, 1880 104

xi
xii FIGURES i\ND
FlGURES AND TABLES

2.25 Singer Improved Family Sewing 4.ll

4.11 McCormick Foundry, 1885 183 183
Machine 108 4.12 Lathe and Press Room of the
2.26 Caricature of a Yankee Inside McCormick Factory, 1885 184
Contractor, 1880 if1111 4.13 Shafting Room, McCormick Factory,
1885 184
3.1 American Woodworking Machinery, 4.14 "Setting Up" or Assembling Mower~,
“Setting Up” Mowers,
Enfield Arsenal, 1857 126
Erifield McCormick Factory, 1885 185
3.2 Wooden Sewing Machine Cabinet 4.15 “Fitting Up Binders,''
''Fitting Binders,” McCormick
Made by the Wilson Sewing Factory, 1885 186
Machine Company, 1876 128
3.3 Interior of the New York Crystal 5.1 Columbia Light Roadster High-
High-Wheel
Wheel
Palace Exhibition, 1853 130 Bicycle, 1886 191
3.4 Woodworking Shop at the Wheeler and 5.2 Columbia Women’s
Women's Safety Bicycle,
Wilson Factory, 1879 131 1896 192
3.5 Diagram of Peeled and Sliced Veneer 5.3 "Bicycle Room” of the Weed Sewing
“Bicycle Room"
Production 134 Machine Company Factory,
3.6 Plain Walnut Cabinet Made for Singer 1880 193
Sewing Machines, 1876 135 5.4 Weed Sewing Machine Company
3.7 Fancy Cabinet (Walnut, Mahogany, or Factory, Hartford, Connecticut,
Connecticut.
Rosewood) Made for Singer Sewing 1881 195
Machines, 1876 135 5.5 Machining Rear Hubs for Columbia
3.8 Plain Walnut Table with Paneled Cover Bicycles, Weed Factory, 1881 195
Made for Singer Sewing Machines, 5.6 Inspecting and Gauging Columbia
1876 137 Bicycle Parts, Weed Factory,
3.9 “Drop” Cabinet, 1893 141
Singer "Drop" 1881 196
3.10 Singer Bent Plywood Sewing Machine 5.77
5. Truing Columbia Bicycle Wheels.
Wheels,
Cover 143 Weed Factory, 1881 196
WeedFactory,
3.11 Special-Purpose Wheel Machinery, 5.8 Assembling Columbia Bicycles, Weed
J. A. Fay && Co., 1888 148 Factory, 1881 197/97
3.12 Manually Indexed Hub Chipping-out 5.9 Warehouse for Columbia Bicycles and
Machines and Handwork, Studebaker Parts, Weed Factory, 1881 197
Brothers Factory, ca. 1890 150 5.10 Local Chapter of the League of
3.13 Hand Planing Felloes,
Fellocs, Studebaker American Wheelmen, 1880s 199
Brothers Factory, ca. 1890 151 5.11 National Bicycle Exhibition, Madison
Square Garden, 1895 199J99
4.1 McCormick‘s Instructions for
Cyrus McCormick's 5.12 Thomson Electric Welder, 1891 20! 201
Reaper Assembly, 1851 158 5.13 Sections of Hub Forging and Finished
4.2 McCormick Reaper Factory, Chicago, Hub for Columbia Bicycle,
ea. 1860 163
ca. 1892 204
4.3 McCormick Self-Raking Reaper, 5.14 Pope Testing Department Apparatus,
1862 165 1896 207
4.4 C. H. McCormick & & Bro. Factory, 5.15 Examples of Bicycle Parts Stamped out
North Side Chicago, 1868 169 of Sheet Steel, I18905
890s 209
4.5 McCormick Advance Self-Raking 5.16 Examples of Electrically Welded
Reaper, 1869 171 /7/ Bicycle Parts Made from Sheet
4.6 McCormick Prize Mower, I1869 17/
i\69 171 Steel, 1896 210
4.7 McCormick Harvester and Wire 5.17 Steps in Making Hubs 211
Binder, 1876 176 5.18 Steps in Sprocket Making 213
4.8 McCormick Harvester and Twine
Binder, ca. 188\
1881 179 6.1 Model T Ford, 1913 219
4.9 Setting up Finger Bars, McCormick 6.2 Static Assembly, Model N, Ford Motor
Factory, 1881 181 1'81 Company Piquette A
Avenue
venue Factory,
4.10 McCormick Factory, 1885 J183 83 1906 222
 Figures and Tables xiii
Xlll

6.3 Punch Press Operations, Highland Park 6.29 Body Drop, Highland Park, 1913 254
Factory, 1913 225 6.30 Radiator and Wheel Chutes, Final
6.4 Punch Press Operations, Highland Park Assembly Line, Highland Park,
Factory, 1913 226 1914 255
6.5 Highland Park Factory, 1923 227 6.31 Driving Off the Assembly Line.
6.6 Quick-Change Fixture for Crankcase Highland Park, !914 2566
1914 25
Drilling, 1913 230 6.32 General View of "The
“The Line,"
Line,''
6.7 Machining Engine Blocks, 1915 231 Highland Park, 1914 257
6.8 Ford Crankshaft Grinding Machines,
Machines. 6.33 Rear Axle Assembly Line, Highland
1915 232 258
Park, 1914 Z58
6.9 Drilling and Reaming Engine Block, 6.34 Dashboard Assembly Line, Highland
233
1913
Z33 Park, 1914 259
6.10 Magneto Coil Assembly, Highland 6.35 Upholstery Line, Highland Park,
Park, 1913 234 1916 260
6.ll
6.11 Engine Assembly, Highland Park,
7.1 Ford Motor Company‘s
Company's River Rouge
1913 235
Factory, 1930 269
6.12 Rear Axle Assembly Stands, Highland
7.2 Henry Ford and His Chief Production
Park, 1913 235
Experts, 1933 2 70
Z70
6.13 Dashboard Assembly Stands, Highland
7.3 Henry Ford and Edsel B. Ford in the
Park, 1913 236
Fifteen Millionth Model T,
6.14 Static Assembly of Model T Chassis,
1927 280
1913 237
7.4 Model A Engine Number One on Test
6.15 Ford Foundry Mold Conveyors.
Conveyors,
Block, 1927 282
1913 238
7.5 Henry Ford, Edsel B. Ford, and the
6.16 Molding Machines, Ford Foundry,
New Model A Ford, Waldorf Hotel,
1913 239
December 1, I927 283
l, 1927
6.17 Westinghouse Foundry, !890
1890 240
7.6 Johansson Gauge Blocks 287
6.18 “Disassembly” Line, Slaughterhouse,
"Disassembly"
7.7 Model A Final Assembly Line, River
1873 242
Rouge Factory, 1928 290
6.19 “Disassembly” Line, Slaughterhouse,
"Disassembly"
7.8 Body Drop, Model A, Final Assembly
1873 242
Line, River Rouge Factory,
6.20 Evans’s
Evans's Automatic Flour Mill,
1931 291
Occoquan, Virginia, 1795 243
7.9 Conveyor Belt, River Rouge Factory,
6.21 Norton’s
Norton's Automatic Canmaking
1932 298
Machinery, 1885 243
7.10 Ford V-8 Engine Assembly, River
6.22 Some of the Principal Creators of Mass
Rouge Factory, 1930s 2 99
299
Production at Ford Motor Company, 7.11 Henry Ford and the V-8, March 10,
1913 245
1932 300
6.23 “The First Magneto Assembly Line,''
''The Line,”
1913 246 8.1 Henry Ford and William 1.J. Cameron in
6.24 Assembling Transmissions on What the Dearborn Laboratory of the Ford
Horace Arnold Called "the
“the first of Motor Company, 1935 304
the Ford sliding assembly lines,''
lines," 8.2 Ford Soybean Processing Plant, River
1913 247 Rouge, 1930s 310
6.25 Part of Engine Assembly Line 8.3 Assembly Line Factory Production of
Operations, Highland Park. Gunnison Housing Corporation, New
1915 250 Albany. Indiana, ca.
Albany, indiana, ca. 1937 312
6.26 Installing Pistons in Model T Engines, 8.4 Automatic Paint Booths, Gunnison
Highland Park, ca. 1914 251 Housing Corporation, New Albany,
6.27 Engine Drop, Final Assembly Line, Indiana, ca. 1937 3312J2
Highland Park, 1913 252 8.5 “Ford” or "Chevrolet"
"Ford" “Chevrolet” Equivalent of
66.28
..28 End of the Line, Highland Park. Gunnison Prefabricated House, ca.
1913 253 1937 313
xiv
XIV FIGURES AND TAflLES
FfGURES TABLES

8.6 “Cadillac” Equivalent of

“Buick” or "Cadillac"
"Buick" A.3 Needle Bar and Presser Foot Bar of
Gunnison Prefabricated House, ca. New Family Machine Number
1937 313 87l04 339
87104
8.7
8. 7 Louis's Phonograph
Shift Change at Louis’s A.4 Underside of Singer New Family
Factory, A no
nous la liberte,
us Ia Ziberté, Sewing Machine, Serial Number
1931 317 106092, ca. 1865 339
8.8 Phonograph Manufacture on the A.5 Detail of Underside of Singer New
Assembly Line, A nous Ia la liberte, Family Sewing Machine Number
1931 317 106092, ca. 1865 340
8.9 Chaplin on the Assembly Line, Modern A.6 Detail of Needle Bar, Needle Bar Cam,
Times, 1936 318 Presser Foot Bar, and Faceplate,
8.10 Chaplin Driven Crazy on the Assembly Machine Number 106092 340
Line, Modern Times, 1936 319 A.77 Detail of Bevel Gears, Machine
A.
8.11 Charles Chaplin with Edsel B. Ford Number 106092 341
and Henry Ford in the Power Plant, A.8 Detail of Needle Bar, Needle Bar Cam,
Highland Park Factory, 1923 320 Presser Foot Bar, and Faceplate,
8.12 North Wall, Detroit Industry, Diego Serial Number 360834, ca.
Rivera, Detroit Institute of Arts, 1870 341
!870
1932 324 A.9 Detail of Horizontal Shaft and Bevel
8.13 South Wall, Detroit Industry, Diego Gear of New Family Sewing
Rivera, Detroit Institute of Arts, Machine Number 103977, ca.
1932-33 325 1872-73 342
8.14 Detail, South Wall, Detroit Industry, A.10 Detail of Crank or Cam Mechanism,
A.lO
Diego Rivera, Detroit Institute of Which Operates the Grooved Cam of
Arts, 1932-33 326 the Needle Bar, Machine Number
1038977 342
A.l
A.1 Underside of Singer New Family A.ll
A.l1 Underside of Singer New Family
Sewing Machine, Serial Number Sewing Machine, Serial Number
87104, ca. 1865 338 5235877,
5235 877, ca. 1884 or 1885 343
A.2 Detail of Underside of Singer New A.12 Detail of Bevel Gears of Machine
Family Sewing Machine, Number 5235877 343
87104, ca. 1865 338

Tables
2.1 Production of Wheeler and Wilson and
Willcox && Gibbs Sewing Machines,
Machines.
J1853-1876
853-1876 70
2.2 Output of Singer Sewing Machines,
1853-1880 89
4.1 McCormick Machines Built,
1841-1885 161
6.1 Manufacturing and Marketing of Model
T Fords, 1908-1916 224
Foreword

This his volume marks an important depruture

departure in the Industry and Society series of
ii
• • • • the Johns Hopkins University Press and the Eleutherian Mills-
Mills-Hagley
Hagley Founda-
lt has been our intent from the first that most of the studies in this series focus on the
tion. It
economic and social history of the Mid-Atlantic states yet be pertinent to wider issues and
topics. Burton Folsom’s
Folsom's Urban Capitalists, John Bodnar's
Bodnar’s Worker's World, and Paul
Pasl<ioff’s
Paskoff' s Indnstrioi
Industrial Evolution led the way in fulfilling that goal; all three deal closely with
aspects of industrial history in a single state, but all approach their subjects in a way that
makes them of interest to to the broad community of historians. The publication of David
Hounshell’s From the American System to Mass Production represents another kind of
Hounshell's
work that we also hoped to include in the series-studies that make significant contribu-
tions to important historical questions about the relationship between industry and society
but do not necessarily deal exclusively with the Mid-Atlantic region.
llounshel1’s work is pathbreaking in many respects. He gives us, for the first time, a
Hounshell's
comprehensive analysis of the evolution of the most significant and best-known set of
mass production technologies in American history. Beginning with their origins in the
federal armories of the early nineteenth century, Hounshell traces those interrelated tech-
nologies through a number of industries-the
industries—the sewing machine, the woodworking indus-
tries, the reaper, the bicycle, and the automobile. The techniques were spread and im-
proved by a close-knit network of key mechanics, who moved out in concentric circles
from the armories to the machine tool companies, the sewing machine manufacturers, and
the rest, all the way to the automobile makers. Mechanics who had learned parts of the
growing body of ideas about how to create highly productive factories passed those ideas
grcl\Ning
on to others, who, in turn, expanded and spread them. The extent of the linkages between
the critical firms and individuals was astonishing. Over time, these men steadily widened
the range of methods for manufacturing items of wood and metal. Factory organization,
specialized machines, precision manufacture, interchangeable pmis, parts, carefully coordinated
work sequences and materials flows, and new methods for stamping and welding metal
America’s production engineers.
eventually become standard items in the repertoire of America's
By the early twentieth century some industries had become so adept at turning out
masses of parts that they encountered a bottleneck at the point of assembly. The mechan-
ics and engineers responsible for the revolution in production proved equal to this new
challenge as well. On the eve of World War I the Ford Motor Company came up with the
answer—the assembly line. The last obstacle had been removed. Seemingly limitless
answer-the
numbers of virtually identical goods could now be produced. A perpetual cornucopta cornucopia
machine had emerged, fully realizing the promise of true mass production that began in
the armories at Springfield and Harpers Ferry.

XV
XV
XVI FOREWORD

Almost as quickly as the new order had dawned, however, it ran into another bot-
tleneck. For the first time in the story of the industries Hounshell examines, the major
problem ceased to be the challenge of how to produce enough goods to meet an ever-
growing demand and became, instead, how to dispose of these goods. Although creative creativl~
marketing and heavy advertising had been central elements in the success of firms such as
Singer and McCormick, their factory superintendents had usually been called on agaill again
Ford's
and again to expand output. In the auto industry, however, after Ford’s assembly innova-
tions at Highland Park things began to change. For the first time in the firms studied here,
serious difficulties arose as the volume of manufactured goods exceeded the demand. The
solution to these problems came not from Henry Ford, perhaps the greatest figure in the
history of mass production, but from Alfred Sloan, Charles Kettering, and others at
General Motors. They pioneered a revolutionary approach to marketing in which they
continued to introduce real mechanical improvements in their products but, in addition,
they now emphasized style and superficial annual model changes. Furthermore, GM
began to create individual products consciously aimed at different income groups.
The General Motors strategy succeeded so well that the Ford Motor Company plunged
into decline and losses. Ford and his production engineers eventually were forced to
follow the lead of GM. Hounshell traces in detail the story of the painful transition at Ford
production." Ford had, with the Model T, taken
“flexible mass production.”
to the new technology of "flexible
American mass production to its most extreme form. He had also led his company into an
economic and technical dead end. The dream born in the federal armories a century earlier
became the nightmare of crushing inventories of unsold cars and a rigid production system
with enormously costly and inflexible plants.
The tragedy of Henry Ford pointed to a cruel dilemma that had long troubled other
manufacturers. In a sense it is a fundamental problem of technically advanced capitalism
itself—manufacturers
itself-manufacturers could produce ever greater quantities of any given item., item, b11t
but
eventually they reached the point at which they could no longer sell them at a pri.ce price that
would yield what they considered an acceptable profit. The system is built on endless
growth, however, and for any given firm, continuing growth can be achieved only
through change. No solution is ever final, no product ever so successful that its growth
masses—-fell victim
T—the perfect car for the masses-fell
phase continues endlessly. Even the Model T-the
to this hard fact. Ever since American consumers have been free to choose new goods in
the marketplace, they have done so sooner or later, no matter how useful, durable, or
inexpensive the existing product might have been. Firms committed to growth exist in a
treadmill universe; the machine of growth must never stop.
In many industries, though generally not in the ones detailed in this study, the problem
ln
of overcapacity had existed long before Ford pioneered the assembly line. Manufacturers
tried various ways of dealing with the problem, from trade associations and pools to the
mergers that created so many big businesses before World War I. Oligopolistic competi-compell-
tion and heavy reliance on modern marketing techniques provided a way out for seine
some
industries. When the problem of overcapacity struck the auto industry.
industry, however, it hit tlle
the
Ford Company especially hard because of the company's
company’s wider-ranging commitment to to
the mass production of a single product.
David Hounshell skillfully traces the evolution of the most important set of production
technologies in American industrial history. Inln the process, he inters a number of myths
that have grown up over the years, such as the ideas that the use of interchangeable parts
was widespread in the nineteenth century, that interchangeability always meant lower
costs, and that technical barriers prevented mass production in the woodworking indus-
 ForC\vord
1‘‘ore ll’()l'(/ xvii

tries. Perhaps most important, Hounshell shows that the most successful American firms
relied on the most careful attention to both marketing and production. The story he tells is
one in which a complex and difficult set of new technologies came to fruition with the
benefit of initial government subsidy and only when business leaders made long-term
commitments to innovation and excellence. At a time when Americans are wonyingworrying about
a decline in the performance of their industrial corporations, it is both timely and instruc-
tive to have this history of the era in which U.S. firms rose to a dominant position in world
ofthe
markets.
This is not, however, entirely a paean to progress. Although most ofthe
of the book is written
from the perspective of the factory superintendents and engineers who perfected mass
production, the gradual spread of mechanized production technology meant more rou-
tinized work for the people who tended the machines and whose workday came to be
controlled and defined by the production engineers. In its final chapter, the study assesses
the ambiguous meaning for American society of the coming of mass production.
Few topics are as central to the interests of the Regional Economic History Research
Hounshell's subject. Since he has served for some years as a
Center at Hagley as David Hounshell’s
Center’s Academic Advisory Board and as curator of technology at the
member of the Center's
Hagley Museum, l1 am particularly pleased to have his work appear in this series.

GLENN PoRTER.
GLENN PORTER.Director
Regional Economic History Research Center
Eleutherian Mills-Hagley
MiJls- Hagley Foundation
Acknowledgments

The debts I incurred in writing this study are staggering. First and foremost, Il
he dehts
W
• •••am am indebted to the Eleutherian Mills-Hagley
Mills- Hagley Foundation, which supported me
as a Hagley Fellow while I was a graduate student at the University of Delaware and later
as a curator in the Hagley Museum. The foundation’s
foundation's generous travel budget allowed me
to carry out an important part of my manuscript research, and its Eleutherian Mills
Historical Library held resources that I could not obtain elsewhere. Among numerous
members of the library staff who helped me, Carol Hallman deserves special thanks for
handling countless interlibrary loans and solving other problems for me. The library’s
library's
Pictorial Collections Department also made a substantial contribution to the illustrations
of this book. I deeply appreciate the patience shown me by my museum colleagues and
superiors through the process of refining the manuscript. Robert Howard, Hagley's
Hagley’s cura-
tor of engineering, contributed to this book through his excellent drawings.
I remain flattered that my colleague, Glenn Porter, wanted to have this book as part of
Center’s series with the Johns Hopkins Univer-
the Regional Economic History Research Center's
sity Press. He played a dual role, serving as my greatest critic and as my constant
supporter. Those who have read Glenn Por“ter’s
Porter's own work know the precision of his
scholarship; I consider myself fortunate to have experienced at firsthand the benefit of his
outstanding editorial skill. He contributed significantly to this book in more ways than
even he will ever know. For each of them and for his constant support, I am most grateful.
Two other members of the foundation staff helped to make this book possible. Dora Mae
Blake sustained me during the manuscript's
manuscript’s most trying moments, that of typing. She
cheerfully turned a manuscript that looked worse than a rotten sow'ssow’s ear into a real silk
purse. Mary Meyers rendered great help with the index.
By awarding me a predoctoral fellowship in the history of science and technology, the
Smithsonian Institution made possible a major portion of the work on my doctoral disser-
tation, which provides the basis for this book. I wish to thank Edward Davidson, Gretchen
Gayle, and Elsie Bliss for their help on administrative matters. The National Museum of
History and Technology, now the National
N ationa! Museum of American History, and its staff
were critical in my research and writing. I am especially indebted to Robert C. Post, who
served as my Smithsonian supervisor and who continually went beyond the call of duty.
His own work, his criticism of mine, his careful editorial markings, and his abiding
friendship will always be gratefully remembered. Carlene E. Stephens answered hundreds
of my questions and solved more than a few perplexing historical riddles. I also thank Lu
Rosignol and Charles Burger of the Smithsonian Library, who often rendered heroic
service. Other Smithsonian staff who helped me in important ways are Brooke Hindle,
Silvio Bedini, Joyce Ramey, Nancy Long, Robert Friedel, Otto Mayr, Robert Vogel, Rita

xix
XX ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Adrosko, Barbara Suit, William Henson, Joanna Kofron, and Hazel Jones. lI sincerely
appreciate their help and support.
suppmt.
I am also indebted to Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California, for funding my
research on woodworking technology. The college not only awarded me a summer faculty
research fellowship but it provided other nonpecuniary support. Much of that support
came from B. Samuel Tanenbaum, dean of the college, and Richard Olson, my colleague
pedagoguc.
and oftentimes pedagogue.
Thanks also go to the College of Arts
Atts and Science of the University of Delaware for
helping to defray the costs of obtaining and publishing many of the illustrations in this
book.
I wish to thank the State Historical Society of Wisconsin and its staff in the manuscripts
reading room for their help with my work in the McCormick Collection and the papers of
the Singer Manufacturing Company. 1I am indebted to Joy Levien, assistant secretary of
the Singer Company, for permission to use the Singer papers.
Henry D. Sharpe, Jr., chairman of the Brown & Sharpe Manufacturing Company,
North Kingstown, Rhode Island. Island, gave me permission to use the historical material on
Brown & Sharpe which still survives. I sincerely appreciate his help and encouragement.
To the staff of the manuscripts section of the Connecticut State Library I extend my
thanks for their help with the surviving papers related to the Pope Manufacturing Com-
pany. These papers gave me an unexpected and important perspective on manufacturing
problems in late nineteenth-century America.
The Ford Archives of the Edison Institute will always hold a special place in my debt
list. Douglas A. Bakken, director of the Ford Archives, has made this archive into a first-
rate research facility, and his interest in my project greatly aided my work there. Reading
manuscripts in the Ford Archives was pure pleasure. I profited enormously from the help
of David Crippen, reference archivist. His familiarity with the vast Ford Motor Company
collection and with Ford history is delightfully rare and is deeply appreciated.
My study was aided by Jane McCavitt of the MIT Institute Archives. Her quick
responses to my numerous inquiries faciliated my work on Foster Gunnison. Also, I must
acknowledge my debt to Foster Gunnison, Jr., for providing me with important informa-
tion on his father's
father’s life and work and for allowing me to use the photographs of Gunnison
houses and the Gunnison factory. In addition, my thanks go to the Department of Special
Collections, Case Western Reserve University Libraries, for its help with the Fred Colvin
Papers, which aided my analysis of the Ford assembly line.
My wife, Nancy Eddy, contributed in countless ways to the making of this book. Her
patience with my long hours and her help when little time and much work remained will
never be forgotten. Our daughter Jennie was born at the same time this book was being
conceived. She has grown up with her daddy always either talking about or working on his
book, and sheShe has made her special contributions, as has her younger brother, Blake. His
passion for Tin Lizzies has been exceeded only by his father’s
father's own passion for how they
were made. In short, we have sustained each other.
The editorial team of Johns Hopkins University Press deserves special thanks. Henry
Tom gave his support early on, and he demonstrated great patience in working with me.
Trudie Calvert performed the difficult task of copyediting the manuscript of this book with
impressive care and thoroughness and real grace. To them and others not mentioned, lI
offer my sincere thanks.
lI could never have realized, much less addressed, conceptual problems without the
work and help of John 1. J. Beer, Merritt Roe Smith, and Eugene S. Ferguson. When Il
 A t-/02 0 wledgmenrs
Acknmv/edgments xxi
XX

began this study, I set as my goal to equal the quality of John Beer's dissertation and
hoped my resulting published work would have the same importance as his. I am not
qualified to judge whether I have reached these ends, but I know that Beer's
Beer‘s work and his
excitement for learning have contributed to my intellectual makeup.
One need only peruse the first chapter of this book to see the magnitude of the debt I
owe Merritt Roe Smith. His writings on annsarms production technology form the basis of my
Smith’s careful criticism of the manuscript and his probing questions have sharp-
work. Smith's
ened my work at every turn.
My greatest debt, both intellectual and otherwise, is to Eugene S. Ferguson. He was
one of the first historians of technology to stress the importance of the American system of
manufactures and the development of mass production technology. In his class on Ameri-
can technology, Ferguson demonstrated the neeessity
necessity of understanding this historical
phenomenon if we arc are to comprehend fully the nature of technology in nineteenth-century
America. This need is the reason 1l undertook my study. Ferguson continually directed me
to important sources and raised questions that never occurred to me. No student ever had a
teacher. and no person could ever have a more devoted friend.
better teacher,
These many individuals and institutions have contributed to the makeup of this book,
but the weaknesses that remain are mine and mine alone.
From the
AMERICAN SYSTEM to
MASS PRODUCTION
PRODUCTIQN
1800-1932
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Introduction
ll/[ass
Mass production became the Great Amerirmz Art.
American Arr.
—Paul Prosperi/\=
--Paul Mazur, American Prosperitr

l920s the term mass

ince the 1920s production has become so deeply ingrained in our
nzass proa'uction
i
• • • vocabulary that we seldom question its origin. The purpose of this study is to
determine how the term arose and to provide historical background on the development of
mass production in America. Manufacturing in the United States developed along such
distinct lines in the first half of the nineteenth century that English observers in the 1850s 18505
referred to an ''American system” of manufactures. This American system grew and
“American system''
changed in character so much that by the 1920s the United States possessed the most
prolific production technology the world has ever known. This was “mass production.''
''mass production.”
In 1925 the American editor of the EncyclopnediaEncyclopaedia Britannica wrote to Henry Ford
asking him to submit an article on mass production for the three-volume supplement to the
Britannica. Apparently Ford'sFord’s office, if not Ford himself, responded favorably and
Ford’s spokesman, William J. Cameron, to work on the article.
promptly set Ford's atiicle. Cameron
consulted the company's chief production planner about how to state the principles of
mass production for the "general
“general reader." When Cameron completed the article, he
placed Henry Ford’s
Ford's name beneath it and sent it to the Bi-iznnniea’.s'
Britannica's New York office.
office.‘1
Although Cameron would later say that he "should “should be very much surprised to Jearnlearn
that [Henry Ford had] read it,‘it,' '‘Z2 this article played a fundamental role in giving the phrase
mass production a place in the English vocabulary. Even before the article appeared in the
Britannica, the NewNe•v York Times had published it as a full-page feature in a Sunday
edition, titled “Henry
"Henry Ford Expounds Mass Production: Calls It the Focussing of the
Principles of Power, Economy, Continuity and Speed," Speed,” and distributed it through the
wire service. An editorial on the subject appeared in the same edition? edition. 3 The Britannica
production is unknown, but there is little doubt
editor’s reason for choosing the term mass prodticrion
editor's
that the ghost-written Ford article led to its widespread use and identification with the
assembly line manufacturing techniques that were the hallmark of automobile produc-
tionfl4 After 1925,
tion. I925, the term appeared in reference works such as the Reader's Reader’s Guide to
Periodic Literature and the New York Times Index. It soon superseded the previously
popular expression Fordism. Thus the article signed by Ford endowed the expression
mass production with a certain universality despite its ambiguity and its status as poor
grammar.*
*Mc1.s‘s was-and
'''Mass is—a noun rather than an adjective. The term mass
was~and most grammarians would say still is-a muss
prodtietion “masses” or merely quantlly
production raises the question of whether this is production aimed at the "masses·' quantity
production.

I
22 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION
PRODUCTJO!':

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FIGURE 0.1.
FiGURE 0.1, Day’s Output of Ford Model 'l"’s,
A Day's T's, Highland Park factory,
Factory, 1915.
l9l5. (Henry Ford
Museum, The Edison Institute. Neg. No. 0-716.)

Much more important than the story of how ninss

mass production entered the English
vocabulary are the developments that lay behind the production system described in the
article. Commenting in 1940
I940 on Henry Ford and the Britannica article in his Engines of
of
Democracy, Roger Burlingame raised the essential questions:
With lFord's]
[Ford’s] great one-man show moving toward a dictatorship of which any totalitarian
leader might well be proud he was ready for what he calls [Mass] Production. [Mass]
Production, Ford believes, had never existed in the world before. With the magnificent
contempt of men immune to history, he disregards all predecessors: Whitney, Evans,
Colt, Singer, McCormick, the whole chain of patient, laborious workers who wrought his
assembly lines and all the ramifications of his processes out of the void of handicrafts. In
a colossal blurb printed in the Encyc'[opaed1’a
Encyclopaedia Britannica under the guise of an article on
he writes: "In
mass production, be “In origin, mass production is American and recent; its
notable appearance falls within the first decade of the 20th century,''
century,” and devotes the
remainder of the article and two full pages of half-tone plates to the Ford factory.

Burlingame asked rhetorically, "What

“What are those production methods in use today in every
large automobile plant with scarcely any variation‘? are simply the methods of Eli
variation? They arc
Whitney and Samuel Colt, improved, coordinated and applied with intelligent economy—
economy-
economy in time, space, men, motion, money and material.”5
material. " 5
 Introduction 3

1, in. (‘La FFY\ 1.

/\ fi\ Ii 1
\>/

FIGURE 0.2. I915. (Henry Ford Mu-

0.2. Ford Motor Company, Highland Park Factory Employees, 1915.
seum, The Edison Institute. Neg. No. 833-700.)

Since the establishment of the history of technology as an academic discipline in the

United States, the assertions contained in both Ford’s
Ford's Britannica article and Burlingame's
Burlingame’s
popular work have received close study. Indeed, the American system of manufactures,
which describes the methods of Eli Whitney, Samuel Colt, Oliver Evans, Isaac Singer,
Cyrus McCormick, and others, has become one of the most productive areas of American
technology.66 Portions of that new scholarship, combined with
scholarship in the history of technology.
the research in this study, indicate that the Ford article came much nearer the truth than
did Burlingame and his followers. "In “In origin,"
origin,” the Ford piece suggested, "mass
“mass produc-
tion is American and recent'
recent”—what
'-what Whitney et al. did in the nineteenth century was not
true mass production. The title ofofthis
this study suggests that mass production differed in kind
as well as in scale from the techniques referred to in the antebellum period as the
American system of manufactures, as can be seen most clearly by first considering the
American system itself.
Two decades of research on this topic have yielded a number of conclusions, particu- patiicu-
larly concerning a basic aspect of modern manufacturing, the interchangeability of parts.
The symbolic kingpin of interchangeable parts production fell in 1960 I960 when Robert S.
Woodbury published his essay "The “The Legend of Eli Whitney and Interchangeable Parts" Parts”
in the first volume of Technology and Culture.
Cnlriire. Woodbury convincingly argued that the
Whitney’s
parts of Whitney's guns were not in fact constructed with interchangeable parts. In 1966
I966
the artifactual research of Edwin A. Battison solidly confirmed Woodbury’s
Woodbury's more tradi-
tional document-based research findings. Eugene S. Ferguson later wrote of Woodbury's
Woodbury’s
pioneering atiicle,
article, "Except
“Except for Whitney's
Whitney’s ability to sell an undeveloped idea, little
production.”7
remains of his title as father of mass production. "7
With Eli Whitney reinterpreted as a promoter rather than as a pioneer of machine-made
interchangeable parts manufacture,
manufacture,88 it remained for Merritt Roe Smith to identify con-
clusively the personnel and the circumstances of this fundamental step in the development
of mass production.9
production. 9 Smith demonstrated that the United States Ordnance Department
was the prime mover in bringing about machine-made interchangeable parts production of
small arms. The national armory at Springfield, Massachusetts, played a major role in this
process, especially in its efforts to coordinate its operations with those of the Harpers
Ferry Armory and John Hall's
Hall’s experimental rifle factory, also at Harpers Fen·y.
Ferry. Although
these federally owned arms plants were central to its efforts, the Ordnance Department
4 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION
PRODLiCTlON

also contracted with private armsmakers. By specifying interchangeability in its contracts

and by giving contractors access to techniques used in the national armories, the Ordnance
Department contributed significantly to the growing sophistication of metalworking and
woodworking (in the case of gunstock production) in the United States by the 1850s.“) 1850s. 10
British observers found these techniques sufficiently different from their own as to allude
“American system,"
to them as the "American system,” the "American
“American plan,” “American prin--
plan,'' and the "American pnn··
ciple.”'1
ciple. '' 11

Although British visitors to the United States in the 1850s,l850s, especially Joseph Whit-·
Whit--
worth and John Anderson, were impressed with every aspect of American manufacturing,
small arms production received their most careful and detailed analysis. Certainly this was
Anderson’s
Anderson's job, for he had been sent to the United States to find out everything he could
about small arms production and to purchase armsmaking machinery for the Enfield
Armoury. In his report, Anderson indicated that the federal armory at Springfield had
indeed achieved what the Ordnance Department had sought since its inception: true
interchangeability of parts. Anderson and his committee had designed a rigorous test to
verify this achievement, and when they had completed it, they were no longer doubters. 12 13
What Anderson was not likely to have known was the extraordinary sum of money that
the Ordnance Department had expended over a forty- or fifty-year period, “in ''in order,”
order," as
an Ordnance Officer wrote in 1819, l8l9, "to
“to attain this grand object of uniformity of parts.”
parts.''
Nor was Anderson necessarily aware that the unit cost of Springfield small arnis arms with
interchangeable parts almost certainly was significantly higher than that of arms produced
by more traditional methods. He should, however, have known that the Ordnance Depart-· Depart-
ment
mcnt could annually turn out only a relatively small number of Springfield arms manufac--
manufac-
tured with interchangeable parts. Despite the high costs and limited output, Anderson
pointed out that the special techniques used in the Springfield Armory as well as in some
private armories could be applied almost universally in metalworking and woodworking
establishments. 13 ln fact, by the time Anderson reached this conclusion, the application of
13 In
those techniques in other industries was already under way.
The new manufacturing technology spread first to the production of a new consumer
durable, the sewing machine, and eventually it diffused into such areas as typewriters,
bicycles, and eventually automobiles. Nathan Rosenberg has provided economic and
technological historians with an excellent analysis of a major way in which this diffusion
occurred. 14 14 Rosenberg identified the American machine tool industry, which grew out oi of
the small arms industry (notably Colt's Colt’s Patent Firearms Manufacturing Co. in Hartford,
Connecticut, and Robbins & & Lawrence Co. in Windsor, Vermont, and Hartford, Connect-
icut) as the key agent for introducing armsmaking
arrnsmaking technology into the sewing machine,
bicycle, and automobile industries. The makers of machine tools worked with manufac-
turers in various industries as they encountered and overcame production problems relat-
ing to the cutting, planing, boring, and shaping of metal parts. As each problem was
solved, new knowledge went back into the machine tool firms, which then could be used
for solving production problems in other industries. Rosenberg called this phenomenon
“technological convergence."
"technological convergence.” In many industries that worked with metal, the final
products were sold in vastly different markets~the
markets»—the Springfield Armory, for example,
“sold” its products to a single customer, the government, whereas sewing machine
"sold"
producers marketed their products among widely scattered individual consumers. Nev-
ertheless, these products were technologically related because their manufacture depended
upon similar metalworking techniques. These common needs "converged" “converged” at the point
where the machine tool industry interacted with the firms that bought its machine tools.
 Introduction 5S

Although he did not emphasize the point, Rosenberg recognized that individual me-
chanics played an equally important role in diffusing know-how as they moved from the
firearms industry to sewing machine manufacture to bicycle production and even to
automobile manufacture. Examples of such mechanics abound. Henry M. Leland is an
obvious example: he worked at the Springfield Armory, carried this knowledge to the
Brown & Sharpe Manufacturing Company when it was manufacturing both machine tools
and Willcox & Gibbs sewing machines, and created the Cadillac Motor Car Company and
finally the Lincoln Motor Company. 15 '5
lilut
But the process of diffusion was neither as smooth nor as simple as Rosenberg and
others would have it. New research suggests that the factories of two of the giants of
nineteenth-century manufacturing, the Singer Manufacturing Company and the McCor-
mick Harvesting Machine Company, were continually beset with production problems.
Previously, many historians attributed the success of these two companies to their ad-
vanced production technology. But it now appears that a superior marketing strategy,
including advertising and sales techniques and policies, proved to be he the decisive factor. 16
16
Although the Singer sewing machine was the product of the colorfuily
colorfully scandalous Isaac
Singer, the successful enterprise known as I. M. Singer & Co. (incorporated in 1863 I863 as
Singer Manufacturing Company) was pnmarily primarily the handiwork of lawyer Edward Clark.
Clark’s success rested on marketing, not on production techniques. The Singer company
Clark's
initially held no technical advantages and no decisive patent monopoly over major com-
petitors because in order to construct a workable sewing machine, four organizations
(including Singer) had been forced to pool their patents. In fact, one member of the pool,
the Wheeler and Wilson Manufacturing Company. Company, took an early and wide lead until
Singer surpassed its production in 1867 I867 (forty-three thousand Singer machines versus
thirty-eight thousand Wheeler and Wilson). After 1867, I867, Singer dominated the industry
and eventually absorbed Wheeler and Wilson. Wheeler and Wilson had based its produc-
tion on what contemporaries called “armory
'·armory practice,”
practice," that is, the production techniques
used at leading armories, such as Springfield. Its manufacturing system was established
by three former armsmaking machinists, one trained at Colt's Colt’s Hartford armory, one who
worked at Nathan Ames’s
Ames's armory and for eight years at the Springfield Armory, and the
other who had been a contractor at the Robbins & Lawrence-Sharps rifle factory at
Hartford.
Unlike Wheeler and Wilson, Singer initially built its machines in a Boston scientific
maker’s shop and later it rented "rooms"
instrument maker's “rooms” in a New York manufacturing
I862
district. Not until 1862 did the Singer company hire any mechanic familiar with arms
production technology, and then it chose a man whose experiences had been gained in the
small, New Jersey—based
Jersey-based Manhattan Firearms Company, rather than in one of the great
advanced armories of New England. As the company'scompany’s leader, Edward Clark had empha-
sized marketing rather than production. In 1855 he wrote a high-level company employee
that "a “a large part of our own success we attribute to our numerous advertisements
advettisements and
publications. To insure success only two things are required: Ilst st to have the best machines
and 2nd to let the public know it." it.”‘7 “To have the best machines"
17 "To machines” implied not only
excellence in design but also quality in manufacture. There was no question in Clark's Clark‘s
mind that the Singer approach to manufacture, called the European method because it
depended largely on skilled machinists, provided this quality essential for commercial
success.
A notable aspect of Singer's
Singer’s marketing strategy-as
strategy—as well as Cyrus McCormick’s—was
McCormick's-was
that the Singer machine was deliberately sold at the top of the price list for the industry
6 THE AMERICAN SYSTf.M
FROM THf. SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION
PRODLCTION

throughout the nineteenth century. Moreover, Singer maintained its high price for most of
this period despite significant growth in production and sales. Its lts marketing strategy,
which in addition to advertising eventually included retail dealerships and service centers
and an installment purchasing plan, allowed the company to continue to sell more and
more machines at the same price level. 1la8
Singer’s business continued to expand both in the United States and abroad. By 1880
Singer's l88t)
firm’s world output had reached five hundred thousand machines annually. Singer'-;
the firm's Singer";
factory superintendent, who had been hired away from the Manhattan Arms Company. Company,
had gradually introduced special-purpose machinery and had striven toward production of
more uniform parts. Yet for a long time, as B. F. Spalding pointed out in the American Americarz
“compromised with the European method lof
Machinist in 1890, Singer ''compromised manufacture l by
[of manufacture]
employing many cheap workmen in fmishing finishing pieces by dubious hand work which could
have been more economically made by the absolutely certain processes of machinery.’ machinery.''’ 19 “’
The records of the company show conclusively that Spalding was right. In ln fact, despite
the increasing uscuse of a rational jig, fixture, and gauging system*systemf (a hallmark of arm:; arms
production technology), parts of Singer sewing machines were hand-fitted together by
skilled fitters as late as 1883. The inability of Singer's
Singer’s major U.S. factory to meet. the
meet tlK
continually growing demand for sewing machines finally led the president of the com- com
pany, who had "worked
“worked his way up from the bench,”
bench," to establish an ad hoe hoc production
committee. This committee, which included the president, the factory superintendent, and
the superintendent's
superintendent’s chief assistants, resolved in March 1883 that "each piece eom-- com·
menced in a department shall be finished there to gauge [sic] ready for assembling and no
menccd
part shall be made in the department
depa11ment where it is assembled into the machine.'machine.”20' 20
This resolution clearly indicates that extensive hand-fitting and custom machining were
done during the process that Singer publicly called "assembly."
“assembly.” Try as they would to
attain interchangeable parts on Singer machines, however, a Singer official noted almost
two years later that the factory was ''no “no fur1her
further ahead than we were two years ago"'' ago“ iin11
perfecting interchangeable parts manufacture.
manufacture.2' Whereas Springfield Armory had turned
21

out arms numbering into the thousands constructed with perfectly interchangeable parts,
the Singer Manufacturing Company could not achieve the goal at a time when it made a<1
half million sewing machines annually. Singer simply could not afford to lavish the same
amount of care in machining and inspection on its sewing machine parts as Springfield did
on its muskets. In this connection, one cannot help but notice a central requirement for
mass production stated by Ford in the Encvclopaediu
Enevclopaedia Britannica:
Brz'ra1m1'cic1.' "In
“ln mass production
there are no fitters.
fitters.”22
'' 22 Despite its grand successes in both sales and production, the
Singer Manufacturing Company left the development of mass production unfinished

’1‘lt is important to understand what is meant by ·'a

''It “a rational jig. system," because it was
jig, fixture, and gauging system,''
with this system that firearms makers in the antebellum period were able to produce weapons with interchange-
interchange,
able parts,
parts. The “rational” because it was based on a model,
Tlle system was ''rational'' model. which in one sense can be interpreted,.,
interpreted as
a kind of Platonic model in that armsrnakcrs
armsmakers viewed the model weapon as an ideal form. All production arms
were but imperfect imitations of this ideal (but real) model. rnoclel. Jigs and fixtures are devices to fix or ITIOUIH
mount
workpieces
work pieces in machine tools. How a \Vorkpiece
workpiece is fixed in a machine tool determines (in tin part) its accmacy.
accuracy.
especially when more than one machining operation is involved. If several operations are performed on ita
workpiece which requires several difl’erent
different fixtures to hold it in a machine tool or a series of machine tools.
toob.
accuracy becomes problematic unless the fixtures are designed on some common, rational basis. ln the nine-
teenth century.
century, the
tbe model provided this basis. All
J\11 fixtures were designed with reference to the model. thereby
there b)
ensuring uniformity. In addition,
addition. gauges to verify this uniformity were also constructed. Where dimensions anti
and
fits were critical, gauges were made based on the model, or ideal form. With such designed gauges and fixture~,
fixtures.
parts produced in machine tools approximated comparable parts of the model.
 Introduclion
Introduction 7

because it continued to rely upon fitters. The same was even more true at the McCormick
Harvesting Company.
Perhaps no major American manufacturing establishment has been more misun-
derstood than the McCormick reaper works in the nineteenth century. Throughout popular
literature of the nineteenth century
century”23 and in secondary historical literature of this century,

the McCormick works is described as a model manufacturing establishment and credited

with advanced production techniques. This certainly may have been true when compared
to other agricultural implement makers, but when viewed alongside the Springfield Armo-
ry or even the Singer Manufacturing Company, the production technology at the McCor-
mick works appears crude. It has long been asserted that Cyrus McCormick adopted the
inanufacturing techniques developed in New England armories when he established the
manufacturing
reaper works in Chicago in 1848. But the firm's
firm’s founder never took a serious interest in
the manufacture of his reaper. He left that to his youngest brother, Leander J. McCor-
mick, who had learned only the craft of blacksmithing before he left the family's
family’s Virginia
homestead to superintend Cyrus's
Cyrus’s Chicago factory.
Between that date, 1848, and 1880 there is little evidence that Leander expanded his
technical horizons to encompass the developments that have become known as the Ameri-
can system of manufactures. The McCormick factory employed almost no special- or
single-purpose machinery, and there is little evidence that Leander knew of the techniques
of special gauges, jigs, and fixtures which distinguished the arms industry. Handwork and
skilled machine work appear to have prevailed during this period. Moreover, the output of
sk11led
reapers and mowers remained surprisingly small. In 1873, slightly more than 10,000
machines were produced while in 1880, 21,600 machines were made, including some
5,000 of the smaller but more mechanically sophisticated binder attachments. Compared
to the half million sewing machines Singer made that year and to the half million Model T
automobiles Ford Motor Company produced in 1916, McCormick was manufacturing on
a small scale.
Like the Singer machine, the price of McCormick's
McCormick’s products was top of the line. From
the outset, Cyrus McCormick had marketed his machine aggressively, spending what his
“enormous” sums of money on advertising. As the years
brother William considered ''enormous''
proceeded, McCormick changed his initial agent or distributor system of sales to fran-
chised dealerships supervised by regional office managers.
managers.“ 24 Although these changes

resulted in greater sales and the potential for even more, Leander steadfastly refused to
allow significant increases in the factory's
factory’s output. For this reason and for related personal
ones, Cyrus McCormick finally fired his brother as superintendent of the factory in 1880
and replaced him with a mechanic who was familiar with the latest production technology.
This person, Lewis Wilkinson, had been employed at the Colt armory, the Connecticut
Firearms Company, and the Wilson Sewing Machine Company.
The arrival of Wilkinson and his tutelage of Princeton-educated Cyrus McCormick,
Jr., played a major role in bringing about radical change in McCormick production
.Jr.,
methods. Drawing on his experience in small arms production, he introduced the princi-
ples of armory practice into the McCormick factory. Although Wilkinson stayed at
McCormick for only one year, Cyrus McCormick, Jr., who served as his assistant during
that year, learned the principles well. Cyrus, Jr., carried the new approach forward in his
“new regime”
''new regime'' as superintendent and soon as the chief executive officer of the company.
Output under the new regime expanded rapidly.
Despite the introduction of production methods commonly used in American small
arms plants, the McCormick company continued to be plagued by the farm implement
8 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

industry’s
industry's propensity for what could be termed annual model changes. Indeed, these
changes may have been the principal reason Leander McCormick wanted to maintain the
flexible but less productive traditional approach to manufacture during his tenure a~
more flexible as
superintendent from I1848 848 to 1880. The perceived necessity to make annual changes in
order to keep the McCormick machines attractive in the market imposed severe produc-
tion limitations on the McCormick factory. In fact, they made it impossible for the
McCormick works to become the birthplace of mass production.
At about the same time that the McCormicks were adopting important clementselements of the
American system, a new product was being born that would serve as a bridge between that
system and mass production. That new product was the bicycle. The American bicycle
industry played a transitional role in the development of mass production for a number of
reasons.”
reasons. 25 The physical nature of the product itself clearly provided a stepping stone to the

automobile. With important exceptions, early automobile chassis consisted of bicycle

tubing and tires, and many early automobile makers were also manufacturers of bicycles.
In addition, the safety bicycle introduced the American public to the wonders of person person-
alized
ali zed transportation, which was probably used more for recreation than for transportation
to the workplace. During the 1890s, with more and more Americans riding bicycles (sales
in 1896 exceeded 11.2 . 2 million bicycles), speed in personalized transportation came to be
looked upon as a virtue and as a necessity for a mobile nation, and this attitude hastened
the day of the automobile. Furthermore, with the American bicycle industry, advertising
grew in importance and sophistication. During this period several commercial artists
became famous for their bicycle advertising poster work and advertising layouts in popu- popu·
larjournals.
lar journals. But it was in production technology above all that the bicycle left its mark as
a transitional industry to mass production.
Joseph Woodworth, author of Ai7’l€}"fti‘C1I1 T001 Ma/ring
American Tool Making and Inrerchaiigerzb/e
Interchangeable Mamifric
Manufac-
raring (1907), argued that the '"manufacture
turing “manufacture of the bicycle .... . .brought
brought out the ca-
ca·
pabilities of the American mechanic as nothing else had ever done. lt It demonstrated to the
world that he and his kind were capable of designing and making special machinery.
tools, fixtures, and devices for economic manufacturing in a manner truly marvellous; and
has led to the installation of the interchangeable system of manufacturing in a thousand
and one shops where it was formerly thought to be impractical."
impractical.”3“ Clearly the bicycle
26 Clearly·

industry as a staging ground for the diffusion of armory practice cannot be over-
emphasized. Rosenberg's idea that the machine tool industry played a leading role in this
diffusion applies even more clearly to the bicycle than to the sewing machine. The bicycle
boom of the 1890s kept the machine tool industry in relatively good health during the
serious depression that began in 1893, and it was accompanied by changes in production
techniques.
Entirely new developments occurred in bicycle production—sheet
production-sheet metal stamping and
electric resistance welding techniques. These new techniques rivaled in importance the
diffusion of older metalworking technologies. During the 1890s, bicycle makers located
principally but not exclusively in areas west of New England began to manufacture
bicycles with many components (pedals. crank hangers, steering heads, joints, forks, forks,
forth) made from sheet steel. Punch pressing or stamping operations were
hubs, and so fmih)
combined with the recent invention of electric resistance welding to produce parts at
significantly lower costs. This technology would become fundamental to the automobile
industry.
Albert A. Pope is regarded as the father of the American bicycle industry because he
first imported English ordinary or or high-wheel bicycles to the United States and then began
 ]nn'0duc'ri0n
Introduction 9

to make them here. Pope initially built an effective patent monopoly for his high-wheel
Columbia bicycle (the bicycle with the big front wheel), but his patent position faded
during the first years of the safety bicycle era (the chain-driven bicycle we know today).
For this reason and because no single manufacturer gained a strong patent position, the
industry became highly competitive during the bicycle boom which began about 1892-93l892~93
1896—97. Nevertheless, Pope had created a large enterprise during
and ended abruptly in 1896-97.
the high-wheel era and had (because of his virtual patent monopoly) sold his Columbia at
$125-135. Through aggressive marketing and advertising, he managed
the high price of $l25—-135.
to maintain for his safety bicycle both the prestige and the price of the high-wheel
Columbia, whose name was also used for the Pope safety bicycle. The Columbia, which
was made by methods growing directly out of New England armory practice and refined
by sewing machine manufacture, was decidedly the most expensive bicycle manufactured
in America. Despite the price, the Pope Columbia, like the Singer machine and the
McCormick implement, dominated its industry. At the peak of the boom, Pope Manufac-
turing Company produced sixty thousand Columbias in a year, each carefully hand
assembled
a~;sembled and adjusted.
Bicycle makers such as Pope who used traditional armory production techniques
looked with disdain at those who manufactured bicycles with parts made by the new
techniques in pressing and stamping steel. An executive at the Columbia works called
them cheap and nasty.
nasty.” 27 Despite such views, the one manufacturer that outstripped Pope's
Pope’s
production at the peak of the bicycle boom was the Western Wheel Works of Chicago,
which made a "first
“first class” pressed steel hubs, steering head, sprocket,
class" bicycle out of -pressed
frame joints, crank hanger, fork, seat, handlebar, and various brackets. Although slightly
less expensive than the Columbia, the Western Wheel bicycle ranked high in the top price
category among some two to three hundred manufacturers. Production of this bicycle
reached seventy thousand in 1896, an output that was significantly less than that of the
Ford Model T in 1912, the last full year of its manufacture before introduction of the
assembly line.
Singer, McCormick, Pope, and the Western Wheel Works all held one characteristic in
common. Although they sold the most expensive products in their respective industries,
they were the dominant firms. This fact raises serious questions about the widely held
notion that American-made products succeeded in the market because they were cheaply
made and low priced. Only Singer annually produced numbers of products ranging into
thousands-figures that conjure up in our own minds an image of "mass
the hundreds of thousands——figures “mass
production.'' But the techniques used by Singer near the end of the nineteenth century
production.”
proved problematic. As late as 1883 Singer was still using many fitters, and the manu-manti-
script records end before resolution of these problems is apparent. In terms of production,
it is only with the rise of the Ford Motor Company and its Model T that there clearly
appears an approach to manufacture capable of handling an output of multicomponent
consumer durables ranging into the millions each year.
Moreover, the rise of Ford marks an entirely new epoch in the manufacture of con-
sumer durables in America. The Ford enterprise may well have been more responsible for
the rise of "mass production," particularly for the attachment of the noun mass to the
“mass production,”
expression, than we have realized. Unlike Singer, McCormick, and Pope, Ford sought to
lmvest priced automobile and to use continuing price reductions to
manufacture the lowest
produce ever greater demand. Ford designed the Model T to be a "car“car for the masses.”
masses."
Before the era of the Model T, the word masses had carried a largely negative connota-
company’s ability to achieve it, Ford
tion, but with such a clearly stated goal and his company's
10 FROM THE
TI-IE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

“the masses”2*
recognized "the masses " 28 as a legitimate and seemingly unlimited market for the most
sophisticated consumer durable product of the early twentieth century. Whether Henry
Ford envisioned "the“the masses"
masses” as "the
“the populace or ‘lower orders’ ""29
'lower orders' 29 of late nineteenth-
nineteenth.
century parlance or merely as a large number of potential customers hardly matters, for
the results were the same. Peter Drucker long ago maintained that Ford's Ford’s work demon--
demon»-
strated for the first time that maximum profit could be achieved by maximizing production
while minimizing cost. He added that "the “the essence of the mass-production process is the
reversal of the conditions from which the theory of monopoly was deduced. The new
assumptions
assumpt1ons constitute a veritable economic revolution.''
revolution.” Drucker saw mass production as
an economic doctrine as well as an approach to manufacture. For this reason if for no
other, the work of the national armories, Singer, McCormick, Pope, et al., differed
Ford’s. But Ford was able to initiate this new "economic
substantially from Ford's. “economic revolution"
revolution”
because of advances in production technology, especially the assembly line. line.”30

Before their adoption of the revolutionary assembly line in 1913, Ford’s Ford's production
engineers had synthesized the two different approaches to production that had prevailed in
the bicycle era. First, Ford adopted the techniques of armory practice. All of the com- coma
pany’s earliest employees recalled how ardently Henry Ford had supported efforts to
pany's
improve precision in machining. Although he knew little about jig, fixture, and gauge
techniques, Ford became a champion of interchangeability within the Ford Motor Com- Com»
pany, and he hired mechanics who knew what was required to achieve that goal. Certainly
by 1913,
l9l3, most of the problems of interchangeable parts manufacture had been solved at
Ford. Second, Ford adopted sheet steel punch and press work. Initially he contracted for
stamping work with the John R. Keim Company in Buffalo, New York, which had been a
major supplier of bicycle components. Soon after opening his new Highland Park factory
in Detroit, however, fordFord purchased the Keirn
Keim plant and promptly moved its presses and
other machines to the new factory. More and more Model T components were stamped
out of sheet steel rather than being fabricated with traditional machining methods. 'To- ']‘o~
gether, armory practice and sheet steel work equipped Ford with the capability to turn out
virtually unlimited numbers of components. It remained for the assembly line to el[minateeliminate
the remaining bottleneck-how
bottleneck—how to put these parts together.
The advent of line assembly at Ford Motor Company in 1913 I913 is one of the most
confused episodes in American history. Although a detailed version of those events is
recounted in Chapter 6, some general observations are arc needed here. The assembly line,
once it was first tried on April 1, 1913,
l9l3, came swiftly and with great force. Within eighteen
months of the first experiments with moving line assembly, assembly lines were used in
almost all subassemblies and in the most symbolic mass production operation of all, the
final chassis assembly. Ford engineers witnessed productivity gains ranging from 50
percent to as much as ten times the output of static assembly methods. Allan Nevins
accurately called the moving assembly line "a “a lever to move the w0rld.”3‘
world. " 31
There can be little doubt that Ford engineers received their inspiration for the moving
assembly line from outside the metalworking industries. Henry Ford himself claimed that
the idea derived from the "disassembly
“disassembly lines”
lines" of meatpackers in Chicago and Cincinnati.
William Klann, a Ford deputy who was deeply involved in the innovation, agreed but
noted that an equally important source of inspiration was flour milling technology as
practiced in Minnesota. Klann summarized this technology in the expression ''flow “flow
production.”32
production. ":l 2 Of course, early twentieth-century flour milling technology had clear
antecedents in the automatic flour mill developed by the Delawarean Oliver Evans. For
this reason, one might agree with Roger Burlingame that Ford's mass production owed
 Introduction ll

much to Oliver Evans, a debt never recognized in Ford's Britannica article. Although
Ford’s Britanrzica
there is merit to this view, it should be recalled that Evans’s
Evans's flour mill, especially its flour
handling machinery, represented a brilliant synthesis of existing components, not an
entirely new technology.
technology.“33 Similarly, although there may have been a clear connection in

minds of Ford engineers between "flow

the m1nds production" and the moving assembly line,
“flow production”
there is little justification for saying that the assembly line came directly from flour
milling. Both materials and processes were too different to support such a view.
niilling.
The origins of the Ford assembly line are less important than its effect. While provid-
ing a clear solution to the problems of assembly, the line brought with it serious labor
Ford"s highly mechanized and subdivided manufacturing operations already
problems. Ford's
imposed severe demands on labor. Even more than previous manufacturing technologies,
the assembly line implied that men, too, could be mechanized. Consequently, during
1913 the Ford company saw its annual labor turnover soar to 380 percent and even
higher.“
higher. 34 Henry Ford moved swiftly to stem this inherently inefficient turnover rate. On
January 5, 1914, he instituted what became known as the five-dollar day. Although some
historians have argued that this wage system more than doubled the Wages wages of "accept-
“accept-
able”
able'' workers, most recently the five-dollar day has been interpreted as a plan whereby
Ford shared excess profits with employees who were judged to be fit to handle such
profits. 35 In any case, the five-dollar day effectively doubled the earnings of Ford workers
profits.35
and provided a tremendous incentive for workers to stay ''on line.” With highly
“on the line.''
mechanized production, moving line assembly, high wages, and low prices on products,
“Fordism” was born.
"Fordism"
“Fordism” and the widespread appearance of
During the years between the birth of "Fordism"
the term mass production, the Ford Motor Company expanded its annual output of Model
Ts from three hundred thousand in 1914 to more than two million in 1923. I923. In an era when
significantly-about 60 percent in
most prices were rising, those of the Model T dropped significantly—about
current dollars. Throughout the Model T's T’s life, Henry Ford opened his factories to
technical journalists to write articles, series of articles, and books on the secrets of
production at Ford Motor Company. Soon after the appearance of the first articles on the
Ford assembly lines, other automobile companies began putting their cars together "on “on
Ford's five-dollar day
line.” Manufacturers of other consumer durables followed suit. Ford’s
the line.''
forced automakers in the Detroit vicinity to increase their wage scales. Because Ford had
~ecured more than 50 percent of the American automobile market by 1921, his actions had
secured
a notable impact on American industry.
Ford’s
Ford's work and its emulation by other manufacturers led to the establishment of what
could be called the ethos of mass production in America. The creation of this ethos marks
aat significant moment in the development of mass production and consumption in Amer-
ica. Certain segments of American society looked at Ford’s Ford's and the entire automobile
industry’s
industry's ability to produce large quantities of goods at surprisingly low costs. When they
did so, they wondered why, for example, housing, furniture, and even agriculture could
not be approached in precisely the same manner in which Ford approached the
automobile.
Consequently, during the years that the Model T was in production, movements arose
within each of these industries to introduce mass production methods. In housing, an
industry
mdustry always looked upon as one of the most staid and preindustrial, prefabrication
efforts reached new heights. Foster Gunnison, for example, strove to become the "Henry “Henry
housing” by establishing a factory to turn out houses on a moving assembly
Ford of housing"
line,36
line, 36 and Gunnison was only one among many such entrepreneurs. Furniture production
12 TilE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION
FROM THE

also saw the influence of Ford and the automobile industry. In the 1920s a large number of
mechanical engineers in America banded together within the American Society of Me-
chanical Engineers (ASME) in an effort to bring the woodworking industry into the
twentieth production. 37 Consequently, the ASME estab-
century~the century of mass production.”
l wentieth century-the
lished in 1925 a Wood Industries Division. which served to focus the supposed great
powers of mechanical engineering on all aspects of woodworking technology. In agricul-
ture, Henry Ford argued that all problems could be solved simply by adopting mass
techniques.”
production techniques. 38 Ford conducted experiments in this direction, but he was no

more successful than the mechanical engineers and housing fabricators were ll1 in bringing
about mass production in their respective industries. One could argue, however, thai
that
today such an agricultural product as the hybrid tomato, bred to be picked, sorted,
packaged, and transported by machinery, demonstrates that mass production methods
have penetrated American agriculture. But furniture and housing seem to have no equiv-
alent to the hybrid tomato.
A conclusive exploration of why mass production in housing, furniture, and some
other industries failed to take hold must be the subject of another study but is worthy of
speculation. One hypothesis has been explored in recent seminars at the University of
Delaware on material culture, economic history, and the history of technology. In hous-
ing, furnishings, and clothing, Americans for some reason refused to allow their tastes to
succumb to mass production techniques and its concomitant standardization. Certainly
technology itself was not the limiting factor. Gunnison actually assembled houses on a
line in a factory. Yet he sold few houses in comparison with the number of on-site,
traditionally built houses in the United States. Singer Manufacturing Company built two
large woodworking factories that produced cabinets and tables for its entire U.S. and
European output of sewing machines. But the production of a phenomenally large number
of sewing machine cabinets failed to lead to a true mass production furniture industry
industry}-l"
..lCJ
American furniture manufacturers continued to operate relatlvcly
relatively small factories em-
ploying around 150ISO workers, annually turning out between five thousand and fifty thou·thou-
sand units. Beliefs that automotive production technology holds the key to abundance in
all areas of consumption persist today. As recently as 1973,
I973, Richard Bender observed in
his book on industrial building that “much
"much of the problem of industrializing the building
industry has grown out of the mistaken image of the automobile industry as a model.'model.”‘“‘
' 40
In many areas, the panacea of Fordism will continue to appeal to those who see in it
solutions to difficult economic and social problems. The ethos of mass production,
established largely by Ford, will die a hard death, if it ever disappears completely.
Yet
Y ct the very timing of the rise of this ethos along with the appearance of the En-
tycfoprzedin Britanm'<'a
cyclopaedia Britannica article on mass production shows how full of paradox and irony
history is. Although automotive America was rapidly growing in its consumption of
everything under the sun and although Ford’s
Ford's achievements were known by all, mass
production as Ford had made it and defined it was, for all intents and purposes, dead by
1926.4‘
1926: 11 Ford and his production experts had driven mass production into a deep cul-de-
cul-dc-~
sac. American buyers had given up on the Ford Model T, and the Ford Motor Company
watched its sales drop precipitously amid caustic criticism of its inability to accept and
make changes. In mid-1927, Henry Ford himself finally gave up on the Model T after 15 I5
million of them had been produced. What followed in the changeover to the Model A was
one of the most wrenching nightmares in American industrial history. Designing the new
model, tooling up for its production, and achieving satisfactory production levels posed an
array of unanticipated problems, which led to a long delay in the Model A’s A's introduction.
 Introduction 13

In some respects, the Ford Motor Company never recovered from the effects of its first big
tn
changeover. Changes in consumers'
consumers’ tastes and gains in their disposable incomes made the
Model T and the Model T idea obsolete. Automobile consumption in the late 1920s called
for a new kind of mass production, a system that could accommodate frequent change and
was no longer wedded to the idea of maximum production at minimum cost. General
Motors, not Ford, proved to be in tune with changes in American consumption with its
explicit policy of "a“a car for every purpose and every purse,”
purse," its unwritten policy of
annual change, and its encouragement of "trading
“trading up”
up" to a more expensive car. Ford
learned painfully and at great cost that the times called for a new era, that of ''flexible
“flexible
mass production.''
production.”
The Great Depression dealt additional blows to Ford's
Ford’s version of mass production. As
dramatic decreases in sales followed the Great Crash, Ford and the entire industry began
laying off workers. As a result, Detroit became known as the “beleaguered
''beleaguered capital of mass
production.”42
production. " Mass production had not prevented mass unemployment or, more prop-
42

erly, unemployment of the masses but seemed rather to have exacerbated it. Overproduc-
tion had always posed problems for industrial economies, but the high level of unemploy-
ment in the Great Depression made mass production an easy culprit for critics as they saw
hundreds of thousands of men out of work in the Detroit area alone.
Americans may have had concerns about the ill effects of mass production, but they by
no means were willing to scrap it. Already their desire for style and novelty, coupled with
increased purchasing power in the 1920s, had forced even Henry Ford to change his
system of mass production. When pushed by the Depression, the greater part of Ameri-
cans looked for solutions in the sphere of mass consumption. The 11930s 930s witnessed the
publication of extensive literature on the economics of consumption.
consumption.“ As history would
43

have it, the prophets of mass consumption were proven at least temporarily correct as the
United States pulled itself out of the Depression by the mass consumption of war materiel
and, after the war, by the golden age of American consumption in the 1950s and 1960s.
Today, however, when we live in a period labeled variously as the space age, the
information era, the nuclear age, the computer society, and postindustrial civilization,
mass production and mass consumption have lost much of their centrality as concerns
shared by Americans. There are few discussions about mass production today that mirror
those of the late 1920s and early 1930s. Nevertheless, one still reads about our nation’s
nation's
“productivity dilemma"~the
"productivity dilemma”—the problem of choosing between frequent product changes
and lower productivity or no change and higher productivity.“
productivity. 44 This so-called dilemma is
by no means new. It was born with the establishment of the ethos of mass production and
the new consumption patterns of the late 1920s. Henry Ford, whose company brought
mass production into being, well knew the productivity dilemma, even though he seems
never to have been able to resolve it. Indeed, the dilemma itself may be insoluble. Yet the
origins of the dilemma in the "American
“American system"
system” of manufactures in antebellum America
provide an important starting point for more clearly understanding its dimensions.
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CHAPTER Il

The American System

in
of Manufactures 1n
the Antebellum Period
[Americans] call in the aid
[Americans} old of machinery
rncmhineiy in (zlrnosr
almost every department of incln.i"rry.
industr_v. Wherever
substilute for manual labour, it is universal/\·
it can be introduced as a SI/lbSZl1‘LlI(’ wi!!ingl\·
zrnit-'er.s'rill_\' and willingly
resorted to.
-Joseph Whitwmth, Special Report (1854)
Aloscph Whitworth,

The two national armories of Springfield and Harper's Ferry, the private establishments of
Colonel Colt, Robbins and Lawrence,
LaH'rence, and the Sharpe's Rifle
Rifle Comparn·,
Coinponjr, are all on
a1! conducted 011
n2anLi,t'oc'tw'ing .s'y.rrem,
the thorough manufacturing system, with niocliinery
machinery and special
y,pecial tools applied to the several
parts. . . . Besides the machinery and tools .. .. . there ore
parts . ... are hundreds of valuable instruments and
gauges that are employed in testing the work through all its stages, from }i'om the raw
rmv material to
the finished gun, others for holding the pieces whilst undergoing diflerent different operations, such as
marking, drilling, screwing, etc., etc, the object of all being to secure thorough identity
idenrily in all parts.
-Report
-—Report of the Committee on Machinery
Machinerv of the United States
Stores of America ((1855)
1855)

ost American historians know the American system of the antebellum

M
• • • • - period as the political program put forward by Henry Clay in his 1824
tariff speech before the United States House of Representatives. Clay sought political
measures to maintain and promote American industry and to eliminate foreign competi-
tion. As he outlined it, Clay's
Clay’s plan "consistledj
“consistledl in modifying our foreign policy, and in
system.” One contemporary succinctly summarized Clay's
adopting a genuine American system." Clay’s
“Internal improvement, and protection of American interests, labor, industry and
aims: "Internal
arts, are commonly understood to be the leading measures, which constitute the American
system."
system.“1 Clay's
Clay’s program became a major part of Whig politics during the party's
party’s
heyday.
To historians interested in nineteenth-century American technology, however, the
American system denotes an entirely different phenomenon. To them, the American
system (often called the American system of manufactures or the American system of
manufacturing), as defined by Eugene S. Ferguson, means manufacturing involving "the“the
sequential series of operations carried out on successive special-purpose machines that
parts.”2
produce interchangeable parts. " 2 Unfortunately, the American system of manufactures
had no Henry Clay; the expression cannot be traced to a single proponent who made or

15
16 FROM TilE
Tllli AMERICAN SYSTEM
SYS'l‘l'§M TO MASS PRODUCTION

Clay’s tariff speech of 1824. In fact, during the last three

wrote something analogous to Clay's
decades the term has taken on an almost legendary or mythical character. Without citing
any specific sources, historians writing about the American system of manufactures
usually say that the expression's
expression’s origins trace toto England
England inin the
the 1850s.
1850s. As
As Nathan
Nathan
Rosenberg noted in his introduction to The American System of ofMarmfactm"es,
Manufactures, an edition
an edition
of three British reports on American manufacturing written
written in
in 1854
1854 and 1855, "It
and 1855, “It was
was at
at
the Crystal Palace Exhibition f[1851]
18511 that many Englishmen were first familiarized,
through an examination of American products, with productive methods which seemed so
novel and original that they were promptly dubbed ‘The Manufactui-~
'The American System of Manufactur-
ing.‘ ” (Sec
ing.'" (See Figure 1.1.)
1 . 1.) Rosenberg did not indicate any appearance in the Crystal
Crystal Palace
Palace
Exhibition literature of the expression. It did not appear. Moreover, in the Special Reports
Reports
of George Wallis and Joseph Whitworth (1854) and the Report of' of the Committee on on the
the
Machinery ofthe 0fAmerica
o.lthe United States ol America (1855), the complete term tel'm never appears.
appears. John
John
Anderson, the author of the latter repot1,
report, did once use the words "American
“American system"
system” in in
his discussion of musket production in the United States. But given tht the number of times
he used "system"
“system” and his choice of such words as "principle,"
“principle,” "plan,"
“plan,” "arrange-
“arrange-~
ment,” and ''mode,''
ment,'' “mode,” it is doubtful that ''American
“American system''
system” meant anything more to him him
“American principle"
than did "American principle” or "American
“American method."
method.” A close reading of the report
indicates that Anderson employed "system"
“system” frequently and in a variety of of usages.
usagesf‘3
Anderson and his contemporaries used "system"
“system” in ways that generally conformed
conformed to to
several definitions given in the Oxford English Dictionary. Unlike historians speaking
speaking ofof
“American system of manufacturing,"
the "American manufacturing,” they did did not
not consciously endow "system"
consciously endow “system”
with great significance or with transcendent qualities.

FIGURE 1.1.1.I.
FICiURE United States Exhibit at the Crystal
Crystal Palace Exhibition in
Palace Exhibition in London, 1851. Samuel
London, 1851. Samuel Colt's
Colt’s
display of revolvers was given a central place in
in the
the I//ttstraterl
Illustrated London
London News’s pictorial account
News's pictorial account of
of
the American exhibit. (Illustrated
(I/!ustrmcd London News, December 6,
NcH·s, December 1851.
6, 185 Library of
I. Library of Congrcs~;
Congress;
Photograph.)
 The American Svstem
Sy\‘.t'f€l/I‘? in the Antebellum
Anteheflum Period 17

Among historians, the expression probably gained currency because of Joseph Wick-
ham Roe’s influential English and American Tool Builders, first published
Roe's early and still int1uential
in 1916. Roe wrote that the "system
“system of interchangeable manufacture is generally consid-
ered to be of American origin. In fact, for many years it was known in Europe as the
‘American System'
'American System’ of manufacture."
manufacture.” In another passage he argued that the interchange-
able system "was
“was known everywhere as 'the ‘the American system.'"
system.’ ” To document this
assertion, the Yale mechanical engineer—historian
engineer-historian relied upon the autobiography (1883)
(l883)
of James Nasmyth, the English inventor and machine tool builder who was a keen
observer of British and American manufacturing practice. Writing about the British
government’s decision in 1853-54 to change its small military arms and arms procure-
government's
ment procedures, Nasmyth noted, "It “It was finally determined to improve the musketry
rifle
and rit1e systems of the English army. The Government resolved to introduce the Ameri-
can system, by which arms might be produced much more perfectly, and at a great
diminution of cost.
cost."” Roe italicized Nasmyth‘s “introduce the American system,"
Nasmytb's words, "introduce system,”
to emphasize and to document his earlier claim that interchangeability was ''known
lo “known
everywhere as 'the‘the American system.'
system.’ ”“
'' Relying on Roe’s
4 Roe's analysis, historians from John
E. Sawyer, who in 1954 published the seminal article ''The “The Social Basis of American
System of Manufacturing,”
Manufacturing," through H. J. Habakkuk, Nathan Rosenberg, Paul Uselding,
and others, have all spoken of a clear, unambiguous, distinct, and meaning-laden "Amer- “Amer-
ican system of manufacturing.”-S
manufacturing. " With notable exceptions, however, British contempo-
5

raries, who are supposed to have invented and commonly used the expression, saw a great
deal of ambiguity in the originality, procedures, capability, and potential of American
manufacturing methods. These ambiguities were genuine. Understanding them provides
an excellent way to begin a critical discussion of the American system of manufactures in
the antebellum period. (For a brief chronological narrative of the words and expressions
1he
used to describe manufacturing methods in nineteenth-century America, see Appendix 1.) I.)

British Study of American Manufacturing Methods

in the 1850s
ln
In 1854 Parliament established a select committee "to “to consider the Cheapest, most
E~.xpeditious, and most Efficient Mode of providing Small Arms for Her Majesty's
Expeditious, Majesty’s Ser-
vice.”
vice." Britain was in the midst of the Crimean War, and during the three previous years
the Board of Ordnance had had difficulty in procuring enough muskets for its troops. To
deal with this problem, the Board of Ordnance proposed that the British government
establish a small arms factory modeled after the United States federal armories at Spring-
field, Massachusetts, and Harpers Ferry, Virginia. One of the select committee's
comrnittee’s duties,
therefore, was to judge the political, economic, and technological feasibility of the Board
Ordnance’s proposal. Naturally, the committee was also to study in detail the "existing
of Ordnance's “existing
system” by which the Board of Ordnance secured small arms.“
system" arms. 6
The British obtained their military small arms through a system of contracting with
private manufacturers located principally in the Birmingham and London areas. The
fabrication of individual musket parts and the fitting together and finishing of the parts
that
lhat had passed the government's
government’s inspection were contracted for separately. Although
significant variations occurred, almost all of the contractors manufactured parts or fitted
them through a highly decentralized, putting-out process using small workshops and
highly skilled labor. In small arms making as in lock production, the "workshop
“workshop system"
system”
\8 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

rather than the "factory

“factory system"
system” was the rule.
rule.77 One alternative to the existing system of
procurement was to mechanize armsmaking in a centralized, government-owned estab-
lishment.
lishment
Ordnance’s position
The Select Committee on Small Arms summarized the Board of Ordnance's
on such an establishment. Advantages of machine-made muskets included ''cheapness
“cheapness in
the manufacture, an exact similarity in the several parts, so that they may be readily
interchanged and replaced, and above all, the facility of rapidly producing muskets.” The
muskets." The
committee noted that two factories in the United States-the
States—the Springfield Armory and the
Harpers Ferry Armory—had
Armory-had clearly demonstrated these advantages. Each, it reported,
“capable of producing 30,000 muskets a year.8
was "capable also called
year. 8 The Board of Ordnance also called
committee’s attention to the London armory of Samuel Colt, established shortly after
the committee's
the Crystal Palace Exhibition and employing American armsmaking techniques similar to
those employed at his Hartford, Connecticut, armory. (See Figure 1.2.)
The Board of Ordnance and in turn the select committee had obtained most of their
information on American armsmaking technology from Colt and from Joseph Whitworth.
A noted Manchester machine tool manufacturer, Whitworth had toured many U.S. arms
plants, including Springfield and Harpers Ferry, while serving as a commissioner in 1853
to the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition. His Special Report on American manufactur-·
manufactur-
ing proved to be of major interest to the British. Another commissioner, George Wallis,
Wallis
had also seen the Springfield Armory and had written a report on his U.S. tour. He, too too,

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FIGURE 1.2.
FIGURE 1.2. Colt’s London Armory,
Samuel Colt's Armory, 1854.
1854. Located
Located beside
beside the
the Thames,
Thames. in
in the
the Millbank
Millbank
area near Vauxhall Bridge.
Bridge, Colt's
Colt’s factory began production on January 1. 1853.
I, \853. Note that both the
Union Jack and Old Glory were flown. (Household Words,
Words. May 27,
27. 1854. From Charles T. Haven
and Frank A. Belden, A Hist0r_v
Historv of the Colt Revolver.)
 The American Svstem in the Antebellum Period 19

served as an informant to the Board of Ordnance. Colt, Whitworth, and Wallis were
among the experts called to testify before the committee. Other witnesses included the
machine tool maker, James Nasmyth; a former superintendent at Colt's Colt’s armory, Gage
-Stickney; a noted English machine builder, Richard Prosser; and the Board of Ordnance's
Stickney; Ordnance’s
technical expert, John Anderson.
Anderson."l) Anderson was the author of the board’s
board's proposal to
establish a small arms plant. After a four-month study trip to the United States, he was the
most ardent advocate of American small arms production technology and probably the
most knowledgeable British engineer on the subject. 10 10 The testimony of all of these men,
however, suggests the ambiguities of the system adopted in the United States armories to
produce muskets.
Beyond its study of the existing system of procuring small arms for the British govern-
ment, the select committee sought primarily to obtain information about American meth-
ods of arms production. For the purposes of analysis, the committee's
committee’s investigation can be
classified into five categories of questioning: ((1)
1) whether small arms could be produced by
machines; (2) whether mechanics and machine tool builders could produce a weapon; (3)
what effect mechanized production would have; (4) whether arms made by machines
would contain interchangeable parts (a corollary question was what "interchangeable"
“interchangeable”
meant); and (5) whether the Americans indeed had pioneered in this approach to produc-
tion. These lines of questioning will be discussed in turn.
Although it may seem strange to the modern observer, the parliamentary select com-
mittee first explored the question of whether any small arm, particularly that of the British
service, could be made by machinery. Some members were interested in the question of
technical feasibility while others wondered about economic feasibility. For example, 1John ohn
Anderson was asked whether he was "aware “aware that the same principle has been tried in the
Netherlands of manufacturing guns by machinery, and given up, because it was more
expensive.” Anderson answered that he had not heard of this occurrence, but he argued
expensive.''
throughout his testimony that small arms could and should be made by machinery. Samuel
Colt’s
Colt's London armory, Anderson said, provided abundant evidence that such an approach
was feasible. He quoted a report he had written on Colt's
Colt’s factory, which he said had been
“reduced to an almost perfect system."
"reduced system.” Colt himself assured the committee that "there
“there is
nothing that cannot be produced by machinery,”
machinery,'' including the British musket. Nasmyth,
Whitworth, and Prosser concurred, and each argued-Nasmyth
argued—Nasmyth most strenuously-that
strenuously-—that
the present system of arms manufacture was by no means the most rational allocation of
resources but merely a patchwork of ancient customs and practices. In fact, Nasmyth
implied that hitherto the government had rejected certain articles simply because they
were made by machinery."
machinery. 1 1
Their questions showed that some members of the committee doubted whether
Nasmyth and his colleagues, as machine builders, could manufacture muskets, muskets. rifles, or
even machines for their manufacture. None had any inkling of the phenomenon Nathan
Rosenberg has called ''technological
“technological convergence,''
convergence,” whereby the machine tool industry
could serve a critical role in developing the convergent technology of light manufactur-
ing.”
ing. 12 As will be seen later in this chapter, Samuel Colt's
Colt’s dictum that "there
“there is nothing
that cannot be produced by machinery”
machinery'' and the very organization of his American armory
suggests that he understood the crucial role of toolmaking in manufacturing even though
members of the select committee may not have.
Given the overwhelming evidence that the British musket could indeed be made by
machinery, there remained the question of what effect mechanized production would
have. The select committee had been established in part to consider the impact of a
2
20 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PROIDUCTION
PRODUCT!Ol\

mechanized government armory on private manufacturers. While important to the com-

mittee, this essentially political question need not concern us. Much more pertinent was
the inquiry about the effect of mechanization
mechanizatiOn on the cost and the quality of the arms and
the extent to which labor would be employed. These questions brought to the fore the
ambiguities of the American system in the antebellum period. Expert opinion on that
system differed significantly.
Those experts who advocated the establishment of a mechanized government armory
argued consistently that the end result of this system would be a lower-cost arm. Each Eacb
spoke of cost reduction resulting from mechanization as an article
mticle of faith because none
presented any conclusive evidence that this would indeed be the case. John Anderson's
Anderson”s
testimony typified the proponents'
proponents’ position on cost. When asked, ''Do
“Do you think you will
really make [the musket] cheaper'?"
cheaper?” Anderson replied, "There
“There is no certainty in anything
that is not done; I am sure the Government could not lay out money to better advantage; 1l
cannot prove 1t it very well."
well.”l3
u Earlier a member of the select committee had suggested to
Anderson that the British arms industry, by its very existence and enormous annual
output, had found the most efficient way to allocate resources. Anderson replied that he
had spoken to some English gunmakers who "acknowledge
“acknowledge that it would have been better
if they had had more machinery to assist them." them.” Yet n1any
many of the annsmakcrs
armsmakers who
testified thought that extensive mechanization would not pay in England. London gun gun-
maker Charles Clark took a strong position, arguing that Samuel Colt bad had sought an
sougbt
extension of his United States patent "in
“in order to cover the losses that he has sustained by
the machinery that he has put up here.”
here.'' Clark quoted at length the report of the Commit-
Comrnit-
tee on Patents to the House of Representatives, which baldly stated that Colt should
receive a seven-year extension because of his activities in England. 14 1*‘
Colt had convinced the representatives
rcpresentati ves on the Committee on Patents that he had
established his London revolver factory solely to protect himself from the introduction ot of
spurious imitations of his pistol in England and Europe. Only by employing American- American-
made machmery
machinery operated by American mechanics, Colt argued, could he maintain the
necessary quality of his firearm. Yet, as the House committee report noted, the London
armory was "a “a constant drain on the resources and energies of the inventor.”
inventor." Thus Colt
believed that his missionary activities in London justified his request for a patent
‘5
extension. 15
Clark argued before the select committee that Colt had ··recklessly
"recklessly advanced capital in
England, and set up expensive machinery that was not paying but was a great loss.” "‘
loss." 16
The discussion of costs of machine-made arms revolved around the question of how much
labor would be saved. Would the employment of machinery eliminate labor in the man-
ufacture of small arms?
arms‘?
Samuel Colt’s
Colt's affirmative answer was implicit in his suggestion that anything could be
made by machinery. James Nasmyth stated explicitly that ··with “with properly contrived
machinery you might reduce the employment of manual labour, Il may say down to zero." zero.”
Since Nasmyth of course recognized the necessity for machine operators, he was referring
to skilled hand labor used in the fabrication of musket parts. For reasons that will be
discussed below, Nasmyth's
Nasmyth’s more famous colleague, Joseph Whitworth.
Whitworth, disagreed with
such a radical position. '7 Not everything could be mechanized, Whitworth argued. He
17

was joined in this view by Richard Prosser. Hand labor-skilled

labo1‘——.sl<illed hand labor—would
labor-would
always be required. Prosser argued that "'labour-saving
“labour-saving machinery"
machinery” would probably save
only 50 percent of the cost of labor required
re4uired under the existing system. His calculation
included the wages or rates of machine operators as well as skilled hand laborers. A report
 Amerz'c*mi Systent
The American the Azitebel/tun
S\slem in !he Antebellum Period 21

Ordnance. which had been quoted extensively in the select committee’s

of the Board of Ordnance, committee's
“from
hearings, had said that ''from what Colonel Colt stated, . . .
... the amount of skilled and
unskilled labour did not exceed 20 per cent [of lof the cost of the revolver]."'8
revolver].'' 18

Stickney’s
Gage Stickney's testimony, however, confirmed Prosser’s
Prosser's estimation of 50 percent
savings with data from Colt's
savmgs Colt’s showplace
shovvplace London armory and from the Springfield Armo- Arrno-
ry. Stickney certainly possessed impressive credentials to judge the question. For six
years he had worked for Samuel Colt, and for fifteen months he had served as superinten-
Colt’s London armory. "As
dent at Colt's “As near as IIcanjudge,”
can judge," Stickney testified, ''I “I should say
about 50 per cent" cent” labor was required in mechanized arms manufacture. But when
further. Stickney made it clear that machinery had not eliminated the need for
questioned further,
skilled labor. Even the Colt pistol required ''first-class
“first-class labour and the highest price is paid
for it.”
it." Replying to further questions, Stickney stressed that each part of Colt's Colt’s arm was
finished by skilled labor "if “if it is done properly.”
properly." No arm of quality, he generalized, could
be produced without skilled hand labor, and the more skilled labor used, the higher would
be the quality.”
quality. 19 (See Figure l. l.3.)
3.)
Such testimony raised the important question of how the supposedly machine-made
arms of the Americans compared in quality to those of the British. William Richards, a
Birmingham barrelmaker who had developed a new process for barrelmaking, ban·elmaking, believed
Colt’s arm to be of lower quality than the British musket.
Colt's musket?“20

Joseph
1oseph Whitworth agreed. When asked if "the “the work in Colonel Colt'sColt’s pistols is as
good as that in the Minié rifle,” he replied, "No,
Minie rif1e," “No, I do not consider that the parts are as
finished.” The committee asked Whitworth if it would be possible to produce a
well finished."
machine-made Minie Minié rifle that was as good as one made by hand. He replied, "Yes; “Yes; but it
would have to be finished by hand; the quality would depend entirely upon the finish after
machine.” As in other instances, Nasmyth’s
it came from the machine." Nasmyth' s opinion was opposite to
Whitworth’s.
Whitworth's. He told the committee that he considered the Colt pistol superior in work-
manship to the British rifle.
rifle?‘ Colt’s testimony suggests that he vehemently disagreed
21 Colt's

with the gunmakers and with Whitworth. His reasons provide an important insight into
why American armsmaking technology had followed the path that it had.
When addressing the committee's
committee’s question of whether "muskets “muskets manufactured by
machinery in America are as well fabricated as the Minié Minie rifle,”
rifle," Colt stated, "There
“There is
none so badly made at our national armouries as the Minié Minie rifle shown to me; that arm
would not pass one of our inspectors.”
inspectors.'' Asked why he held this view, Colt said that
American-made arms were "more “more uniform”
uniform" than their English counterparts. Lack of
uniformity was the only fault he found with English-made weapons: ''There “There is more
difference between one and another where they are made by hand, than there can possibly
be when they are made by machinery." In America, Colt argued, "it “it is the uniformity of
the work that is wanted.
wanted.”22
" 22
Colt’s reasoning, his prior claims about the uniformity of his pistol parts, and his very
Colt's
presence in England raised fundamental questions about the interchangeability of parts
made, in the words of one committee member, "upon “upon the Springfield principle.”-23
principle. " 23 The
committee’s interrogation of John Anderson on this issue suggests their doubts and, more
committee's
important, Anderson's
Anderson’s own uncertainties about the interchangeability of parts. Seeking
clarification of an earlier statement by Anderson, a committee member asked him if he
meant "to “to say that they will be so exactly alike, that of the 150,000 muskets any one part
from one musket, if it failed, could be replaced by another part.” part.'' Anderson hedged his
reply: ''That
“That is the point that I would aim at; I think that we would come to that ultimately;
but that is a very difficult point to get to; that would be the great difficulty, for that would
 FROM Tl-IE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

ea“
5 $1‘ efll”
Mfihgvfifi

FIGURE 1.3. London-Made Colt Revolver. This rcvolver was one of ninety-five hundred I851
l\l'avy Model revolvers that Colt’s London armory produced for the British navy during its short
history of operations. The arrow on the barrel is the British proof mark. The lower photograph
identifies the place of manufacture. (Private collection. Eleutherian Mills Historical Library.)
 The American System in the Antebellum
Antehellwn Period 23

be perfection."
perfection.” Nevertheless, he said optimistically, "I “I think we shall come very nearly
to it, but to say that we should come altogether to it, would he be saying that it would be
perfect.” The committee asked if the Springfield Armory muskets were truly interchange-
perfect.''
able, did that mean they were perfect? Anderson could only reply, "They “They say that is the
case, and I have heard that it is the case~
case; I can imagine things so perfect, and it would be
perfection if they were so."so.” James Nasmyth presented a complementary and more certain
view. He argued that by implementing a mechanized "system “system of manufacture”
manufacture" for a
musket, one could achieve “the ''the unerring precision of mechanical tools.''tools.“ Complete
mechanization, Nasmyth
N as myth stressed, "would
“would result in impressing absolute identity on the
parts,” whereby they would be "so
parts," “so perfect as to fit promiscuously.”
promiscuously." He noted that this
would be the "inevitable
“inevitable result of the introduction of machinery.
machinery.”24" 24
While Anderson and Nasmyth asserted that in principle perfect interchangeability
could and would be achieved by mechanization, Joseph Whitworth argued-convincingly
argued—convincingly
as far as the committee was concerned-that
concerned—that in principle perfect interchangeability would
be impossible. Under any circumstances, he testified, machine-made gun parts would
never be so accurate that they did not have to be fitted together by hand labor. labor.25
2 :1

Whitworth explained his reasons for this assessment. The process of hardening parts
made interchange impossible because iron always changed its shape during and after this
process (parts were worked or machined in a soft state and then hardened for their final
use). Even if parts fitted together nicely before hardening, they would not do so after it.
“restored.” The eminent machine tool builder and master of precision
They had to be ''restored.''
argued that this could be done "only “only by hand labour." “Whenever we want great
labour.” "Whenever
perfection of parts labour,” Whitworth concluded.
pmts we must do it by hand labour," concluded?"26

Having received significant differences in opinion about the possibility in principle of

perfect interchangeability, the committee sought information about how the idea fared in
practice. Whitworth expressed definite opinions. He did not think that parts of Colt
revolvers could be taken indiscriminately and assembled into a complete weapon, ''nor “nor do
I think it is possible in an American musket, although there is such care taken.''taken.” Although
not perfectly interchangeable, American-made parts possessed an important uniformity.
“I think this,''
''I this,” Whitworth argued, ''that“that on a field of battle, if a great number of muskets
were disabled, made by the American mode of manufacture, that the armourer would be
able to put a greater number of parts together; whereas by the mode of manufacture in this
country he could not do that. that.”Z7
" 27
Far different than Whitworth, James Nasmyth steadfastly maintained that parts of Colt
revolvers made in London were interchangeable. Basing his case on Colt's Colt’s gauging
methods, N Nasmyth ''the means which he employs would attain that object [of
asmyth said that “the
interchangeability] . ’ 'Q8
interchangeability].' 28

possible,"
“interchange of parts is possible,”
Colt himself hedged on the issue. When asked if "interchange
Colt replied, "Yes,
“Yes, it is so near
ncar that it would not cost you very much to interchange
them.”
them." A member then queried Colt if "this “this interchange"
interchange” had been realized in America.
“Yes, many thousands,”
''Yes, thousands,'' Colt snapped back and then told the committee about service of
his arms in Oregon and California. When asked earlier whether his revolver parts could be
assembled indiscriminately, however, Colt had testified that “they ''they would do that a great
deal better than any arms made by hand.” hand." Later he said, "In “In my own arms one part
corresponds with another very nearly,”nearly,'' and blamed English workers for producing less
uniform parts than those made in his American factory. William Richards of Birmingham
committee’s hearings were proceed-
had purchased a half dozen Colt revolvers while the committee's
ing. He testified categorically that "there“there are no two parts that will change round. " 29
round.”29
24 FROM THE
TI-lE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

Colt’s
Colt's former superintendent had already said that he had never seen a case when the
parts of one Colt pistol would interchange with another. Gage Stickney added much
additional confusion to the committee’s
committee's deliberations on interchangeability when a inern--mcm·
ber asked him what a U.S. congressional committee had meant by the word "in- “in-
terchangeability” Colt’s application for a seven-year extension of his
terchangeability" in a report on Colt's
“I
revolver patent. "I do not know what mean,” Stickney replied. The committee then
they mean,"
asked if the congressional committee had been mistaken in its report. Stickney
Stiekney could only
“interchangeable”
respond that by '·interchangeable" the report meant that parts
pa1is were “very near alike."
"very alike.”
But, he argued, it required a skilled armorer to make parts interchange, if they would at
all. From such divided opinion on what "interchange"
“interchange” was, and whether perfect unifor-
mity could be achieved in principle and in practice, it was difficult for the committee to
derive any solid conclusion about the interchangeability aspect of the ''Springfield
“Springfield princ:i-·
princi-
ple.”
ple. '' Ambiguities existed.”
existed. The committee also heard conflicting
30 conflicting testimony about the
originality of this "almost
“almost perfect system,"
system,” as John Anderson had called it in his
testimony.
Although James Nasmyth had appeared as the most ardent champion of the mcchaniza-·
mechaniza-
tion of production, particularly as exemplified at Colt’s
Colt's London armory, he nevertheless
hastened to point out to the committee that Colt and the Americans were simply “carrying
''carrying
out those systems that were originated by Sir Samuel Bentham, Mr. lHenry] [Henry] Maudslay,
and [Marc Isambard] Brunel,
Brunei, in the block machinery.”
machinery.'' Nasmyth was alluding to special-
special-
purpose machinery constructed in the first decade of the 1800s l800s to produce ships'
ships’ blocks
for the British navy. (Details of this machinery will be discussed later in this chapter.) On
this issue, Whitworth agreed with Nasmyth. He, too, believed that the blockmaking
machinery had demonstrated conclusively the merits of using special-purpose machinery
in a manufacturing process?‘
process_ 31 Of all the witnesses, however, Richard Prosser was by far
the most opinionated on the issue of American originality.
Prosser suggested that the Americans were not the first to introduce "labour-saving
“labour-saving
machinery” in gunmaking. That honor fell to a Birmingham firm, which in the 181
machinery" 18 l0s
Os had
equipped an armsmaking plant for the Russian government at Tula. Prosser showed the
committee a Russian book on the plant which contained forty-two illustrations of the
machinery. He told the committee about the Tula operation, stating that every part of the
Russian musket, except the stock, was made "by “by means of labour-saving machines."
machines.”
Prosser noted that in 1822 a Mr. Fairy [John Farcy?]
Earey‘?] toured the Russian plant and wit-
nessed twelve soldiers disassemble twelve muskets, put the parts in a basket, then reas- reas--
semble the randomly selected parts, and fire the resulting muskets, all within two minutes.
These guns, Prosser said, had been manufactured by English machinery made by James &
Jones. Later Prosser emphasized the point by alluding to mechanized arms production not
“American system of manufacturing''
as the ''American manufacturing” but as the ''Russian
“Russian plan.''
plan.”33
12 Prosser

showed his contempt for American technology:

At the Great Exhibition the place was filled with inventions; for instance American
reaping machines. I said, "This
“This is an old invention."
invention.” I thought the Yankees were going
to eat
cat me, and they got a council medal for it li.c.,
[i.e., the reaper]
reaper].. .. .. .. It proves now to be
an English invention brought back from America, and put up here as an American
invention, and they are constantly doing that whereas all the improvements in the working
of wood that I have ever seen arc
are due entirely to General Bentham's
Bentham’s patent of 1791 I791 and
1793.

Prosser was obviously alluding to the much-hailed gunstocking machinery, which was at
the heart of the "Springfield
“Springfield principle.”-3-‘
principle." 33
 The American
Anierlcmi S_\‘SlCiH
System in the Antebellum
Antehelhan Period 225

Despite the questions of priority and despite

desp1te the ambiguities concerning quality and
interchangeability, the select committee recommended that "manufacturing
“manufacturing of Small
Arms under the Board of Ordnance should be tried to a limited extent.”34extent." :1 4 Tacitly it
approved of the Board of Ordnance's
Ordnance’s desire not only to model its armory after the
Springfield and Harpers Ferry armories but to equip it with American-made machinery.
The committee’s
committee's hearings had raised most of the important questions concerning the
American system of arms production and consequently had brought out most of the
ambiguities of the system. But the committee failed in one important respect. It had not
carefully proved nor even begun to appreciate what Hyde Clark would soon after call the
“artificial circumstances"
"artificial circumstances” that had given rise to the American system of arms produc-
tion.35
tion. :1s This system had come about only after a forty- to fifty-year period of relentless
effort on the part of
ofthe
the United States government to realize in practice a technical-military
ideal that was born in Enlightenment France.

The Origins of the American System

of Arms Production
Those who seek to explain the development of the American system of arms produc-
tion purely as a matter of economic causation-a
causation~—a unique blend of land, labor, and
capital—or
capital-or of social bases such as literacy and attitudes toward innovation are apt to
overlook the fundamental role of the Enlightened military mind in this development?"
development. :JG
The quest for interchangeability of pa11s-or,
parts—or, in the American parlance of the early
nineteenth century, the "uniformity
“uniformity system
system”—grew
"-grew out of eighteenth-century French
military rationalism. Recently, General Jean-Baptiste dc Gribeauval has been convincing-
Jean- Baptiste de
ly identified as the principal originator of this plan, which in fact had been known for a
long time in France as "le “le systeme Gribeauval.
Gribeauval.”37
":17 Beginning in I765
l 765 Gribeauval sought
to rationalize French armaments by introducing standardized weapons with standardized
parts. The uniformity system, Gribeauval reasoned, would allow complete in-
terchangeability in the French military; parts of small arms and artillery pieces could be
easily interchanged, and arms themselves could be interchanged as readily as soldiers
could be switched.
Although Lewis Mumford long ago recognized the importance of the military as an
agent of mechanization and particularly of standardization and large-scale production, his
notions have not been fully appreciated by historians until recently?“
recently. 3 x Perhaps one reason
is that the process by which the Gribeauval system was worked out took a long time. The
ideal sought by Gribeauval and his followers was not easy to achieve in practice. Its
realization took almost a century of work and commanded high monetary and human
costs. What is important is that Gribeauval envisioned a rationalized world of standard-
ized, interchangeable parts. He and his followers-particularly
followers—particularly the Americans-were
Americans——were
willing to bear the costs of its achievement.
Gribeauval’s ideas exerted influence in the United States in two different ways. First,
Gribeauval's
Americans learned about the efforts of the Frenchman HonoreHonoré Blane
Blanc to achieve uniformity
of musket parts-—one
parts-one of the ultimate goals of the Gribeauval system. Second, because of
the tremendous influence of French military thought and practice, the United States War
Department became an aggressive champion of the uniformity principle.
It is fitting that the American most often associated with the Enlightenment in France,
Thomas Jefferson, should have introduced the idea of interchangeability of parts into the
26 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

United States. He did so in a latter to John Jay, written in 1785

I785 while he was minister to
France:
An improvement is made here in the construction of the musket which it may be
interesting to Congress to know, should they at any time propose to procure any. It
consists in the making every part of them so exactly alike that what belongs to any one
may be used for every other musket in the magazine. The government here has examined
and approved the method, and is establishing a large manufactory for this purpose. As yet
the inventor llHonore Blane I has only completed the lock of the musket on this plan. He
Honore Blane]
will proceed immediately to have the barrel, stock and their parts executed in the same
way. Supposing it might be useful to the U.S. II went to the workman. He presented me
with the parts of 50 locks taken to pieces and arranged in compartments. lI put several
came to hand. and they fitted in the most
together myself taking pieces at hazard as they carne
perfect manner. The advantages of this, when arms evident.YJ
need repair, are evident.”

The system’s Blanc, served as general inspector of three French arsenals.

“inventor,” Blane,
system's "inventor,"
He had been experimenting with producing uniform musket locks. For this work and his
design of the French model '77 ’77 musket he received approbation and patronage from
General Gribeauval, who was inspector general of artillery. The latter provided Blanc Blane
with funds to establish in 1786
I786 an armory at Vincennes to produce muskets with uniform
's death in 1789 and the Revolution brought an end to Blanc's
Gribeauval’s
locks. Gribeauval patron ..
Blanc’s patron--
age. Between then and his death in 180 1801, Blane sought to apply his
I, Blanc system as a civilian
contractor, but his factory went severely into debt. His contemporaries argued that his
methods were not practicable in the civilian sphere.sphere.”
40

Three years after his initial letter to Jay, Jefferson discussed with Blane
Blanc the possibility
of removing his operations to the United States. Jefferson wrote to Secretary of War
Henry Knox that Blanc's “method of forming the firearm appears to me so advantageous,
Blanc’s "method
when repairs become necessary, that I have thought it my duty not only to mention to you
officers‘ fusils
the progress of this artist, but to purchase and send you half a dozen of his officers'
[light muskets]/’
muskets]." Jefferson also suggested that Knox ought to "gi “givevc the idea of such an
improvement to our own workmen.''
workmen.” The following year he sent Knox a copy of Blanc's Blanc’s
Mémoire
Memoire important stir sur la
Ia falariratioiz
fabrication des urmes de guerre, a
annes cle ti l’Assemhleé Nationale
f'Assemh!ee Naliontile
(I790), which was Blanc’s
(1790), Blanc's unsuccessful petition to the National Assembly for continued
government support of his efforts. Jefferson pointed out to Knox that the Mémoire’s M emoire' s
author was the gunsmith who had produced the six muskets sent to him earlier. Blanc's Blanc’s
work and Jefferson’s
Jefferson's enthusiasm for it apparently failed to impress Knox because he never
responded to Jefferson"s communications.“
Jefferson's communications. 41 Nevertheless, within a decade, Jefferson's
Jefferson’s
enthusiasm about uniformity manifested itself in the rhetoric of Eli Whitney, who in 1798
received a contract with the War Department for ten thousand muskets.
French military thought and practice played a paramount role in the United State~; States
military during the early national period. One need hardly point out how instrumental
French military personnel and equipment had been during the American Revolution. After
the war, French practice was studied and emulated, an easy task because a number of
the
French officers continued to serve in the United States.
States.”
42 Crucial among them was Major

Louis de Tousard.
A military engineer and artillerist who had served under Lafayette in the American
A
Revolution, Tousard became the champion of le systeme Gribeauval in the American War
Department. Tousard had left France in 1793 I793 because of the French Revolution. When in
I795
1795 the U.S. Corps of Artillerists and Engineers was created, Tousard joined it as a
major in the First Regiment. For the next few years, he performed a wide variety of
 T/te American System in the Antebellum Period
The 27

duties, from fortification construction and conducting courts-martial, to teaching fellow

officers principles of artillery and engineering he had learned in France. His penchant for
teaching may have led him to write in 1798 a thorough proposition titled "Formation
“Formation of a
Engineers,”
School of Artillerists and Engineers,'' which he sent to Secretary of War James Mcllenry.
McHenry.
This proposal has been called the "blueprint"
“blueprint” for West Point, and it was clearly based on
French military-technical experience.43
experience. 43
Even earlier, Tousard began a work on military artillery suggested by President George
Washington. After Tousard’s
Tousard's book was published in 1809 as the American Artillerist's
Artiilerisfs
Companion (3 volumes), le systeme Gribeauval-although
Gribeauval——although not identified as such-be-
such—be-
came deeply ingrained in the American military mind. Tousard’sTousard's book became the stan-
dard textbook for military officers in the United States at West Point and elsewhere. In his
treatise, Tousard steadfastly argued for the creation of "a “a system of uniformity and
regularity.” "Want
regularity." “Want of uniformity,” “impeded for a long time the progress of
uniformity," he stressed, "impeded of
adopted.”
the French military, as it will that of America, unless a similar system is adopted.'' The
military was an ideal institution to realize the uniformity system, Tousard argued, for its
officers in the armories could be ''made
“made acc0imtabZe"
accountable'' for failure to introduce, perfect,
and maintain the system.“
system. 4
4

Tousard’s book, as well as his informal teaching of officers in the

The importance of Tousard's
Corps of Artillerists and Engineers, cannot be overemphasized. The first U.S. chief of
ordnance, Colonel Decius Wadsworth, who became a powerful champion of in-
terchangeability of small arms, had been a member of the Corps of Artillerists and
Engineers and had served with Tousard and other Frenchmen. In the spirit of Gribeauval,
Wadsworth adopted the motto "Unlformity
“Uniformity Simplicity and Solidarity."
S0fidariry.”45
45

Jefferson’s enthusiasm for Honore

Thomas Jefferson's Honoré Blanc's
Blanc’s experiments with the manufacture
of interchangeable musket parts and the influence on the American military of the ra-
tionalism of General Gribeauval and his followers firmly established the intellectual and
institutional basis for the rise of the American system of arms production. The pure
rationalism of '·system
“system and uniformity"
uniformity” provided an adequate incentive for the pursuit of
this goal. The United States War Department soon found the idea of interchangeability
irresistible, and through its own armories and through private arms contracts it encouraged
and supported attempts to achieve this end. Eventually the War Department demanded
interchangeability. Ordnance officers elevated the idea of interchangeability to an ideal
and helped
bel ped to transform it into a reality.
Likewise, the government's
government’s role in the development of mechanized production, the
other main thread in the history of American arms manufacturing, is noteworthy. lt It is
important to keep in mind that interchangeability of parts does not necessarily imply nor
require production by machinery. Through proper care, firearms parts can be made by
hand (with hand tools) such that they will interchange. Blanc had attained his results in
essentially this way. In his testimony before the Select Committee on Small Arms Anns Richard
Prosser argued that hand filing with jigs to gauge would result in interchangeable parts. pat1s.
Conversely, despite James Nasmyth's
l\lasmyth’s views on the matter, machine production does not
in any way imply interchangeability of parts, for in countless instances in the nineteenth
century products made in large quantities by highly specialized machine tools did not
contain interchangeable parts.
The government armories and private arms factories that were given large government
contracts were important sites for the development of machines used in metal and wood
fabrication during the first half of the nineteenth century. Excited and encouraged by
possibilities and existing developments in interchangeable parts manufacture and produc-
28 FROM THE AMliRlCAl\'
l-IROM AMERICA!\ SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTICY\
PR()l)UC'l‘l().’\'

tion by machines, the War Department, through the extensive resources of the public
well-formulated
treasury, wove these two threads into a well- manufacturing
formulated manu fact uri ng system. The
history of the ''private''
“private” efforts of Eli Whitney and Simeon North and of the federal arms
establishments at Springfield, Massachusetts, and Harpers Fcny,
Ferry, Virginia, clearly dem-
dem--
onstrates this development.

Private Contractors and Interchangeable

Manufacture."
Manufacture: Simeon North and Eli Whitney
Although it had established a federal armory at Springfield in 1794 (and would begin a
second one at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in 1798), the imminence of war growing out of the
XYZ Affair led the United States War Department beginning in 1798 I798 to issue cash-
advance contracts with private armsmakers for small arms (muskets and pistols). Two of
these contractors, Simeon North and Eli Whitney, not only secured the earliest War
Department cash-advance contracts but also were attracted by the idea of producing arms
with
w·ith interchangeable parts. Both had also considered mechanizing some of their produc-
tion operations. Of the two, Whitney was the more vocal, but the most recent historical
scholarship suggests that North more fully developed his ideas and perhaps realized in
practice the ideal of interchangeability.
Before Simeon North was awarded his government contract in October 1798 for five
hundred horse pistols, he had made scythes and other small agricultural implements at his
Berlin, Connecticut, workshop. 46 In February 1800,
workshop.'*" i800, shortly before he completed the first
contract, the War Department granted North another contract for an additional fifteen
hundred pistols. Felicia Deyrup points out that the early arms contractors, including
North, relied upon the federal government advancing sizable percentages of the total
contract value as their sole source of capital. Exactly how North used this capital is not
clear, but in 1808,
i808, obviously engaged in additional contracts with the War Department, he
wrote, ''To
“To make my contract for pistols advantageous to the United States and to myself
I must go to a great proportion of the expense before Il deliver any pistols. lI find that by
confining a workman to one particular limb of the pistol until he has made two thousand, Il
save at least one quarter of his labor, to what I should provided !thatl
[that] I finished them by
small quantities; and the work will be as much better as it is quicker made.made.”47" 47
This letter suggests that North found savings from a division of labor more noteworthy
than any machinery he may have built. North continued to refine his methods and in 1813 I813
signed a contract that marks a minor milestone in the development of armory practice.
This contract for twenty thousand pistols, delivered over a five-year period, specified that
“the component parts of pistols, are to correspond so exactly that any limb or part of one
''the
thousand. " 48 No previous War
pistol may be fitted to any other pistol of the twenty thousand.”“"*‘
Department contract for arms is known to have contained this stipulation. lts Its insertion is
indicative of the growing enthusiasm within the War Department for firearms constructed
with interchangeable parts, though North himself may have been the motivating force
behind this clause.
I816, problems arose that led North to request an additional $50,000 advance on the
In 1816,
1813 contract above the $30,000 already advanced by the War Department. This request
caused the department to question North's
North’s ability to execute the contract. The secretary of
war ordered an investigation of North’s
North's factory, which was made by Roswell Lee and
James Stubblefield, then superintendents of the Springfield Armory and Harpers Ferry
 The Arnertran
American System in the Anteoe/hint
Anrebe!lum Period 29

Armory, respectively. Their report not only judged North capable of fulfilling his contract
but also pointed out how the New Englander accomplished uniformity of parts for the
pistol locks. "By
“By fitting every part to the same lock,"
lock,” North obtained "a “a more rigid
uniformity than they [Lee and Stubblefield]
Stubblefieldj have heretofore known.
known.”“9
" 4 9 It is clear that
North proceeded from a well-reasoned principle: If each part of the lock were constructed
so that it could take the place of the corresponding part of the model or pattern (or
standard) lock, then con·esponding
corresponding parts
pa1is would in principle interchange within the entire
lot of locks so fashioned. This may seem to be an elementary geometric principle, if ifB I
B =
A and C =AI A thenB
then B = C, but its application is an intellectual leap, for it means deciding to
make pans
parts to a standard gauge (in this case, the model lock) rather than shaping parts
similar to the pattern and then fitting the component parts together to form a complete--
complete—
and unique—lock.
unique-lock. It represents an entirely different approach to arms manufacture. This
principle and its cotTcsponding
corresponding procedures arc are vital to interchangeability; according to Lee
and Stubblefield, Simeon North made the innovation.”
innovation. 50
North also pursued the other fundamental idea that lay behind the development of the
American system of manufactures, producing components by special-purpose machinery.
Merritt Roe Smith recently demonstrated ''that “that the earliest known milling machine in
North’s factory [about 1816] and that the owner devised it.”
America originated at North's it." Until
the milling machine was developed, the principal way to remove metal in shaping it was
by filing, using either hand or rotary files. As developed, milling technology allowed flat
or curved iron surfaces to be cut by simply passing a revolving hardened steel cutter over
the iron, resulting in uniform and quickly executed parts. As Smith points out, in many
ways the development of this powerful technology ''presents
“presents an encapsulated overview of
the rise of the American System.
System."51
" 51 In his execution of a huge contract for pistols,
Simeon North helped set American manufacturing on the road toward mass production.
North attempted to complete only the first few hundred pistols to the specification of
uniformity, however, because, he wrote, the War Department made changes in the model.
(See Figure 1.4.)
Eli Whitney, who in common wisdom is hailed as the pioneering father of the Ameri-
can system, has not fared well under recent historical scrutiny. The first private citizen to
obtain from the United States government a contract with a monetary advance clause,
Whitney had gained some notoriety through his claims to have invented the cotton gin. He
had also acquired a substantial debt as a result of efforts to enforce his claim to the gin and
his disastrous attempts to manufacture it in New Haven, Connecticut. Largely through the
graces of the secretary of the treasury, a fellow Yale graduate, Whitney won an unprece-
dented contract in 1798 for ten thousand muskets with a guaranteed advance of $5,000
upon closing the contract and another $5,000 when Whitney presented evidence that the
initial advance had been "expended
“expended in making preparatory arrangements for the manufac-
ture of arms.”
arms." Whitney informed a friend that this contract ''saved “saved me from ruin."
ruin.” As
Roe Smith wrote, “Whitney’s
Merritt Roc ''Whitney's entry into the arms business undoubtedly was an
act of desperation; the thought of 'bankruptcy
‘bankruptcy and ruin'
ruin’ drove him into making a very rash
proposal. "’ ’52
52

When Eli Whitney originally suggested to the secretary of the treasury that he "should “should
like to undertake to manufacture ten to fifteen thousand stands of anns,'' arms,” he could not
possibly have demonstrated that he possessed the financial or technical resources or the
labor force required to carry out such an unprecedented feat; his performance as a manu-
facturer of cotton gins had been disastrous both in his ability to make them and in the
quality of the product. But Whitney’s
Whitney's idea greatly intrigued not only the secretary of the
30 FROM TI-lE
THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTIO'.J
PRODUCTION

FIGURE 1.4.
FIGURE 1.4. North-Made Horse Pistol, Model 1813. In 1813, Simeon North received a contract
from the War Department to manufacture twenty thousand of of these pistols with parts
parts that would be
be
interchangeable. North encountered difficulties in executing this contract
contract, which led to a formal
investigation of his armory. Although the report of the investigation makes clear how North
approached the technical problem of interchangeability, it is not conclusive about whether North
had achieved perfect interchangeability. North abandoned his goal of interchangeability after the
first couple of hundred pistols. (Edwin W. Bitter Collection. Photograph by Mr. Bitter.)

treasury but also the secretary of war. "I“I am persuaded,”

persuaded," Whitney wrote, "that
“that machin-
ery moved by water, adopted to this [musket] business, would greatly diminish the labor
and facilitate the manufacture of this article. Machines for forging, rolling, floating,
boring, grinding, polishing, etc., may be made use of to advantage.'
advantage."53
' 53
Had Whitney’s
Whitney's unfortunate experience with making cotton gins led him to to this
this conclu-
conclu-
sion about the manufacture of muskets? Although this is unlikely, it seems logical that
anyone proposing to make ten to fifteen thousand muskets in slightly over two two years
years
would have to suggest an alternative to the handicraft methods being practiced at the
Springfield Armory, whose largest annual output in its first ten years was fewer than five
thousand muskets. Any reasonable person knew that such an output would be a major
achievement even employing a small army of gunsmiths. But Americans were not igno-
rant of the potential benefits from machine production, for by 1798 they had seen or heard
about nailmaking machines and other metalworking devices being used in the United
States.“
States. 54
Whitney scholars have suggested that by the date of his contract Eli Whitney had heardheard
Honoré Blanc's
or read about Honore Blanc’s ideas and methods for the manufacture of muskets in
France. He may have learned about them from Jefferson himself or from someone who
knew about Jefferson’s
Jefferson's enthusiasm for Blanc’s
Blanc's work. Blanc’s
Blanc's approach, however, as
detailed in a report of the Academic des Sciences of March 19, 1791, did not involve
methods.55
machine production methods. “end miller"
55 Outside of an "end miller” (a hand tool), the dies,
molds, and jigs Blanc
Blane used can hardly be termed machines, and they did not resemble the
“machines for forging, rolling, floating, boring, grinding, polishing, etc."
"machines etc.” that Whitney
envisioned. If Whitney had heard of Blanc,
Blane, it is strange that he did not tout the idea of
interchangeable musket construction (which is the essence of Blanc’s work in France) in
Blanc's work
 The Antericatt
American System in the Antebellum
Antehellitm Period 31

his proposal for musket manufacture. As the historical record now stands, not until after
1798—ten months after the contract began—when
October 1798-ten began-when the secretary of the treasury
sent Whitney a foreign pamphlet on arms manufacturing techniques (perhaps the Acade-
mie Blanc’s Mémoire
mic report or Blanc's Memoire to the National Assembly) did Whitney begin to advocate
the ''uniformity
“uniformity principle. ""56
56 The reason he began to espouse thisthis idea is simple. By the
middle of 1800,
I800, when his contract was to have been fulfilled, Whitney had not delivered a
single weapon.
weapon.5757 He needed an excuse, for government officials had become anxious

about what had become of the advances on the contract and the lack of any deliveries.
Whitney pleaded that he was attempting aa unique
unique and
and highly rational
rational way
way of of manufactur-
manufactur-
ing muskets—with
muskets-with uniform pans
parts made by machinery. This took time, he argued,
This took time, he argued, and and
great amounts of advance capital.
In hindsight, as well as at the time, Whitney's
Whitney’s plea for patience appears reasonable
because it does take time and money to begin machine production of such an item as a
firearm. But in recent years it has been shown that Whitney did not, in fact, ever try to
carry
catTy out the system which he had implied he was hard at work on. Gene Cesari has
suggested that in 1798 Whitney intended to subcontract fabrication of all the musket parts
and merely fit and assemble them at his New Haven factory. Other authors have argued
that Whitney used the contract, with its $10,000 advance, simply as a reprieve from his
debts and as sustenance in recovering losses through damage suits for widespread in-
fringement of his cotton gin patent. Indeed, between 1798 and 180 I801l Whitney spent
litigation.”
considerable time in the South attending to cotton gin litigation. 58 Certainly forging a

system of interchangeable parts made by machinery required more time then Whitney ever
gave to it.
flame of rational arms manufacture while biding
Nevertheless, Whitney kindled the flame hiding for
time and lenience on his contractual obligations. In January 1801, eight months before he
had delivered a single arm to the War Department, Whitney staged a demonstration in
Washington on the interchangeable character of his product. Whitney had made sure that
the right people were invited. In addition to congressmen and government officials,
President John Adams and President-elect Thomas Jefferson witnessed Whitney, using
only a screwdriver, assemble ten different locks to the same musket. Whitney took care,
however, to interchange only the assembled locks, not the lock parts. Nevertheless, as
Smith noted, ;“the
'the intimation was clear: Whitney was making firearms with uniform or
parts.” Jefferson, perhaps because he had personally interchanged parts
interchangeable parts."
of locks
Jocks made by the Frenchman Blane,Blanc, jumped to the conclusion Whitney sought. He
later informed Governor James Madison of Virginia that Whitney had "invented “invented moulds
and machines for making all the pieces of ofhis
his locks so exactly equal, that take 100 locks to
pieces and mingle their parts and the hundred locks may be put together as well by taking
the first pieces which come to hand.''
hand.” So enthusiastic was Jefferson about the uniformity
Whitney’s musket lock parts
he had long advocated that he reached this conclusion about Whitney's
without any real evidence. Whitney's
Whitney’s demonstration won for him government concessions
both in time and in money.”
money. 59
The story of Eli Whitney and armory production is the story of a man who espoused the
two principal ideas that lay behind the system-interchangeability
system—interchangeability and mechanization--
l'l1€Cl12lI"llZ2lllOll——~
but who never understood, much less developed, its basic principles let alone its its complex
complex
subtleties. That Whitney survived as an armsmaker until his death in 1825 is a tribute to
his entrepreneurial abilities, but he was certainly not the heroic innovator pictured in, say,
Constance Green's
Green’s Eli Whitney and the Birth of American Technologv.
Technology. Whitney was a
publicist of mechanized, interchangeable parts manufacture, not a creator.creator?“ 60
32 FROM TI‘-IE
THE i\MERJCAN SYSTE1'v1 TO MASS PRODUCTJO:'\
AMERICAN SYSTFIM PRODUCTION

The inventor completed the 1798 contract in 1809, and, had it not been for the war
emergency of 1812, the War Department would probably never have given him another
contract because of the poor delivery record and especially the wretched quality of his
arms.“ I812, Whitney had begun to realize that wealth from the cotton gin had eluded
arms. 61 By 1812,
him. ln
In some respects, this date marks the beginning of his career as a legitimate arms-
arms--
maker rather than an opportunistic entrepreneur. In executing the 1798 contract Whitney
may have adopted the die-forging and jig-filing methods used by BlancBlane 111
in France, but
unlike the Frenchman's
Frenchman’s products, his firearms did not contain interchangeable parts. Nor
did the Yankee develop the machines he had envisioned in 1798. As Cesari points out, in
comparison with other private arms factories of the period, Whitney’s
Whitney's armory consisted of
“only the simplest, least expensive equipment.”°2
"only equipment. " 62

In neither interchangeability nor mechanization can Whitney be seen as a pioneer or

even as comprehending the principles that lay behind the systems. Unlike Whitney,
Simeon North elucidated his ideas on how he could achieve interchangeability of parts,
and he developed a milling machine, one of the fundamental machines of the American
system. North's
North’s clarity of statement, which comes about only through understanding, was
absent in Whitney. Throughout his life, the inventorinvcntor continued to talk about in--
terchangcability and mechanization in musketmaking but always at a superficial level.
terchangeability

The Federal Establishments

When under the armory bill of 1794,
I794, the War Department established its first armory
for the production of small arms (muskets, at this date) at Springfield, Massachusetts,
even the most optimistic observer could not have hoped or dreamed that within fifty years
the armory would be considered a world leader in the manufacture of firearms and a
showcase of production techniques. Springfield Armory began making muskets using
current methods, which were almost wholly the handicraft techniques developed through
generation after generation of gunsmiths.
gunsmiths.“
63

David Ames, the first superintendent of the armory, and Robert Orr, the first master
armorer, had been trained as gunsmiths through customary craft channels, and they
approached gunmaking at Springfield with this familiar system by bringing together a
group of gunsmiths and setting up an apprenticeship system. Problems of producing a
satisfactory number of muskets with this system continually plagued Ames, who left the
armory in 1802.
1802.64
64 Although he had only recently been employed as master armorer,

Henry Morgan took charge as superintendent and promptly instituted a series of what no
doubt seemed like radical changes. Morgan, formerly a United States inspector of mus-
well~enunciated principles of division of labor by splitting the workers
kets, exercised the well-enunciated
into four main divisions: barrelmakers
barrel makers and forge men; filers; stockers and assemblers; and
grinders and polishers. Among Morgan's
Morgan’s changes were the introduction of new manageri-
al procedures and a move toward the elimination of the apprenticeship program. But
production during Morgan's
Morgan’s tenure decreased significantly without much change in the
labor force, so in 1805 the paymaster dismissed him for reasons of inefficiency.
inefficiency.“
65

Springfield Armory’s
Armory's next ten years present a checkered history marked by discord
between the superintendents and both the War Department and the workers. Benjamin
Prescott, Morgan’s
Morgan's successor, introduced the piece-rate system of wages soon after taking
over. This system, which lends itself to routinized production, did not please the crafts-
men, who had already been stripped of much of their wide-ranging craftsmanship through
 The Americatr
American System in the Aittebelliint
Antebellum Period 33

the division of labor. Yet Prescott was relieved of his duties in 1813 as a result of a dispute
with the War Department. After a poor performance by Henry Lechler, a Pennsylvania
gunmaker, Prescott again took charge in 1815 as interim superintendent while the armory
awaited the arrival of Colonel Roswell Lee, who would hold this position until his death in
1833 and to whom much of the credit has been given for the armory's armory’s rise to
prominence?"
prominence. 66

About the time of Lee’s

Lee's death, the British philosopher of machinery and economy,
Charles Babbage, argued that the division of labor in manufacturing, especially when
accompanied by a piecework system, naturally and almost inevitably would lead to
improvements by the workers in the various techniques of the subdivided processes.
processes.“ 67 It

might be tempting to interpret the developments at Springfield during Lee's Lee’s tenure as
proving Babbage’s
Babbage' s observation, arguing that the division of labor at the armory and the
subsequent introduction of piecework led to development in mechanization of processes in
i815—40 period, but the historical record does not support such an interpretation. The
the 1815-40
significance of events at the Springfield Armory from 1794 to 1815 is that here armsmak-
ing was transformed from a craft pursuit into an industrial discipline and the weapon from
a shop creation into a factory product. Without question, these changes were a precondi-
tion for the rise of the system of production that so greatly interested the British during the
Babbage’s observation, however, is not borne out at Springfield, for many of the
1850s. Babbage's
seminal ideas and machines developed at the armory originated outside this government
establishment. Roswell Lee became a pivotal figure in the armory’s
armory's history not because of
his own particular know-how but because he cultivated productive relationships between
the armory and private arms contractors and because he was captivated by the idea of
interchangeability of parts.
Lee’s appointment as superintendent of the Springfield Armory in 1815
Lee's I815 followed an
important change within the War Department. James Monroe, then secretary of war,
pushed through Congress legislation that gave control of the Springfield and Harpers
Ferry armories to the Ordnance Department, thus removing them from the immediate
supervision of the secretary of war. An army bureau, the Ordnance Department had been
created in 1812 to inspect and distribute military stores. Colonel Decius Wadsworth, who
had worked with Louis Tousard in the Corps of Artillerists and Engineers, was the first
chief of ordnance. To assist him, Wadsworth recruited a group of West Point junior
officers. When the department gained jurisdiction over the armories in February 1815,
these West Pointers moved immediately toward the institution of an American version of
“le systeme Gribeauval,"
"le Gribeauval,” which Tousard had championed in his American Artillerisfs
Artillerist's
Companion. From their experience in the War of 1812, when a vast number of arms had
been damaged beyond repair in the field but could have been fixed had parts simply
interchanged, the ordnance officers believed that uniform parts manufacture (proven
technically possible by Blanc,
Blane, North.
North, and possibly others) would be worth almost any
Bomford, Wadsworth's
price. Lieutenant George Bamford, Wadsworth’s chief assistant and his successor
(l821—42),
(1821-42), proved to be instrumental in the department’s
department's efforts to achieve uniformity,
but as Merritt Roe Smith points out, ''both
“both men became zealous advocates of the 'unifor-
‘unifor-
mity system'
system’ and relentlessly pursued the idea of introducing it at the national armo-
ries.”68
ries. " 68 Soon they would also demand it of private armories doing work for the
government.
Bomford and Wadsworth provided more than zeal and administrative demands for
uniformity; they also furnished much of the basic thought that went into its achievement.
In June 1815 Wadsworth organized a meeting in New Haven, Connecticut, at which he,
34 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION’
PRODUCTION

Roswell Lee of Springfield, James Stubblefield of Harpers Ferry, Benjamin Prescott, the
former Springfield superintendent, and Eli Whitney, who had long been a friend of
Wadsworth’s,
Wadsworth's, considered the possibility of interarmory standardization in musket man--
ufacture. This select group concluded that the initial requirement was the production and
testing at the national armories of a new model musket, which would be standard to both
armories and eventually to private contractors.
contractors/"’ Bomford charged Lee and Stubblefield
69 Bamford

with the preparation of the new Model 1816 musket, but after a year of effort Lee learned
that Bomford “regrets to observe a total disagreement between your pattern and that lately
Bamford ''regrets
received from Harpers Ferry. It was hoped and expected that there would have been great
coincidence with regard to their construction." One year later Lee complained, "lt “It is
difficult ...
. . . to please everybody. Faults will really realy [sic] exist & many imaginary ones
wilt’
will be pointed outour.. .. .. .. It must consequently take some time to bring about a uniformity
of the component parts of the Musket at both Establishments." Yet Bamford Bomford kept insist-
ing that rigid uniformity in pattern pieces with parts ''so “so critically alike as scarcely to be
distinguished”
distinguished" was the only basis upon which to manufacture uniform weapons. weapons.” 70 The

Ordnance Department finally solved to some degree the problem of making uniform
model muskets when it gave Roswell Lee the duty of preparing the models as well as
inspection gauges for both national armories and later for armories contracting with the
War Department.
When considering inspection devices, Lee and the Springfield Armory become vastly
important in the development of interchangeable arms manufacture. Reaching beyond the
preparation of uniform models, Lee moved toward perfecting a system by which to gauge
parts while in the process of manufacture as well as in the final inspection. Lee’s Lee's goal was
to achieve greater uniformity in the armory’sarmory's products. Hitherto, inspection at the federal
armories had been done primarily with the eye (a subjective process) rather than by use of
a gauge (a more objective procedure). Simeon North had used the model lock as a
receiving gauge by which to fit each of the lock components, but by 1819 gauging at
Springfield had become an elaborate system. Major James Dalliba of the Ordnance
Department argued that the Springfield gauging system was the only means ''to “to attain this
grand object of uniformity of parts." parts.” The basis of the Springfield system was, according
to Dalliba, the pattern or model weapon. Alongside the model, the master armorer
maintained a set of master gauges that verified critical dimensions of the model. All shop
foremen and inspectors also kept a set of gauges corresponding to the parts made or
inspected in their departments.
depattments. Finally, the workmen responsible for the production of
particular parts were issued gauges to check
palticular cheek dimensions of those parts while they were
being made. In theory all gauges corresponded to the model and master gauges. Although
made of hardened steel, the production and inspection gauges were subject to wear and
therefore were checked regularly against the model or master gauges. gauges.“71

At this early date in the development of gauging techniques, the complexity of the
system and the demands it placed on those who adopted it were already evident evident. Yet in
spite of much effort, perfection had not yet been achieved. Dalliba was optimistic,
however, that with further refinement and more faithful adherence to it, the Springfield
gauging system would eventually lead to the "grand “grand object of uniformity of parts.”
parts."
Roswell Lee was equally sanguine_ sanguine. With this system, Lee pointed out to George Born- Bom-
ford, “our
''our Muskets are now substantially uniform,”
uniform,'' although ''I“I am sensible that consid-
consid-<
erable improvements are yet to be made to complete the system of uniformity throughout
all the Establishments.”72
Establishments. " 72
In developing this system Roswell Lee readily understood the new demands dictated by
 The American System
S.vstem in the Antebellum Period 35

precision. James Stubblefield, however, and no doubt many armory workers at Harpers
Ferry and Springfield were "at
Feny “at a loss" in grasping the immediate and long-term results to
be obtained from such gauging methods.”
methods. 73 The goal of interchangeability, still very
elusive, Lee believed, became an exacting exercise that imposed a bureaucratic system
upon the armory in its attempt to prevent any deviation from the standard pattern. In terms
of the number of gauges used and the tolerances allowed, gauging methods would become
even more rigorous during the next score of years. Yet by 1822, Lee still had not fulfilled
his 1818 orders that ''the“the component parts of the musket may be made to fit every
muslcet, ” and he began to argue that "the
musket," “the uniformity of the parts of the musket is believed
to be as perfect as is practicable without incuning
incurring unreasonable expense and perhaps more
attention to that particular point would not prove beneficial. ""7474 At this juncture, however,

Lee had only begun to realize the powerful effects obtained from full mechanization of
work processes, for Thomas Blanchard had just negotiated a contract to make gunstocksgun stocks at
the Springfield Armory for a specified price using his newly patented battery of stocking
machinery. In many ways, this machinery is a microcosm of the American system of oi
manufactures.”
manufactures. 75

The invention and development of stockmaking machinery by Thomas Blanchard set

American manufacturing firmly on the road toward mechanized production. The so-called
“lathe,” the fundamental machine in a battery that eventually included four-
Blanchard ''lathe,''
teen machines, was a truly elegant invention that reproduced in wood the irregular shape
of a gunstock (or any other irregularly shaped object such as an ax handle or a shoe last).last).76
76

(See
(Sec Figure 1.5.) But this machine alone would not have so easily pointed the way had
Blanchard not linked it sequentially with additional and more special-purpose machines
that carried out the remainder of operations on the stocks such as recessing for the barrel
and lock and mortising for the trigger mechanism. Hand labor was virtually eliminated. It
is this sequential operation of special-purpose machines which characterized mechaniza-
lion in American manufacturing.
tion manufacturing.” 77 The logic and the success of Blanchard’s
Blanchard's operation
suggested to those both inside and outside the Springfield Armory that such mechaniza-
tion was the path to pursue in other areas and with other materials.
lion
Blanchard’s
Blanchard's ideas for stockmaking machinery grew immediately out of a machine he
built in 1818 to turn musket barrels. Although several New England armsmakers had
attacked the problem of turning musket banels
barrels instead of grinding them, none had devised
a way to machine the breech end of the batTelbarrel where it was no longer cylindrical but was
flat and oval-shaped. Asa Waters, a prominent arms contractor who had tried in vain to
turn this irregular shape, asked Thomas Blanchard, a local mechanician, for advice on
how this object might be met. In a fashion characteristic among many American inventors
of the nineteenth century, the solution to the problem of turning irregular forms, according
to Asa Waters II, "flashed
“flashed through his mind.
mind.”78
" 78 As worked out in wood and metal,
Blanchard’s inspiration centered around using the desired irregular form as a cam.
Blanchard's
Louis Pasteur once declared that discovery favors the prepared mind; such was the case
with Blanchard. The Diderot Encyclopédie
Encyclopedie contained descriptions of devices for turning
objects through the use of cams. Blanchard had apparently seen the French work as well
Brunel’s Portsmouth blockmaking machinery published in
as the description of Marc I. Brunei's
the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia. Smith notes that Blanchard ''readily“readily acknowledged”
acknowledged'' these
sources of information in his patent specifications. According to Blanchard, this informa-
tion had been available long enough to become everyman's everyman’s province. Thus, as Smith
points out, "Blanchard
“Blanchard based his claim not on general principles, per se, but on their
systematic arrangement and specific method of operation.”79
operation. " 79 Perhaps Blanchard did not
36
36 I"ROM TilE
FROM Tl-IE AMERICA'l
AMl£RlCAY\l SYSTJC:M TO MASS
SYSTlZM TU I'RODUCTION
;\/IASS PR()l)U("|‘lOi\l

,2»

wk

FIGURE 1.5.
FIGURE 1.5. Blanchard’s “Lathc" to Manufacture Gunstocks,
Blanchard's ''Lathe" Gunstocks. 1822. Built in 1822 by Thomas
Blanchard for the Springfield Armory,
Armory. this profilc~tracing
profile-tracing lathe became the fundamental machine in
a battery of fourteen machines that produced all-but-finished
all--but-finished gunstocks from sawn lumber.
Blanchard’s
B!an chard's gunstock operations demonstrated the potential of specspecial-purpose.
ial-purposc. sequentially used
machinery. (Smithsonian Institution Neg. No. 24437
24437.).)
 The Amerirrrui
Americon System in the Antebellum Period 37

.,»-wzm- *4.

FIGURE 1.6.
FIGURE 1.6. Portsmouth Blockmaking Machine. This shaping engine,
engine. designed by Marc
Mare 1.
l. Brunei
Brune!
and built by Henry Maudslay,
;_md Maudslay. was one of some twenty-two
twenty-two special-purpose
special-purpose machines
machines used sequen-
used sequen-
tially to produce wooden blocks for the British navy. (British Crown
Crown Copyright.
Copyright. Science
Science Museum,
Museum,
London.)
London.)
38 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM
SYSTHvl TO MASS PRODUCTION

recognize his own originality. Diderot describes and illustrates methods of turning regular
figures with the use of cams. It is difficult to understand how Blanchard derived inspira·-
inspira-
tion to turn irregular forms from the techniques covered in the Encyelopéclie.
Encyc!opedie. The use of a
cam as Blanchard employed it is not obvious; his arrangement appears to have been
entirely novel.
More important for the development of the American system of manufactures, howcv·- howev-
er, Blanchard realized the promise of Brunei's
Brunel’s special-purpose machines used sequen·
sequen-
tially for the production of rope blocks for the Royal Navy. Brunel Brunei designed and Henry
Maudslay built twenty-two different kinds of machines to saw, drill, mortise, recess, turn,
and shape the shells and sheaves of the wooden blocks. (See Figure 1.6.) When Brunei
and Maudslay had finished their work in about 1807, forty- forty-five
five machines produced three
different ranges of blocks ((44 to 7 inch, 7 to I100 inch, and 10
l 0 to 18 inch) with an annual
output of 130,000 blocks. Because the Britannica,
Britaitnzca, Penny, Edinburgh, and Chambers·
Chambers’
encyclopedias described the Portsmouth machines and operation in detail (Ree' (Ree’ss
Cyclopedia of 1819 devoted eighteen pages and seven plates to it), it may safely be said
that Brunei's
Brunel’s work was a showpiece of British production technology.
Although Blanchard clearly did not draw inspiration from Brunnel’s
Brunnel's machinery for his
fundamental gunstock-turning lathe (because the blocks were not irregularly shaped), it is
entirely possible that he used Brunei's
Brunel’s ideas for mortising and recessing. Yet even this
theory of origination becomes muddled when it is realized that Brunei's Brunel’s interest in
blockmaking machinery had first arisen while he was living in the United States at the end
of the eighteenth century.
century.8O Brunel drew his ideas from as yet unknown Ameri·
80 Perhaps Brunei Ameri-
can inventions.
In any case, the Portsmouth blockmaking operation showed the vast productive bene-- bene-·
fits of using a number of machines, each designed to carry out a single operation and so
arranged as to complete sequentially all the necessary operations upon a product.
Blanchard firmly grasped the principle of sequentially arranged, single-purpose machine-
ry, and since British producers failed to apply this principle to the manufacture of other
goods, Blanchard can be credited with the rediscovery of Brunei's
Brunel’s production methods.
As noted above, the British machine builder Richard Prosser expressed his belief in 1854
that Blanchard’s
Blanchard's gunstocking operations (with the exception of the eccentric turning lathe)
derived from the Portsmouth blockmaking machinery. Nevertheless, Blanchard'sBlanchard’s funda-
funda-
mental machine, in addition to being a brilliant invention, initiated an unprecedented
movement in the construction of special-purpose machine tools that would be used
sequentially . 81
sequentially. 81
Between October 1818, when he had completed a barrel-turning machine for the
Harpers Ferry Armory, and February 1819, Blanchard developed his lathe for turning
gunstocks. By March he had demonstrated its operation at the Springfield Armory. Soon Soon
after this demonstration Blanchard built additional machinery to cut out space in the
stocks for musket locks and for barrels. After 1822, the inventor worked out fully his
ideas on mechanized gunstock production as an inside contractor at the Springfield Armo- Anno··
ry. The national armory provided him with shop space, free use of its tools and machin-
ery, water power, and the necessary raw materials. Blanchard granted the armory free use usc
of his patented machinery in return for
for aa contracted
contracted price of
of thirty-seven cents per
thirty-seven cents per musket
musket
stock. By the end of 1826 he had perfected his battery of machines, now fourteen in
number, and had eliminated the use of skilled labor in stockmaking.
stockmakingsz 82 Blanchard had

shown Americans the meaning of mechanization. John H. Hall would combine this notion
 The American Sysreni
System in the Antebellum Period 39

Department’s quest for interchangeable firearms, further developing

with the Ordnance Department's
and elucidating the basic principles of the American system of arms production.
Although recognized by his contemporaries as a major contributor to the American
system, John H. Hall escaped the attention of modern historians until recently. Merritt
Smith’s Harpers Ferry Armory and the New Technology has provided an outstanding
Roe Smith's
study of Hall’s
:3tudy achievements.“
Hall's achievements. 83 Sometime before 1820 Hall set for himself a mandate to

produce his patented brecehloading

breechloading rifle with interchangeable parts. Drawing from best-
practice techniques used at No-rth’s
North's armory and the national armories, he radically im-
proved upon them largely by thinking abstractly about interchangeability and how this
goal might be achieved with machines. North and others had already considered this same
object and had made progress, but their thought lacked Hall’s
Hall's precision and their commit-
ment to interchangeability of parts was moderated far more by practical or economic
considerations than was Hall's.
Hall’s. It is important to keep in mind that throughout much of the
nineteenth century the ideal of interchangeability, despite its powerful appeal and seeming
rationality, was considered a somewhat irrational pursuit because it continually flew in the
face of experience, which had borne out time and again that the system could not survive
practical application. Roswell Lee, it will be recalled, was acutely aware of these prob-
lems. Yet in the United States, mechanics continued to pursue the dream, and the govern-
ment allowed them generous financial support for their efforts. John Hall, who drew on
his own wealth and the government’s,
government's, clearly stands as a pivotal figure in the transforma-
tion of an ideal into a reality.
Originally a Portland, Maine, cooper, cabinetmaker, and boatbuilder, Hall invented a
rifle that loaded at the breech rather than the customary and almost universal method of ot
loading from the muzzle or barrel end. When Hall attempted to patent the breechloader in
181 1, the commissioner of patents, William Thornton, claimed to have invented a similar
1811,
weapon in 1792 and promised to block the patent unless it was issued jointly to Hall and
himself. Secretary of State James Monroe refused to intercede on behalf of Hall, and the
inventor was left with no recourse but to accept Thornton as co-inventor, which also
meant granting the commissioner one-half of all income gained through the patent. The
two inventors never agreed on how best to maximize profits from the patent; Thornton
advocated a quick sale of rights and collection of royalty while Hall desired to hold onto
the patent and sell his own rifles.rit1es. Despite continued harassment from Thornton, Hall
prevailed and worked to convince the government that it needed his invention. He sold
eight breechloaders (five rit1es
rifles and three muskets) to the War Department, which field-
tested the weapons. With a favorable report, the War Department asked Hall in late
December 1814 to deliver two hundred of his rifles by April I, 1, 1815. Hall, still in
Portland, became acutely aware of production problems when he was forced to turn down
the request because he lacked the necessary workmen and facilities to meet such a large
order.
Hall had not given up, however, for during 1815 he laid some of the groundwork for a
method and facility to produce "any “any number”
number'' of breechloaders for the War Department.
With the same missionary zeal displayed by Eli Whitney and Simeon North, Hall told the
secretary of war that he had ''spared
“spared neither pains nor ex pence Ilsicl”
expence sic]'' in building tools and
machinery. He noted, however, that '"only "only one point now remains to bring the rifles to the
utmost perfection, which lI shall attempt if the Government contracts with me for the guns
to any considerable amount viz., to make every similar part of every gun so much alike
. . . if a thousand guns were taken apart &
that ... & the limbs thrown promiscuously together
40 FROM THE
TilE AMERICAN
AM ERIC AN SYSTEM
SYS'lil'iM TO MASS PR()l)ll(T'l‘lO.\'
I'RODUCT!O:\

in one heap they may be taken promiscuously from the heap & will wil I all come right.
right.''” At the
same time, Hall expressed his abiding faith that this plan was practicable. “although in
practicable, "although
the first instance it will probably prove expensive."
expensive.” The ultimate economic advantages of of
such a system, clearly professed by Hall, intrigued George Bomford and Decius
Wadsworth, yet even these advocates of uniformity could not accept the high price of $40
each in Hall's
Hall’s offer to manufacture one thousand rifles nor his revised bid of five hundred
weapons at $25S25 apiece. Ordnance chief Wadsworth persuaded the secretary of war that if it
Hall made one hundred rifles, this would constitute a "pretty“pretty extensive Experiment.”*'4
Experiment. ··g 4
Perhaps Wadsworth was more concerned with testing the viability of the Hall breechloa.d--brecchload-·
ing rifle than with obtaining an idea of the bottom
botlom limits of the price per rifle by realizing
economies of scale. With little promise of being able to reduce his cost through high
volume, Hall reluctantly accepted the War Departments
Department's offer for one hundred rifles. rifles,
which he completed in Maine by November 18 1817.
17.
Despite initial skepticism about the viability of breechloading weapons in the federal
Hall’s one hundred rifles received much praise. One officer suggested that "they
service, Hall's “they
ought & & must eventually supercede !sic] [sic] the common rifle."85
ritle. ''Wi Praise notwithstanding,
the War Department seemed reluctant to negotiate a larger contract. Hall therefore re-
sorted to asking political friends in Washington to influence the secretary of war, who in
late 1818 asked the inventor to journey to Harpers Ferry to manage the production of aa
small number of breechloaders in order to perfect the model. Four such weapons were
made there. Thorough testing by the superintendent of the armory, James Stubblefield,
again proved Hall’s
Hall's claims for the weapon. But as Smith points out, Stubblefield and
possibly others in the War Department maintained that, because these four weapons had
cost $200 each to make, the government could not afford to adopt the breechloader. This
decision indicates either a rationalized prejudice against the weapon or a profound igno-
rance of cost-reducing benefits obtained through high-volume production. Smith tacitly
suggests that, incredible as it may seem to twentieth-century minds, minds. Stubblefield had hac! no
idea about the possibilities of “economies
''economics of scale.''
scale.” (This is by no means an indictment
against Stubblefield. But as will be seen later, John Hall had a very clear idea of the cost-
reducing tendencies of high-volume production.) An additional three-month test of Hall’s Hall's
rifles pitted against the common muzzleloading rifle, checking for endurance, rapidity of
loading and firing, and accuracy, yielded results that the Ordnance Department—which
Department--which
firearm—could no longer deny
above all sought to arm the nation with a single, standard firearm-could
or ignore. Hail
Hall at last won a contract for one thousand weapons.
Hall’s
Hall's 1819 contract seems to have been a new departure for the War Department
because the inventor agreed to produce his rifle for a monthly salary of $60 and a royalty
of $1 per arm. The War Department would pay the cost of manufacture at Harpers Ferry.
Whereas the government had in effect subsidized Whitney and North through cash ad-
vances, it truly subsidized Hall, who was, as Smith points out, "a “a private manufacturer at
a public armory.'
armory."8“•xr,
John Hall began his work in earnest in April 1820 at the Rifle Works, a unit separate
from the armory at Harpers Ferry_ Ferry. Originally believing he would fulfill the contract by
September 1821, the inventor finally finished the one thousand breechloaders in Decem-
I824. Although this delay may seem reminiscent of Whitney’s
ber 1824. Whitney's first contract, the
Hall’s rifle components did interchange. As he wrote to Secretary of
contrast is striking. Hall's
War John Calhoun,
Calhoun. "I “I have succeeded in an object which has hitherto completely baffled
(notwithstanding the impressions to the contrary which have long prevailed) all the
endeavors of those who have heretofore attempted it-/ it—l have
hm'e SllC‘C.'€C’Cl€(l
succeeded in establishing
 The American System in the Antebellum Period 41

methods for fabricating arms exactly alike, & & with economy, by the hands of common
workmen,
vvorkmen, && in such a manner as to endure a perfect observance of any established
model, &
.model, & to furnish in the arms themselves a complete test of their conformity to it.'' it.”
Although one must beware of Yankee brag, Hall's Hall’s claims were borne out in 1827 by a
three-man committee charged by the United States House of Representatives with investi-
gating Hall’s
Hall's Rifle
Rifle Works at Harpers Ferry. This committee also confirmed that the
inventor produced his interchangeable riflerifle components with a series of special-purpose
machine tools of his own design and make. The committee's
roachine committee’s report constitutes one of the
foremost documents in the early history of American manufacturing technology.“ technology. 87
Using this report as well as a wide array of published and manuscript material, Merritt
Roe
lloe Smith has provided a comprehensive picture of Hall's Hall’s machine tools and operations at
Harpers Ferry. A number of devices and procedures distinguish Hall’s Hall's work. Drawing
upon the prior work of Simeon North, Hall developed three classes of milling machines,
which he used to finish parts after they had been initially shaped in the dies of large and
small drop forges. In France, Honore
Honoré Blane
Blanc had used hardened steel dies to fashion heated
iron into various shapes for the lock parts of his musket, and Hall’s Hall's drop forges may be
seen as an extension of Blanc's
Blanc’s work. Of course, coins have been made with the use of
dies for centuries, but drop-forging was different. Moreover, Hall developed a method to
eject the newly forged piece from the die in order to prevent heat buildup which quickly
removed the die’s
die's temper. He also recognized that because of shrinkage in cooling a
forged piece did not retain the exact shape of the die, and he developed procedures to deal
with this problem. In addition to these metalworking machines, Hall designed and con-
structed woodworking machines for the manufacture of stocks which differed signifi-
Blanchard’s. Hall’s
cantly from Blanchard's. of five stocking machines never equaled the perfor-
Hall's series offive
Blanchard’s battery largely because more handwork remained after Hall's
mance of Blanchard's Hall’s
process than with that of Blanchard. Nonetheless, the design and use of these woodwork-
ing machines clearly demonstrated Hall’s
Hall's creativity and his commitment to carry out all
operations by machinery.
Hall’s ability to manufacture interchangeable rifle
Hall's rifle parts rested not only on his skills in
designing and building metal- and woodworking machinery but, perhaps more important,
on his extensive use of gauges and on his rationalized design of fixtures. Hall drew upon
North’s experience of using the model lock as a receiver gauge to which parts
Simeon North's
were fitted and also developments in gauging at the Springfield Armory. Yet very early he
extended the use of gauges for manufacturing and inspection; one of the men who worked
for Hall later said that the inventor used three sets of gauges (work, inspection, and
master), each comprising sixty-three different gauges. Another mechanic noted that Hall’s Hall's
gauges were "more
“more numerous and exact ... . . . than had ever before been used.
used.”88
" 88

Production of uniform parts by machinery required skill in making the machines, tools,
and gauges and a commitment to relinquish one's one’s judgment to the ultimate authority of the
gauge. Yet uniformity also demanded careful thought about how precision might be
obtained and improved. John Hall elucidated what became one of the fundamental princi-
ples of precision manufacture, a principle that was the product of thought rather than
action, a part of an intellectual process rather than the acquisition of skill over time. This
was the principle of fixture design. A fixture is a device that ''fixes''
“fixes” or secures an object
in a machine tool, such as a milling machine, and holds it during the machining operation.
Each time an object is fixed in a machine tool, a certain amount of inaccuracy creeps into
the operation. Because fabrication of Hall’s rifle parts involved a number of different
Hall's rifle
machining operations, each requiring a specially designed fixture, Hall recognized that a
42 FROM THE AMERlCAN
AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

multiplying effect would set in; the inaccuracy of each fixing would be he multiplied by the
number of different machine operations. To rectify this problem, Hall reasoned that if the
piece were located in each fixture relative to one point on the piece, the multiplying effect
could be thwarted. He called this reference point the "bearing"“bearing” point and designed all
fixtures for a part relative to that point. And, as Hall stressed, "this
“this principle is applicable
in all cases where uniformity is required.''
required.” Indeed, this fundamental principle became
applicable.”
universally applicable. 89
Such clarity of thought was rarely expressed by early American mechanics, yet it
seems typical of much of Hall's Hall’s work. Opponents at the Harpers Ferry Armory, far more
practical mechanics than he, referred pejoratively to the Yankee inventor as a "visionary “visionary
theorist,"
theorist,” a term that illustrates his approach to precision manufacture. 90 Hall's under·
manufacture.9° Hall’s under--Y
standing of the inherent technical demands placed upon the maker of interchangeable
firearms is perhaps best revealed in correspondence concerning the manufacture of his
patented rifle
rifle by Simeon North under a federal contract.
i825 the Hall breechloader had become popular with many state militias. But
After 1825
because the federal arms factories could not legally produce weapons for state militias, the
War Department turned to a private contract with Simeon North in 1828 I828 as a means to
supply state militias with Hall weapons. The thought of another shop producing his rifles
disturbed Hall, not so much because it threatened his own operation but because he
believed another maker would not understand or appreciate the demands of uniform
manufacture. Any departure from Hall’s Hall's rigid system of gauging and fixture design would
surely imperil the uniformity of the breechloader’s “If the contractor should fail of
breechloader's parts. "If of
full and complete success,"
success,” Hall wrote Ordnance Chief George Bomford, "his “his arms must
all be rejected and he will be ruined, as the introduction of the Rifles Rifles into the service in so
defective a state as not to admit exchanging all their parts with each other, and with those
made here would totally defeat the great object for which so much expense has been
incurred. ’ '“)1
incurred.' 91

Hall’s apprehension, Bomford granted North a five-year contract for five

Despite Hall's
thousand breechloaders, one thousand to be delivered annually. At once, it became
evident that the War Department did not fully understand Hall’s Hall's uniformity system be- be--
cause it gave North several production rifles rifles to use as a pattern rather than an exact
duplicate of Hall’s
Hall's model and an accompanying set of his gauges. North would have to
prepare his own gauges to ensure uniformity with the production arm used as a pattern but
not necessarily with the rifles made at Harpers Ferry. Bamford Bomford eventually provided him
with the proper model and gauges, and by 1834 Harpers Ferry and North's Noith’s armory were
rifles whose parts could be interchanged, an important milestone in the
turning out rifles
American system of arms production.
Throughout John Hall'sHall’s twenty-five-year involvement with the production of his pa-- pa-
tented rifle,
rifle, the Yankee mechanic never succeeded in convincing War Department offi offi-..
cials to make the ultimate test of his system, to produce as many weapons as possible with
his array of machine tools rather than to limit the number to the usual paltry (by Hall’s Hall's
standards) sum of a thousand per year. Once Hall had completed the first order of one
rifles in 1824, he began to preach not only the universal applicability of his
thousand rifles
system for all interchangeable manufacture but also the potential benefits to be won
through economies of scale. When in 1828 the War Depmimcnt Department again asked for only one
thousand rifles
rifles from Hall, the inventor wrote Colonel Bomford
Bamford that he had designed the
Harpers Ferry Rifle Rifle Works machinery for production on a "large“large scale"
scale” using a "minute
“minute
subdivision of Labor.”
Labor." Such a small order would not allow him to begin to realize the
 The American System in the Antebellum Period 43

inherent economies of scale. As Hall noted, fixed costs for three thousand riflesrifles would not
be greater than for the thousand ordered.
ordered.”92

Although Bomford
Bamford may have agreed with Hall, he failed to convince his superiors that
in
m order to test fully the experimental system Hall had developed at the Rifle Rifle Works, they
must see how many arms it could turn out and what effects full production exerted on the
price of the rifle. Indeed, continued lack of appropriations severely restricted Hall’s Hall's
operations, a problem the investigating committee of J1827 827 noted as causing ''inconve-
“inconve-
embarrassment”' in that Hall never had enough room at the Rifle
nience and embarrassment' Rifle Works to set
up all of his machinery.93
machinery. 93 The inventor daily faced the problem of pushing one machine
tool out of the way so that another could be set up in its place. This meant constant setup
and adjustment of machine tools, exacerbated the problems of precision manufacture, and
certainly prohibited any chance to lower costs through continuous and smoothly flowing flowing
production which the inventor envisioned-what
envisioned»-what Lieutenant Colonel James S. Tulloh
described as "a flowing through the manufactory in consecutive
“a kind of stream of work flowing
order. ''
order.”9“ 94

Continual relocation and readjustment of machine tools coupled with small demand for
rifles may have been determining factors in the startling machinist-armorer ratio at Hall’s
rifles Hall's
Rifle Works. That with few exceptions Hall annually employed as many skilled machin-
Rifle
ists as he did armorers, according to Smith, “denotes
"denotes an uncommon preoccupation with
machine making. "95 " 95 Allocations within Hall’s
Hall's budget corroborate this conclusion. But as
later experience would show, such expenditures and allocations of labor resources were
characteristic of manufacture under the American system. Indeed, this was one of the
primary concerns of the British Select Committee on Small Arms in 1854. Just as he
recognized the universal applicability of his system of production, Hall no doubt also
realized that skill within this system was confined to the construction and maintenance of
machines and tools rather than to the production of the good itself. Getting into and
maintaining production would require a large mechanic-operator ratio. Hall seemed to
have prided himself that young boys were the best operators of his self-acting
machinery. 96 96

It is fitting that John Hall’s

Hall's Rifle Ferry, a point where
Rifle Works was situated at Harpers Perry,
two rivers ran together. At the Rifle
Rifle Works, two important streams of development in
manufacturing technology flowed flowed together into a major stream that runs through Ameri-
can history. There, the idea of uniformity or interchangeability of parts was combined
with the notion that machines could make things as good and as fast as man's man’s hands, or
even better. The result of this combination was the method of production usually called
the "American manufactures” but which can perhaps be more appropriately
“American system of manufactures"
“armory system''
labeled the ''armory “armory practice.
system” or ''armory ''
practice.”
influence of John Hall on American
Smith has convincingly demonstrated the lasting influence
arms manufacture, particularly on the Springfield Armory and on private arms contractors
of New England such as Simeon North, Lemuel Pomeroy, Eli Whitney and his nephews,
and others. But the communication of information by no means flowed flowed in one direction.
North's prior work and that accomplished at Springfield. Nevertheless,
Hall profited from North’s
Smith’s assessment seems valid: "Hall's
Smith's “Hall’s work [essentially carried out on the govern-
blanche]1 represented an important extension of the industrial revolution in
ment’s carte blanche
ment's
America, a mechanical synthesis so different in degree as to constitute a difference in
kind.”97
kind. " 97
Hall’s death in 1842, the Springfield Armory responded to
From as early as 1827 until Hall's
his work at Harpers Ferry. Roswell Lee, the superintendent at Springfield (who in 1822
44 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO \1ASS
MASS PRODUCTION

had expressed skepticism about carrying out complete uniformity of parts) served as the
superintendent of the Harpers Ferry Armory for one year during 1827. i827. While there he
helped select men to serve on the committee that investigated Hall'sHall’s operation. Judging
Lee’s typical eagerness to follow any new technology that showed promise for the
from Lee's
federal armories, he must have spent many hours at the Rifle
Rit1e Works contemplating Hall's
Hall’s
machine tools, fixture design, and extensive gauging system. Hall’s Hall's system must have
convinced him of the possibilities for interchangeable manufacture. Hall later claimed that
the Springfield Armory had adopted many of his machines and ideas without his permis-· permis~
sion, but under the contractual agreements between the inventor and the government the
latter maintained full privileges to use Hall’s
Hall's machines as it pleased. It would have been
natural for Lee to have carried technical information back to Springfield when he resumed
his duties there in 1828.
l828."‘8
98

The decades of the 1830s

18305 and pa1ticularly
particularly the 1840s
l840s were noteworthy for the develop-·
develop--
ment of interchangeable manufacture of muskets at Springfield. Achievements during
these years included adoption of a new model musket, extension of the gauging system,. system,
and the design of new machine tools, especially by two prolific mechanics, Thomas
Warner and Cyrus Buckland. By 1850, the armory had achieved such uniformity of
musket parts that it no longer fitted, assembled, and marked lock parts in the soft state
before hardening them. More important, virtually all of the fabrication of the musket musket;
(except barrel welding) was carried out by machines, some of them flexible flexible such as
milling machines and other specialized such as barrel rifling machinery.
During these years, according to Felicia Deyrup, the armory experienced a decline in
“efficiency” and failed to lower the cost of its product through extensive mechaniza-
"efficiency"
tion.” Despite pretenses to the contrary, the War Department never really expected
tion.99
significant cost reductions. Yet it achieved its long-sought goal of solid, easily repairable
weapons constructed with uniform pans.parts. The development of the American system of
interchangeable parts manufacture must be understood above all as the result of a decision
made by the United States War Department, for reasons outlined earlier, to have this kind
of small arms, whatever the cost. It was willing to achieve that goal through hand labor (as
borne out by a record of more than twenty years of hand filing to jigs at Springfield and
Harpers Ferry) or by machines (as seen by its continued support of John Hall'sHall’s experimen-
experimen~
Rifle Works at the Ferry).
tal Ritle
In 1838 the War Department began developing a new model musket for Springfield,
which meant an extensive change in machinery, tools, filingjigs,
filing jigs, and gauges. Apparently
master armorer Thomas Warner convinced John Robb, Roswell Lee’s Lee's successor, to allow
him to make a "thorough
“thorough reorganization"
reorganization” of Springfield's
Springfield’s production system. Charles J-1.
H.
Fitch, the nineteenth-century commentator on the rise of interchangeable manufacture in
the United States, called Warner a "projector
“projector of the movement for interchangeability.”
interchangeability.''
With the help of Nathaniel French, who had worked for both John Hall at Harpers Ferry
and Simeon North at Middletown, and Cyrus Buckland, Warner extended the Springfield
gauging system along the lines suggested by Hall. (See Figure 1. 1.7.)
7 .) Among other ma-
chines, he designed a lockplate milling machine with adjustable spindle, screw feed, and
automatic disengage. Cyrus Buckland also designed a large number of machines between
l852; some were only improvements on Blanchard's
1840 and 1852; Blanchard’s stocking machines but
others were more original, such as a self-acting rifling machine. Warner also further
subdivided the work processes, such as creating four different jobs in the filing of the
lockplate. In 1840, the master armorer, obviously pleased with his work, wrote another
armory mechanic that "what“what has been clone
done was once considered impracticable and
 The Amerirrm Svsteiit in the Antebelium
Americwz Svstem Antebellum Period 45

Ia ‘ 1 ‘ </ s s U >> -itigjifiilf/Eiii-‘iiiiiivtié

J

1' 8 2

FtouRF 1.7. Inspection

FIGURE 1.7. inspection Gauges,
Gauges. United States Model 1841184! Rifle.
Rifle, This set of gauges was one
one of
three different types of gauges built by the Springfield Armory. Master gauge and work gauge sets
were also constructed and used. (National Museum of American History. Smithsonian Institution
Neg. No. 62468.)

impossible.”1°°
almost impossible." 100 The Yankee mechanic helped to move the Springfield Armory a

step closer to fully interchangeable firearms.

Warner left the federal service to take a job at the Whitney armory. Cyrus Buckland
carried forth the long-established goal of interchangeability and the well-grounded ap-
proach to this goal. When Joseph Whitworth visited the Springfield Armory in 1853 i853 and
when the British Committee on the Machinery of the United States toured it in 1854, they
had been partly designed and fully orchestrated by Buckland. And when
saw a plant that bad
the British committee purchased gunstocking machinery from the Ames Antes Manufacturing
Company for its projected Enfield Armoury, many of the machines they bought were
specially designed by Buckland.
Buckland."“101 Moreover, he continually refined the Springfield

gauges so that by 1849 or !850,

i850, the armory’s
armory's products easily interchanged.
From 1830 until the beginning of the Civil War, Springfield Armory played a critical
role not only in the development of a workable, mechanized system of uniform firearms
manufacture but also in the widespread diffusion of information about
about the system.
system. The
The
armory acted both as a clearing house for technical information and a training ground for
mechanics who later worked for private armsmakers or for manufacturers of other goods.
Felicia Deyrup noted that during the I1830s
830s private and federal armories exchanged parts,
workers, and information on production machinery. Mechanics often visited Springfield
Armory, and Deyrup documents instances when the armory made "castings“castings of valuable
machines developed by the contractors.''
contractors.” 102
‘U2
Government contracts with private armsmakers for military weapons declined during
l840s, however, and virtually ended until the Civil War. With the demise of the
the 1840s,
contract system, old armsmakers such as Simeon North, North. Lemuel Pomeroy, and and Asa
Asa
Waters went out of existence. Yet the role played by these contractors as developers and
extenders of mechanized, interchangeable firearms manufacture was taken over by a new
breed of armsmakers, those of patent arms such as the Colt revolver and the Sharps rifle.
Patent armsmakers capitalized on forty years of government-sponsored development in
46 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

manufacturing technology, and the timing of their origin at least suggests when this
development had reached a level which, although far from mature, held real possibilities
for those outside the realm of government largesse. 103
‘O3
Although they contributed developments of their own, the patent arms manufacturers
are perhaps best understood as crystallizers of the nascent technology developed at gov-
ernment armories and those of government contractors. For example, they brought drop-
forging, milling, and gauging to a high degree of perfection and in doing so firmly
established an armory tradition of manufacture, or more simply, armory practice. The
success of patent arms manufacture seemed eventually to vindicate the costly and ambigu-
ambigu-
ous production technology developed by the War Department; success allowed the procla-
mation of the universality of the system. Although it is tempting to treat the history of
each of the patent armsmakers, only one will be discussed-Samuel
discussed—Samuel Colt.

“Colonel Colt's
''Colonel Colt’s system of 1nanujacturing''
manufacturing”

The opening of the new Colt armory at Hartford, Connecticut, in 1855

l855 has been called
the culmination of years of development of armsmaking technology. Colt claimed that his
new factory was larger and more modern than any other private armory in the world. 104*0“
(See Figure 1.8.) Although much of Colt’s
Colt's initial success depended on government
governmen1
purchases, he does not fit into the same category with the private arms contractors
discussed earlier. Most often, the government simply purchased Colt revolvers; it did not

it?

am it . . t /..~,.~ ‘
1/
" MulV)\!~
)

FIGURE 1.8.
FrGURE 1.8. Samuel Colt’s
Colt's Armory, Hartford, Connecticut, 1857. (United States Magazine,
March 1857.
I857. Library of Congress Photograph.)
 Sysrein in the Antebel/uni
The American System Anteheflum Period 47

supply models, as it did with Simeon North, for example, nor did it make any cash
advances, which had been so essential in the early days of arms contracting.
Soon after Samuel Colt received letters patent on his revolving pistol in 1835 he and a
group of capitalists formed the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company of Paterson, New
Jersey, Colt’s
Colt's Patent, to manufacture the revolver. From the beginning, Colt intended his
business to be supported principally through government purchases, yet these plans never
came to pass. The government purchased limited numbers of revolvers, but these weapons
failed to give satisfactory service; the marines said that poor quality, not design, doomed
the Colt arm. By 1842 the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company ended production.1°5production. 105
Looking back on this failure Colt could see a number of causal factors, the most
important one being the poor quality of his production arm, which he believed was and
would continue to be inherent in a product of band
hand labor. As he said in 1851, ''With
“With hand
band
labour it was not possible to obtain that amount of uniformity, or accuracy in the several
parts, which is so desirable. Nor could the quality required be produced by manual
labor.”‘°6
labor." 106 Even before the Paterson operation closed, Colt had decided
decided that mechaniza-
tion of production was essential; he wanted to build special-purpose machine tools at the
Paterson works. William H. Miller, a Connecticut cutlery manufacturer, reported in 1890
that he had worked at the Paterson factory beginning in 1838. According to Miller,
William Ball, "one
“one of the most prolific inventors and designers of machinery [he] ever
knew,”
knew," developed machine tools for Colt including milling machines, "index" “index” or
“dial” milling machines, screw or "cone"
"dial" “cone” machines, and drill presses.
presscs. 107
107 When these

and other tools of the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company were sold at auction in 1845,
they brought in more than $6,000.
second opportunity to manufacture his patented revolver m
Colt received a seco·nd in 184
1847,
7, when
General Zachary Taylor, who commanded U.S. forces in the Mexican War, requested that that
the War Department purchase Colt'sColt’s pistols. Consequently, the secretary of war granted
the inventor a contract for one thousand revolvers which specified that the lock lockwork
work was
“to be made of the best cast or double sheet steel and the parts sufficiently uniform to be
''to
interchanged with slight or no refitting.''
refitting.” Colt knew that he had neither the capital nor
nor the
the
time to execute the contract himself, so he subcontracted with Eli Whitney, Jr. Whitney
agreed to make the patent arms and to allow Colt to own any of the the special machines
machines and
and
tools built expressly for the production of the revolver. In addition, Colt contracted with
Thomas Warner, the former master armorer at Springfield, to oversee and build tools for
the Whitneyville production of his revolver. Colt paid Warner $1.25$1 .25 for each weapon. 1‘O8
m;
Although the Whitneyville armory retained far more vestiges of hand labor than did
Colt’s association with Whitney nonetheless gave the inventor an important
Springfield, Colt's
exposure to armory practice. Colt became even more strongly convinced that complete
mechanization of revolver production would be vital in achieving both quality and unifor-unifor-
mity. In fulfilling this contract he also learned that the public would pay a higher price for
revolvers that failed to meet government standards (about 50 percent of his production)
than he received from the War Department for first-class weapons. 109 109 With a clear idea of
how he wanted to make his revolver and feeling assured of new market possibilities,
Samuel Colt believed he was ready to open his own armory.
In 1848 Colt moved his machinery and tools from Whitneyville to Hartford, Connecti-
cut, and transformed an empty textile mill into a gun factory. During the next eight years
the factory not only produced Colt revolvers but also built machine tools and their
accoutrements for two new Colt armories, one established in London, England, the other
Hartford.“O
in Hartford. °
11 Colt deemed it absolutely essential that he hire an expert mechanic who
4i\ FROM THE Afvllci<ICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PROl)L'CTlOl\'
Tl-ll": /—\i\'lERlCAN I'RODUCT!Or-i

not only comprehended mechanized production but hut who also could design new machine
tools with greater precision. Initially he appealed to Alhett
Albert Eames,
E-ames, a former employee ata1
Springfield, who was currently working at the New Orleans mint. Eames turned the job
down. Later Colt lured Elisha K. Root, a well-known mechanic and inventor, away from
the Collins Company with the offer of twice his present salary or any "such
“such compensation
as you think fair and reasonable.''
rcasonable.”“‘111 Apparently Root had declined such offers in the

past, including ones from Springfield Armory and the U.S. Mint, but he could not turn
down what was essentially an offer of total freedom in machine and systems building.
clown
Both the freedom and the challenge of mechanizing revolver production captivated Root.
Colt’s decision to hire Root determined in large palt
Colt's part the direction that the Colt armory
would take in the production of the patent revolver. Recent scholarship suggests that
Root’s greatest contribution came in drop- or die-forging technology, although he made
Root's
improvements in milling machinery and turret lathes. His work in drop-forging was an
outgrowth of his seventeen years of experience in axmaking at Collinsville; more accu-
rately, as Paul Uselding has pointed out. Root merely applied some of his axmaking
machinery to drop-forge revolver parts.
Uselding argued that, perhaps with the exception of die-forging, "his “his contribution
consisted, in the main, in the extensive application of special-purpose machinery to
uses.” Root’s
commercial uses." Root's emphasis on special-purpose machinery is abundantly clear
both in his work at the Collins Company and at Colt's
Colt’s armory. Before he left Collinsville,
Root had mechanized axmaking by designing an impressive battery of special-purpose
machine tools to carry out traditional hand processes. Soon after Colt opened his new
Hartford factory in 1855 a reporter noted almost 400 different machines at work; Cesari Ccsari
records 357 distinct machining operations, ignoring some screwmaking, for each re-
volver.“2 Thus between 1848 and 1856,
volver.112 1856. Root, with Colt's
Colt’s support, continually aug--
aug··
mented the production process by designing and adding new special-purpose machine
tools.
At Collinsville, axmaking had demanded of Root almost no concern for precision
manufacture. Consequently, his tenure at Colt’s Colt's armory was not distinguished by an
aggressive pursuit of interchangeability, with its requisite principles and practices of
precision production, but rather by mechanization of work processes. When he moved to
Hartford, Root had had no experience with the model-based gauging techniques used at
I-lartforcl,
the national armories to ensure the interchangeability of musket parts. This fact alone may
explain why the Colt armory did not use as rigorous a gauging system as, say, the
Springfield Armory and also why parts of the Colt revolver, despite the implications of its
inventor, did not come close to being interchangeable. 11:l
interchangeable.">°’
Despite the views expressed by James Nasmyth before the Select Committee on Small
Arms, the use of large numbers of highly specialized machine tools did not result in
production of perfectly interchangeable parts,
patts, even though parts were more uniform. In lln
the nineteenth century interchangeability was achieved through careful adherence to a
rational jig and fixture system (such as that created by John H. Hall) and a refined model-
based system of gauging (such as that used at the Springfield Armory). The elimination of
hand-fitting of parts by the production of perfectly interchangeable ones may be construed
as the complete mechanization of the work process (as Nasmyth did in 1854), but Elisha
K. Root and Samuel Colt were not prepared to carry mechanization this far, either because
they did not know how or they judged it too expensive for practical purposes. In any case,
it is naive to assume that interchangeability of parts inevitably lowered production
 The American System in the
rhe Antebelluni
Antebellum Period 49

costs. 114
1 14 No doubt for much of the nineteenth century, interchangeability raised rather
than lowered the price of small arms, even in the American context of "dear “dear labor."
labor.”
The United States War Department could insist on interchangeable manufacture at its
armories not only because of the tactical importance of interchangeability of parts but also
because of its limited annual production and its ability to draw on the public treasury to
support this costly manufacture. The goal of absolute interchangeability which had stimu-
lated developments in gauging and in mechanization of metalworking became a secondary
consideration for Colt and probably for other patent armsmakers around the middle of the
nineteenth century. What is important for this study, however, is that Henry Ford would
later make perfect interchangeability of parts a criterion for mass production-''ln
production—“In mass
production,” he wrote, "there
production," “there are no fitters."
fitters.”“5
115

Colt revolvers were not manufactured with interchangeable parts. Armory workmen
filed and fitted machine-made parts while soft. When assembled, major components were
stamped with serial numbers, the arm taken apart, and the parts hardened. After harden-
ing, the parts with the same numbers were refitted by hand into a complete revolver. 116 1 '6
When considering the establishment of a small arms factory, the British Select Committee
on Small Arms heard the testimony of a number of gunmakers and mechanics who had
purchased Colt's
Colt’s pistols to see if they were indeed constructed with interchangeable parts.
None found them to be so constructed. The testimony of Colt's Colt’s former superintendent,
Gage Stickney, also damned the idea of interchangeability-''
interchangeability~“lI have heard of it, but I
defy a man to show me a case."
case.'' All the British experts argued correctly that the process of
hardening would throw off the fit between parts and that these hardened parts would have
to be refitted with a file. Only later would mechanized grinding techniques eliminate this
hand process.
The lack of interchangeability of revolver parts by no means precludes characterizing
Colt’s production technology as embodying the American system of arms manufacture,
Colt's
that is, armory practice. John Anderson and his colleagues equated Colt’sColt's techniques with
the finest American practices. Certainly, Elisha Root picked up John Hall’s Hall's technique of
designing fixtures for his special-purpose machine tools with references to a bearing or
point.‘1 17
location point. 17 And, like all New England armsmakers at midcentury, Colt employed a
gauging system to control uniformity during production. But the Colt gauging system was
probably not as refined nor as rigidly maintained as that used at the Springfield Armory.
Both Samuel Colt and Elisha Root seemed to operate from the proposition that uniformity
would be an effect, not an absolute goal, of mechanization. This conclusion is consistent
with the overwhelming emphasis on mechanization rather than on the pursuit of precision
manufacture at the Colt armory. 118 1 18 Mechanization of the Colt armory paralleled develop-
ment outside New England armories at this time when Americans were designing ma-
chines to do anything that could be done by machines. Nevertheless, Colt's Colt‘s armories in
Hartford and London became prime showplaces of American manufacturing technology.
Perhaps more important, Colt’s Hartford armory provided a setting in which a number
impmiant, Colt's
of Yankee mechanics worked out their rich ideas and then moved to exploit them in the
outside world. These mechanics were usually sub- or inside contractors at the armory, and
the inside contract system has been identified as a major stimulus to nineteenth-century
manufacturing technology. Among others, Francis Pratt, Amos Whitney, George A.
Fairfield, Christopher Spencer, and Charles E. Billings worked as inside contractors for
Colt. Each contracted with Colt to use his shop space, power, machine tools, and mate-
rials to produce a particular part or to manage a particular operation for a set piece rate.
5() FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTIOt\
PRODUCTION

The contractor agreed to hire, pay, and manage his own workmen. The contractors acted
as foremen but had additional administrative functions. Through efforts to lower their
costs and thereby derive greater profits from the contract, the contractors sometimes made
improvements in the productive processes. Charles Billings, for example, contracted with
Colt as a diemaker
die maker and die forger. He became so skilled at making dies that few of his
parts were rejected at inspection time. Pratt and Whitney sold machine tools made
forged patts
at Colt's
Colt’s armory and later founded an important machine tool firm. Billings joined with
Spencer to establish a drop-forging and diemaking company. Later Spencer designed the
automatic screw machine. George Fairfield applied Colt production technology to the
manufacture of the Weed sewing machine, and he eventually became the president of the
Weed Sewing Machine Company. The list goes on. 11 1 19Y
The inside contract system had been used for many years throughout American man- man--
ufacturing, particularly in New England. In some respects, inside contracting resembled
the putting out system, but its particular characteristics were derived from the factory
system. Although the Springfield Armory never adopted inside contracting (with the
Blanchard’s gunstocking operation), almost all the New
important exception of Thomas Blanchard's
England armsmakers employed it. it.12°
120 When coupled with armory gauging systems and

machine tool design, inside contracting became a distinguishing characteristic of the

Yankee armory practice extensively employed in all types of metal fabrication in the
second half of the nineteenth century.
The contributions of other armsmakers such as Robbins & & Lawrence Co. of Windsor,
Vermont, and Remington of llion,
Ilion, New York, could be considered in detail but would not
add greatly to our understanding of the American system of arms production in the
antebellum period gained by considering the case of Colt. The inventor’s
inventor's Hartford armory
established an archetype for the New England armory approach to manufacture. Die-
forging formed the basis of this approach, and here Colt's superintendent, Elisha Root,
along with others such as Charles Billings, played a significant role. Until Colt began
making revolvers in the late 1840s, die-forging was just another method of shaping metal;metal:
after 1845 it was considered the one best way in most New England metalworking
establishments. The Colt armory principally employed two important machine tools to
machine forged parts, the milling machine and the chucking machine or turret lathe. Root
designed a host of special-purpose machine tools in an cffott
effort to eliminate the need for skill
in operating machines. Echoing John Hall, Colt and Root stressed the importance of the
bearing or location point in the design of fixtures, templates, and jigs. This principle was
now firmly established. The Colt mechanics adopted a gauging system although it appears
that the Colt gauges were not as fine as those of the federal armories. Finally, the
organization of labor within the armory was built around the inside contract system. This
system determined the departmental structure of production. Together, these elements---
elements-—-
die-forging; machining the forgings with milling machines, turret lathes, and numerous
special-purpose machine tools (virtually all chipping or cutting tools); rational fixture
design; gauging; and the inside contract system-constituted
system--constituted the archetypal New England
armory approach to manufacture, or what John Anderson casually called the “American ''American
system”
system" of arms production, even though some Englishmen called it "Colonel “Colonel Colt's
Colt’s
system of manufacturing.”
manufacturing.'' ' 2‘ Colt's
121 Colt’s Hartford armory, drawing on long-established meth-
ods used at Springfield and elsewhere, provided this archetype. Within this approach, any
improvements would be in degree, not in kind.
 The American System in the Antebellttm
Antebellum Period 51

Mechanization outside Small Arms Production

While the United States was still trying to find its political identity in the early national
period, its inventors had already set out to shape the distinctive American technological
character. This era witnessed the brilliant work of Oliver Evans with his automatic flour
mill, Jacob Perkins with his nailmaking machinery, and Amos Whittemore with his
automatic machine to make wire textile cards.
cards.122
122 Countless inventors mechanized the

cooperage craft, and by 1850 a wide variety of barrelmaking machinery was available for
purchase. 123
123 Americans built pinmaking machinery; clock- and lockmaking machinery;
and knife-, axe-, and swordmaking machinery. Hardly any American inventor would have
disagreed with Samuel Colt that there was nothing that could not be made by machinery.
Long before the British Parliament concerned itself with American manufacturing
technology, Charles Babbage compared English and American pinmaking. English man-
ufacture was canied
carried out strictly by hand with a high degree of labor division. The
Americans, however, used machines. (See Figure 1.9.) Babbage analyzed the two meth· meth-
ods and concluded that with the exception of heading the pin, hand labor was faster than
machine. Machine-made pins also seemed inferior to those the English made by hand.124 hand. 124
Such analysis did not deter Americans from their pursuits. Had the philosopher canied carried out
a similar study on American clockmaking machinery, he might have reached the same
conclusions. But Yankee inventors were on their way to highly mechanized clock man-
ufacture. Clockmaking provides an excellent example of an industry that developed a
system of manufacture that fascinated Joseph Whitworth and John Anderson almost as
much as did American arms production. Yet the contrast between the system of clockmak-
ing and that of armsmaking is striking. This contrast serves to underscore the unique way
in which the armory system developed and the peculiarities of its production.
While Eli Whitney talked about mechanizing musket manufacture, another Connecti-
cut Yankee, Eli Terry, as well as other New England clockmakers, actually set about
designing and building a series of special-purpose machines to make wooden clocks.
These clockmakers also made important marketing innovations, and, unlike the early
arms contractors, they developed extensive private markets. Their reliance on the market
rather than on the War Department created an entirely different set of expectations and
responses. In developing their marketing strategy, the sewing machine and other indus-
tries of the second half of the nineteenth century that borrowed
bonowed small arms production
techniques owed more to the clock industry than to firearms. Moreover, the clock industry
eventually demonstrated that mechanization of production could dramatically reduce costs
and thereby increase sales. The Yankee machine-made clock was an embodiment of the
notion of economies of scale. As Chauncey Jerome said in 1860 about the cheapness of
his clock cases, "This
“This proves and shows what can be done by system."system.” 125
125
The history of the wooden clock industry extends from about 1800 to 1837, when the
Panic and the introduction of the machine-made brass clock brought about the industry'sindustry’s
demise. (A number of wooden clock manufacturers, however, turned to brass clock
production.) About 1793 Eli Terry moved to Plymouth, Connecticut, where he plied the
traditional craft of clockmaking. Terry had been trained by Daniel Burnap to make brass
movements and by Timothy Cheney to make wooden instruments. Like all clockmakers
Terry used a hand-driven wheel-and-pinion cutting engine and a small turning lathe. But
within a decade, he had embarked upon a remarkable scheme of producing a large number
52
52 FROM THE
Tllli AMERICA\!
Al\/l[~jRlCAN' SYSTEM TO MASS l'RODUCTIU:\
PROl')UC'l‘It).\l

,,,,.--

—~x”?/‘F
/ v‘

as

FIGL'RI;' 1.9.
FIGCRE 1,9.
Howe"s
Howe's Pinmaking Machine, ca. 1838. John Ireland Howe first patented a pinmaking
machine in 1833. Five years later. when
\vhen the Howe Manufacturing Company moved from New York
to Birmingham. Connecticut,
Connecticut. Howe built tia newly designed rotary pinmaking machine such as this
one. Howe remained in business in Birmingham until his death in 1876. (National Museum of
American History. Smithsonian Institution Neg. No. 76-15483.)

of clocks and marketing them himself rather than making them upon demand. By 1806, in
a new shop, Terry began to make two hundred clocks at a time. The same year, he signed
a contract with Edward and Levi Porter to make four thousand wooden movements in
three years. The Porter brothers operated a company that assembled or finished clock
movements purchased from other makers. This contract indicates that others besides Terry
saw possibilities for the sale of large quantities of clocks. After a year of machine-
fulfillII the contract five hundred clocks at a time and finished the
building, Terry set out to fulfi
entire four thousand within the allotted period. He received S4 per movement. Terry then
sold his factory to Silas Hoadley and Seth Thomas, who had worked with him to fulfill the
contract. 126
126
During the next two years Terry designed a new wooden clock far more compact than
those previously made. About 1812 he began making plans to manufacture the ·'Pillar “Pillar and
Scroll” shelf clock, which he patented in 1816.
Scroll" t816. Charles Fitch reported in 1880 that by
 aw .3?
ml} ' ""
L
.»\ 1.. ‘M _.>,. . um W g

r
F
W/W (
‘Y
E

FIGURE 1.10
FIGURE 1.10. Teny's Patented Pillar and Scroll Clock, ca. 1816.
Eli Terry’s TeJTy's clock
The name of Terry’s clock
derived from the design of the case (top). The clockwork is pictured below. (Private collection.
American Clock & Watch Museum Photographs.)

53
54 I'ROM
FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

182.0 Terry was making twenty-five hundred clocks per year in four styles using thirty
1820
workmen. (See Figure 1.10.)
l . 10.) How Terry actually produced his clocks is unknown, but as
John Murphy points out, Eli Terry was not the only inventor/clockmaker who thought
about producing clock parts with machinery. For example, on August 22, 1814, six
different patents were issued for clockmaking machinery: (1) to make the time part pm1 of
wooden clocks; (2) to turn and slit pinions; (3) a plate used for boring holes in parts; (4) to
cut and point teeth and pinions in clock wheels; (5) to cut and point wheels; and (6) to
point wire for clocks. Murphy argues that some of the patentees were or had been
associated with Terry,
TeJTY, indicating the far-ranging importance of the environment of mecha··
mecha~
nized clock production in which Terry operated. He states that Terry’s “objective was not
Terry's "objective
to revolutionize
revolutior,ize industrial techniques [but] ...
. . . simply to produce clocks in quantity and
cheaply.” Nonetheless he helped bring about a mechanized wooden clock industry.
cheaply.''
Terry’s goal should be contrasted with that of John Hall, for example. Like others
Terry's
associatedwith
associated' with the Ordnance Department, Hall found inspiration in the ideal of inter~ inter-
changeable firearms parts rather than in mass marketing his patented firearms. The dif-· dif-<
ference is at once subtle and profound. Some have argued that Terry sought and achieved
interchangeable clock parts, but evidence suggests the contrary. 127 ‘Z7 Unlike Colt, Terry did
not claim interchangeability as an advertising feature of his product. Terry and other
clockmakers mechanized because it was a way of producing a number of cheap clocks,
not because they wanted clocks with fully interchangeable parts.
Eli Terry and other manufacturers such as Gideon Robet1s Roberts and James Harrison sur-sur--
vived in making large numbers of clocks because of the Yankee peddler system of selling
clocks throughout every state and territory of ofthe
the Union. Some of these peddlers sold only
clocks, often extending credit for one- and two-year periods. George Mitchell, a merchant
supplier from Bristol, Connecticut, not only outfitted Yankee peddlers but also financed a
large number of local men in establishing factories to produce goods sold by his peddlers.
Among the clockmakers he financed were Chauncey Jerome, Ephraim Downs, Samuel
(Eli’s brother), and Elias Ingraham.
Terry (Eli's lngraham. The national market created or tapped by the
Yankee peddler system cannot be overlooked as an important supporting factor in the
mechanized, quantity production of wooden clocks. 128 128
Competition in wooden clockmaking grew during the 1820s and early 1830s l830s largely
because of the ease of entry. Murphy argued that $2,000 of capital would have been
adequate to set up a wooden clock factory. By mid-1830, sixteen factories operated in
Bristol alone. A few miles away in Plymouth seven companies made clocks, two on an
extensive scale. Other makers were located in Burlington, Goshen, Meriden, Torrington,
Waterbury, Winsted, and other Connecticut towns. Before the Panic of 1837, I837, thirty-eight
thousand wooden clocks per year were produced; most companies averaged between two
thousand and five thousand annually. Chauncey Jerome maintained that "no “no factory had
made over Ten thousand [wooden clocks] in a year.” year." As competition increased so did the
extension of credit to buyers, and makers turned to style changes in an effort to win
customers. As Murphy argued, those who prospered in wooden clockmaking were those
who emphasized marketing rather than making their product. product?” 1 29

Unfortunately, almost nothing is known about the machines that Terry and others used
for clock manufacturing nor does an adequate picture or engraving of the arrangement of
the factories survive. There are only allusions to devices such as wheel cutters, pinion
cutters, lathes, and wire pointers used in making the movements and circular saws and
veneering machines employed for casemaking. Throughout the historical literature on the
 The An1e1'i('a/1 S_\x1'tem in
American System 1'11 the Antebellum Period SS

wooden clock industry, there are occasional references to ''gauges''

“gauges” used in the sense that
word—a
carpenters employ the word-a marking gauge. “gauge” in a
One reference alludes to a "gauge"
way which suggests that this device might be employed to check or verify dimensions.
This was a device used to indicate when a piece of wood for pinions had been turned down
to the correct diameter. 130
13°
Recently, however, some twenty "gauges,"
“gauges,” jigs, fixtures, and templates used in
making late-vintage Seth Thomas wooden clocks have come to light. These devices
provide more information about the level of precision in wooden clock manufacture than
all the existing literary references. Because the clock on which they were used during

, . I < , .~
=i\‘1<J’ie*~"1’ *:»">X<f s Y 5’ at ~.._ - - 2’ . A

*~.-,.x@="~ .1
*4» 1 1 .;',\,% 4° 5 ~s ,1 , g ,~ - =
.- ' .;. . ~ ~ = ~';tz~~

»<~ar'~,s~1 . - .
~ we/Q, . .~.; it - K -= ,1a» .. , ..,w_,,..
. ,fat..s» ~. ~**"-$2‘?
2$»;.:§i',tgr.-al~-ss,.~,~'».<,~> Qiagf," ,,1
W, Q, _ , , .51
t. -.»~v.
, ' -~ .-.3; , "~ t .
-*»'*"' t ~' - ‘
' "

FIGURE 1.11.
FIGURE 1.11. Seth Thomas Wooden Clock Gauges and Parts, ca. 1838. As positioned in this
photograph, these gauges, which are made from sheet metal and survive from the Seth Thomas
wooden clock factory, served as marking or scribing gauges. Lathe operators used them to verify
dimensions of other parts. Con~
pmts. (The Connecticut Historical Society/Lewis B. Winton Collection. Con-
necticut Historical Society Photograph.)
56 FROM Til[
THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

production was one of the last model wooden clocks, these devices probably represent the
finest specimens of then-current practice. Yet compared to metalworking gauges, they are
crude. Marking gauges and verifying gauges exist. (See Figure 1.11.) Both types are
constructed—sheet iron hastily cut and filed-and
roughly constructed-sheet filed—and so would give only very rough
accuracy. The jigs that survive are timing jigs (used for the correct location of striking
cams) and jigs for correctly bending the rods of the striker. (See Figure 1.12.)
l. 12.) A template
also survives that was used for locating the bearings on the wooden plates of the Thomas
clock. (See Figure 1. 1.13.)
13.) Although very ingenious, these devices have little in common
with thejigs,
the jigs, fixtures, and gauges used at the Springfield Armory. The degree of precision
in wooden clockmaking is so far removed from that required in small arms production that th.at
the two cannot be compared. This fundamental difference in precision also meant an
important difference in the organization of production. The bureaucratic structurestructure tbat
that
evolved in American arms production to make and maintain the many precision gauges
that ensured uniformity was absent in clockmaking.
The various devices used to aid the production of Seth Thomas clocks were by no
means uniquely American. As British historian of design David Pye would argue, they
represent an attempt to achieve the ''workmanship
“workmanship of certainty'
certainty"~—“workmanship
'-"workmanship in
which the result is predetermined and unalterable once production begins.”
begins." At the op- op~
“workmanship of risk”
posite end of the spectrum is the "workmanship “the quality of the
risk'' in which "the
result is continually at risk during the process of making." Pye maintains that "aJI “all

FIGURE 1.12.
FIGURE 1 12. Seth Thomas Wooden Clock Striker Bending Jig, ca. 1838.l838. Among the surviving
survivingjigs
jigs
factory. there are several bending jigs for mechanisms used to strike
and gauges from the Thomas factory,
the hours, half-hours, and so on. Such jigs allowed the workman to bend the metal rods the correct
way every time. (The Connecticut Historical Society/Lewis B. Winton Collection. Connecticut
Historical Society Photograph.)
 The American Sj‘.s‘1em
System in the Antebellum Period 57

FIGURE 1.13.
FtGURE 1.13. Seth Thomas Wooden Clock Plate Drilling Jig, ca. 1838. I 838. This spring-loaded jig,
constructed principally of brass, was used to drill pinion bearings in the coJTect
correct place in the front and
back wooden plates of the Thomas clock. The small doughnut-shaped objects around each hole are
steel inserts to prevent wear. The loading spring is steel. (The Connecticut Historical SocietyiLewis
Society/‘Lewis
B. Winton Collection. Connecticut Historical Society Photograph.)

workmen using the workmanship of risk are constantly devising ways to limit the risk by
using such things as jigs and templates. If you want to draw a straight line with your pen,
you do not go at it freehand, but use a ruler, that is to say a jig. There is still a risk of blots
and kinks, but less risk. You could even do your writing with a stencil, a more exacting
jig, but it would be slow."
slow/*3‘
131 Although both the Seth Thomas devices and the jigs,

fixtures, and gauges of arms production represent efforts to reduce risks, the difference in
number, precision, refinement, and use is of such a degree as to be a difference in kind.
Brass clockmaking developed rapidly after 1837 and soon surpassed wooden
clockmaking in the extent of mechanization and the volume of production. For centuries
clocks had been made with brass wheels, yet a mechanized brass clock industry had not
largelyy because of the very high cost of brass. The
developed in Connecticut or elsewhere large!
price declined significantly during the first three decades of the nineteenth century. Yet
writers argue that even with lower cost, brass still was unfit for use in clocks because of
poor homogeneity. In using brass, clockmakers had always cast their wheels and then
“worked them up,”
"worked up," a hand process involving hammering, filing, and scraping. Perhaps
many a Yankee had tried to mechanize the process, but the rise of the brass clock industry
hinged on the production of uniform, high-quality sheet brass. According to the historian
58 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

Fiouat-1
FIGURE 1.14.
1. 14. Joseph lves's
lves‘s Brass Clock. ca. 1838 Reconstruction of 1833 Patent Model.
f3rass Clock, Model. Although
Although
this particular clock was submitted to the United States Patent Office as part of lves's
lves‘s application for
for
a patent on "striking
“striking parts of clocks,"
clocks." it illustrates the inventor's
inventors method of constructing his
his early
early
brass clocks. Note the manner in which straps are riveted together to form the front and back plates plates
circuinfcrence of the gearwheels.
and the raised bead around the circumference gcarwheels. (National Museum ofof American
American
lnstitution Neg. No. 81-9866.)
History. Smithsonian Institution 8l~98(io.)
 The American Sjntteiiti
System in the Antebelhm/1
Antebellum Period 59

of the brass industry in Connecticut, brass rolling did not emerge out of its experimental
phase until about 1830. The stage was then set for Joseph IIves ves of Bristol to initiate the
manufacture of an eight-day clock with wheels and plates made from rolled brass sheets.
Because the brass sheets were not as wide as his clock plates, he was forced to piece the
plates together with rivets. (See Figure 1.14.) IIves
ves nonetheless set a trend for the clock
industry, which needed major revival after the destruction left by the Panic of 1837.
industry. 1837.132
132

The locus of technological development in brass clock manufacture occurred in stamp-

ing and punching. Stamping in the clock industry moved rapidly from the simple punch-
ing out of wheel or gear blanks and clock plates to production of practically finished
wheels and plates. More and more operations were incorporated into the work of a single
die, all carried out by one blow of the press. Joseph Whitworth reported in 1854
I854 that thin
brass was used to make wheels by raising a beading around the circumference just inside
the location of the teeth. This beading provided extra lateral strength and economized the
amount of brass required for the wheel. Raised beading appears on the rebuilt patent

FIGURE I1.15.
.15. Early Chauncey Jerome Brass Clock Movement, 1839. Like all other later makers of
brass clocks,
clocks. Jerome adopted a single, stamped-out brass form for the plates of his clock. Note the
raised beading on the gearwheels. (National Museum of American History. Smithsonian Institution
Neg. No. 8l~9864.)
81-9864.)
60 FROM THE AMERICAN
AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

model of Joseph lves’s Jves's eight-day shelf clock as well as in early Jerome clocks. clocks. (See(See
Figures 1.14
I . 14 and 11.. 15.) Thus from the beginning, beading was an important component
component of of
brass clock presswork. At the time Whitworth came to America, gear teeth teeth were
were still
still cut
cut
in the wheel blanks rather than punched. A single machine composed composed of of three
three cutters
cutters
performed three sequential operations: simple cutting, rounding off off the teeth,
teeth, and and finish-
finish-
ing. '33 Later, many clocks were made with gears that had only been punched out.
ing.133
Throughout the relatively sparse literature on brass clock manufacture in the ante-· ante-
bellum period there are no references to a gauging system (with three different sets of the
same gauges all based on a model) similar to those used in arms manufacture. This lack as
well as the predominance of stamping and presswork suggests that brass clock manufac-
turers—-like clockmakers—developed their own distinctive approach
turers-like the earlier wooden clockmakers--cleveloped
to production, an approach not borrowed from or closely allied with that of small arms
134 This raises the question of whether such British observers as John Ander-
fabrication. 134
son and Joseph Whitworth were aware of these differences in production of arms and
other American manufactured goods.
Perhaps the difference in approach to production techniques between firearms firearms makers
makers
and the clock industry was a result of the dissimilarity in objectives of the two industries.
Whereas armsmakers, led by the United States War Department, sought to turn out a
weapon constructed with uniform if not fully interchangeable parts, the clock industry-if
example—desired above all to turn out vast numbers of cheap
Chauncey Jerome is a good example--desired
clocks. Mechanization provided the means to quantity production, not a means to in-
terchangeability per se. Clockmakers wanted to sell a one-day shelf clock to everyone,
American and European alike. By 1850, for example, Jerome operated two factories, one
at New Haven and the other at Derby, Connecticut, and these factories annually turned out
130,000 and 150,000 clocks respectively. Jerome had lowered his prices to $1.50 for a
complete one-day clock; later accounts reported the actual manufacturing costs of the
clock at fifty cents. Jerome marketed his clocks extensively in Europe, particularly in
England, where he operated his own wholesale store at Liverpool. Writing in 1860, the
boastful Yankee claimed he had solei sold "millions"
“millions” of his brass clocks throughout the
135
world. '35
When markets seemed to sag or competition pushed too hard, clock manufacturers
introduced a new model. Hiram Camp complained about spontaneuus spontaneous changes that char-
that char-
acterized the mature clock industry: ''The “The desire to make and sell great quantities has led
has led
the manufacturers to bring out new designs until dealers have become amazed amazed and
bewildered.
bewildered . .. .. .. The expectation of something new prevents the the sale
sale of
of thethe old."
old.”‘1‘6136
From the beginning of wooden clock manufacture and the Yankee peddler system system through
through
the development of the brass clock industry in the antebellum period with with its its large
large
wholesale network, the production of large numbers of inexpensive or cheap clocks clocks waswas
always accompanied by an impressive emphasis on marketing strategy. strategy. Emphasis
Emphasis on on
marketing by the clock industry as well as in the sewing machine, machine, reaper,
reaper, and and bicycle
bicycle
industries suggests that marketing should should be
be considered
considered as
as an
an important
important aspect
aspect of of the
the
American system of manufactures——a
manufactures-a component not considered by the Brit1sh
by the British commen-
commen-
tators on American technology in the antebellum period.
Among the least understood processes of the antebellum clock industry is assembly, aa
is assembly,
process which proved consistently to be problematic until the development
development of of the assem-
the assem-
bly line in the twentieth century. With such a large output, clockmakers
clockmakers must must havehave faced
faced
serious problems in assembling their products. Murphy reports that that one
one man
man could
could assem-
assem-
ble seventy-five movements per day, but he also notes that Hiram Camp, Camp, oneone of of the
the major
major
 The American System
S_\=.ttem in the Antebellum Period 61

sources on the industry, said that brass clock assembly was "a ‘ ‘a slow process."
process.” 137
137 Beyond
these statements, little information survives, particularly
patticularly in the form of company corre-
spondence. The historical record in clock manufacture is so inadequate-for
inadequate—for example, the
lack of any significant description of machinery or the survival of such machinery-that
machinery——that
the historian risks peril with any generalization. Nonetheless, the annual assembly of parts
for 150,000 clocks-over 3,000 weekly-should be regarded as a major feat. British
observers of American technology in the 1850s were deeply impressed by the ease in
assembly of muskets with interchangeable parts but failed to comment on clock assembly.
This raises the question of whether the Committee on the Machinery of the United States
of America led by John Anderson did indeed "learn“learn the whole of the American system"
system”
as they were asked to do by the parliamentary Select Committee on Small Arms. 13 B8K

The "American
“American system"
system” on the Eve of the Civil War

Immediately after the Select Committee on Small Arms ended its hearings, John
Anderson and his fellow committee members came to the United States for the "purpose
“purpose
of inspecting the different gun factories in that country, and purchasing such machinery
and models as may be necessary for the proposed gun factory at Enfield.”
Enfield.'' Despite this
charge, Anderson and his colleagues did far more in the United States than inspect arms
plants. Based on the experiences of Joseph Whitworth and George Wallis in the previous
year, the committee decided to tour a wide variety of American manufacturing establish-
ments along the eastern seaboard and as far west as Pittsburgh. 139 ‘$9
Whitworth, the leading machine tool builder in England, and Wallis, headmaster of the
Government School of Design in Birmingham, had come to the United States in 1853,
serving as commissioners to the second Exhibition of the Industries of All Nations, the
New York Crystal Palace Exhibition. Originally led to believe that the exhibition would
open June 1, the British commissioners arrived only to learn that even when the formal
opening ceremonies were to be held-now
held—now delayed until July 14, 1853-only
1853—only half of the
displays would be finished. Some decided to use their time in the United States by
individually touring the country to study the subject matter of the departments on which
they had intended to report. The Special Reports of Joseph Whitworth and George Wallis
were submitted as substitutes for reports on the exhibition. 140
140
During June and early July, Joseph Whitworth toured manufacturing establishments in
some fifteen American cities, mostly in New England but also including Washington,
Baltimore, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, New York, and Buffalo. He visited steam engine
factories; railway shops; spike-, nail-, and rivetmaking factories; cutlery plants; clock and
lock factories; armsmaking establishments; and woodworking factories, among many
other industries. Although he occasionally pointed out certain backwardness or crudeness
in American production, Whitworth's
Whitworth’s dominant theme throughout his report was "the “the
eagerness with which they [the Americansj
Americans] call in the aid of machinery in almost every
department of industry. Wherever it can be introduced as a substitute for manual labor, it
is universally and willingly resorted to."
to.”'4l
141 By machinery, Whitworth meant special-

purpose machinery.
The English machine tool builder declared that Americans had not matched his coun-
try’s
try's classic metalworking machine tools, which he called engineering tools. tools?”
142 Amer-

ica’s woodworking machinery, however, greatly impressed him. "In

ica's “In no branch of man-
62 THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION
fROM TilE
FROM

“does the application of labour-saving machinery produce by simple

ufacture,'' he wrote, ''does
ufacture,”
means more important results than in the working of wood.”1‘13
wood.'' 143
Springfield Armory’s
Armory's battery of gunstock-making machinery—Blanchard‘s
machinery-Blanchard's machines
as redesigned by Cyrus Buckland-impressed
Buckland—impressed Whitworth more than anything else about
American technology. In his report, he delineated each of the sixteen machining opera-
tions and recorded their various "machine
“machine times" as well as the time required for two
small hand operations. Whitworth calculated that a complete n;msketmusket stock could be made
“complete musket
in slightly more than twenty-two minutes. Curiously, he added that the "complete
is made (by putting together the separate parts) in 3 minutes. All these parts are so exactly
(See Figure 1.16.) Through-
musket.” (Sec
alike that any single part will, in its place, fit any musket."
Whitwm1h's report, this is the only mention of interchangeability, and he did not
out Whitworth’s
explain how it was achieved. Certainly if American manufacturing technology were
Whitworth's perspective, mechanization rather than interchangeability dis-
viewed from Whitworth’s
tinguished the “American system"
"American system” of manufactures.14“
manufactures. 144
George Wallis’s
Wallis's report echoed that of Whitworth in that when mentioning
mcntirning production
methods for the manufactured goods he evaluated, he commented “large amount
on the "large
of highly ingenious machinery l[which] which] is constantly and most successfully em- enr-
ployed."1‘15
ployed." 145 To be sure, Wallis also pointed out pockets or industries in America where
handicrafts still dominated production methods. His emphasis on systematic and efficient
production of goods in America and failure to mention the manufacture of products
constructed with interchangeable parts indicates that interchangeability did not appear to
Wallis in 1852 as an overriding characteristic of all American manufactures.
After Whitworth and Wallis returned to England, the subject of interchangeability of
parts was of major interest during the proceedings of the Select Committee on Small
Anns. It is interesting that this discussion took place in a military context. For example,
Arms.
the select committee chose to interview Samuel Colt and not Alfred C. Hobbs, an
American who had established a lock factory in England using American manufacturing
techniques. The idea of interchangeable firearms captivated the British Board of Ordnance
and many members of the select committee much in the way it had the United States
Ordnance Department in the 1800s. The question now was how well the Americans had
achieved this goal,
goal. and opinion on this issue differed considerably. For this reason, when
Anderson's committee came to the United States it took care to settle the issue of whether
Anderson’s
Springfield Armory muskets were truly interchangeable. With the permission of Spring-
field's superintendent, Anderson and his committee went into the main arsenal and
field’s
selected at random one musket made in each year from 1844 to 1853. These ten muskets
were then disassembled and corresponding parts pa11S of each put into separate boxes. These
parts were mixed up. Anderson's
Anderson’s committee then selected "at “at hazard” pmts from each
hazard" parts
box and handed them to a workman, who, using only a screwdriver, reassembled the ten
muskets "as“as quickly as though they had been English muskets whose parts had carefully
been kept separate.''
separate.” 146
146 Colt's
Colt’s pistols may not have interchanged, but Anderson no longer
doubted the complete interchangeability of parts pat1s of the Springfield musket.
Anderson must have wondered why the products of the Springfield Armory differed
Colt’s. Earlier he had described Colt’s
from Colt's. Colt's London armory as follows:
This manufactory is reduced to an almost perfect system; a pistol being composed of a
certain number of distinct pieces, each piece is produced in proportionate quantity by
machinery, and as each piece when finished is the result of a number of operations (some
20 or 30), and each operation being performed by a special machine made on purpose,
many of these machines requiring hardly any skill from the attendant beyond knowing
 The Attteritatt
American .Ԥy.1'ter11
System in Antebellum Period
1'11 the Atttebelltim 63

1
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FIGURE 1.16.
FIGURE 1.16. Assembly. Springfield Armory. 1852. This
Musket Assembly, illustration may
This illustration may be the only
be the only
antebellum representation of assembly operations at the Springfield Armory. Its lack of detail makes
the Springfield Armory. Its lack of detail makes
such as
descriptions such
it unclear why the workman needed a vise; verbal descriptions that of
as that of Joseph Whitworth do
Joseph Whitworth do
(H(tt'per'.r New Monthly Magazine, July 1852. Eleutherian Mills
not help clarify this question. (Harper's July 1852. Elcutherian Mills
Historical Library.)
64 !·ROM TI-lL AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION
FROM TIIE

how to fasten and unfasten the article, the setting and adjusting of the machine being
performed by skilled workmen; but when once the machine is properly set it will produce
thousands. Hence there arcare more than a hundred machines employed, many of them
similar in principle to each other, although differing in the form of the cutting
instruments.
instrumcnts.147
147

Yet in "Learning
“learning the whole of the American system"
system” at Springfield, Anderson became
aware of the fundamental
fundamental importance of the “hundreds
''hundreds of valuable instruments Uigs Ljigs and
fixtures] and gauges that are employed in testing the work through all its stages, from the
raw materials to the finished gun, others for holding the pieces whilst undergoing different
operations such as marking, drilling, screwing, etc., the object of all being to secure
thorough identity in all parts."
parts.” Elsewhere Anderson argued that "it “it is only by means of a
continual and careful application of these instruments that uniformity of work to secure
interchanges can be obtained.''
obtained.” The complexity of such a system of fixtures and gauges
“cannot be appreciated by those who have been engaged on a ruder system" of manufac--
"cannot manufac-·
ture.14*
ture. 14 s Yet Anderson discussed this part of the "American
“American system"
system” only within the
explicit context of small arms production, with Springfield Armory being the exemplar.
When Anderson and his committee described non-firearrns-manufacturing establish-
non-firearms-manufacturing establish-
ments in the United States, they identified elements common to almost all American
manufactures, including firearms. American manufactures, they concluded, were charac-
terized by the "adaptation
“adaptation of special tools to minute purposes,”
purposes," "the “the ample provision of
workshop room,” “systematic atTangcment
room," "systematic arrangement in the manufacture,”
manufacture," "the “the progress of mate-
rial through the manufactory,"
manufactory,” and the "discipline
“discipline and sobriety of the employed.”1""
employed." 14 SJ
Above all, John Anderson identified a certain universality to American manufacturing
technology. Whenever an article was to be manufactured repeatedly, the "system “system of
machinery” cmdd
special machinery" could and should be used. 150
15° "The
“The American machinery is so differ-
ent to our own,”
own," he later wrote, "and
“and so rich in suggestions
suggestions.. .. .. .. A few hours at Enfield
[newly equipped with American-made machinery and tools] will show that we shall have
to contend with no mean competitors in the Americans, who display an originality and
common sense in most of their arrangements which are not to be despised, but on the
contrary are either to be copied or improved upon."upon."'51 151 Elsewhere Anderson urged gun-

makers in particular to follow the lead of American armsmakers.

arms makers. ''“lf lf the military gun-
makers of England are wise in their generation,"
generation,” he stressed, ''they“they will not despise this
system of manufacture, but, on the contrary, will adopt it, for it will secure for them a
high vantage ground in competing with other parts of the world.”15Z world.'' 152 In concluding the
report of the committee, Anderson warned that the "contriving
“contriving and making of machinery
has become so common in [the United States] ... . . . that unless the [American] example is
followed at home .. .. .. it is to be feared that American manufacturers will before long
become exporters ... . . . to England.''
England.”153
153

Anderson‘s warning that American manufacturers would become exporters to England

Anderson's
came to pass in the second half of the nineteenth century. English manufacturers did not
wish to adopt the American practices that Anderson, Colt, 1\asmyth, l\‘asmyth, and others had
declared to be universally applicable. But neither did all manufacturers in the United
States. Indeed, when Anderson toured Derringer's
Derringer’s pistol factory in Philadelphia, he was
“astonished” to find that traditional hand methods were still in use. 154
"astonished" 154 At the very time

Anderson was issuing his warnings, an entirely new industry-that

industry-—~that of producing sewing
machines—~was
machines-was getting started. The history of three of the leading sewing machine firms
suggests that not all adopted the ·'system
“system of special machinery"
machinery'' so prevalent in America
 The Americmi
American System?
System in the Antebellum Period 65

“American system"
nor the "American system” of interchangeable manufacturing perfected at the Spring-
field
field Armory. One firm in particular, Singer Manufacturing Company, managed for a
long time to compete successfully using ''ruder''
“ruder” European methods, even in the Ameri-
can economy, where "the
“the high price of labour”
labour" was believed to prevail against the
employment of such manufacturing techniques.'55
techniques. 155
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CHAPTER 2

The Sewing Machine

&
81 the American System
of Manufactures
Intelligence of what was transpiring at the [Springfield] Armory was widely dhffused.
intelligence diffused . .. .. .. The
news reached and enchanted the se11·ing
sewing machine men
men.. .. .. .. When we look back, it appears as
though they all fell into the plan tumultuously; hut
but this was not so. lt was adopted in a gradual
manner. Some did not notfully
fully comprehend that the full benefit of the system would not be got
unless every piece was made hy by it. They would leave a piece, here and there, to be finished
according to the idio.1yncrasies
idiosyncrasies of the workmen, and these pieces made confusion until the full
system was
svstem out.
;vas carried (mf.
~—“The ‘American System of Manufacture,"
- "The ·American' Manufacture,“ American Machinist (1890)
( 1890)

The gun-maker's tools were carried to the sewing machine manufactory, but as the demand
grew for a better quality·
quality of'
of work these tools 1vere
were improved until 1ve
we find the sewing machine
now in possession of the improved milling machine, the perfected screw
scrnv machine, the turret
lathe, a complete system of "jig" working,
;vorking, and a system of measuring
measunng by decimals; often
extending to tens of thousandths andfrequently
and frequently beyond the ten thousandths
thousandths.. ...
. . . Gauge v..ark
work is
an outgrowth from
wz fj-om a rude system that originated
originared in the armories, but has been perfected and
s_ystematized in the se>ving
systematized sewing machine manufactory.
manufizctory.
—“What the World Owes to the Sewing Machine Workman.··
--"What Workman." The SeJI·ing
Serving Marltine
Machine Advance ((1890)
1890)

The he development of a workable sewing machine occurred at a propitious mo-

M
• • • • ment in American manufacturing history. After a half century of often intense
and expensive development, small arms manufacture had reached a level of maturity. No
doubt echoing many a Yankee mechanic, Samuel Colt had told a British parliamentary
committee that anything could be made by machinery, not just guns. The sewing machine
Colt’s followers an excellent opportunity to demonstrate that point. Adopting and
offered Colt's
adapting small arms production technology, some sewing machine manufacturers clearly
proved that Colt was correct. But at least one company demonstrated that machine
production similar to Colt’s
Colt's was not essential for commercial success in America.
No sewing machine company could carefully choose and develop its production tech-
nology at the outset of the industry because each was embroiled in patent litigation with
the others. No single inventor or company had gained a patent position sufficiently strong
to dominate the industry. In
ln fact, litigation threatened the very existence of the industry.

67
68 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

The Great Sewing Machine Combination, the first important patent pooling arrangement
in American history, changed all of this. For a fee of $5 on every domestically sold
machine and $1 on each exported one Elias Howe contributed to the pool his fundamental
patent (1846) for a grooved, eye-pointed needle used in conjunction with a lock-stitch-»
lock-stitch-
forming shuttle. Allen B. Wilson, through the Wheeler and Wilson Manufacturing Com- Coin-
pany, placed his 1854
l854 patent on the four-motion cloth-feeding mechanism into the pool. I.
M. Singer & Co., a partnership of inventor Isaac lsaac Merrit Singer and lawyer/ capitalist
lawyer/capitalist
Edward Clark, provided a number of its patents, including Singer'sSingers monopoly on the
needle bar cam (1851). In addition, the Grover and Baker Sewing Machine Company,
whose president, Orlando Potter, had been the chief architect of the pool, added some of
its patents. Members of the pool could use these patents freely as could any other
manufacturer willing to pay a license fee of $15 per machine. ln In addition to Howe’s
Howe's fee of
$4 per machine, a set amount of the $15 (initially $7 per machine) went into a litigation
fund actively used to protect the patentees and licensees. The balance was then divided
among pool members.‘
members. 1
Although the Wheeler and Wilson, Singer, and Grover and Baker companies had been
manufacturing sewing machines since the early 1850s, 18505, the patent pool allowed them to
consider expanding their manufacturing operations without fear of litigation. The pool and
the rising demand for sewing machines (particularly for those of Singer and Wheeler and
Wilson) provided manufacturers with the opportunity to choose their production technol-~
technol·
ogy. This choice was by no means obvious. The background and outlook of the heads of ol
companies proved to be the critical factors in the decision-making process rather than any
particular factor endowment of land, labor, and capital. By considering the infant sewing
machine industry in the context of the production technologies selected, it is possible to
sharpen our understanding of the American system of manufactures in the second half of
the nineteenth century.
The production of three different sewing machines—-those
machines-those of Wheeler and Wilson,
Willcox & Gibbs, and Singer-will
Singer—-will be discussed in this chapter. The Wheeler and Wilson
machine was initially produced by traditional hand methods, but soon its manufacturer
hired mechanics who had worked in prominent American armories and who quickly
introduced the techniques that had captivated the British Board of Ordnance. Brown & &
Sharpe, the manufacturer of the Willcox & Gibbs machine, used armory practice from the
outset and made important contributions to manufacturing technology that went well
beyond sewing machine production. The Singer Manufacturing Company, which became
the preeminent sewing machine manufacturer in the nineteenth century, employed for a
“ruder” European method of manufacturing. Singer was slow to adopt the
long time the ''ruder''
American system of interchangeable manufacture, and as late as the early 1880s still had
not completely and successfully adopted this system. Singer's
Singer’s history provides an out-
out--
standing case that contradicts long-held assumptions about American manufacturing in the
nineteenth century.

The Wheeler and Wilson Manufacturing Company

Manufacturer and capitalist Nathaniel Wheeler teamed up with inventor Allen B.
Wilson to form the sewing machine company that led the industry in sales until 1867,
when Singer made its runaway move toward complete domination of the industry. Wilson
contributed four major inventions, and Wheeler provided the business know-how that led
 The Sewing Machine and the American System of Manufactures 69

to early success. Early in the company's

company’s history, Wheeler guided it into manufacturing by
the armory system of production, but then Wilson dropped out of the picture? picture. 2
Born in 1820, Nathaniel Wheeler grew up in Watertown, Connecticut, and worked
with his father in carriage manufacture. Although he took over his father's
father’s business for a
few years, he eventually left to undertake the manufacture of small metal articles such as
buckles, buttons, and neckerchief clasps. Biographers have noted that originally Wheeler
made these products by hand, but slowly he mechanized the work processes. In 1848
Wheeler combined his company with the partnership of George B. Woodruff and Alanson
Warren, and the new firm, Warren,
Wanen, Wheeler and Woodruff, built a new factory for the
manufacture of small metal articles.
atticles. Operations were superintended by Wheeler. While in
New York City near the end of 1850, the young manufacturer saw the Wilson sewing
machine. Immediately he negotiated a contract to make five hundred of them for the
company that held Allen B. Wilson's
Wilson’s patents on the two-motion cloth-feeding mecha-
nism. Wheeler also persuaded the inventor to move to Watertown so that he could
improve the machine and oversee its manufacture.
Before Allen Wilson moved to Connecticut, he redesigned his sewing machine by
replacing the shuttle with a rotary hook and bobbin mechanism that would also make a
lock stitch. While in Watertown he perfected this device and patented it August 12, 1851.
Three years later, though no longer involved with the company, he would patent his fourth
major improvement, the four-motion cloth feed, still the basic principle for cloth feed in
today’s sewing machines. In 1851, Wilson joined in partnership with Wanen,
today's Warren, Wheeler,
and Woodruff, and under the name Wheeler, Wilson and Company the men began to
manufacture sewing machines with rotary hooks. By mid-1853, the company had made
and sold three hundred machines. (See Table 2.1 for production figures of Wheeler and
Wilson machines.) Scientific American noted that "the “the price of one all complete is $125;
every machine is made under the eye of the inventor at the Company's Company’s machine shop,
Watertown, Connecticut.
Connecticut.”3
" 3 Each sewing machine was unique. Wheeler, Wilson and
Company built them individually or in small batches with a small line of general metal-
working tools.
With a glimmer of success, the partners incorporated, forming the Wheeler and Wilson
Manufacturing Company with capital of $160,000. Wilson withdrew from active par-
ticipation in the company but continued to make improvements on his sewing machine.
The departure in 1855 of the corporation's
corporation’s president, Alanson Warren, and its secretary
and treasurer, George B. Woodruff, both of whom had been partners with Wheeler since
the 1840s,
l840s, is difficult to understand. Perhaps the most plausible explanation is that both
men were discouraged by the continued court battles over patent rights. Warren’s Warren's subse-
quent history is unknown, but Woodruff joined the Singer company in 1857, eventually
became a successful Singer salesman, and for many years headed Singer's Singer’s European
marketing force.
forcefl4
Woodruff was succeeded by William H. I-1. Perry, a Connecticut Yankee, born in 1820.
Perry’s anival
Perry's arrival determined the future of the company’s
company's production technology. Although
originally a schoolteacher in Newington, Connecticut, Perry had learned the machinist's
machinist’s
trade working for his brother, one of the many inside contractors at Samuel Colt’s Colt's armory
in Hartford.
Hattford. Eventually he assumed part of his brother’s
brother's contract, but in 1855 he moved
upriver to take over the bookkeeping for Wheeler and Wilson. Within a year he had been
named secretary and treasurer of the company, now under the presidency of Nathaniel
Wheeler. More important, he had become superintendent of its factory. factory.55 The stage was
set for Wheeler and Wi1son’s
Wilson's adoption of New England armory practice. Moving from
70 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

TABLE 2.1. PRODUCTION OF

PRODUCTION OF WHEELER
WHF.Ei.ER AND
AND Wll.SON AND Wntcox
WILSON AND WILLCOX GIBBS SEWING
& GiBBS SEWING MACHINES,
lVlACHlNEiS,
1853--1876
Wheeler Willcox
Year and Wilson & Gibbs
&
---··--- ----~ ------- ------- -------

1853 799 n.a.

1854 756 n.a.
1855 1,171 n.a.
1856 2,210 n.a.
1857 4,591 n.a.
1858 7,978 n.a.
1859 21,306 n.a.
1860 25,102 n.a.
1861 18,556 n.a.
1862 28,202 n.a.
1863 29.778 n.a.
1864 40,062 n.a.
1865 39,157
39, !57 n.a.
1866 50,132 n.a.
1867 38,055 14,150
14.150
1868 n.a. 15,000
1869 78.866 17,251
1870 83,208 28.890
28,890
1871 128,526 30,127
1872 174,088 33,639
1873 119,190 15,881
1874 92,827 13.710
13,710
1875 103,740 14,502
1876 108,997 12,758
------- - - - · --- - - - -- ----

Source:
So!lrce: Frederick G
G._ Bourne, "American
“American Sewing-Machines."
Sewing-Machines.” in One Hundred Years oj'American
0j'Anteriran Commerce,
Commerce.
ed. Chauncey M. Depew, 2:530.
cd.

teacher in a common school to machinist/contractor

machinist/ contractor at one of the best-known showplaces
of American production technology, Perry had learned only one way to produce metal
products—the Colt way.
products-the
The same year Perry assumed the superintendent's
superintendent’s job, the Wheeler and Wilson
Manufacturing Company moved west from Watertown to Bridgeport into a former temple
of American manufacturing, the clock factory once occupied by Chauncey Jerome. Jerome.“6
When it began to manufacture sewing machines at Bridgeport in 1857, production re-
Colt’s armory in Hartford:
sembled that used for revolvers at Colt's Hartford; major running components
initially drop-forged and then machined; machining work performed by numerous spe-
cialized machine tools operated sequentially; uniformity of parts controlled by a model-
model~
based gauging system along with a rational jig and fixture system; and work executed by
an inside contracting system coordinated by the factory superintendent.
superintendent.77 The small
Wheeler and Wilson factory seemed a microcosm of Colt'sColt’s armory.
When installing the American system of manufacturing at Bridgeport, William Perry
drew upon more extensive resources than his own experience at the Colt factory. At once
he hired Joseph Dana Alvord, a New England mechanic who had learned his trade under
Nathan P. Ames, the noted armsmaker of Chicopee, Massachusetts, and had worked at
 Manufactures
M(lchine and the American System of Manufizctures
The Sewing Mar‘/titre 71

the Springfield Armory for eight years. In 1851 he had moved from Springfield to
Hartford, where he worked as a contractor at the Robbins & Lawrence-Sharps
Lawrence~Sharps RifleRifle
Company. That year Robbins & Lawrence, a firm based in Windsor, Vermont, had
attracted attention by its display of interchangeable firearms at the London Crystal Palace
Exhibition. George Eames, one of the Singer Manufacturing Company's Company’s production
experts, wrote that Alvord “was
"was an exceptionally able man, both as a manager andand aa
progressive mechanic, and many principles of tool building that he introduced into the
early history of sewing machine work have been copied and extended so they are now the
building.' ' 8
regular procedure in the art of tool building.”8
Alvord's friend and fellow Robbins &
In addition to hiring Alvord, Perry also attracted Alvord’s &
Lawrence contractor, James Wilson. By 1862 Perry, assisted by Alvord, Wilson, and
others, had created what they called "a shop,” capable of producing
“a great machine shop,"
almost thirty thousand sewing machines annually. (See Figure 2.1.) The company claim-
ed that with its accurate, specialized machine tools, jig and fixture design, and system of
"stroke of a file"
gauging, parts never needed a “stroke assembly.99 (See Figure 2.2.)
file” during assembly.
In 1855, when William Perry began as a bookkeeper for the company, Wheeler and
Wilson made fewer than twelve hundred sewing machines. The following year—-the year-the year
company’s move to Bridgeport-sales
of the patent pool and the company's increased to slightly over
Wheeler's action in hiring Perry as superintendent and
twenty-two hundred machines. Wheeler’s

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FIGURE 2.1.
FIGURE Z.l. 1879. (Scientific
Machine Shop, Wheeler and Wilson Manufacturing Company, 1879. (Scientific
Elcutherian Mills Historical Library.)
American, May 3, 1879. Eleutherian
72 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

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FIGURE 2.2. Assembly Room, Wheeler and Wilson Manufacturing Company, 1879. As depicted in
this illustration, workmen individually assembled the Wheeler and Wilson sewing machine at
worktables. Contrary to the earlier claims of the company, files and vises arc
are evident. The bearings
of finished sewing machines lined up down the center are being broken in by running the machines.
(Scientific American, May 3, 1879. Eleutherian Mills Historical Library.)

bringing him into the company as secretary and treasurer was, in essence, an exercise in
technical decision making: Perry knew only the Colt way to make metal products. But
Wheeler himself was a manufacturer who had used predominantly hand methods of
working metal. He knew that he could continue to use hand methods to produce sewing
machines with a reasonable profit. But through his own business as well as through
observation of developments in Hartford, he realized the productive benefits of mecha-
nization and the solid rationality of uniformity of parts in consumer goods subject to wear
and mechanical failure. More than anything else, he sensed that with patent matters secure
and the growing enthusiasm over the sewing machine, Wheeler and Wilson would experi- experi--
ence strong growth. Between 1855 and 1856, its business almost doubled. A company
publication of 1863 stated that Wheeler ''has
“has never hesitated a moment in the faith that the
world would appreciate a good sewing-machine sufficiently to recompense the manufac-
turer for an outlay of half a million dollars in facilities for manufacturing; and he has
always been ready to adopt every improvement, until the perfection of workmanship and
height of ornamentation, combined with usefulness, have nearly been achieved."
achieved.”l0 10
 Mac/tine and the
The Sewing Machine I/ie Americcm S_v.\"tem ofMcmiifac'ture.s'
American System of Manufixtures 73

The company looked forward to the time ''when

“when every foot of the five acres of flooring
of the Wheeler & & Wilson Sewing-Machine manufactory will be fully occupied by 800
men, who could find room to to work, and who, by driving the present machinery [could]
turn out 100,000 sewing-machines a year."
year.” Increased production would mean that "they
“they
could be still further reduced in price, and then every family could be provided with one of
these indispensable articles.” 11
articles.'' 11
chose—the classic European method or the American sys-
Whichever technology he chose-the
t:em~Wheeler wanted to be capable of meeting his goal of a hundred thousand machines
tem-Wheeler
per year. William Perry (and possibly others) convinced Wheeler that the methods used in
American armories could meet this challenge. Perhaps Wheeler never needed convincing.
ln any case, he chose to meet the growing demand for sewing machines with this special
In
version of the American system of manufactures. With Perry as superintendent, the
system was adopted in toto. Alvord provided the precision manufacturing know-how he
had learned at Robbins & Lawrence, which was vital for interchangeable manufacture.
The system, along with the sound design of the Wheeler and Wilson sewing machine,
allowed the company to expand annual production up to its peak in !872 1872 of 174,088
machines. (See Figure 2.3.)

ufiv r
. 4-»

FIGURE
FiGURE 2.3. Wheeler and Wilson Sewing:
Sewing Machmc,
Machine, ca. I1876.
876. (National Museum of American
History. Smithsonian Institution
institution Neg. No. 17663-C)
l7663~C.)
74 THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCT!O\J
PROM TilE
FROM PRODUC'l'lOf\l

Throughout its history after 1856, Wheeler and Wilson developed an increasingly
“high” armory
refined version of New England armory practice, which might be called "high"
practice. For instance, the initial drop-forging procedures were extended and refined. By
the mid-1860s some parts of the Wheeler and Wilson sewing machine underwent four
Alvord's direction, gauges, fix-
forgings before entering the machining rooms. Under Alvord’s
tures, and jigs were refined until the company claimed absolute perfection in manufactur-
manufactur~
ing interchangeable parts.”
parts. 12

. i,
1
‘ 1
.11
ié
.1
ill

““'~&~

Frounn
FIGURE 2.4.
2.4. Punching Out Needle Eyes, Wheeler and Wilson Manufacturing Company, 1879. A
series of small, hand-operated machines were used to manufacture sewing machine needles. Two of
the most difficult operations included punching out the eye
eyc and grooving the needle. The final step
of straightening the needles was clone
done by hand with a hammer. (Scientific
(Scieiiri]‘ic American, May 3, 1879.
Eleutherian
Elcutherian Mills Historical Library.)
 The Sewing American System ol
Snvilzt: Machine and the Amerit"aii of Maitnff<ir'iiires'
Manu{acrures 75

Yet one critical part of the Wheeler and Wilson sewing machine did not easily lend
itself to the American system of manufacture: the needle. A description of needle man-
ufacture at the Wheeler and Wilson factory in 1863 reads like Adam Smith's Smith’s classic
account of pinmaking and the division of labor, published almost a century earlier in The
Wealth of Nations. The entire production process, from the cutting of the wire to the
polishing of the finished needle, was done by highly subdivided hand labor. As the
company pointed out, "It“It is the great amount of hand labor, in a country where mechan·
mechan-
ics’ wages are so much higher than in Europe, that makes this kind of needles so
ics'
expensive.”
expensive." Wheeler and Wilson had "several
“several times hired English needle-makers, who
business.'' 13 But the company found American
had served a long apprenticeship at the business.”'7’
labor—e\/en if hand labor-superior
labor-even labor—superior to that of England.
Fifteen years later, needlemaking
needle making still largely eluded American know-how, but costs
had been lowered substantially by the employment of poorly paid women and children.
Some mechanization had also been carried out, and the number of processes had been
reduced from fifty-two to thirty-three. 14
'4 (See Figure 2.4.) Needle manufacturers such as
the Excelsior Company of Torrington,
Tonington, Connecticut, attacked the problem of hand labor in
making needles. By the 1880s much handwork had been eliminated, yet needles still were
straightened one by one with a hammer on an anvil. 15 *5

J. R. Brown & Sharpe and the Willcox & Gibbs

1.
SeH;ing
Sewing Machine
Whereas the Wheeler and Wilson sewing machine had originally been the product of
skilled machinists in the job shop and then became a uniform article turned out by a
factory operating under the armory system of manufacture, the Willcox & Gibbs sewing
machine was manufactured under the armory system from the very beginning. The first
few years of its commercial production offer a marked contrast to that of Wheeler and
Wilson and particularly to that of the Singer sewing machine.
The Willcox & & Gibbs Sewing Machine Company was a partnership of inventor James
E. A. Gibbs, a Virginian, and James A. Willcox, a Philadelphia hardware merchant and
perhaps also a patent model builder. Gibbs's
Gibbs“s sewing machine, covered by three patents,
used a single thread to make a chain stitch rather than a shuttle or rotary hook with bobbin
to form a lock stitch. Willcox recognized immediately that this machine could be made
and sold far more cheaply than lock-stitch machines.
machmes. But when he first saw the machine it
had not been perfected. Consequently he set his seventeen-year-old son, Charles,
Charles. to work
with Gibbs to perfect it and at the same time began making arrangements for its manufac-
ture.“ Early in 1858, Willcox had decided that he wanted J. R. Brown & Sharpe of
ture.16
Providence, Rhode Island,
island, to produce the Willcox & Gibbs sewing machine. (See Figure
2.5 .)
2.5.)
Surviving records do not indicate why Willcox chose Brown & Sharpe. The Rhode
Island company had had no experience producing metal articles comparable to sewing
machines, but rather made custom clocks and watches; jewelers’,
jewelers', clockmakers’,
clockmakers', and
watchmakers‘
watchmakers' tools; stub files; wire gauges; rules; and drawing instruments. In addition, it
had an extensive watch and clock repair business. 17'7 Through William G. Angell,
Angell. Willcox
learned about Brown & Sharpe's
Sharpe’s possible interest in manufacturing items such as sewing
machines. Late in J1857
857 or early in 1858, Lucian Sharpe went to Philadelphia to talk with
Willcox. They agreed that Brown & & Sharpe would make an estimate of the cost of
76 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEIVI PRODlJCTIO~
SYSTEM TO MASS PROl)UCTlON

1%

»~

5%”

, 1 ,, ,,,,w,@

FIGURE 2.5. Willcox & Gibbs Sewing Machine, U.S. Patent ModeL
FIGCRE Model. 1858. (National Museum of
No. P6393.)
American History. Smithsonian Institution Neg. No,

producing the Willcox & & Gibbs sewing machine once the machine itself had been satisfac-
torily perfected. In late February 1858 Charles Willcox brought a nearly perfected sewing
machine to Providence, and within a month, Brown & Sharpe had set out to manufacture
twelve sewing machines for the Willcox & Gibbs company. 18 lg
The historian would probably expect that a job shop such as J. R. Brown & & Sharpe
with its three small engine lathes, two hand lathes, an upright drill, a hand level planer,
“donkey” planer would have fulfilled this agreement by building the twelve sewing
and a "donkey"
machines one by one.”one. 19 But like so many American job shops that blossomed into
factories, Brown & Sharpe set about designing a model along with special tools, jigs,
fixtures, and gauges before it ever completed a commercial sewing machine. James
Willcox had apparently allowed the company plenty of leeway in what appears to have
been a gentleman’s
gentleman's agreement on manufacturing the machine. As Lucian Sharpe under-
stood that agreement, Willcox would pay $3 per day ''for
“for all work upon a model and the
first twelve machines."
machines.” In addition, Willcox would be responsible for changes on pat: pat-
“provided we [Brown & Sharpe] should not build a sufficient
terns, dies, and tools, "provided
quantity of sewing machines to compensate us for the tools."2°
tools. " 20 How many machines
constituted a sufficient number is unknown, but apparently Brown & Sharpe eventually
assumed these costs.
There is no hint that Willcox demanded that his sewing machines be made with the
American system of interchangeable parts manufacture or "armory
“armory practice”
practice" as New
England mechanics called it; he desired only machines that were “got right. ’ '’2‘
''got up right.' 21 Brown
 Serving it/Iaclzine
The Se1ving Macl11ne rum’
and the Americrm
Americon System 0fManuj'actures
of Manufactures 77

& Sharpe saw in the manufacture of Willcox & Gibbs sewing machines an opportunity to
expand and diversify its business. That the shop chose to produce these sewing machines
syste1n—a system with which neither partner had had any intimate
with the American system-a
experience——rather than with its accustomed job shop approach reflects
experience-rather reflects the attention this
production system had attracted in New England, if nowhere else.
Sharpe’s initial experiences with production under armory practice compose
Brown & Sharpe's
a litany of problems repeated time and again by shops and factories adopting this un-
familiar system. Throughout this litany runs a theme of faith in the system once it is fully
installed and its demands have been completely met. It was this faith in armory production
technology that initially compelled Brown & Sharpe and others to adopt the system,
helped them to cope with its problems, and led them to meet its demands.
Work on the Willcox & Gibbs sewing machine began about March 15, 1858. At once
Brown & & Sharpe made drawings of the machine from which patterns for castings were
made by a local foundry, the New England Butt Company. These drawings also served as
the basis for construction of tools and jigs. Three to five full-time machinists and James
Willcox’s son, Charles, worked on the tools, but by the end of May, they had still not
Willcox's
been finished nor, of course, had any of the twelve sewing machines. Lucian Sharpe
wrote James Willcox that setting up for production of the machine ''has “has taken much
anticipated” and the "tools
longer than anticipated" “tools proved to be three to four times as expensive as
was contemplated by us at the commencement though they will doubtless be cheap in the
manufactured." Dies for forging had also been expensive.
end if many machines are manufactured.” expensive.” 22

Even before the tools for the dozen sewing machines had been completed, Brown &
Sharpe agreed with Willcox to make a hundred machines, fifty of them the size of the
twelve machines under way and fifty smaller. The Rhode Island jobbers learned too late
''the making of tools for the small machines at the same time with the others has been
that “the
a mistake, inasmuch as it has caused nearly twice the delay that would otherwise have
occurred, and they could have been made cheaper after the experience acquired upon the
first lot."
lot.'' Toward the end of July, however, Brown & Sharpe believed that it could at last
see light at the end of the tunnel: "Preparation
“Preparation for making other lots of sewing machines
can be made with advantage, and if not done now further delay will be caused hereafter.''
hereafter. ”
These plans included the acquisition of new machine tools. Yet Brown & & Sharpe still had
not been able to calculate production costs and believed this would be possible only when
the hundred sewing machines had been finished.”
finished. 23
The hundred sewing machines were still unfinished at the end of August, and Brown & &
Sharpe’s initial optimism had been tempered by technical problems. Because of excessive
Sharpe's
wear on drills, reamers, and taps, it had been forced to anneal (or soften) the castings of
the sewing machines. Although annealing added trouble and expense, it helped eliminate
problems that had thwarted interchangeability. Because some turning operations had
consumed so much time, the company fitted its lathes with back rests and turned pieces
with two cutters instead of one. It also purchased additional screw machines. These
“everything seems to
developments prompted Lucian Sharpe to conclude cautiously that ''everything
be going on as fast as possible and we .. .. .. hasten the time when machines can be turned
out as fast as the market may demand; yet we cannot but feel nervous at the continued
postponement of that much to be desired day.”
day." Sharpe stressed, however, "We “We are yet of
the opinion that when once the tools are done and in successful operation that the
machines can be turned out in as great quantities as you can desire."
desire.” Caution had turned
to frustration by early September, when Sharpe wrote Willcox that "we “we are very much
7'1) THE
FROM Tl IE AMERICAN SYSTIEM PRODUCTION
SYSTE;>.,! TO MASS PRODl!CIIOS

disappointed and at times discouraged. Since you left more work has been done on tools
than [sewing] machines, and it will be several weeks yet before the tools can be
completed. "‘ Q“
24

No doubt by this time James Willcox was seriously questioning the ability of Brown &
Sharpe to produce the Willcox & Gibbs sewing machine. The increasing numbers of
cheap sewing machines entering the market made him anxious to "Jose “lose no time in getting
out.” Evidently he expressed his dissatisfaction in a letter to Brown &
them out." & Sharpe. The
company replied that it was not surprised at Willcox‘s
Willcox's dissatisfaction. But it stressed that
“if we had turned out a quantity in an imperfect state as would have been the case had
"if
they been made without the templets and other tools it would without doubt [havel [have] injured
the reputation of the machine if it did not kill it entirely.''
entirely." As Sharpe explained, ''Our
“Our first
trouble was in getting a hook to work and after that was accomplished we made tools by
which we could turn out any quantity of machines.''
machines.” Fabrication of these tools had not
been as simple or as cheap as Brown & Sharpe had anticipated. With the goal of' of “produc-
'produc-
ing perfect work,”
work," the company had spent ten times as much on tools as it had expected.
But as Sharpe was careful to point out, ''By “By the experience now acquired we now hope to
turn out nearly perfect machines at the outset instead of proceeding in the usual way with
things.” Sharpe added that "you
such things." “you doubtless are as well aware as ourselves of the
importance of pushing the tools/’Z5
tools.'' 25
This letter must have put James Willcox at ease, for soon Brown & Sharpe undertook
to produce an additional thousand Willcox & Gibbs sewing machines and planned to
“increase our tools if as many machines are wanted as contemplated.''
"increase contemplated.” Lucian Sharpe
pointed out to Willcox that the company was ''relying
“relying upon the sewing machines to give
us business enough for these tools for two or three years at least; else it would not be good
policy to increase our facilities as much as we have.''
havc.”Z“26

At the end of October 1858,I858, eight months after beginning work on the Willcox &
Gibbs sewing machine, Sharpe wrote Willcox that fifty of the original one hundred
“finished and put together.''
machines were being "finished together.” Doing so had been neither cheap nor
simple, however, because "it “it takes our best men to put them up. Being the first that have
been made they go together with more difficulty than the others will hereafter.”
hereafter." As he had
in several previous letters, Sharpe noted that the special tools of the American system
were demanding of skill, time, and money. Brown & Sharpe had hired a mechanic who
had previously worked at the Robbins & Lawrence-Sharps
Lawrence—Sharps Rifle Company in Hartford
and was well-versed in the American system. This mechanic had told Sharpe that it was
not uncommon for "$10,000
“$10,000 [to bel
be] spent upon tools for a single gun lock and $25,000
for tools for a rifle.”
rifle." Given this warning, Sharpe suggested to Willcox that work had
progressed comparatively well. The mechanic, reported Sharpe, "says “says we have got along
with the tools as fast as he expected.'
expected.”27' 27
Brown & & Sharpe demonstrated an abiding faith in the techniques used at small arms
factories. Assembling the first sewing machine parts required great fitting by the most
skilled workmen, but the next batch promised to to be better until eventually near perfection
would be reached. Brown & Sharpe believed that only the special tools, jigs, fixtures, and
gauges~—the
gauges-the hardware of the armory system-would
system—would provide the means to perfection in
sewing machine manufacture. Lucian Sharpe also told Willcox that Brown had calculated
that five thousand sewing machines could be made annually using the company’s company's present
tools, and if more lathes were added, this number could be doubled "without “without materially
increasing the small tools we have been so long in making.”23
making.' ' 28
The Willcox & & Gibbs sewing machine met with instant popularity, and James Willcox
 The S(’Wlllg
Sen'ing Mair‘/iirie
Machine and the Amcr1'r'uii
American Systerh r~f Monufactures
System (If/l/fUI'lLmI(‘[L!l"€.S‘ 79

continued to have faith in Brown & Sharpe's

Sharpe’s ability to manufacture it. The Rhode Island
lslancl
job shop soon became a factory. Still, Joseph Brown and Lucian Sharpe were unwilling to
abandon fully the custom manufacturing on which they had originally thrived. Within a
few years they began selling machine tools and small tools they had designed and built for
manufacture.2"
sewing machine manufacture. 29 Yet Brown & Sharpe continued to make the Willcox & &
Gibbs machine until the 1950s because the business proved profitable.
profitable.”
30 (See Figures 2.6

and 2.
2.7.)
7 .) The company reaped more than financial profits from sewing machine manufac-
ture. Because manufacture of sewing machines differed significantly from small jobbing
and from machine tool building, it provided an important training ground for mechanics.
Joseph R. Brown believed that a mechanic should know all three kinds of work. In
addition to leading the company into machine tool manufacture, the Willcox & & Gibbs
business supplied Brown & Sharpe with an opportunity to test the tools it marketed and
thus kept the company conscious of the real needs of manufacture in such vital elements as
operation.“
precision, speed, and ease of operation. 31

FrGcRE 2.6. Brown & Sharpe Factory, Providence, Rhode lslancl,

FIGURE Island. 1860s. Workers on the upper
floor display Willcox & Gibbs sewing machines from the windows of the shop where they were
made. The company moved to a new,
new. modern factory also in Providence in the early 1870s.
l870s. (Brown
& Sharpe Manufacturing Company,
Company. North Kingstown, Rhode Island.)
80 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODlJCTIO"'
PRODUCTION

FIGURE 2.7.
FtGURE 2.7. Brown & & Sharpe's
Sharpe’s Shop Where Willcox & & Gibbs Sewing Machines Were Were Made,
Made.
I879. Assembly operations are being carried out in the foreground.
1879. foreground. (Scientific
(S('l'r€l1fl:/TL‘/lI77(’l"fC‘Cr'l7,
American, November
l. !879.
I, l879. Eleutherian
Eleuthcrian Mills Historical Library.)

Throughout most of the remainder of the nineteenth century, Brown & Sharpe con- co.n-
tinued to refine sewing machine production processes. Because annual
processes. Because annual demand
demand forfor the
the
Willcox & Gibbs machine never exceeded thirty-four thousand, refinements centered centered on on
and reduction
improvement of quality and reduction of
of cost.
cost. (See
(See Table
Table 2.1
2.1 for
for production
production figures
figures forfor
Willcox & Gibbs machines.) Among the well-known mechanics who contributed contributed toto this
this
development were Frederic W. Howe and Henry M. Leland. Howe had learned learned thethe
machinist’s trade at Gay, Silver
machinist's Silver" & Co. in North Chelmsford, Massachusetts, and worked worked
for a number of years for Robbins & Lawrence of Windsor, Vermont, Vermont, oneone of
of the
the well-
well-
springs of private armory practice. There, he drew the plans for and supervised supervised the the
construction of the rifling machines purchased by the the British for the
British for the Enfield
Enfield Armoury.
Armoury.
From 1859
I859 to 1861,
I861, Lucian Sharpe corresponded with Howe, who was working in
was working in
Newark, New Jersey, "in “in relation to improvements in tools for facilitating
facilitating various
various opera-
opera-
tions on our sewing machine work.''
work.” Brown & & Sharpe obtained screw machines through
Howe, who also prescribed using a miller to machine the the large
large sewing
sewing machine
machine castings
castings
rather than planing them. A one-step milling operation enabled Brown & & Sharpe
Sharpe to to
planer.”
eliminate four operations on the planer. while Howe
32 During the early 1860s, while Howe worked
worked for for
the Providence Tool Company, he he collaborated
collaborated with
with Joseph
Joseph Brown
Brown toto design
design aa machine
machine to to
mill the grooves in twist drills, which resulted in the so-called universal
universal milling
milling ma-
ma-
chine.”
chine. I868, Howe went to work for Brown & Sharpe. His
33 In 1868, His major contributions
contributions toto the
the
company had already been made, but he superintended the design design and
and construction
construction of of
Brown & & Sharpe's
Sharpe‘s new factory in 1872. Howe's
Howe’s design impressed many,
many, including
including Henry
Henry
M. Leland, who in 1927
I927 said, "1
“I felt then and I believe now that their new plant was,was. and
and
for a long period of time remained, the finest of its kind in the world.”3‘*
world." 34
 The Sewing Machine and rile
the Americun System of
AIT!(’l'f('(lil S_\'.s'tehi Manu((lctures
0fManujttctures 81

Henry Leland, the eventual creator of the Cadillac Motor Car Company and a master of
precision work, also contributed to the manufacture of the Willcox & Gibbs sewing
machine. At the completion of his apprenticeship to Charles Crompton, a loom builder in
Worcester, nineteen-year-old Leland moved to Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1863,
where he worked as a tool builder for the United States Armory. After the Civil War he
built tools at Colt's
Colt’s Hartford armory and several other well-known machine shops. shops.”35

Leland was hired at Brown & Sharpe in mid- l 872, shortly before the company moved into
mid-1872,
its new building. Initially he ran the screw machine section of the sewing machine
department. During the next few years he refined Brown & Sharpe's Sharpe’s screw gauges and
instituted a system whereby all screws and small parts were held in stock rather than being
manufactured for each batch of machines. From 1878 I878 to 1890, Leland headed the sewing
machine department. He accepted this job only after Lucian Sharpe (who directed the
company after Joseph Brown’s
Brown's death in 1876)
I876) had reluctantly agreed to end the contract
system (there were four contractors in the sewing machine department), to institute a
piecework system, and to allow the head of the department to determine the pay of the
workrnen.36
workmen. 36

For the next twelve years, Henry Leland gained an education in production technology.
The skilled New England tool builder later wrote: ''My “My vision of the possibilities of
manufacturing broadened. My interest became intensified. I realized that manufacturing
was an art and I resolved to devote my best endeavors and my utmost ability to the Art of
Manufacturing.
Manufacturing.'’ '’37
37

Before Leland instituted the changes upon which he had insisted, a friend whom he
called Mr. Ripley performed a cost analysis of the sewing machine department over a
month-long period. A year later Ripley repeated his study and found a 47 percent reduc-
tion in labor cost, which was attributed to the ending of the contract system and initiation
of piecework. Leland claimed that this reduction was matched by an equal improvement
in the quality of the work. Elaborate inspection sheets, demanded by the Willcox & & Gibbs
Sewing Machine Company, were eventually dispensed with because of the persistently
high workmanship.“
h1gh standards of workmanship. 38

Much of the improvement in workmanship resulted from developments in precision

grinding in which Leland played an important paii. part. Although machined soft parts were
made accurately, the hardening process warped and distorted them, necessitating either
hand-fitting them during assembly or grinding them to gauge after hardening. After a few
years of making the Willcox & Gibbs sewing machine Brown & Sharpe chose the latter
method. According to Leland, the company had adapted ordinary lathes "specially
“specially fitted
with guards to protect the 'ways'
‘ways’ of the lathe[s] from the emery grit and other abrasive
materials” but had made few changes in grinding techniques before he started work there.
materials''
Despite their special fittings, the grinding lathes were plagueJ
plagued by grit getting into the v-
shaped guides-—or ways—on which their carriages traveled. Not long after Leland be-
guides--or ways--on
came responsible for sewing machine production, he recognized that “in ''in order to do
accurate work on a manufacturing basis, it was absolutely essential that these l[ways] ways]
should be so constructed and protected that they would remain perfectly straight and in
absolute alignment with the lathe spindles and lathe centers."
centers.'' Leland tried to impress
upon Joseph Brown that not only could such a machine be designed and built but that it
“would have an almost unlimited field of usefulness."
"would usefulness.” After several conversations,
Leland noted, Brown finally "grasped
“grasped the idea that there was a wide field for a machine
of this character in the manufacturing world generally.”39
generally." 3 <)
Leland’s encouragement and advice, Joseph Brown designed what became
With Leland's
known as the universal grinding machine. At the same time, a grinder with protected ways
82 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

but that would only grind straight work was developed. This machine was particularly
well suited for production work.
work.“°
40 It overcame the problem of distortion in hardening and

helped eliminate fitting during assembly. Brown & Sharpe's

Sharpe’s developments in grinding
technology—especially the universal grinder-also
technology--especially grinder—also improved the precision of gauges,
which in turn improved the precision of sewing machine parts.
In addition to encouraging developments in grinding and eliminating the contract
system, one of the hallmarks of New England armory practice, Henry Leland instituted a
strict procedural approach to sewing machine manufacture. All operations on various
parts were enumerated on sheets along with the necessary tools, jigs, fixtures, and
gauges.“
gauges. 41 Although such a listing of operations had perhaps been done in the minds of

hundreds of New England mechanics since the days of John Hall—and Hall-and perhaps had
down—-Leland’s insistence that these operations be recorded offers a
actually been written down-Leland's
commentary on the mechanic who had discovered the "Art “Art of Manufacture”
Manufacture" and who had
taken an intense interest in process rather than the building of any particular product or
tool.“
tool. 42 Leland believed-and
believed—and proved~that
proved-that with this procedure, work could be more
closely followed by foremen and materials more smoothly moved in proper sequence.
Thus before he left Brown & & Sharpe, Leland had already begun to systematize the
American system.
In summary, although Joseph Brown and LucianSharpe
Lucian Sharpe entered the manufacture of
sewing machines as jobbers, they adopted at the outset the American system of inter-
changeable parts manufacture as developed in the nation’s
nation's armories. Only by building
special tools, jigs, fixtures, and gauges, Brown && Sharpe believed, could the firm man-
ufacture uniform, high-quality products that would succeed in the marketplace. The
construction of the hardware of armory practice presented serious problems, yet through-
out months of work it maintained an abiding faith that the system would ultimately work
and repay the substantial investment of time, money, and effort. In the end.
end, the company
reaped great and varied benefits from its production of Willcox & Gibbs sewing ma-
chines. From sewing machine manufacture it entered the machine tool business. It is
interesting to speculate, however, whether this would have happened if Brown & Sharpe
had experienced the demand for sewing machines which the Singer company built up. Ely By
the time Henry Leland left Brown & Sharpe, Singer was producing more than a hundred
times the number of sewing machines made annually by Brown & Sharpe. In 1890, I890, Singer
Manufacturing Company may have built as many machine tools as Brown & Sharpe, but
the company consumed all of them rather than selling any outside. It is ironic that Singer,
long the recognized leader ofthe
of the sewing machine industry, was exceedingly slow to adopt
the American system of manufacturing.

Singer Manufacturing Company

The origin of the Singer Manufacturing Company is rooted in a partnership between an
inventor and a capitalist. Near the end of 1850 Isaac Merrit Singer, who worked variously
as a mechanic, inventor, and actor, redesigned the Blodgett and Lerow sewing machine at
the Boston shop of Orson C. Phelps, where the machine was being repaired. Singer'sSinger’s
changes constituted a new invention, which he patented August 12, 1851. (See Figure
2.8.)
2. 8.) Even before he obtained the patent he formed a partnership with Phelps and George
B. Zieber, who had helped him with the invention. Singer, Phelps & Co. immediately
began to make and sell Singer sewing machines. Soon Singer purchased Phelps's
Phelps‘s interest,
 The Set-mtg Mrichine and the American System
Snving Machine S)‘.5'f(’i7l of Manujixtures
Ma/mfatrtrtres 83

‘we.

FIGURE 2.8. Patent Model, Singer Sewing Machine,

Machine. 1851.
I851. Although submitted as a patent model,
this machine bears a serial number, 22. Note the cam mechanism used to raise and lower the needle
bar, which is the essential aspect of Isaac Singer's
Singer’s invention. (National Museum of American
History. Smithsonian Institution Neg. No. 45572-D.)

but the latter continued to manufacture machines for Singer and Zieber at a specified price
per machine. After another series of share manipulations, a young New York lawyer,
Edward Clark, acquired a one-third interest in Singer's
Singer’s company. Clark and Singer soon
bought out Zieber, and in 1851,l85l, under the name I. M. Singer & Co., they set up a
permanent sewing machine business with headquarters in New York.43
York. 43 (See Figure 2.9.)
Orson C. Phelps's
Phelps’s method of constructing sewing machines for Singer's
Singer’s company
offers a stark contrast to that used by Wheeler and Wilson and Brown & Sharpe. Phelps
was a scientific instrument maker, and naturally his shop possessed little equipment
capable of making the Singer machine, a cast-iron device weighing over 125 I25 pounds with
three large spur gears.
gears.“ Unlike Brown & Sharpe, which had made instruments as fine as
44

his, Phelps began by building sewing machines themselves rather than first building
special tools with which to manufacture them. This head-on approach is not surprising
since Phelps gained his livelihood through the traditional craftsmanship of the instrument
84 FROM Till:<:
THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

i,| l

,
45‘ I

lax. it

FIGURE
FIGURL 2.9. I. M. Singer &
2.9. Showroom, 1. & Co.'s
Co.’s Central Office, 458 Broadway, New York City,
City.
I857. The Singer company spared no expense in marketing its sewing machine. (Fronk
1857. Leslie's
(Frank Le.s'l[e’s
Illustrated Newspaper, August 29, 1857.
11/ustraled I857. Smithsonian Institution Neg. No. 48091-
48091-B.)
B )

maker. The actual process of production at Phelps’s

Phelps's shop consisted of obtaining major
components of the machine from various job shops in the Boston area and then fitting
them together. Castings, including the base, the head, and initially the gears, were
purchased from a local founder, Alonzo Josselyn. After a few machines were made, the
company began buying gears with cut rather than cast teeth. Phelps even jobbed out lathe
and planing work and bought bolts and nuts from hardware merchants. Boxes full of bills
and invoices from 1851
I851 suggest that the major processes of metalworking on the Singer
machine at Phelps’s
Phelps's shop were hand filing and hand grinding. The company did, howev howev--..
er.
cr, purchase a drilling machine to bore holes in the castings for various shafts and
screws.“ The piecemeal approach taken at the Phelps shop seemed to work satisfactorily.
screws. 45

Although originally uncomfortable with tv•ienty

twenty or twenty-five workmen in his shop filing
and grinding on sewing machines, by the end of March 1851 I851 Phelps was ·'just
“just beginning
to feel encouraged” operation.4"
encouraged'' about the operation. 46

Already the company had begun to set up a vigorous marketing program, which
involved using trained women to demonstrate to potential customers the capabilities of the
Singer machine. These women also taught buyers or their operators how to use a sewing
machine. Even as early as 1851,
I851 , internal correspondence reveals a profound confidence in
 The Sewing Machine and the American System of'
0fM(mufacture.s"
Manufactures 85

the company's
company’s marketing strategy and in its machine being "much
“much the best of the whole
lot [on the market].”47
market]. " 47 Within a year after forming their partnership, Edward Clark and
Isaac Singer decided to move their manufacturing operations to New York. Hence Phelps
was no longer able to make the Singer machine.
Despite increasing sales of sewing machines (though still well under one thousand per
year), I. M. Singer && Co. continued to make the product the same way as in Boston.
Boston.“
48

This job-shop approach to manufacture worked well enough, and neither Clark nor Singer
was particularly interested in developing manufacturing processes. Nor did either partner
know any other way of making sewing machines than that used at Orson Phelps's
Phelps’s Boston
shop. Clark spent his time and energy defending Singer's
Singer’s patent and the company from
damage suits filed by Elias Howe. Singer continued to make improvements on and other
inventions related to the sewing machine, but apparently he spent more time enjoying
himself in the big city than he devoted to business.”
business. 49 In New York. the company rented
space and power in a building owned by the New York and New Haven Railroad. The
Singer company began to do its own lathe and planing work, which forced it to purchase a
line of general machine tools. Three basic machines made up Singer's Singer’s machine tool
inventory: lathes, planers, and boring machines (or drill presses). The company purchased
its lathes-mostly
lathes—-mostly small engine lathes-primarily
lathes~primarily from Leonard & Wilson of New York,
commission merchants for a number of foreign and domestic machine tool builders.
Occasionally it bought a lathe from Ezra Gould of Newark, New Jersey, reputed to make
“the very best"
''the best'' lathes. Hand and power planing machines were obtained from Leonard & &
Wilson. The Singer company believed in using hand planers more extensively than costly
power machines. As Edward Clark wrote, "A “A good [hand] planer .... . . we know to be
worth twice as much as the steam arm for the work [we] have to do.” do." Singer purchased
other tools from Leonard & Wilson or from Schenck's
Schenck’s Machinery Depot, another New
York machinery commission merchant house. Mackrell & Richardson provided castings
for the Singer machine, and James Fairbanks cut all of its gears. From W. N. Seymour &
Co., Singer obtained vast quantities of British-made files and weekly sent hundreds of
them to be reeut
recut by James Latham of Newark, New Jerscy. Jersey?“
50

An illustration of the Singer factory, printed in 1854

I854 in United States
Slates Magazine, shows
these various tools in operation, but more important is its depiction of dozens of workmen
standing at benches along the outside walls of the factory filing away at parts held in
vises.5'
vises. 2.lO.) Nowhere-in
51 (See Figure 2.10.) Nowhere-—in this illustration, in published materials.
materials, or in
manuscripts—does one find the special tools, jigs, fixtures, and gauges that constituted
manuscripts--does
the hardware of the armory system of manufactures.
manufactures.” 52 Nor do we fmd
find its software such as
the inside contract system used at Colt, Wheeler and Wilson, Brown & Sharpe, and other
New England factories. Every Singer workman was paid by the company at an hourly
wage.
Singer’s method of manufacturing sewing machines resembled European practice far
Singer's
more than it did the system developed in New England armories. The company acknowl-
edged that the machine was "produced
“produced by hand at the bench.”
bench." The significance of this
fact is manifold. Such other manufacturers as Colt and Brown & Sharpe had identified
their production system-armory practice-as
practice—-as the source of their success. But I. M.
Singer & Co. stated firmly that "“ a large part of our own success we attribute to our
numerous advertisements and publications. To insure success only two things are re-
quired: Ilst
st to have the best machines and 2nd to let the public know it.”53
it. " 53 (See Figures
2.l I and 2.
2.11 2.12.)
12.) Having the best machine implies not only excellence in design but also
quality in manufacture. Edward Clark, as leader of the Singer company, did not question
that the European method of manufacture provided the quality necessary for success.
 WN:__UWW
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4
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_FDmagi
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States Magazin e, Septemb er 15, 1854. Smithson ian Institution Photogra ph.)
V

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FIGURE 2.10.

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‘MI
 Se~ring Machine and the /Ilnerirrun
The Sewing s_,·srem of
Amerimn Sysrenr Manufactures
0fMruii.1fat'rure.s‘ 87

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MACHINES. e ~,, ' ‘ ‘ \
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tlw civilized wmid. 8ome Some -of of
their
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mnin practical ailvmiiiigcii 1wer me! othnother m.,dnn.::~,
ilimliini-.=, forfur similar 1 mqw~M, are
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~tttchcd wuii ilir finest
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OFFICE, 458 BRO~DWAY,
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dmu0-!1! andmul lessks& liabh liable loht S(H.
gm. auto!
out of mam o:rJ~r rum
thrHJ any otho-r.other. This
l'hit~ .V ~ an »*
1
'l'hilflllc
nctl~Mrily from "mi!
ll)jjtllt~ micezmily
XMUIY! thir perfect. eontrivam~; and
perfcch &‘0I‘ii!]\’S.\)lI>1? constru(J)~an.
:1md eanumtulrm. 5, NEW YOB1L
3TL§\1
i Gui.
6th. ¥~‘a2 Family and Plant.a.tlon
Jtar _ l!'am:fl:r Plantation Se'w'h1g,rmrSowing, _twJ m"'cilinN IKIMIBIHCB are am "vtunly mjm-tm to
'l'.n!lt!y ffllpedor to
any K3 lh 01.,. 1-‘
a-ny olbez_r mgile un_nd
.Fmglle_ rid (hf
ddi:_:'l\te en‘"mg umd:~iuet~,
:|<'a re 2~£''>ling xx 5 M! h"mr::s,1'numndcdc in plt!ll-~~
to plt 11me qe,
»u.~.¢-. ll: m!!rC'l)', :ttc rec<,lHI·
eyen1erely,are1ewiri- S} V MTTM 'm'"~_' """""" T i AT"
5 mention]
rM-Udt.-'tl far family U!U"!:
fot fnm\ly um: _ They will u.:1t a~JBWN
wilt not answer tire pmjxue. ftruuHy
th.:J JHirpolll!l. Faiuilv 3L‘\Y$|ig Mudilne» on
Snving Mnd<b!l! orJ.stJt
ht i OFF.::tCES:.
EE.A.NCH
W~:~~~~~;r;:~~~:l'<
be Simlxgtie than any tny Mixer,
otl1er, M as greater
greater Y!'variety
it-loO<tJ' of
c.r wart
wotk. i:sis Jl'!}llin,\1
a-qnimi of of 1h.:m,
ihe|n,a:1dand theythey g&
go ill
litetv ; B RAN Q H O TF3: C E S I
i I»: -Mir») hands " 142 Ch~nuf
142 fliiesnnt Street, Pbilr.Hidllirl~t.
f:Hre~f, PI1ilflEII;IpIli2\- Gliwei-svillo, n. ‘S’.
7th. -W!ioovt;r
"7th, \Vlroeve: buys
l>uy& one of out macbin.;~:~
1)£ cm machine» knows to ua .certainty H ~ill
certairity It perform ttlc
will p!!l'fDrm WOrk
the work i 67 Hnnm- er Smwt~
Q11Jil-l'ltJVU Qt reel,
_ 13mrhm.
B: Muir
. . . r.n Cluipcl !§l' n.~<~l_ I’i’4~w Haven.
~q_uin,d.
wqnmri.
' I
Slb.
Sib, (3:11 mschiiwn it,a.k&
Ou.rmac:hlnt'll fiu;~t t!"IH(•h,
make a fflfll slit:-Ir, that
t1Hlt will neither rip, ravel,
rtoltbcttip, ranl 1.nol: pWl.out.
nut pull out. Q i 0
100 Ualtimono S1reet,
105 Baltimore
Q:14-Rtoad
Q74 BN5‘! SWPI»
Street, .Butiin1nrt'.
B(lIlIl\’\(\T(‘~
Stwl"-1~ N*“""l<~
N'"war.L
t (iii r\‘<>nli 4th Street, St. Lmiis.
S l*§=u»i itth f-Skier-.t, (?ir\ei\u\\\\i_
I
) ' '79 Btru~t.; Chiurgn.
fJlar'k Street,
10 Clark Chit:it_g(\ SI St. Ciinrlz-s Street, New UIIUIIHN.
fi- All
..... All_ _pcr!S-Or\:i! w14hing full infmme.!~l)n
penions wishing i\lacbim::s~ PJioo~, Sh:ea
i<n‘<:rri\:\z§on about Sewing l\Iaaliines~}‘/ice», MPc.-
Bins,1 A:4\_- ..‘
~~llY o M.. Suou:~:m
er \Vesfminsler S!:Nct,
Sl_ Vfw!miil~Wr flli-eat, PI(\\'§fI1)l||t(fi
Pw">hkww. as Itri.j,iii.i Street, l\!ul|ilu.
_ (Q51 bid " it by
obtQ.hi,,
(::Ql1. ° “P plyin 8 at
hy -applyi11g M. eithc
eitherl’ cu’
t1f (.'Uf
W Ollie‘"1 by
’ r OlflcN, fu r a=1 isopy
kttm, fur
bv_ letter of1'!1.. _51 Br mm: & 6;. > _ I. - q Br(ln~lwa.y.,:_ Allmtl)'·.
$81 f;. C.
3721 King filrizvl, Clmtlesloir, S.
i B0312»
Oo/l} (hzarw, tr pupal‘
(h:z£>1'-l'Y-: 1_1 rtf!per untimely devoted to
cnthtly {kw)t~;.(] tn th.;;
the subj•·ct.
5\.lI.>jt‘CL ItJt will
uirfse
be soul
sent mr:,._,m
i!,"'nlli~--J!::'o'.l{ ~ 3'"? B’““‘MY’ ‘“"“""
_ ...__.»__. ..€,___..... ...~___.__..u..
Q ...._..., . ._,..J t_ _ _ H . _ _._.__. _ __.

FIGURE 2.11.
FIGURE 2.11 I. M. Singer && Co. Advertisement, 1857. I857. One of the means by which the Singer
"let the public know"
company “let know” about its sewing machine was through extensive advertising, such
such
Histor_v of Prominent Merchants and Manufocturing
as this two-page spread. (David Bigelow, History Maimfac-raring
I857. Eleutherian Mills Historical Library.)
Firms in the United States .. . .. ,, 1857.

Sharpe’s conviction that had

Clark’s views present a remarkable contrast to Lucian Sharpe's
Clark's
Brown & Sharpe not adopted the armory system of production, quality—and therefore
the quality-and
success——of
success-Df the Willcox & & Gibbs sewing machine would have suffered greatly. Sharpe’s Sharpe's
Colt's, was that quality
view, as Samuel Colt’s, and uniformity of parts went hand in hand. I. M.
Singer & Co. took a European view of the matter, believing that hand-finishing by many
skilled workmen provided the best means to achieve and maintain product quality. It
chose to build its fortune by emphasizing advertising and marketing rather than by
refining methods of manufacture. Clark saw no pressing need to adopt or develop a
system of manufacture based on special-purpose machines nor to attempt to achieve close
uniformity of Singer sewing machine parts. Using the method of manufacture the com com-..
pany had chosen, any uniformity that occurred was a result of many parts of the machine
being cast. All of these cast-iron or cast malleable iron parts required machining and filing
to be fitted into a complete machine, so the predominance of casting provided only the
crudest uniformity, a uniformity worlds apart from the absolute standard sought by the the
United States Ordnance Department.
Department.54 54

Born in upstate New York, where his father was a small manufacturer, Edward Clark
had had little or no contact with the New England approach to manufacture. He had
attended college at Williams but graduated in 1831, well before the American system had had
attracted any notable attention, and had entered a law firm in New York City. 55 From this
City.55
time until his death, he lived either in the city or at his rural estate near Cooperstown in
88 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

.-Q

‘List: *7
,.

FIGURE 2.12.
fJCURt: 2.12,Demonstrating the Singer Sewing Machine, 1850s.
l850s. Demonstrations of the Singer
sewing machine played a major role in the company's
company’s marketing program. (11/usrrarcd
(Illustrated News, June
25, 1853. Smithsonian Institution Neg,
Neg. No. 48091-D.)

upstate New York. Isaac Singer, too, had remained outside the sphere of New England
arms manufactures. Although both men had heard about the so-called American system of
manufactures by 1852l852 when they moved the business to New York, neither had had any
direct experience with or reason to advocate adopting this system of production. From the
context of a letter written by Edward Clark in 1855,
I855, one wonders if Singer and Clark even
recognized any difference
dtfference between the methods they had adopted and those in New
England which had attracted so much attention from the British. During 1855, the Singer
company set up what proved to be an abortive factory in Paris, France, under the direction
of William F. Proctor, a workman from the New York factory. In a letter to Proctor, Clark
list—a few lathes,
listed the machine tools the company planned to send to Paris. This list-a
hand planers, and boring machines--could
machines~—-could have been a record of machine tools in any job
shop in America or any factory in Europe, but Clark believed that “no''no reasonable effort
shall be wanting on our part to get you fitted out with an establishment which shall be a
model one, and a credit to American skill in the mechanical arts. arts.”5(’
" 56 Perhaps Clark
paitook too much of the American mechanical arts chauvinism exhibited by Samuel Colt
partook
or Alfred C. Hobbs. At any rate, he was enjoying vicariously the praise heaped upon these
men by the British press after the London Crystal Palace Exhibition. It would be many
years before the company actually developed a production technology comparable to to that
Colt’s "model"
used at Samuel Colt's “model” factory in London or the one in Hartford.
Hartford,
 The Sailing
,)'nl'ing /1/lac/tine
Machine and wul the Americrm of Mamlj'acturcs
System ofll/1am4fhclur'es
American Syrtem 89

Table 2.2 shows the growth in the output of Singer sewing machines from 1853 to
1880. The tripling of figures between 1855 and 1856 relfects not only the 1856 pooling
purchasing--or as it was
agreement but also the initiation by Edward Clark of installment purchasing—or
called then, the hire-purchase system. By advancing a certain percentage of the total price
“hire” a sewing machine, make monthly payments on
of the machine, a customer could ''hire''
it.57
it, and eventually own it. 57 In 1856 Singer also brought out its first machine intended
company’s sales
home. At the same time, Clark overhauled the company's
exclusively for use in the home,
system by buying back territorial rights it had sold shortly after its formation. Most of the
men who had purchased these territories had not sold sewing machines as vigorously as
nghts system had also prohibited a tight, central control,
Clark wished. The territorial rights
which after 1856 became one of the hallmarks of the Singer company.
company.“ 58 And, of course,

factory’s improvements in manufacturing capability

the jump in sales reflects the Singer factory's

TABLE
TABLE 2.2. OUTPUT or SINGER
OUTPUT OF SINGER SEWING
SEWING MACHINES,
MACHINES, 1853--1880

Year Numbm
Number

1853 810
1854 879
1855 883
1856 2,564'
2,564“
1857 3,630
1858 3,594
1859 10,953
1860 13,000
1861 16,000
1862 18,396
1863 21,000;
21,0001
1864 23,632
1865 26,340
1866 30,960
1867 43,053
1868 59,629
1869 86,781
1870 127,833
1871 181,260
1872 219,758
1873 232,444
1874 241,679
1875 249.852
249,852
1876 262,316
1877 282,812?
282,812*
1878 356,432~
356,432§
1879 431,l67§
431,167*
1880 500,000“
500,000il

Sources: Unless otherwise noted, all figures are from Frederick G.

G, Bourne, "American
‘American Sewing-
Machines,”
Machines," in One Hundred Years of American Commerce,
Commerce. ed. Chauncey M. Depew, 2:530.
“This was the year that the patent pool was formed.
'This
‘John
'John Scott, Genius Rewarded; or the Story of the SewinR
Sewing Machine, p. p, 28.
‘Sewing Machine Advance I1 (August 1879):62.
'Sewing l879):62,
§Scott, Genius Rewarded, p. 29. These figures agree with those in i:.
"Scott, ii.
l'My estimate, based on weekly production figures at the New Jersey and Scotland factories.
!'My
90 FROM TilE
THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

acquired through additional purchases of general machine tools and employment of an

increasing number of machinists and other skilled workers. Between 1858 and 1859
Singer’s
Singer's sales again almost tripled. This jump ret1ects
reflects the introduction of an improved
family model sewing machine, the Letter A, which for the first time competed successful-
ly with the popular Wheeler and Wilson sewing machine.”
machine. 59 (See Figure 2.13.) Between
these two spurts of growth, the company braced for increased sales by building its own
factory.
100’ x>< 100'
On a lot 100' 100’ on Mott Street in New York City, 1. M. Singer & Co. built a six
six-<..
story fireproof building in which it hoped all manufacturing operations could be carried
out. It intended to cast its own parts in a foundry located in the basement, which was also
occupied by an eighty-horsepower steam engine. By the time the new building was
finished in July 1858, however, Clark and others believed the factory would be insuffi-
insuf1fi~
cient. Consequently, the company purchased fourteen additional city lots on Delancey
Street and built a five-story building in which the foundry was erected. Here all the
castings were poured and cleaned after cooling. At the Mott Street factory, the castings,
along with other parts, were machined, finished, and fitted together into complete sewing
machines. A separate area of the Mott Street works was set aside for patternmaking and
tool building. w
toolbuilding.“0
The opening of the Mott Street factory in 185 18588 marks the beginning of the Singer
company’s rise as a well-known American manufacturer. But unlike the Wheeler and
company's
Wilson Manufacturing Company when it moved into its new factory at Bridgeport in

FIGURE
FIGURE 2.13.
2.13 Singer Model A Family Sewing Maebinc.
Machine. 1858. (National Museum of American
History. Smithsonian Institution Neg. No. 58984.)
 The
Fl1e Seutiiig
Sel\'ing Mae/vine
Machine and
und the American System 0fMrinnfut"riires
Svstem of!vlanujru'tim:'s 91

1856, 1. L M. Singer & Co. did not adopt the American system of interchangeable parts
manufacture nor did it ''resort,''
“resort,” as Joseph Whitwonh
Whitworth would have all American manufac-
turers, to the use of special-purpose machinery. For the next fifteen years at least, as B. F.
Spalding pointed out in 1890, Singer "compromised
“compromised with the European method [of
manufacture] by employing many cheap workmen in finishing pieces by dubious hand
work which [Spalding believed] could have been more economically made by the abso-
lutely certain processes of machinery/’6‘
machinery. " 61 Basing his statements on "precise
“precise informa-
tion,”
tion,'' Henry Roland (a pseudonym of Horace L. Arnold) pointed out in Engineering
Magazine in 1897 that the Singer Mott Street factory "had “had no milling machines and no
gang drillers, and was doing its work on lathes and planers. The parts did not 'gage'
‘gage’ at all;
assembling was very expensive; and, after a machine was adjusted and in sewing order,
all of the parts were kept by themselves while the frame was being japanned, and
afterwards put back on the same frame, as they were far from interchangeable.
interchangeable.”"2
" 62
In 1863, however, Singer began to mechanize its production processes, building more
and more specialized machinery, until by 1880 its American factory-byfactory—by then at Eliz-
Jersey—was jammed with automatic and semiautomatic machine tools. In
abethport, New Jersey-was ln
Roland’s words, the Singer works had been "brought
Roland's “brought up ...
. . . to the armory plant stan-
dard.”"3
dard.' ' 63 Writers throughout the technical literature proclaimed the Singer plant as a
progressive establishment. Sometime between 1880 and 1882 the factory first began
producing sewing machines with interchangeable parts that did not require hand-fitting
while soft, marking all critical parts with the same serial number, hardening, and refitting
parts with matching numbers. Study of this process of increased mechanization and the
eventual achievement of accuracy by interchangeability reveals some of the complexities
and subtleties of the movement from the American system to mass production.
The first step in understanding this process must be to gain an appreciation for the
leadership of the Singer company. In 1885 the company's
company’s chief production expert pointed
“the President, Vice President, and all our chief and
out to the U.S. Bureau of Labor that "the
most successful agents arose from the bench.”64
bench.' ' 64 He believed that their entrance as
machinists and laborers rather than as executives had contributed to the company's
company’s suc-
cess. George R. McKenzie, a Scotsman who served as vice-president and later president
had been a case and model maker for Singer during the 1850s. William F. Proctor, the
machinist whom the company had sent to set up its Paris factory in 1854-55, became the
first treasurer of the Singer Manufacturing Company in 1863 and served in that capacity
the remainder of his life. Throughout the 1860s and 1870s Proctor and McKenzie made all
of the major administrative decisions relating to manufacturing operations. Paradoxically,
this ''up
“up from the bench"
bench” phenomenon tended to retard the company's
company’s process of mecha-
nization and upgrading of the uniformity of products. Neither McKenzie nor Proctor had
had any contact with the New England system of manufacture. Their experience as skilled
workers at the Singer factory during the 1850s, with its predominantly European or hand
method of manufacture, determined in large part the production methods in the 1860s and
1870s-helping perpetuate European practices.
By 1863, the year I. M. Singer & Co. incorporated under the name Singer Manufactur-
ing Company, annual sales had reached twenty-one thousand sewing machines. Through-
out the preceding year the company had received an unusual number of complaints from
agents and customers about the quality of the sewing machines they had received. Nee-
dles, gears, and shuttles continually caused problems. The company had set up its agency
business to accommodate repair work, and many of the repairmen had actually worked in
the New York factory. When parts broke, agents sent to New York for replacements,
92 f'ROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO !v!ASS
FROM MASS PRODUCTION

which had to be hand-fitted. The company supplied special files to fit new gears together,
to file shuttle races, and to adjust certain dimensions of new shuttles. Repair problems,
coupled with an inability to meet rising foreign demand, forced the company to question
its present manufacturing setup. In an attempt to improve its sewing machine needles,
Singer && Co. recruited Jerome Carter from the Ladd & & Webster Sewing Machine Co. of
Boston. Carter joined Singer in 1862, building special-purpose needle machinery similar
to that he had designed for Ladd & Webster. Although needlemaking always seemed to
cause the company problems, Carter evidently eliminated a large portion of them.
Eventually, he became one of the few stockholders in the company.
company.“ 65 His arrival helped

set the stage for developments in manufacturing initiated soon after the company
incorporated.
In 1863 the new Singer Manufacturing Company took its first major step away from
European manufacturing methods toward those used in American armories by hiring
Lebbeus B. Miller, a native New Jersey mechanic. According to Miller'sMiller’s obituary in the
Transactions of the American Society 0fMechanical Engineers, he was hired to "design
of Mechanical En[?ineers, “design
and supervise the construction of special tools for the production of interchangeable
parts”
parts" for Singer machines. Born in 18 1833,
3 3, Miller had been an apprentice of Ezra Gould,
the Newark, New Jersey, machine tool builder from whom the Singer company had
purchased some of its small engine lathes during the 1850s. Yet Miller had had little
experience with interchangeable manufacture. After serving his apprenticeship, he appar-
ently continued in Gould’s
Gould's employ until 1861, when he went to work for the Manhattan
Firearms Company. Originally located in Norwich, Connecticut, the company had moved
to Newark in 1859. Within a year, Miller became superintendent of its branch factory,
also in Newark. Miller's
Miller’s employment at the Manhattan Firearms Company put him briefly brief1y
in touch with a New Jersey version of New England armory practice.“
practice. c; 6
Between 1855 and 1868 the Manhattan Firearms Company produced a patented, medi-
um-priced revolver intended to capture part of Colt’s
urn-priced Colt's extensive business. When Miller
was hired by the company, Andrew R. Arnold was its general superintendent. Arnold had
worked at the Colt armory before taking the New Jersey job, perhaps only a short shon time
before Miller started there. Apparently Arnold introduced the Colt approach to pistol
manufacture at Manhattan, for in 1861 he wrote Elisha K. Root, Colt's Colt’s superintendent,
requesting the price and delivery time of a drop forge, a piece of equipment which, he
noted, the secretary of Manhattan Firearms had never seen in operation. By the time
Miller left Manhattan Firearms in 1863, the company annually produced about six thou-
sand arms with methods that resembled-—in
resembled-in rudimentary form at least-those
least—those used at the
great Colt factory.
factory?”7
6

L. B. Miller immediately began to change Singer's

Singer’s production processes along the
lines he had learned from Andrew Arnold at Manhattan Firearms. The first ten milling
machines owned by Singer were made by Manhattan Firearms and purchased in 1863. 1863.68
68

In
ln addition to the use of milling machines, the adoption of drop forging and the construc-
tion of special machine tools characterized the first twenty years of his work. As at Colt's
Colt’s
Miller’s reliance on fine gauges played a minor role compared to the introduction
armory Miller's
of specialized automatic and semiautomatic machine tools. He introduced a few gauges
for very critical dimensions, but he continued to employ a large number of fitters to
correct errors that might have been eliminated by a highly refined
refinedjig,
jig, fixture, and gauging
system. Gradually, however, the Singer factory refined its machine tools, jigs, and
fixtures and extended and refined its gauging system until by the 1890s the company
heralded its "Singer
“Singer Gauge"
Gauge” system of more than fifteen thousand go no-go gauges. gauges?"69
 The Sewing
SeH·ing M'aehine
Machine and the America/n 0fManuj‘2icIui'e.s'
American System of Manufactures 93

Miller's easygoing disposition well suited company executives such as president Edward
Miller’s
Clark, vice-president George McKenzie, and treasurer and general factory superintendent
William Proctor. Had Miller been like Elisha Root in pressing for the immediate and
wholesale construction of hundreds of specialized machine tools—in tools-in other words, the
complete mechanization of sewing machine manufacture-it
manufacture--it is likely that he would not
have survived. A radical change would have been too much for the men who had worked
their way up from the bench. Miller succeeded, however, because he always seemed to
fu1fillecl their wishes. He retired as superin-
know what these men wanted and generally fulfilled
tendent of the Singer Manufacturing Company in 1907 at age seventy-four. Largely
Miller’s history with the Singer company we learn about the development of its
through Miller's
production technology.
Singer’s manufacturing operations reveals some of the changes
An 1866 description of Singer's
initiated by Miller as well as the preponderance of methods antedating his employment.
Cast iron and cast malleable iron still predominated for parts of the Singer machine, which
consisted of more than one hundred pounds of cast iron and only about eight pounds of
wrought iron and steel. Miller had, however, introduced drop forging for the steel shuttles
used to make the lock stitch. A few other parts were drop-forged, too, as were the hinges
for the wooden cabinets.
cabinets.”
70 Planing continued to be an important method of removing

large amounts of metal: the cast-iron bed of the machine was planed to obtain desired
smoothness, and shuttle races within the beds also were planed rather than milled. The
company no longer purchased its cut gears but made its own-at own——at this time, bevel gears-
by means of automatic gear-cutting machines. It appears that Miller built, if not designed,
these machines. A gear was finished after the completion of operations on two different
machine. 71 An
machine tools, the first a type of miller and the second a type of grinding machine.“
1868 inventory of tools at Singer's
Singer’s factory in Glasgow, Scotland, listed the latter ma-
chines as ''gear machines.” Nine of these grinders finished gears at the Glasgow
“gear grinding machines.''
plant, which turned out about one hundred sewing machines per week. week.”72 Finally, Miller

helped introduce inside contracting, a system that characterized the New England armory
approach to manufacture and would be used at Singer until the early 1880s. 18805.73
73

Although exact figures are not available, production of Singer machines at the Mott
and Delancey Street factories exceeded four hundred per week during 1865 and 1866. The
New York Times noted in 1865 that between 935 and 1,100 employees worked at the
"constitute[d] the principal expense in the (manufacture
factories and that their wages ‘“constitute[d] [manufacture of
sewing] machines. " The widening of domestic and international markets, coupled with
machines.”74 74

intensification of advertising and other marketing techniques, brought about a rapid

increase in sales of Singer's
Singer’s products. The New Family machine, introduced in 1865, had
rapidly gained acceptance and would continue to be purchased by household consumers
into the twentieth century. (See Figure 2.14.) In 1867, Singer sold more than forty-three
thousand machines (mostly New Family but some manufacturing machines as well), and
eighty -seven thousand. This growth occurred in both do-
by 1869 sales reached almost eighty-seven
mestic and foreign markets, so that in mid-1867 the Singer directors decided to "organize
“organize
and to establish within the United Kingdom, a branch manufactory for the purpose of
finishing sewing machines and articles connected with the use and sale thereof.' ' 75
thereof.”75
Vice-President George McKenzie took charge of finding a suitable location for the
British works, and because of the low cost and docile labor as well as the good shipping
facilities, he settled on Glasgow.
Glasgow.“ 76 In the beginning the directors'
directors’ use of the word
“finishing” accurately
"finishing" described the processes carried
canied out at Singer’s Scottish works.
Singer's
The New York factory shipped parts (other than the iron legs and head, which were cast east
94 FROM TilE
THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

FIGURE 2.14. Singer New Family Sewing Machine, 1865. The newly incorporated Singer Man-
FIGURE 2.14.
ufacturing Company introduced this machine in 1865 and continued its manufacture into the
twentieth century. It quickly became the staple product of the company. (National Museum of
American History. Smithsonian Institution Neg. No. 58987.)

by an American in Scotland) for one hundred New Family sewing machines every two
weeks, and the cheap, skilled workmen in Glasgow machined, filed, and fitted the sewing
machines together. As of December 1867, thirty-one men and boys could fit together only
thirty machines a weekéwhich
week-which is to say that even after four months of experience with
the Singer machine, fitting them together still required great time and effort. Gradually,
however, the Glasgow factory began to contract outside for some of its castings rather
than obtain them from New York. It also began to work bar stock for making small sewing
Miller’s toolroom in New York supplied patterns for these castings,
machine parts. L. B. Miller's
jigs
j1gs and fixtures for the machine tools, and most of the machine tools themselves.
themselves.”77 By

mid-1869, Singer had rented another building in Scotland. Together the Glasgow factories
 The Sewing Mochinc
T!Je Machine and the
rhe /Imerieun S_v.s're1ri of
Amerimn Sysrem uf II/Iariii,t'aeIiii'es
Manujitctures 95

finished about seven hundred machines weekly. Two years later, with additional tools,
these factories turned out fourteen hundred sewing machines per week, or about sixty-five
thousand per year. Engineering called Singer's
Singer’s Glasgow factory ''the
“the largest in the United
Kingdom/‘T8
Kingdom. '' 78
At the same time that Singer opened its second factory in Glasgow, the directors
decided to move the main factory out of New York to “some ''some convenient location on
tidewater.” William Proctor pressed the other directors to move quickly because, he
tidewater."
argued, the output of the New York factories was limited to two thousand machines per
week.”
week. 79 While planning a new factory, Proctor requested that the directors spend moneymoney
for additional tools to raise weekly output to three thousand machines and also to plan for
“increasiingj it to 5000 sewing machines per week."
"increas[ing] week.” Originally purchasing a site in
Bridgeport, Connecticut, the directors finally settled on ten acres of waterfront at Eliz-
Jersey.”
abethport, New Jersey. 80 The factory they built there in 1873 was soon producing about a

thousand machines daily. (See Figure 2.15.)

L. B. Miller played a critical role in the expansion of production capabilities in the
decade between 1863 and 1873 both in the United States and Scotland. Although com- corn-
pany records from this period are sparse, those that survive show a clear pattern in
Miller’s work. A complete 1868 inventory of the Glasgow factory lists the following
Miller's
special tools and machine tools that had been sent from New York: bevel gear-cutting and
grinding machines, milling machines, wire-straightening machines, a needle bar edging
machine, and shaft-cutting lathes. The New York factory had also sent sets of forging
dies, milling cutters, and lathe tools for working individual parts of Singer machines. Jigs
included a collar jig, turning jigs, a pitman jig, a pinhole jig, a camwheel jig, a jig for
marking treadle rods, and lifter jigs. Glasgow's
G1asgow’s gauges consisted of an arm gauge, a cloth

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FIGURE 2.l5.
2.15. Singer Manufacturing Company's
Company’s Elizabethport Factory, 1880. Built in 1873, this
factory was reported to be
he the largest factory in the United States making a single product under one
roof. (John Scott, Genius Rewarded; or the Story
Smry ofofthe
the Sewing Machine, 1880. Singer Company
Photograph.)
96 FROM THE
TIIE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

feed gauge, balance wheel gauges, needle bar gauges, and screw gauges. The factory
either checked its gauges or gauged its parts on six surface plates. The tool that dominated
the Glasgow inventory, however, was the file; thousands of files in various shapes and
sizes are listed among the factory’s
factory's tools and fixtures.~
fixtures.“1 Files were probably predominant
in the New York factories as well.
Since labor cost more than twice as much in the United States as in Scotland, one
would expect the Scottish Singer factory to use more hand labor and less machinery for its
production than in America. Yet throughout the nineteenth century, the Scottish factory
closely followed the American factory's
factory’s production processes. New machines or pro-
cesses adopted by the American factory were taken on by the Scottish factory. As gauges
were refined in New York and New Jersey, duplicates were sent to Scotland. Scotland.”82 The

company’s reasoning for this close control lay in its perception of its market in Europe.
company's
When Singer initially began to sell its European-made machines, an outcry erupted over
their supposed inferior quality compared to those made in the United States, which had
begun to dominate European markets.
markets.*3~n Standardization of manufacturing methods and of
the end product between the two factories therefore seemed essential. Singer initially
spent a considerable amount of its advertising dollars to convince Europeans that the
Glasgow product was identical in quality to the New York Singer. The French govern-
ment was so skeptical that it commissioned William J. M. Rankine, the famous theoretical
Singer’s Glasgow factory. Rankine
engineer of the University of Glasgow, to inspect Singer's
concluded that machines made there were equal to those made in the United States and
“I am convinced that all the parts of all the machines sent out by the Company from
that ''I
their Glasgow establishment, are wholly manufactured, as well as put together, in the
Factory which I have inspected.
inspected.'"84
'X 4 Emphasis on standardization perhaps worked to move

the company toward greater uniformity in the parts of its sewing machines. Yet increasing
mechanization of production, resorted
resotted to in order to fill rapidly increasing orders, also
played a role.
At the end of 1868, the directors of the Singer Manufacturing Company appointed L.
B. Miller general superintendent of the American factories. Between 1869, Miller's
Miller’s first
year as superintendent, and 1873, the year Singer opened its Elizabethport works, sales
almost tripled, from almost 87,000 to more than 232,000. And in this period the Singer
factories could not supply their sales agents with enough sewing machines. It is not
Miller’s request for money to build and purchase
surprising that the directors approved Miller's
machine tools inm large quantities. In 1871, for example, when Singer increased its output
by about 54,000 sewing machines, the company spent $58,000 on new tools in addition to
$42,000 for repair and maintenance of existing tools. These expenditures, however. however,
represented less than 5 percent of total expenses of manufacture; the cost of packing (in
wooden crates) the sewing machines made at the New York factories alone that year
exceeded total tool expenditures by more than $10,000.$10,000.8585 Pushed by Vice-
Vice-President
President
McKenzie, Miller sought for the factory not only to produce as many machines as the
company’s
company's sales agents could sell but also to bring down production costs.
About the time the directors promoted Miller to factory superintendent, George
McKenzie began to show a strong interest in the manufacturing operations. By the early
1880s he wanted to know exactly what had occurred each week in the company's
1S80s company’s facto-
ries, especially the production costs and where they could be cut. In the Singer directors'
directors’
discussions in 1868~70
186S~ 70 about a new American factory, McKenzie expressed his desire to
check the efficiency of Singer's
Singer’s manufacturing operations against that of the Wheeler and
Wilson factory and the Springfield Armory, two plants that had received widespread
 Mar'lu'ne
The Sewing lvl Amcncon S_\*.s"r@ln
ochine and the Ariir'1'i'r‘m1 of Manu(acrures
System Q/'Mr1mg)‘t1t"tu/"at 9l)7

attention for their production technology. He suggested that the company commission an
“expert” to carry out such a study.
"expert" 86 No evidence exists that an expert was ever hired,
study.8"
but before the Elizabethport factory opened in 1873, McKenzie, William Proctor, or L. B.
Miller may have gone to New England to see and study "high" “high” armory practice at
Springfield or the Wheeler and Wilson plant. In any case, they witnessed the New
England armory system of manufacture at the Providence Tool Company between 1870
and 1873.
The Providence Tool Company had gained an international reputation for its ability to
produce large numbers of high-quality firearms and similar consumer durables. In 1870
Providence Tool contracted to manufacture twenty-seven thousand Domestic brand sew-
ing machines for Singer, delivered in equal monthly installments between March 1871
and January 1, l, 1873.
1873.8787 Singer apparently wanted to capitalize on the cheaper sewing

machine market. But rather than jeopardize its current sales by making a cheaper ma-
chine, bearing the Singer name, the company set up the Domestic Sewing Machine
Company. Though separate, the Domestic Sewing Machine Company was nonetheless
controlled by Singer, which operated as a middleman between manufacturer and mar-
keter, taking $3 per machine off the top. Near the end of 1872 this contract was extended
and the number raised to one hundred thousand sewing machines to be delivered in 11873 873
“300 daily or more." On December 31, 1873.
at a rate of "300 1873, Providence Tool stopped
making the Domestic machine because, according to John Anthony, the company's company’s
“we entered into large contracts for rifles, which called for all our force and
president, "we
room, and large additions to both.”88
both. " 88
Anthony's explanation for the termination of Providence Tool Com-
Unfortunately, Anthony’s
pany’s
pany's contract with Singer and Domestic will not stand historical scrutiny. Although it
may seem ancillary to the manufacture of Singer sewing machines, this episode bears
company's thinking about production technology. It also creates an
directly on the Singer company’s
anomaly not easily dealt with by the historian. The Singer company, rather than Provi-
dence Tool Company, terminated the contract because of "differences “differences [which] have
arisen between the ... . . . Domestic Sewing Machine Company and the ... . . . Providence
Tool Company in regard to the manufacture and sufficiency of [the sewing] machine
under said contract. "“*9 89 Simply, the Providence Tool Company failed to produce sewing

officials’ approval. Contractually both

machines of sufficient quality to meet the Singer officials'
parties agreed only that the sewing machines were to be “first class.” But throughout the
''first class.''
tenure of the contract, the companies clashed over the workmanship and uniformity of the
Providence product and finally hired an impartial referee to pass judgment on sewing
machines made by the tool company according to agreed-upon "standard'' “standard” machines.
Not long after the companies reached the agreement on the production of one hundred
thousand Domestic sewing machines for 1873, conflict arose about the quality of the
machines. Both sides believed that with the Providence Tool Company's Company’s installation of a
completely new gauging system, “no "no serious trouble in the inspection is likely to occur."
occur.”
Yet by May the gauge system had not eliminated the elements of contention. Therefore,
the two sides agreed that an impartial third party would mediate and would judge produc-
tion machines by two approved machines that would serve as "suitable “suitable standards”
standards" of the
“character
"character of work”
work" required. The Providence Tool Company warned Domestic repre-
''at present we shall find it difficult to get out many machines as perfectly
sentatives that “at
fitting in some standard]J samples are."
of these parts as these [two standard are.” Two weeks later
Providence advised Domestic that, "under “under our new [mediation] arrangement, and under
the new ‘Standard’
'Standard' we have, we may not be able to turn out the full hundred thousand
98 FROM THE AMERlCAl\‘
AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION
PRODU(‘TlON

machines this year.''.

year.” But since the Domestic Sewing Machine Company had mdicated indicated
that one hundred thousand machines probably would not be sold in 11873, R73, Providence Tool
believed that it could turn out as many as Domestic would require. Informed guesses
indicated that it actually produced less than sixty thousand Domestic sewing machines.”
machinesY 0
When in May or June 1873 Singer officials decided to terminate their contract with
Providence Tool Company, together with the Domestic Sewing Machine Company, they
set up the Domestic Manufacturing Company to make the Domestic sewing machine after
January 1, 1874. The articles of agreement forming this new company, in conjunction
with the state of manufacturing art at Singer, are difficult to interpret. In the agreement,
“the said Domestic sewing machines manufactured under this con-
Singer specified that ''the
tract shall be manufactured in a workmanlike manner, and shall be done on the principle
of making the parts interchangeable.
interchangeable.”9‘ Singer’s contracts with the Providence Tool
" 41 Singer's
Company had never specified interchangeability. Providence had, however, manufac-
tured the machines under the armory system because it constructed special tools and
special machines. Providence also used a gauging system but never claimed to Singer
officials that its sewing machines were completely interchangeable. The contrary is true.
For example, when Singer officials suggested that the Singer factory, rather than Provi-
dence, make the hemmer attachment for the Domestic because Singer could make it five
cents cheaper, John Anthony had protested. “It seems to me the hemmer should be made
protested, "It
where the machine is made. It will hardly answer to lie tie up a hemmer in each parcel of
apendages [sic], as each one needs more or less fitting to its special machine.”92
machine. " 92
The Domestic Manufacturing Company began its production in J1874. 874. It used the
special machines, special tools, and gauges purchased from the Providence Tool Com-
pany at the end of 1873. Whether Domestic actually produced sewing machines with
interchangeable parts cannot be ascertained. What is certain is that the Singer Manufactur-
ing Company had not produced sewing machines with interchangeable parts and would
not for at least another
another eight years.93
yearsY 3 Singer, however, had terminated its contract with
Providence because of the poor quality of the machines Providence manufactured—or
manufactured--{lf
perhaps because once Providence raised its product to standard it could no longer turn out
the desired number of machines. In ln the new agreement creating the Domestic Manufactur-
ing Company, did Singer demand a product more nearly perfect than the one Singer itself
manufactured‘?
manufactured? Had it asked more of the Providence Tool Company than of itself? It lt
should be recalled that the Domestic sewing machine was sold as a much cheaper grade
machine than the expensive Singer. And did Singer construe ''the “the principle of making the
parts interchangeable”
interchangeable" tot:o mean only production of goods by specialized machines, tools,
jigs, fixtures, and gauges or, in other words, only in the most relative sense of meaning?
meaning“?
These questions may never be answered definitively because the necessary documentation
is missing. Nonetheless, it seems that there is a plausible explanation for this episode in
company’s history.
the Singer company's
According to B. F. Spalding, the Singer Manufacturing Company fully adopted the
American system of making interchangeable parts by special tools and machinery when it
moved into its new factory at Elizabethport, New Jersey, in 1873. No longer, Spalding
says, did Singer ''compromise
“compromise with the European method by employing many cheap
workman in finishing pieces by dubious hand work. work.”"4
" 44 The company had hired L. B.
“interchangeable parts manufacture.''
Miller in 1863 to introduce ''interchangeable manufacture.” Miller became Singer's
Singer’s
superintendent in 1868. A year later Vice-President McKenzie wanted to hire an expert to
compare manufacturing methods at the Springfield Armory and the Wheeler and Wilson
sewing machine factory with those used at Singer. These two Yankee establishments
 Seriiizg Mar"/title
The Sewing Machine and the American
Airierttrnz System
Systeiii 0fMmmfac'ti1re.s'
of Manufactures 99

claimed to produce products with absolutely interchangeable parts. And, finally, in 1870
Singer contracted with the Providence Tool Company, one of the better-known New
England manufacturers which had made many arms during the Civil War, for the produc-
tion of the Domestic sewing machine.
All of these developments point to an intensification of interest in the American system
by Singer officials between 1869 and 1873. At the Providence Tool Company, Singer
officials probably had their first intimate experience with full-blown Yankee armory
practice. The Singer men who had worked their way up from the bench found this system
unsatisfactory. The fits achieved by armory practice, as conducted at the Providence Tool
Company, were too sloppy by Old World standards. Joseph Whitworth had stressed this
point in his testimony before the parliamentary Select Committee on Small Arms in 1854.
When held to these standards, the Providence company found it could not produce the
quantity it had originally envisioned. This is the crucial dilemma of the American system
so poignantly described by Eugene Ferguson and later by Daniel Boorstin.
Boorstin.95
95 Singer could

not accept the imperfectibility inherent in the American system and in armory practice, an
imperfectibility it had been able to eliminate through its unique blend of Old World and
New World manufacturing methods. Only hand-filing and hand-fitting yielded the close
fits demanded by the Singer officials’
officials' instinct for workmanship.
An intriguing paradox arises here. The Singer Manufacturing Company could neither
live with nor without the American system. Because of rising sewing machine sales-in
1873, almost a quarter of a million-Singer was forced to find ways to produce more
sewing machines. The impending end to the sewing machine combination in 1876, when
the company could no longer have the protection of a tariff on other sewing machine
manufacturers, would compel the company to lower its production costs. By 1873, when
Company’s product unsatisfactory, they had
Singer officials found the Providence Tool Company's
been thoroughly captivated by the idea of interchangeability. During the next eight years
the company moved closer and closer to this elusive goal. By 1881 L. B. Miller and his
assistants were almost in a frenzy to attain it, and finally in April, the superintendent
declared Singer parts "absolutely"
“absolutely” interchangeable.
interchangeable.96
96

Looking back on their decision to terminate their contract with the Providence Tool
Company, Singer officials would probably have concluded that their action was too hasty,
that their demands for perfection from armory practice were too rigid. Once they adopted
it themselves, they experienced the same difficulties in turning out close-fitting parts as
had the Providence company. Only through a long and often painful process of refinement
did Singer eliminate these problems and at the same time achieve high-volume output.
Armory practice, particularly the principles and practices of precision manufacture,
placed terrific demands on the manufacturer who adopted it. Singer officials believed,
however, that if these demands were met they could turn out a half million machines
annuahy.
annually.
Although almost no company records pertaining to Singer manufacturing operations
survive from the 1870s, there are two good descriptions of the factory. One apparently
was written in 1874, a year after the new Elizabethport works opened; the other dates from
1880, just when company officials began feeling overwhelmed by production problems.
problems.”97

The latter publication included a series of excellent steel engravings which provide
prov1de valu-
able visual information. (See Figures 2.16-2.24.) For brief periods during the 1880s,
manuscripts exist which show the intense efforts of Singer personnel to overcome man-
ufacturing problems.
According to a historical article in the Elizabeth Daily Journal, George R. McKenzie
) 00 FROM THE
Tllli AMERICAN SYSTEM 'lO
A:\/IERICAN SYSTl§l\/l TO tv!
MASSASS PROIJUCTION
PRODUCTION

FIGURE 2.
FIGURE 2.16.
16. Foundry. Elizabcthport,
Singer Foundry, Elizabethport. 1880. (John Gem'tt.r Rewarr/cc/."
(.John Scott, Genius Rewarded: or the Story of
of
Seittttg /1/lat"/titre,
the Scll'illR lvlachine, 1880. Eleutherian
Elcutherian Mills Historical Library.)

l
FIGURE 2.2.17.
FICilJRF 17. Singer Forging Shop, Elizabeth
Elizabethport, (John
port, 1880. (1 Getittts Rr*\r'r1rclerl,'
ohn Scott. G!:'nius Re1varded: or the
Story of Sen-trig Milt‘/tttlc’,
of' the Sewing Machine. 1880. Singer Company Photograph.)
 Seivittg ivfachine
The Sell'ing Mrtrhhtc and the
rhc AHt(’l'f(‘(Itl
Amcricon SrstemS_\'stettt of
ofMatztt/ktctttt‘e.s"
Manuj(1ctures 10 I

FIGURE 2.18.
FIGURE 2. 18. Singer Screw Department.
Department, Elizabethport, 1880.
1880. (John Scott,
Scott. Genius
Gcttitts Reirarded;
Rewarded: or
the Story of'
of the Snl'ing
Sr>n'itt,_Q Machine, 1880. Eleuthcrian
Eleutherian Mills Historical Library.)

E
if ____L_..a .
W . -- —s-.\
:_ ;_§:L_ 5,-_‘ga§‘
4 _ “I: — >\‘
_ _7
___ “7 iv _
- re" L *:L-,l=
Li __-5:: ~’ _,

L: g
;F:*

Frouni-; 2.19. Singer Needle Department,

FIGURE 2.19. Department. Elizabethport, i880. (John Scott,
I 880. (.John Scott. Genius
GetimsRemit-r!er1.'
Rewarded; or
the Story of the Sewhtg Mrtchtne, 1880.
Se1ving Machine, 1880. Singer Company Photograph.)
\02 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTrON
PRODUCTION

FIGURE 2.20.
FIGURE 220. Room. Elizabethport,
Singer Polishing Room, Scott. Genius
Elizabcthport, 1880. (John Scott, Getttttr Rewarded;
Rewrtrded; or !he
the
Stotjv
Stury of the Sewing Machine, 1880. Eleutherian Mills Historical Library.)

FIGURE 2.21.
FIGURE 2.21. Singer Japanning (Painting) Operations, Elizabeth
Elizabethport, (John Scott, Genius
port, 1880. (.John Getllit/1.5‘
Rewctrdetl," or the Story of the Sewing Machine, 1880. Eleuthcrian
Rewarded; Eleutherian Mills Historical Library.)
 Sentttg Machine
The Sell'ing Mrtchttze tutu’
and the Atttettcrttt S}‘.\‘l€ttl q(
American 5)·stem Q/‘McttItt_;"ar‘tttres
Manuj(/Cturcs II03
03

~_--Cu. ..»

FIGURE 2.22
FrGURE 2.22. Singer Assembling Room, Elizabethport, 1880. Note the presence of of files and the
machine tools. (John Scott,
Scott. Genius
Getizius Rewarded; the Story ol
Retvctt‘ded.' or rhe of rhe
the Sewtttg
Sewing Machine, 1880.
Eleutherian Mills Historical Library.)

.%
,.

;._' -.1;-:_.V._

FIGURE 2.23.
FrccRE Testing Singer Machines,
Machines. Elizabethport, 1880. Women at the left check the as-
sembled machines under a variety of sewing conditions (thread material. and so on). (John
count, material,
Scott, Genius Rewarded."
Rewarded; or the Story of the Se>ving
Sewing Machine, 1880. Eleutherian Mills Historical
Library.)
104 FROM TilE
THF. AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

FIGURE 2.24.
FrGURE 2.24. Setting up Singer Machines for
for Shipment,
Shipment. Elizabcthport,
Elizabethport, 1880. (John Scott.
Scott, Genius
Rewarded;
Rewarded: or the St0r'_v Mac/tine, I1880.
Story of the Sewing Machine, t\80. Eleutherian Mills Historical Library.)

alone decided that the new factory would be located in Elizabethport, New Jersey, rather
than in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Although the directors had purchased the Connecticut
site while McKenzie was in Europe, they deferred to his desire to build in New Jersey.
After that, superintendent L. B. Miller was largely instrumental in picking the exact
arranging for construction. In October 1870 the company obtained a ten-acre
location and ananging
lot with good access to railroad facilities and to upper New York Bay at Elizabethport.
The new factory opened in 1873. It lt had facilities to produce every pat1
part of the Singer
machine except the wooden cabinet, which was made at the Singer Case Factory in South
Bend, Indiana, established in 1869. Both in size and quantity of production the red brick
Elizabethport works easily qualified as the largest sewing machine manufactory in the
world. As Charles Chapman, the author of the first published account of these works,
“You could scarcely believe in your own mind that such works were
wrote in 1875, "You
necessary for so small a machine."
machine.” Chapman added: "You “You had often heard the name of
Singer and had seen his machine all over the United Kingdom, and, in fact, all over the
world, and for some reason or other .... . . you had an idea that Singer was a myth, but now
mind.” When Chapman visited the
that you saw the gigantic works, you soon altered your mind."
Singer factory in 1873 or 1874, L. B. Miller showed him through the works, "describ[ed]
“describ[ed]
the use of the various machines, and also ... . . . explained the working of the different
departments.”
departments.'' Rarely did the company allow anyone but employees into the factory, and
even more rarely was the works described in print. For these reasons, Chapman's
Chapman’s narra-
tive is invaluable in describing Singer practicegg
practice. 98
As late as 1874, most parts of the Singer New Family machine and its equivalent
commercial model were made of cast iron, thus requiring a large foundry. The Eliz-
abethport foundry covered about sixty thousand square feet~or fcet—or well over the size of a
 Sewtttgq Machine
The Snring Marhitre and
mm’ the Attt€l‘l(‘(ltl
Amerimn Srstem S_\‘.S‘I(’tt1 of /i/httzttfar.-ture.s'
Manuj(tcture.l l 05

standard football field. On its floor,

tloor, molds could be laid out for more than thirty tons of
melted pig iron. Singer took pride in having adopted a foundry system that dispensed with
skilled molders. It had a dual basis-a
basis—a special press or molding machine which packed the
sand around the pattern in one operation, plus intensive division of labor. After being
broken out of the mold, the cooled cast-iron pieces were rumbled (cleaned through a
tumbling process) and then taken to the filing and drilling department. Here, workmen
filed away rough edges that would impede proper placement in the various fixtures used
during machining operations. Other workmen used drill presses to clean out cast holes as
well as to drill new holes. These holes were also used as bearing points in fixing parts to
1-vell
machine tools.‘)9
toolsY 9 With good casting work, only a little filing was necessary to secure the
correctly in the fixtures. Bad castings often required "very
pieces conectly “very much fitting to prepare
them for the fixtures.”‘O°
fixtures.'' 100 The two principal castings were the base and the arm; joined
together these made up the head of the machine. Most of the other parts fitted into the
head, so the machining work on it was critical. Chapman described at length the machin-
ing operations on the arm and base of the New Family machine.
The contractor of the machining department or one of his inspectors checked each
casting as it came from the filing department. If lf acceptable, he issued a receipt for the
casting and sent it to the first machining station. For arms, the first operation was reaming
the bottom hole for the vertical
ve11ical shaft. Ten milling operations followed. Chapman reported
that about forty milling machines canied carried out the arm work. Many holes had to be
drilled-—five for oiling bearings, four for screws to hold the arm and base together, four
drilled-five four
for screws to secure the needle bar presser foot faceplate, three for a spring adjustment,
and one each for the thread spindle and thread take-up lever. After the necessary screw
holes had been tapped, the bottom of the arm was faced where it joined with the base. At
this point the base, which had undergone numerous machining operations, and the arm
were screwed together. Then came the arduous task of putting in the two shafts along with
the two bevel gears and one thrust bearing. 101 10‘ Probably cast in the arm, the bearing holes
for the horizontal shaft were reamed to correct size. Then the holes for the vettical
vertical shaft
were reamed.
Because the size of the bearings varied significantly from machine to machine, work-
men either selectively chose shafts whose journals fit closely into the bearings or else fit
the journals to the bearings. Custom fitting was most likely the case. Workmen also
custom fit the bevel gears onto the shafts as well as the thrust bearing located on the
vertical shaft. They did this by tightening down a set screw, securing the gear or bearing at
correct location on the shaft. When all were properly set, tapered holes were drilled
the conect
through the gears and shafts and then the set screw was removed permanently. 102 Tapered
permanently . 102
steel pins rather than screws held the gears and bearings in place. Once the machine was
together with gears, shafts, and bearings correctly fitted, a workman stamped a serial
number on the base and gears. The gears and shafts were then taken out of the machine
head, and the head was sent to the japanning department, where it received its jet-black
finish. After being ornamented, the head was matched up again with the parts of the same
number and the machine put back together. Before being joined to the arm, the base
underwent this same process of machining parts, fitting them, marking them, and dis-
them.1°~”
assembling them. 103 No doubt many of these parts were fitted soft and then sent to the

case-hardening room while the machine heads were being japanned and ornamented.
Why were Singer parts stamped with the same serial number? Chapman related that L.
B. Miller told him that each part was numbered "not “not because one part of a machine will
not fit any other machine of the same size" size” but "in
“in order that the company may prevent
] 06 f.ROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO ,'vlASS
FROM PRODLCTION
MASS PRODLICTION

any unscrupulous persons from selling bad had machines with the Singer name on them.”'O“
them.'' 104
Such an explanation is suspect. I have attempted to interchange parts on New Family
sewing machines made in approximately the same year Chapman visited the Singer
factory. Generally it is impossible. 105 ‘O5 Shafts and the parts attached to them are particu»
particu ..
larly unswitchable. Nevertheless, parts of the Singer machine were uniform or standard,
and they were made with armory production techniques, that is, by special tools and
machine tools used in conjunction with rationally designed fixtures and checked in some
manner by a gauging system.
Still, Miller deceived Charles Chapman. Parts were stamped with the serial number not
to thwart "unscrupulous
“unscrupulous persons"
persons” but because they required filing and fitting to put them
together and because they had to be taken apart for painting and ornamentation. Only by
matching up the numbers could the workmen correctly reassemble a machine. Had Mil- Mil~
ler’s
ler's excuse for marking been true, the company would have-as have—as it did some years later--
later~—-
stamped the model and individual part numbers on all the pieces along with "Si “Si Man Co" Co”
rather than the serial number. That parts had to be fitted to the sewing machine head
before the head was painted (and thus before final assembly) also makes Miller's l\/liller’s state-
state»-
ment suspect. The historian faces a danger in placing too much emphasis on in· in-»
terchangeability per se. Yet since the Singer company itself deemed it important-as
important-—as
indicated not only by Miller’s
Miller's claim to his British visitor but also by Singer advertising---V
advertising--
some attention must be given to this question.
Singer’s New Family model sewing machines not constructed with abso-
Why were Singer's
parts‘? Was the Singer factory not technically capable of in-
lutely interchangeable parts? in~
terchangeabilty? lf
tcrchangeabilty? If it was, what were the economic factors that led it to produce parts with
large tolerances and to have workmen fit them together by using files? Or were Miller and
his men working at the limits of precision manufacture in America of the 1870s? In other
words, was interchangeability in sewing machine manufacture (with its demand for very
close fits between shafts and bearings, for example) simply beyond reach? Because of the
dearth of Singer manuscripts from the 1870s and because of the general ignorance among
historians about precision manufacture at this time, these questions cannot be answered
with any certainty. Yet they should be raised. The question of noninterchangeability can
be addressed conjecturally.
As pointed out earlier, in the 1850s
l850s and early 1860s Singer made its sewing machines
by using what B. F. Spalding termed European methods, that is, with general machine
tools and with much handwork rather than with special tools, jigs, and fixtures. Singer's Singer’s
skilled machinists literally built sewing machines one by one. Gradually during the 1860s, 18605,
after Singer hired L. B. Miller, the company introduced special machines and special
tools. Y Yet
ct tradition weighed heavily, particularly among Singer executives who had
worked their way up from the bench. The production process became a mixture of
European methods and the American system of manufacturing. The company's company’s directors
believed that Singer produced superior sewing machines by mixing the two different
methods. With this blend of technology, Singer probably manufactured a sewing machine
better in workmanship, that is, with closer fits, than those produced wholly with armory
practice, such as the Domestic sewing machine manufactured by the Providence Tool
Company. Among others, .Joseph Joseph Whitworth, in his remarks of 1854, had stressed the
importance of hand finishing in obtaining quality workmanship. Economic arguments,
based on a paucity of data, could be made in a number of ways. It might be argued, for
example, that it was cheaper to produce sewing machines by the Singer blend than by
either wholly American or European methods. On the other hand, it may be fairly
 The Sewing Maritime and the Americcm
Snving Machine American Sy.s'iem 0fManuj"0ctm"es
S)·stem of Manuji1ctures 107

questioned whether during the 1850s and 1860s 18605 Singer people paid close attention to
production costs. Because of the patent pool and because of its extensive use of advertis-
ing and other promotional techniques, 106 ‘O6 Singer was able to sell sewing machines at five
to ten times its cost of production.
The net result of all of these questions, even if unanswered, is another question: What
was the state of progress of the armory system of manufacture by 1874? lf If Singer had
found armory techniques unable to meet the standards of quality it desired, the technical
development of the system since the days when Whitworth and Anderson had visited the
Springfield Armory had perhaps not gone very far. If Singer had found highly refined
armory practice to be too expensive, this raises the question of its economic efficiency in
the context of 1870s
18'/‘Os America. And finally, if Singer was simply a technologically back-
ward-—albeit
ward-albeit large and important—manufacturer,
important-manufacturer, one must question the general diffusion
of the American system of manufacturing in the post-1850s period. (This question be-
comes extremely important with the McCormick Reaper Company, as discussed in Chap-
ter 4.)
B. F. Spalding offered an explanation for the non noninterchangeability
interchangeability of Singer sewing
machine parts in 1890, but it defies commonly held beliefs about why the American
system was widely diffused in the second half of the nineteenth century. Spalding claimed
that the "unparalleled
“unparalleled demand for their [Singer's]
[Singer’s] sewing machines had drawn them into
“employing many cheap workmen in finishing pieces by dubious hand
this way [that is, ''employing
work which could have been more economically made by the absolutely certain processes
machinery”], leaving no spare time for making tools."
of machinery"], tools.”'°7
107

This assertion
asse1tion is flawed because, however Singer's
Singer’s production technology during the
1870s is viewed, it cannot be seen as remaining static. Over the years, Miller and his
contractors continually made changes in production methods and refined the production
system. In response to a complaint from the New York offices about the manner in which
the cloth feed wheels were fitted to the bottom of the vertical shaft, for example, Miller
wrote in 1875 that the "Feed
“Feed Wheels have been fitted by the same process for years years.. .. .. ..
At the commencement of 1874 [however] we made a radical change in this particular, as
well as in some others, and machines made during that time are much better fitted than
they had been previously.''
previously.”108
108

Symbolic of the changes made and the greater precision obtained in production, some-
time between 1874 i874 and 1880 Singer changed the name of the department where the
sewing machines were put together from the fitting department to the assembling depart-
ment. Inln its public relations literature, the company began putting the word "assembled"
“assembled”
in quotation marks to describe the process by which the machines were put together. This
charge in nomenclature seems to signal a consciousness that the machines were no longer
“fitted” together. Literature of a later date would play up "The
"fitted" “The Singer Assembly Sys-
tem,”
tem," enabled by the production of parts that were "perfectly“perfectly interchangeable."
interchangeable.” As late
as 1885, however, Singer called the employees who worked in the assembling department
“fitters” and paid them, on average, fotty
"fitters" forty cents per day more than ordinary machine
‘O9 One is reminded again of the stricture Henry Ford laid down in his article on
tenders. 109
mass production in the Encyclopaedia Britannica:Briramzz'ca.' "Jn
“In mass production there are no
fitters.”
fitters.''
Between 1874 and 1880 Singer doubled its annual production of sewing machines,
from a quarter of a million to over half a million. Within another six years, yearly
production again doubled. Since Singer operated a factory in Scotland, not all these
machines were made at the Elizabethport works. But well over half of them were.
 O D U CT IO N
AS S PR
FROM Tl-IF. AMERICAN ST EM TO M
SYSTF.l\/I MASS PRODUCTION
AMER IC A N SY
FR O M TH E
J0 8

/-\

if = \‘= Tl.
tfinw‘
,,_
\ g / / ' .1

N 1 1T’QM
..
\
- ,1?Y
F
3
"
//’v’_]./ EA
.1"
/Z2’?
-' 1
if

ac hi oe wav "
'"
. T he lm pm vc d Fm,.ily m ci an M i llv
FIGURE 2.25. Singer Improved Family Mochinc The Improved Elcothc was first
pr ov ed F am il y Sewing
S cw i" g Machine.
ae .c ji ,- F am
Family machine
i /;- U.w, 1893.
introduced in 1881 Im
S in g. u(Catt!/ogue o}"S1nger Sewing ac hi
Mar‘/11'r1r*.s'_f0rFrmii/_\‘
i ng M Use, 1893. Eleutherian Mills
F •c ua r; 2.25 ib ra ry .). (C a ta la gac• o fS ia gc r Sc w
Historical ca l L 1881
Library.)
todriac ed In
i ntisco
H
 The Sen-'1'ng
Sewing Machine and the American
Aniciicri/1 S,\-'stem
Svstem of Ma1iufur'ture.r
of' Manuj(xtures I 09

Expanding production fourfold in twelve years to meet rapidly rising sales prospects,
Singer perhaps experienced a "technological
“technological imperative"
imperative” to mechanize fully, reduce
tolerances, and thereby eliminate the cumbersome and expensive process of hand-fitting.
Although there is evidence that files were not totally eliminated from Singer'sSinger’s assembly
room, it is fair to say with John Scott in 1880 that "each
“each of these lSinger
[Singer machine] parts
has been ...
. . . so accurately worked by the machine which made it, when the numerous
and varying pieces come together in the assembling process, it requires little and often no
adjustment whatever, and each fits in the place made for it, resulting in a complete and
whole.”"°
harmonious whole.'' 1 10 Unfortunately, the gap in manuscript and other documentary

material between 1874 and 1880 does not provide an understanding of how—or how--or even if-
this dramatic change at Singer came about. Substantial manuscript material from the early
1880s suggests, however, that the battle for quality and quantity manufacture had by no
means been won.
McKenzie‘s attorney and a well-known biographer of
When John Scott, George Ross McKenzie's
the late nineteenth century, published Genius Rewardecl;
Re,varded; or the Story of the Sewing
Machine (1880), he noted that Singer's
Singer’s Elizabethport factory "is“is believed to be the most
complete, systematic, and best-equipped in the world [and] ... . . . is believed to be the
largest establishment in the world devoted to the manufacture of a single article.'' article.”'ll
111

Although it would be difficult to challenge the latter assertion, an intimate look at the
inner workings of the factory betrays a level of chaos that runs counter to the meaning of
“systematic.” Much of this chaos resulted from the company's
"systematic." company’s efforts to produce a new
model sewing machine called the Improved Family sewing machine (Improved Manufac-
turing for the commercial model of the same machine)‘
machine). 1 1'22 (See Figure 2.2.25.)
25.) While trying
to get the new machine into production, the factory simultaneously faced increasing
demands for the New Family machines which it had been making since 1865, as well as
for several commercial models. Miller often found his factory unable to supply the
company with enough machines; unfilled orders reached as high as forty thousand ma-
chines and usually ran about twenty thousand. Added to these problems, Elizabethport
was building most of the special tools, special machine tools, fixtures, and gauges used to
equip the rapidly expanding factory in Scotland, which in 1884 moved into a new works
larger than the American factory. The company also started a small factory in Montreal,
Canada, in 1883, which drew additionally upon the resources and energies of the Eliz-
abethport
abethpm1 works. In light of these pressures, it is no surprise that the Singer factory in New
Jersey pursued sewing machine production and the refinement of manufacturing processes
with great intensity and with a certain disorder.
Throughout late 1880 and early 1881, a team of Singer mechanics tried to design a
production system for the new oscillating shuttle model. As was common with any new
attachment the company planned to introduce, Singer had given great advanced billing
about the new model to its army of sales agents throughout the United States. The new
machine possessed such attractive features as increased sewing speed, quieter operation,
smoother cloth feed, better stitching, and bobbins that held more thread. Consequently,
sales agents had ordered large numbers of the machines even before the factory was ready
to produce them. When the factory could not get the machine into production, the
executive offices in New York became increasingly concerned.
Faced with other manufacturing problems, L. B. Miller had relied almost exclusively
on the various inside contractors to design the required tools for the oscillating shuttle
machine. At the end of March 1881, for instance, he reported to McKenzie that he had
110 FROM TilE
THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

“just been up to [W. H.l

"just H.] Jackson['s
Jackson[’s shuttle department]
departmentl and looked over the new Shuttles
finished this week, and if they come out all right, he will be ready to go right on with them
way.”“3
in a regular way.'' 113

Concerned that Miller could not handle all the details of factory operations, Vice-
President McKenzie hired Albert D. Pentz to supervise some aspects of the production of
the new model and particularly to set inspection procedures. Pentz had worked in the Mott
Street factory since 1870 and then had been sent to Chicago to head Singer's Singer’s extensive
repair shop there. While in Chicago he had invented several new sewing machine mecha-
nisms, some of which the company adopted for the new oscillating shuttle model. Why
McKenzie chose Pentz to deal with the production of the new model is unclear except that
McKenzie believed strongly in bringing men who had exhibited faithful service up
through the ranks of the company. When Pentz arrived at the New Jersey factory in March
of 1881, he began to institute changes. The time was ripe; Singer president Edward Clark
had told McKenzie, "l “I cannot help feeling impatient to increase the production of the
S.[huttle] machines as there is a loud call for them from our agents,
small O.[scillating] S.fhuttle]
but I suppose it is best not to be in a great hurry lest some mistake should be made.”1"l
made." 114
McKenzie had asked Pentz to give him his general "impressions
“impressions of the status in the
factory” and advice on how its operations might be improved. Both McKenzie and Pentz
factory''
clearly saw the inside contractors as the root of both success and failure. Pentz told
McKenzie that he was "of “of !the]
[the] opinion that you have here, on the whole, a most excelent
[sic] and capable lot of men in the important positions, but there is ... . . . need of consider-
able more of the harmony which, while not being 'mutual ‘mutual admiration,’
admiration,' is a mutual
endeavor to forward the company’s interests.” Hans Reiss, contractor for both the ma-
company's interests."
chining and assembly departments, was, according to Pentz, ''doing “doing all in his ability--
ability——
and his power is great-to
great—to forward the work.''
work.” Yet Pentz believed that Reiss had too much
work to do and should be relieved of one of his departments. Despite "stand[ing)“stand[ing] head
contractors],” Reiss was "irritated
and shoulders above all the rest of [the Singer contractors]," “irritated con-
tinually at the high standard demanded of him, rand] [and] considers all imperfect work which
will not pass inspectors to be thrmvn
thrown out by spite."
spite.” William Inslee, contractor for the
adjustment department, although "a “a good close workman,"
workman,” was guilty of "much “much fault
finding with the work received from Reiss, much of which fault is merely theoretical and
having no practical value."
value.” The contractor for shuttles, W. H. Jackson, impressed Pentz
“as being the Yankee prototype of Mr. Reiss, but his ideas lack in the practical, while
"as
indeed,’ 115
being very ingenious indeed.,' H5 (See Figure 2.26.)
Superintendent L. 8. B. Miller reported weekly to McKenzie about the output and pro·- pro-
gress of the Elizabethport works. On April 5, for example, he wrote that thejapanning
the japanning or
painting department had improved its weekly output to almost 7,000 machines. Reiss's Reiss’s
machining department had exceeded this by 250 machines, but his assembly department
had managed to put together only some 6,000 sewing machines. Other departments had
fallen slightly behind this figure. Of the 6,000 finished machines only 300 were the
Improved Family model. 11 ‘ I66
Miller’s letter indicated little concern about the small number of Improved Family
Miller's
machines produced during the previous week, largely because he had been preoccupied
with the erection of new foundry additions and because he relied upon Pentz to deal with
the new model. Yet faced with increasing pressure from Singer executives to increase
rapidly the production of the new model, Miller began to pay more attention to the
machine and to Pentz. William F. Proctor, the secretary of the company, who had
 The Se11·ing Moclzine
T/ll’ S£’ll'f/lg Mrrrltitze and
(mt! rhe
the Amerirun
/litre/‘tutti System
S_v.rtt*ttt of
of Manufac
Mmitt/'t1r'ttt1'c.r
tures 11 1

>

FIGURE 2.26.
FIGURE 2.26. Caricatur
Caricaturee of aa Yankee
Yankee Inside
Inside Contracto
Contractor, 1880. The
r, 1880. The Yankee
Yankee inside
inside contracto
contractorr was
was
often seen as a cunning, wealthy, well-dressed mechanic who
well-dres sed mechanic who put
put his own interests
his own interests before
before his
his
company
company’s.'s. ([James W. See], Extracts
Extracrsfrom C/rorda/’ss Letters,
from Chordal' Letters, 1880.
1880. Eleutherian Mills Historicall
Eleutheri an Mills Historica
Library.)
112 FROM THE AMERICAN
AMFRICAN SYSTFM
SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

formerly been responsible for the production end of the business, started making regular
visits to the factory to impress upon Miller and others the importance of getting out the
Improved Family.“7
Family. I 17
The factory’s
factory's problems in producing the new machine stemmed largely from its de-
sign. Except for its basic shape, none of its parts or mechanisms resembled the old New
Family machine. The Singer factory had eased into large-scale production of the New
Family over a fifteen-year period, but it was being asked to produce overnight a far more
complex machine that required closer machining work, most of which was different than
that on the New Family. Consequently, much of the problem centered around obtaining
close uniformity. Pentz concentrated his efforts on this problem. Miller reported to
McKenzie that "Mr.“Mr. Pentz has just showed me an l[mproved]I[mproved] F[ F[amiIy]
amily] Machine which he
has followed through Reiss’Reiss' Dept., watching both the machining and the gauging, and
which on the final test proves correct, (absolutely). He says that now the gauges agree
with each other, and the tools are correct, and if we not get good work it is the workman-
ship.” Two days later Pentz proudly announced, "I
ship." “I have been able to reduce the gauges
to such a system that the machines are practically interchangeable, especially the I[m-
proved] F[amily].”
provcd] F[amily ]. " Miller tempered Pentz's Pentz’s optimism, however, by pointing out the
troubles in starting production of the intricate shuttle for the new machine. Only a few had
been made thus far, though he thought that "we “we can simplify the work and reduce the cost
when we get fairly into it.''it.”ll8
I Is

By the middle of April, optimism pervaded the factory. More than seven thousand
machines had been made the week of April 12 I2 to 17. I7. With plenty of castings and
japanning kilns in working order, everyone believed that "there “there is no reason why this
total should not be increased in the next two weeks weeks.. .. .. .. Pentz is getting to work in good
style and his work begins to tell. Altogether, prospects are improving." improving.” Miller cautioned,
however, that "it“it now depends on Reiss['s Reiss[’s assembling department]
departmentl and we are doing all
we can to enable him to get up to 8000 per week, and we think we shall succeed with him,
mayy take a few weeks to accomplish it.”l19
though it rna it. '' 1 1<J
For two weeks, everything at Elizabethpoti
Elizabethport looked rosy to Miller and Pentz. Miller Milkr
wrote McKenzie that he had nothing "to “to report from Factory, except 'progress.'
‘progress.’ The
favorably.. .. .. .. We are getting out Machines quite well we think, and
Building is going on favorably
with prospects of doing still better.”
better." Pentz told the vice-president that "we “we arcare trying to
t;o
produce 8,000 machines as a week’s week's work and we can do it without doubt if the japan-
shop can handle their share of it.'' it.” He added that through his efforts tension between
inside contractors had lessened to such a degree that the weekly meeting of the contractors
with Miller and executive officials had taken on ''some “some of the characteristics of a bear
[beer]
[beer J garden.”‘2O
garden." 120

Although factory officials saw progress, the men from the New York office saw
problems. Sydney Bennett, who handled many of George McKenzie's McKenzie’s affairs, found the
weekly production of six thousand New Family Fam1ly machines and a thousand machines of
other makes "most
“most unsatisfactory"
unsatisfactory” and "miserably
“miserably small."small.” William Proctor’s
Proctor's words
were more balanced. "The “The most unsatisfactory part of our business here at present is at
factory,” he wrote McKenzie. He found it almost impossible to account for the
the factory,''
factory’s "inability
factory's “inability to make the new machine, or even to get the tools right for making
them.” Proctor admitted, ''I
them.'' “I go over there fully determined to blow every body sky high,
and am met with the most plausible excuses possible. They certainly are doing a great
deal, and there is a good deal to do.” do." Although he could not pinpoint the factory''s factory"s
 Sewittg Machine
The Sn1·in!i Mm/titre and the Amerierztz
American System Ma/1trfac'tm‘e.r
Sys1em of Manufactures 113

weakness, Proctor had satisfied himself that ·'Reiss

“Reiss is not now the great bugbear as
formerly. ’ ’ 121
formerly.'' 12‘
When George McKenzie called Pentz and Miller to account for the low production
Elizabethport, both gave good reasons. Pentz maintained, as Proctor suggested,
figures at Elizabethpot1,
that machining and assembly (Reiss's
(Reiss’s departments) were no longer the problems. Rather,
“the Iappanery
"the J appanery is the weak brother in this establishment, we are continually being
checkmated by this department in our efforts to get a respectable weeks work. work . .. .. .. When
the work does not come out of that department, and an investigation is attempted, one is
met by such a flood of excuses, figures, and promises.”
promises." The production expert promised
the vice-president that the factory would turn out weekly between five hundred and eight
hundred Improved Family machines "if “if the present indications are correct."
correct.” Miller
supported Pentz’s “good service"
Pentz's "good service” and noted that "he “he seems to be the right man for the
place.” But rather than cast doubts on the contractor of the japanning department he
place."
recognized the need to construct more japan kilns, "which “which we now need more than any
other one thing to facilitate us in getting out machines, and getting them out so that they
well.” Not until the new foundry was completed could new kilns be built. Until that
look well."
time, even the New York officials realized that "we “we may expect trouble from the kilns
until the new foundry is completed and the kilns changed."
clianged/"22 122

Despite Pentz’s Miller’s opinions about japanning, production problems at Eliz-

Pentz's and Miller's
abethport did not reside in this department alone. As Pentz acknowledged when he wrote
McKenzie on June I that "We “We have succeeded in transferring part of the trouble from the
jappannery to the assembling department ... . . . l[which]
whichj does not seem able to put the shafts
and gears into them [the heads] as fast as needed."
needed.”‘23 123

Even as late at 1881, some fitting and filing were required to put sewing machines
together. Rather than question the precision of work produced at the Singer plant in
general, Pentz blamed the assembly problem on the contractor of the machining and
assembling departments. Pentz regarded Hans Reiss as the "most “most valuable”
valuable" contractor at
the Elizabeth
Elizabethport
port factory yet thought he had "too
“too much to do, and inferior assistance to
help him do it.''it.”l34
124 As events unfolded, McKenzie discovered more fundamental prob-

lems than simply an overworked contractor and faulty japanning kilns. Eventually, he
called into question the entire inspection system used at Elizabethport.
Sydney Bennett, McKenzie’s
McKenzie's assistant, warned his boss about production problems at
the American factory. “The [New]I Family machines is clearly understood at the
''The need for [New
factory,” he wrote McKenzie, and ''it
factory," “it is perfectly clear to me that before there is a new
machine [Improved Family], you will have to go and live down at the factory for a few
months.”
months." Bennett explained why only six Improved Family machines had been made the
previous week. The machining department had miscentered the shuttle race on the entire
week’s production. As Bennett bemoaned, ''The
week's “The factory is full of machines which won’t won't
contractor]l found them doctoring in the old
pass inspection, and Smith [the inspection contractor
fashion way to knock bad work into shape-in
shapc—in some cases opening, and in others closing
race.”l25
the race.'' 125

Pentz saw the matter differently. ''I “I am much bothered,''

bothered,” he wrote McKenzie, ''by “by
having my instructions to inspectors changed.”
changed." The week’s week's production of Improved
Family machines had been ruined, Pentz argued, "for “for the reason that my instructions had
been so changed by a gentleman who is not a mechanic [andJ [and] who frequently strains at an
unworkmanlike gnat and swallows a mechanical camel.'' camel.” The nonmechanic to whom
Pentz alluded was probably Smith, the contractor for the inspection depat1ment,
department, who was
114 THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION
f'ROM Tlelli
FROM

responsible for the final testing of the sewing ability of the machines and for a visual
inspection of the workmanship and ornamentation of Singer products. The problem al-
ways seemed to be the criteria or standards for these inspections. Earlier, Pentz had
appealed to George McKenzie to set the standard for Singer's Singer’s portable hand sewing
machine: "No“No one appears to know just how perfect they should be. II found them
F[amily] standard, and took the liberty to lower that
I[mproved] F[amilyl
inspected up to the JlmprovedJ
standard to a small extent, as the construction of it will not permit of it being so closely
scrutinized.” 1'26
scrutinized.'' 26

Pentz’s best intentions, the inspection standards on the Improved Family

Yet despite Pentz's
had not been determined. In lengthy letters written during June 1881, I881, Pentz painted a
vivid picture of the chaos at the Elizabethport factory resulting from effons efforts to produce
eight thousand machines weekly including the new and more sophisticated model. Pentz
described how his standards for inspection and testing had been changed or ignored by
several of the inside contractors. Even Miller'sMiIler’s orders, made after discussion with Pentz,
had not been precisely followed. As Pentz concluded in one letter to McKenzie, ''The “The
inspectors say that they get [so] jso J many diferent I[sic]
sic J kinds of instructions that they don't
don’t
know what to do.”do.'' Pentz later wrote a letter of grievance against the inspection contractor
Smith for, Pentz charged, consciously deceiving both him and Miller. lVIlllCl'.l27
127

When George McKenzie asked L. B. Miller about the problems with Smith and his
inspection department, the superintendent assured him that ''there “there is no cause for uneasi-
[Smith’s] interference here is concerned. I learned some
ness on your part so far as his [Smith's]
time ago that he was not very practical and I have been obliged to bring him up with a
short turn, and since lthen]
[then] there has been no annoyance from him.” him." Satisfactory produc-
tion reports for the last two weeks in June, coupled with Miller’s Miller's assurances, must have
allayed McKenzie’s
McKenzie's fears, at least temporarily. Nonetheless, Pentz’s Pentz's belief that "it “it is
suicide to make too many changes at once, which tend to rattle the man, or men, who do
the work''
work” must have distressed McKenzie and put him on the lookout for future
problems. '28
12 s

L. B. Miller had insisted that he and the Singer contractors were "pushing “pushing to get out
machines in every way we can think of," of,” and finally on June 28 he proudly reported to the
vice-president that the factory had ''finished
“finished more machines than ever in one week before,
Machines." 129 This dramatic improvement had
and the last 3 weeks a total of 24,347 Machines/"29
occurred, Sydney Bennett believed, because "Miller “Miller has gone into the works more &
done more real pushing than I have ever seen him do before." before.” Pentz, however, pointed
out that ''there
“there is [stillJ
[still] that weakness in the japannery; if we get quantity we lack quality
and vice versa. When the new kilns are done we will then know if the lack of capacity is in
the tools or the man [the japan contractor]."
contractor].” The new kilns verified Miller's
Miller’s belief that
japanning problems resulted from a lack of adequate facilities and put aside the suspicion
that the contractor was at fault. Miller reported to McKenzie that with the new kilns,
finished in early August, "the “the results are entirely satisfactory. We get the work out in half
the time we ever did before ... . . . and it looks better than anything we ever did in the way
of baking japan.
japan . .. .. .. We are no longer weak in japanning.”'3‘l
japanning.'' 130
Despite these production successes, Singer executives still believed that the factory's factory’s
performance in manufacturing the new Improved Family and Improved Manufacturing
machines was a “succession
''succession of errors & setbacks.”
setbacks.'' Delay had become normal to those in
the New York office. One week in July, Elizabethport made only two Improved Family
machines because two parts were lacking and "Pentz's “Pentz’s inspection [was}[was] unusually se-
vere.”
vere.'' Only recently Pentz had assured McKenzie that he was having the new machines
 The SeH·ing
Sewing Machine
fvltzehtne and the American
Ametfctm System
Systetn of Manufactures
Mamtfactures I IS3

“closely inspected”
"closely “through every process and operation."
inspected" and checking them "through operation.” Pentz
took pains to explain, however, that "I
“I expect perfection in no one"
one” and demanded only
what was practically right. I31 Yet the issues of quality control and inspection standards
131

continued unresolved even when McKenzie returned to the United States and attended
weekly production meetings at the Elizabethport
Elizabeth port factory.
Upon his return to New York, McKenzie confessed to President Clark his fear that
“there is something wrong at the Factory,”
"there Factory," which needed his utmost attention. The
president, who could take much of the responsibility for Singer's Singer’s success, admitted to
“sometimes I think we have been trying to do too much business, and that
McKenzie that "sometimes
it is getting to be impossible to manage it.”it.'' Yet Clark assured McKenzie that ''it “it is best to
assume that the long delay in producing the new machines in adequate quantity has been
for the best. Such delays have occurred before in the history of our business. But it is
certain that this delay has been a disappointment to us and to all our agents.''agents.” Assured by
McKenzie, he, too, recognized that ''there “there is no other system by which a large Sewing
Machine business can be carried on with success except our own." own.”‘32
132

The problems caused by trying to expand output of present models as well as beginning
production of a new model continued to plague the Singer Manufacturing Company.
McKenzie’s intercession at the New Jersey factory apparently produced results
George McKenzie's
with the Improved Family but none as encouraging as anyone hoped for. There is no
evidence that McKenzie or Miller ever questioned the basic production processes that had
been adopted or developed at the factory. Certainly McKenzie seems to have accepted
Albert Pentz's
Pentz’s view that production problems arose from inside contractors'
contractors’ performance
rather than from the hardware or the production system. Despite all efforts by Miller and
imprecations by Singer executives, Elizabethport’s
Elizabethport's output continued on a plateau of about
six or seven thousand machines per week until production managers began to institute
major changes in their system of manufacture rather than trading accusations. Some of oi
these changes were made between 1882, when McKenzie succeeded Clark as president,
and 1885, but most occurred after McKenzie retired in 1886. Unfortunately, no historical
record of the changes made after the McKenzie regime exists, and we may only speculate
about their nature. The events before 1886, however, inform these speculations.
Singer’s Elizabethport
Operations at Singer's Elizabeth port factory in 1882 mirror those of 1881 I881 except that
George McKenzie found little time to be concerned with them. Rapidly expanding mar-
kets in Europe had forced the Singer directors to initiate the construction of a bigger
factory in Scotland, and responsibility for locating a site and beginning the building fell to
McKenzie. McKenzie also worked at getting increased production from the hard-pressed
Scottish works, a need he found greater than expanding Elizabethport’s
Elizabethport' s output. At least
for part of the year, Albert Pentz helped McKenzie at the Scottish factory. L. B. Miller, as
usual, repm1ed
reported to McKenzie on the week-to-week events at Elizabethport. The American
superintendent found that in pushing production workmen had occasionally forgotten to
gauge their work. But he assured McKenzie that, once this was discovered, "we “we have
insisted on the machines being made to guage [sic] ... . . . and [shall] see that they are kept
to the guages [sic]."
[sic].”13~°’
133

Vice-president McKenzie reported back to Miller that because he and Pentz had pushed
the Scottish factory so hard to raise its output, some of the contractors ''have “have been using
too soft material. They will have to change to harder material and consequently [will] not
be able to turn out so many machs. altho’ altho' they are working night & & day."
day.” Consequently,
he warned, Elizabethport would have to assume the burden of supplying the increased
European demand. ‘34 134 As he might have anticipated, the American factory failed to meet
[J6 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTIZM
SYSTEM TO MASS
tvlASS PRODUCTION

the challenge. McKenzie lost his patience. "I “I am at a loss,”

loss," he wrote Sydney Bennett.
Bennett,,
“to see how those in charge at [the] Elizabethport
''to Elizabeth port factory do not find out why the japan
should be chipped off the balance wheels, & that band covers should he be l[too]
too I short. There
is always something." McKenzie continued, "'If "If it is not one thing it is another, and as 1I
told you before it is of the greatest importance that the production should be increased.''
increased.”
Inasmuch as Elizabethport had "all“all the facilities at their command,"
command,”'3~"13 ~ McI(enzie
McKenzie could
not understand its failure to meet the demand for increased production,
production. Because he was
then busy locating and purchasing a suitable location for the new European factory, he
deferred a thorough investigation of the problems at Elizabethport.
Elizabethport, But early in 1883 he
began to instigate major changes at the great American factory.
Perhaps the most important change wrought by McKenzie was in appointing Edwin
Howard Bennett as assistant superintendent to L. B, B. Miller. For a long time McKenzie
and other Singer executives had realized that Miller was overworked, and Bennett's Bennett’s
appointment made a decided difference in certain aspects of the factory's
factory’s history. Bennett
had worked for Singer since 1861, when he began as an assistant to his father, a mechanic
in the factory. Until 1883, he had worked chiefly as Singer's Singer’s steam engineer and as its
millwright; in addition, after 1879 he had been in charge of boiler construction for
Babcock & & Wilcox, a company owned by Singer. Singer.l3°
136 As had Pentz’s, Bennett’s efforts
Pentz's, Bennett's
showed up principally in matters of precision, inspection, and standards. Either because
contribution than Pentz, who
of his personality or his ability, however, he made a greater contributiOn
was still working at the factory,
factory. McKenzie met on several occasions in March 1883 I883 with
Miller, Bennett, Pentz, and Philip Diehl to attack some of the deep-seated problems of the
Singer production system.
system, 1137
37

On March 27, 1883, the Singer factory experts and President McKenzie made a
resolution, which, if fulfilled, would effect a radical change in production methods,
methods. For
about ten years the factory had been moving toward this change, and a careful observer
might have predicted it. But the manner in which the resolution was adopted betrays
elements of discontinuity—of “Decided that each piece commenced
discontinuity--of a break with the past: "Decided
in a department shall be finished there to guage [sic] ready for assembling and no part
shall be made in the department where it is assembled into the machine.”l3*‘
machine.'' 138
As we have seen, Singer's
Singer’s production process had emerged as a compromise, or blend,
between European custom-building techniques and the American system of manufactur-
ing. As late as 1883, some parts of Singer sewing machines apparently were being made
ing,
and custom-fitted in the rooms where they were supposed to be "assembled,"
“assembled.” Chapter l
stressed the importance for the development of the American system of the War Depart-
ment’s decision to have arms constructed with interchangeable parts. To be sure, certain
ment's
technical constraints existed, but but the key decision was an administrative one,
one. With Singer
in 1883, when the company made perhaps six hundred thousand sewing machines, an
administrative decision shaped the company's
company’s production system so that it could, in the
sense that Henry Ford used the expression, "mass-produce"
“mass-produce” sewing machines,
machines. No longer
would McKenzie and Miller allow parts to be made and fitted in the assembling depart-
ment; now every part would be made to gauge in the machining department and then
assembled in an entirely different location.
McKenzie and his experts subsequently developed other policies to raise and maintain
the quality of product
product. The president ordered Pentz ''to
“to examine some needles in every lot
in every respect as to size, straightness, quality, temper, etc.”
etc." The production committee
also decided
decided that "the
“the shafts
shafts and
and boring shall
shall be
be examined
examined by by the Company's
Company’s Inspec-
Inspec-
tor .. ,. .. after they leave the machining room and before they enter the assembling
 Sewing /vi
The Snring Mt/(‘lune
achille and the
rhc Amet'z'r'tm System of'
Amcricon S)'stem Q/‘Ma12tt/'aetttres
Manl.ljc!Ourcs 117

[room].” This policy in particular would ease assembly problems. In order to ensure
[room]."
uniformity in the quality of the materials, the company resolved that immediately after
each steel delivery, the stock was ''to“to be thoroughly tested ... . . . by finishing a few pieces
from each lot.''
lot.” To document decisions or problems at the factory, Singer executives
demanded that minutes be taken or of the weekly contractors'
contractors’ meetings with the superinten-
dent. And, near the end of 1883, Miller and McKenzie decided to create a gauge depart-
ment, which would be responsible for the production and maintenance of gauges used
throughout the factory. Philip Diehl was assigned responsibility for the department's department’s
department. Singer moved toward a rigid gauging
organization. With the creation of this department,
system.'39
system. 139

The changes instituted by the Singer company occurred at a propitious moment in its
history. In 1883 Singer opened a small factory in Montreal, Canada (to make three three
hundred machines per week), and prepared for the opening of the new works in Scotland
(planned to produce eight thousand sewing machines per week). Events during the years
between 1883 and 1886, when most of the problems were being worked out at both
factories, reveal how seriously the production experts in Elizabethport had taken their
resolutions of 1883 and how intensely they pursued precision and systematization. They
also reveal the perennial problem of deciding what was good enough and what was too
good, which is perhaps best seen in the company's
company’s attempt to set up the Montreal factory.
Planning began early in 1883. At the end of March, McKenzie expressed to Miller his
“the fitting of this factory I[be]
desire that "the be j pushed more."
more.” Not surprisingly, he decided to
send Albert Pentz to Montreal to help set up the factory and initiate production. McKenzie
also discussed with Miller possible candidates to superintend the Canadian factory. Al-
though Miller recommended Frederick Lander, McKenzie hand-picked George Leach for
the job.“l"’
job. 140
After several weeks in Montreal, Pentz reported his progress to McKenzie. He stressed
that although the power system had been put in working order, much work remained to be
done. Most important, he said, "Ejlizabcth
“Ellizabeth]port
]port must huny
hurry the remainder of the tools as
many of them are connecting links; to lack one is to want all." all. For some unknown reason,
Pentz returned to New Jersey before the Montreal factory had begun production, having
stayed in Canada perhaps two months. On July 25, 1883, a month after Pentz had
returned, Miller reported to McKenzie that he had received a message from Montreal:
“Ten (I0)
"Ten (I 0) N[ew]
N[ew j F[amily] machines ready to sew off, find many small points to correct." correct.”
Miller added that this was not "a “a very encouraging report either as to quantity or quality,
and is very indefinite as to when we shall have finished Machines ready to send out." out.”
With McI<.enzie‘s
McKenzie's approval, Frederick Lander, Miller’sMiller's original choice, replaced Leach as
superintendent of the Montreal works. According to Miller, the main trouble at the
“imperfectly machined"
Canadian factory was "imperfectly machined” parts, difficult to understand since Eliz-
abethport had supplied the machine tools, special tools, fixtures, jigs, and gauges. 141 14' As
the new superintendent, Lander neither improved the machining on the New Family nor
significantly increased production. The company gave him almost a year to straighten out
the factory before asking for his resignation.
Lander’s
Lander's work at Montreal proved to be a comedy of of e1mrs
errors which
which illustrates
illustrates the
the
complexity of production of armory practice and underscores some some of
of the
the demands
demands on on
those who used it. By February 1884, McKenzie and Miller, concerned about the small
and poor-quality output of the Canadian factory, visited it. Maintaining some faith in
Lander’s abilities, they allowed him to return to the Elizabethport factory “and
Lander's "and spend a
few days in posting himself as to the details of the I.F.” I. F.'' When he left the great American
118 SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION
TilE AMERICAN SYSTEcv!
FROM THE’

factory he believed that "he

“he had it all, and went back with entire confidence in himself."
himself.”
Yet when E. H. Bennett investigated Lander's
Lander’s performance in mid-May 1884, he found
his work "anything flattering." L. B. Miller reported to McKenzie some of the
“anything but flattering.”
problems Bennett had discovered in Canada. Although Lander had complained to
McKenzie that the Montreal factory had not been sent gauges from Elizabethport, Bennett
“found that some of the gauges he had received he had never used, and some that he
''found
admitted having received were lost, and could not be found." Bennett's and
found.” To both Bennett’s
Miller’s amazement, "one
Miller's “one of the very important fixtures for setting the arm and table
correctly together, and which we would not think of trying to get along without, he had
put aside as “too slow.’ ''
''too slow.' pomt out to McKenzie that he had ·'labored
” Miller hastened to point “labored
to impress [Lander] with the idea that it was all important to have the machining clone done
accurately, and so make a large saving in the finishing, but it all seems to no avail." avail.”‘42
142

Though acknowledging that Bennett had given him "a over," Lander
“a severe raking over,”
defended his action concerning the gauges. He claimed that the jigs, fixtures, and gauges
sent from Elizabethport had not been made at the same time and were "never “never properly
tested.” He found them ·'so
tested.'' “so far out that no two of them correspond."
correspond.'' Lander blamed
Elizabethport for never having sent a model with which to check these devices. E. 1-1. H.
Bennett held a different view: ''The “The ignorance of the people there as to the requirements
of machines and their uses, is something to be wondered at.” at." Even though he thought
production and quality would pick up only after Lander was relieved of his duties, Bennett
gave him three weeks to shape up. By July, Bennett's Bennett’s opinion had changed little. He
wrote the president that Lander was "of “of no earthly use to us ... . . . [and had]
hadj no ability
either as a mechanic or manager/"43
manager.'' 14 3
Diehl’s brothers replaced Lander at Montreal. Bennett promised
One of Philip Diehl's
McKenzie that the factory was ''now “now getting into much better shape and after it is once
trouble." While Bennett was in Montreal in July, he
revised you will have no further trouble.”
initiated a piecework system throughout the factory. Evidently, McKenzie feared that
such a system would destroy the quality of the Singer product. Bennett assured him that
with other changes he had made and with piecework, "I “l expect it to excel!
excell the work made
gauge—making less hand
E[lizabeth]port-that is that it shall be machined closer to gauge--making
at E[lizabeth]port—that
work.” ‘44 Although not all the problems of manufacture
work.'' 144 in Montreal were eliminated by
Bennett and Diehl, the former was able in mid-1885 to report "matters “matters at the factory
progressing favorably in all respects.”““5
respects.'' 145 Few problems would crop up which demanded
the president’s factory's performance satisfied the Singer execu-
president's attention. The Montreal factory’s
tive’s
tive's objectives.
This seemingly trivial episode illustrates the profound changes that had taken place in i.n
manufacturing technology at the Elizabethport works. Perhaps as late as 1880 or 1881,
i881,
Singer executives, particularly
patticularly McKenzie and Miller, would probably have tolerated the
situation in MontreaL
Montreal. But the changes to which the Singer production experts had com- coni-
mitted themselves in 1883 made it impossible for them to accept such cut-and-try meth-
ods. Accuracy, system, and efficiency had become important watchwords, words which
had gained currency by the nature of the technology they had chosen to use and develop at
the Elizabethport Bennett~—and no doubt others—clearly
Elizabeth port factory. Bennett-and others--clearly recognized the inherent
demands of this technology, and he scorned those who would not, or could not, recognize
and meet those demands.
A paradox remains about the changes in production technology made at Singer be-
tween l883
t 883 and 1886. Problems of quality and quantity persisted; the standard of Singer
 Sewing Mochinc
The Snving Mat"/tine and the Amerir'an 0fMcz1mfuc.‘mre.<;
American System of Manujc1cturcs 119

products vacillated; and output of the Elizabethport factory dropped well below 1881 and
i882 figures. 146
1882 '46 Maintenance of quality and quantity was part of the "manufacturer's
“manufacturer’s
condition,”
condition,'' a result of the nature of the armory system of manufacture and its inherent
demands. The manufacturer was obliged to maintain a constant vigil over tools and
workmen. Success depended upon how well the manufacturer had systematized or man-
aged this vigil. As a writer in American Machinist pointed out in 1884, I884, "Those
“Those very
appliances, which are supposed by some to insure perfect work must be use(1'_jus‘z‘
used just right,
and to adopt their use is not to relieve superintendents and foremen from care, but to
impose upon them new burdens in constantly keeping all hands up to their duties." duties.”147
147

Singer production experts, pushed by McKenzie, focused their efforts on organizing or on

systematizing the plant and the men in it. It is important to recognize their new but abiding
faith in the hardware of the armory system-in
system—in their automatic and semiautomatic rna- ma-
chine tools, their jigs, fixtures, and gauges-and
gauges»-and their belief that the success of their
manufacturing operations depended almost wholly on the human dimensions of this
system.
The Montreal factory experience had clearly demonstrated this change in their think-
ing. E. H. Bennett precisely articulated this view in his reflections on the status of the
Elizabethport
Elizabeth port factory in mid-1884. "I “I am more convinced than ever," ever,” he wrote
“that the best results from this [Improved Family] machine can only be
McKenzie, '·that
obtained by close workmanship and the application of tools with the least possible amount
of hand labor in their production. To accomplish this result, II believe will require the
services of a thorough practacle lsic
[sic]j mechanic to superintend the inspection of all opera-
gauges.” Bennett added that the position he had in mind “would
tions, parts, and gauges.'' ''would be very
similar to the one now held by Mr. Pentz, only we want less science and more practice.'·
practice."
Moreover, insisted Bennett, "No “No changes of model or gauge points should be allowed
except in committee of the whole, where a complete record should be kept, all changes
and reason for such and a free exchange had between both lEiizabcthport
[Elizabethport and Scotland]
Factories.”1"'8
Factories." 148 Machines, tools, and gauges were essential, but it was people—-the
people-the right
people——who
people-who through skill, knowledge, and the exchange of critical information bound
these together into a workable, productive system of manufacture.
Bennett seemed to ignore the question of how good the Improved Family sewing
machine had to be and who would determine this standard. Perhaps he felt that the matter
had been settled, but A. D. Pentz thought that they were "no “no further ahead than we were
two years ago”
ago'' in determining standards of quality. He wrote McKenzie that he had
“been able to hold successfully the middle course, so frequently urged upon me by
"been
yourself, between exacting superiors who demanded impractibillities [sic] and hurried
inferiority.” 149
subordinates who offered inferiority." 149 The Singer Manufacturing Company executives
and production expe11s
experts battled annually, if not weekly, to place their product somewhere
on the vast scale between perfection and inferiority. McKenzie could look back at Edward
Clark’s advice to William Proctor in 1855 always to "have
Clark's “have the best machine," but this
counsel appeared ambiguous at best. The success or failure of the product in the mar-
ketplace always seemed the final test. Singer's
Singer’s obvious success there throughout the latter
part of the nineteenth century indicates that, even if perennially unsure about ''how “how good
is good enough,"
enough,” Singer usually made the correct judgment (or guess). In in this sense,
Singer had mastered the finer, nontechnical aspects of the American system of
manufactures.
The company also succeeded in some of the technical aspects of this system. What it
!20 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

often lacked in precision and uniformity, it gained in productivity-in

productivity—in sheer quantity of
output. Despite a drop in the weekly output of sewing machines between 1881-82 l88l~82 and
I885, L. B. Miller proudly recognized that his factory had made important strides in real
1885,
productivity. He reported in 1885 that "by “by the addition of machines [at Elizabeth
Elizabethport]
port] the
same number of employees will produce double the number of mchs. they would ten years
ago.” 150
ago." 150 Even matters of precision improved at Singer. President McKenzie relied more
and more on Bennett's
Bennett’s judgment rather than that of Pentz. He became the "thorough“thorough
practical” mechanic he had prescribed in 1884. The year that Bennett’s
practical" Bennett's role becomes
apparent—l883—also marks the end of an old and the beginning of a new era at Singer.
apparent-1883-also
Its production experts, Miller and Bennett in particular, ended their isolation from the
American technical community by joining the American Society of Mechanical En-
gineers. 151
‘5‘ Since its creation, the company had been secretive about its internal workings,
so this participation in professionalism seems noteworthy.
More important, Singer ended the inside contracting system at its Elizabethport works
this same year. Whenever quantity or quality of production sagged, Singer officials and
some of its production experts questioned this system of manufacturing management. in ln
all of their reforms during this period Singer officials sought increased control over the
production processes. Elimination of inside contracting and the establishment of "fixed “fixed
day pay foremen”
foremen" provided this desired control, especially in the realm of gaining
information on real costs of operations and maintaining the quality of the Singer
'52
product. 152
Edwin H. Bennett's
Bennett’s contributions to Singer production technology after 1883 I883 had
become apparent by 1886. I886. During that year he traveled to Scotland to investigate Singer's
Singer’s
new Kilbowie factory (opened in 1884) I884) and to encourage greater procedural uniformity
between the Kilbowie and Elizabethport factories. Bennett took the models and gauges, as
well as parts, from the Elizabethport works and carefully compared them to those made at
Kilbowie. With few exceptions he found close agreement. The production expert had also
written a blue book for the Elizabethport factory which delineated all of the machining
operations and work-flow routes for the Improved Family sewing machine. Bennett’s Bennett's blue
book also specified inspection procedures and limits of precision. In sum, it codified
Singer factory production operations for the first time in the company's
company’s history, and it
clear——implicitly, at least-that
made clear-implicitly, least—that control over these operations had been assumed by
Singer factory managers.
The Kilbowie factory received a copy of the Singer blue book. Bennett told the
Kilbowie managers that he did not expect the Scottish factory to follow the Elizabethport
book
hook absolutely, but deviation could be justified only if ''the “the work can be done cheaper
and more efficiently.”
efficiently." Elizabethport
Elizabcthport officials expected these changes to be noted in the
In procedures of inspection Bennett found variation between the two factories. At
book. ln
Elizabethport, company employees inspected parts of the Improved Family between the
numerous operations, whereas in Scotland departmental inspectors (working for the con- cori-
tractors) checked them when finished. Bennett insisted that Kilbowie follow Eliz-
abethport’s practice. Finally, Bennett’s
abethport's Bennett's long-sought improvements were reflected in his
demand to Kilbowie managers ''that “that the supply of reamers & files to workmen are [sic] to
be kept short as much as possible as in the case of presser [footl[foot] bar brackets, these were
being filed which ought not to have been done. ' ’ 153
done.'' 153 Bennett summed up his opinion ofthe
of the
Kilbowie works, which had been "arranged
“arranged somewhat in the same way as the Company's
Company’s
chief Factory at Elizabethport,”
Elizabethport,'' and which George McKenzie had helped organize: “The ''The
 The Sewing
Se1ving Machine and the American
Americon System of'
0_/'Manu}"acrures
Manuj(zctures 121

Factory and its situation is simply grand & & I have no fear of contradiction when I say it is
the largest, best equipped, & most complete factory—with proper
in the world. This factory-with
tools, its advantages in Labor & Material 1-J [—] will produce the I. F. Machine at a price
which will be a greater percentage of difference from E’poi“t casein
E'port than has even been the c:ase in
the N. Family."
Family.”'54
154

Yet, perhaps because of Bennett’s

Bennett's wish for more practicality and less science, man-
ufacturing technology at Singer remained more of an art than a science. Bennett, Miller,
Pentz, McKenzie, and others had created a rigidly bureaucratic procedure for producing
sewing machines (a departmental structure with oversight mechanisms such as the gauge
and inspection departments, all of which were governed by the writ of a blue book), but
they failed to develop a science of manufacturing. The best indication of this lack is in the
design of their gauging system. The system neither eliminated human judgment (and
therefore human error) nor adequately defined and controlled quality. As late as 1886
Singer’s gauges were absolute gauges; they defined the dimensions of the model sewing
Singer's
machine rather than the limits of acceptable variation from the model's
model’s dimensions. With
''limits of size must be given to the inspectors as it
such a system, Singer experts realized, “limits
is impossible to be absolutely correct to gauges.'' ‘55 Therefore, the work of the inspectors
gauges.” 155
consisted of measuring rather than gauging. Likewise, workmen on machine tools must
have been forced to measure rather than rely on the indisputable judgment of a go no-go
gauge. Had the company used a rational gauging system, some of the questions of quality
company’s viewpoint, howev-
that plagued the factory might have been settled. From the company's
er, it was easier to tell inspectors about changes in acceptable limits of variation than to
scrap a set of gauges with one set of limits and replace them by a new set with different
limits. One can speculate that the greatest change or improvement in manufacturing made
at Singer after 1886 was in the system of gauging, more specifically in the adoption of
limit gauges.

As we have seen, the sewing machine industry was born in the context of technical
choice. Three sewing machine manufacturers, Wheeler and Wilson, Brown & Sharpe (for
the Willcox & Gibbs sewing machine), and Singer responded to the demands of sewing
machine manufacture in different ways. Both Singer and Wheeler and Wilson began
'·manufacturing" machines, whereas Brown & Sharpe immedi-
“building” rather than “manufacturing”
"building"
ately constructed special tools and other devices for the manufacture of the Willcox &
Gibbs machine. After a few years of production, Wheeler and Wilson completely adopted
the armory system of production and soon claimed to manufacture sewing machines with
interchangeable parts. Brown & Sharpe’s experience with sewing machine production led
& Sharpe's
the firm to the manufacture of machine tools, a business that soon outweighed the making
of the Willcox && Gibbs sewing machine. For a long time, Singer's
Singer’s production technol-
ogy——basically a European, skilled
ogy-basically machinist approach-—remained unchanged. Although
approach-remained
perhaps surprising in the American economic context, Singer survived with this mode of
production. In the early years, Wheeler and Wilson outsold Singer. While Wheeler and
Wilson was busy perfecting a manufacturing plant, Singer laid out a worldwide marketing
strategy, which when finely honed ensured that consumers would want its products.
Singer executives, many of whom had begun their work at the bench, paid little attention
to the manufacturing end of the business until its skilled workmen, under pressure to
produce increasing quantities of machines, could no longer turn out enough or good
enough sewing machines. During the 1860s
18605 the company changed its production technol-
122 FROM THE AMER!Ci\N
AMERICAN SYSTEM
SYSTlil\/I TO f\1ASS
MASS PRODUCTION

ogy, but not completely. L. B. Miller gradually introduced the most important element of
the American system: special-purpose machinery. The Singer factory was a compromise
between two worlds of production techniques, those of Europe and those of America. The
company continued to thrive.
When the Singer factory at Elizabethport,
Elizabcthport, New Jersey, opened in 1873, according to
one account, the company fully adopted the American system of manufacturing all parts
by special machinery, thereby achieving uniformity if not interchangeability. The com-
pany still relied extensively on an army of fitters to file parts so that they might go together
to form a workable sewing machine. With this system, as with the purely European a.nd and
the mixed approaches, the company continued to turn out a high-grade, albeit expensive
sewing machine, which dominated the market and whose name became a generic name
for any sewing machine.
In 1876, the last year of the sewing machine combination, Singer sold more than
262,000 machines compared to Wheeler and Wilson's Wilson’s 109,000 and Willcox & & Gibbs's
Gibbs’s
13,000. Singer’s “peacefully working to conquer the world”
Singer's army of agents continued "peacefully world"
with the Singer machine. 156'5“ By 1881 sales had reached well over half a million sewing
machines, and it had become apparent that some important changes were needed at the
factory. To be sure, the company had built special machine tools, special tools, jigs,
gauges,and had purchased other machine tools, including automatic screw
fixtures, and gaugcs,and
machines, from New England machine tool builders such as Brown & Sharpe and Pratt & &
Whitney. But the company was feeling the pressures of mass consumption to an extent extent:
unknown to most American manufacturers of that time. A technological imperative arose
which demanded that Singer bureaucratize its factory, laying out strict procedures and
creating a task force to maintain a vigil over precision. Factory experts strove in earnest to
achieve that elusive goal of absolute interchangeability, a goal that had suddenly become a
criterion of mass production. In the period covered by this chapter, Singer never achieved
"supply of reamers &
this goal, yet it reached a point where it could keep the ''supply & files to
workmen ... . . . short as much as possible.”
possible.''
The historian may quibble with definitions of mass production—whether
production-whether it is a doc·-
cloc-
trine, a business philosophy, a large production output, or a technological system-but
system—but by
1881 or 1882, the American system as practiced at Singer had reached its limits. Perfect
interchangeability of parts, whose pursuit had shaped the approach and much of the
hardware in small arms factories in the antebellum period (and which had been sought for
entirely different reasons), had now become critical for mass production. A doctrine, a
business philosophy, a large production output, and a technological system; mass produc--
tion is all of these bound together. Not until the early 1880s for the sewing machine
industry and Singer in particular does the concept take on any real meaning. Henry Ford’s Ford's
criterion that "in“in mass production there are no fitters"
fitters” haunts the Singer company’s
company's
history between 1850 and 1885 and leaves that history very much unfinished. This is
because Singer itself, despite its gradual adoption of armory practice, left mass production
unfinished. The bicycle and automobile industries, with the help of the machine tool
industry, would complete what the firearms and sewing machine makers had begun.
Yet in another important respect, the sewing machine industry~-particularly
industry-particularly the Singer
Manufacturing Company-pointed
Company—pointed the way to innovation in mass production. Unlike the
other cases examined in this study, this involved the manipulation of wood, not metal.
The Singer company's
company’s manufacture of cabinets and tables for its sewing machine demon-
strated that such furniture could be produced on a large scale, but the furniture industry
 The Sewing Machine and the Americmi
American System of Manuj(lctures
0fMamifactures 123

did not follow. British technical tourists, including Joseph Whitworth and John Anderson,
had especially hailed American woodworking technology, but the American furniture
industry had remained composed of comparatively small production units. Whatever the
constraints on companies in the furniture industry, they were not constraints inherent in
the production technology, as the case of Singer's
Singer’s woodworking operation clearly shows.
CHAPTER 3

Mass Production in
American Woodworking
Industries: A Case Study
Iii
In no bI‘c1l‘1(‘/I manufacture does the application of labour-saving
branch of maiiufacture machinery produce by simple
labour‘-.tai'iiig itltlt“/2r"!'Z€f’_\‘
means more important
importrmt i"e.s'u/ts
results than in the u'or/ting
working o{0f1t'()()61.
wood.
floscph Whitworth,
-Joseph Report (1854)
Whitworth. Special Repou (I854)

1'In12 those districts

di.rtrict.r of ofAmerie(i
of' the United States of of'
rhe working of
America that the Committee have visited the
wood machinery ill
1vood by hiacltineijv in almost eveiji‘ iiidttstijti, is all but miiversa/.
everY branch of indusrrv, hut universal.
-‘Report of the Cmmnirtee
--Report of' Committee on the Mac/iiizery States of
Machinen of the United Stares ofA/nerica 1855)
America ((1855)

hen Joseph Whitworth toured the industrial areas of the United States in
M
• ••••••185 3 , he was deeply impressed by America's
1853, America’s bent toward all types of
metal working machines in American
labor-saving machinery. He found many ingenious metalworking
shops, yet he noted carefully that on the whole the American machines were tlimsy flimsy
compared to those made in England. Woodworking machinery was another matter. When
in 1854 the parliamentary Select Committee on Small Arms called Whitworth to testity
manufacturing. one member asked him specifically about woodworking:
about American manufacturing,
"Altogether in America, you were more struck with the mode of working the wood than
··Altogether
“Much more; they are not equal to
iron'!'' Whitworth replied, ·'Much
their mode of working the iron?”
iron.“ Visiting many of the same American establishments Whit-
us in the working of iron." 1

worth had toured, John Anderson, British ordnance inspector of machinery, was equally
impressed with American woodworking technology. Anderson included lengthy descrip-
tions of woodworking machines and their operations in his Report of' of the Committee on the
Machinery of
Mac’/iiiiery of' the United America. 2 Americans could pride themselves on the
U/zitecl States of A/neri'cci.3
Anderson's committee had decided American gunstocking machinery was
knowledge that Anderson’s
indispensable for its new smansmall arms plant at Enfield. Not only did the committee buy a
complete battery of gun stocking machinery. it hired an American mechanic to set up and
gunstocking
manage it in England. Once in operation, Anderson told his countrymen that this wood-
machinery-above all the American machinery in England-—was
working machinery~above England-was "a “a positive
Figure 3.1.)
nation. " 3 (See figure
addition to the mechanical resources of the nation.“
Yet less than seventy years later, when Henry Ford was demonstrating to the world the
full effect of mass production, a segment of the American mechanical engineering com- coin-
munity began to declare the woodworking industries out of date. Writing in Mechanical

125
126 !-'ROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS
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Jv!ASS PRODUCTl().\l

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FIGURE
FrGURE 3.1.
3.1 Machinery, Enfield Arsenal, 1857. Acting for the British
American Woodworking Machinery.
i854 with Cyrus Buckland of
Ordnance Department, John Anderson contracted in 1854 the Springfield
of the Springfield
ArsenaL
Armory for Buckland to design and build gunstocking machinery for the new Enfield Arsenal.
l857. A Blanchard-type copying lathe is illustrated here. (1
which began operations in 1857. llustrated
(1llustrai‘ea’
London News, September 21, 1861. Eleutherian Mills Historical Library.)

Engineering in 1920, Thomas Perry, manager of a Michigan veneer works, noted that
“woodworking, one of the oldest civilized trades, is now one of the largest industries in
"woodworking,
the United States. It is doubtful whether any group of modern manufactures gives evi- evi~
dence of less scientific knowledge of its products. "”44 Another mechanical engineer, B. A.
Parks, echoed this sentiment a year later when he wrote, “The "The woodworking industry is
one of the oldest industries extant, and yet it has shown the least development and has
been the slowest to adopt modern principles of manufacturing of any industry of which the
writer has knowledge. "’ ’55 Other engineers reiterated Perry's Parks’s belief that Ameri-
Perry’s and Parks's Ame/ri-~
can woodworking was devoid of scientific engineering knowledge. To rectify this prob-
lem, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers established in 1925 a Wood Indus--- Indus-
tries Division, which was intended to focus mechanical engineers'
engineers’ attention on all aspects
of woodworking technology?
technology. 6
These sharply contrasting views of American woodworking technology demand expla· expla-
l850s accurate, and if so, how
nation. Were the assessments of the British visitors of the 1850s
can the criticisms of the mechanical engineers be explained? Could one argue that the
 Mass Production in Woodworking Industries 127

British were too sanguine or that the mechanical engineers of the twentieth century were
too caught up in the rhetoric and ideology of efficiency and the movement to eliminate elirninate
waste?
Unfortunately,
Unfmtunately, despite its importance in the history of American technology, indeed in
the history of American material culture, mechanized woodworking has received little
attention. Relying upon the Whitworth and Anderson reports, Nathan Rosenberg argued
that America's
America’s rich endowment of timber helps to explain its ''rise “rise to woodworking
leadership”
leadership" in the period from 1800 to 1850. Polly Earl has suggested that much Ameri-
can woodworking machinery was not as capital-intensive as has been commonly pre-
sumed. Often machines were hand-powered, simple, and inexpensive, if not completely
jerry-built. Edward Duggan has suggested that in Cincinnati, manufacturers adopted
“labor-saving” machinery to minimize production time (or
woodworking and other "labor-saving"
maximize output) rather than strictly dispense with skilled labor.labor.77 Other historians have
written on specific woodworking companies or locales, but none has dealt extensively
with production itself, and certainly none has sensed the urgency of problems in wood-
working expressed by mechanical engineers in the 1920s.
Aifred D. Chandler’s
Alfred Chandler's Pulitzer Prize-winning Visible Hand perhaps offers the most
broadly based explanation for why woodworking, despite its antebellum development,
may not have kept pace with other American industries in the second half of the nineteenth
century and the first two decades of the twentieth. Chandler argues that by the Civil War
most woodworking industries had substituted machines for hand operations, and given the
nature of this "non-heat-using"
“non-heat-using” industry, throughput thereafter could be increased only,
for the most part, by adding more men and machines but without increasing productivity.
These characteristics, therefore, imposed limits on the size of woodworking firms and on
their individual output. There were no advantages to having a massive woodworking
factory because its unit costs would not be significantly lower than those of a much
firm?8
smaller firm.
Chandler’s interpretation of the woodworking industry, it is difficult to speak of
Given Chandler's
the ''mass furniture'' or the ''mass
“mass production of furniture” production'' of most wooden consumer
“mass production”
durables in the nineteenth century because the firms were smaller and their output severely
limited relative to metalworking firms. Because of the very nature of working wood,
Chandler implies, there could be no Henry Ford of furniture. By taking another look at the
woodworking industries in the period l850- l930, particularly in light of new manuscript
I 850-1930,
evidence, however, more can be learned about mass production and the material culture of
America.
This chapter examines woodworking in the second half of the nineteenth century
principally by means of a case study, the manufacture of sewing machine cabinets. To
connoisseurs of fine Victorian furniture, it may seem presumptuous if not preposterous to
regard sewing machine cabinets as furniture. But historians interested in pursuing a
broadly conceived study of American material culture should consider sewing machine
cabinets as part of the Victorian furnishings of American homes, if for no other reason
than that the manufacturers of these cabinets regarded their products as furniture and sold
such.99 (See Figure 3.2.)
them as such.
An important recent study by Michael J. “Technological Innovation and
J . Ettema, ''Technological
Design Economics in American Furniture Manufacture of the Nineteenth Century,'' Century,”
suggests that the extent of mechanization in woodworking was indirectly proportional to the
“high—end furni-
price of furniture. High-priced Victorian furniture, or what Ettema calls ''high-end
ture," possessed ornamentation too elaborate for machinery to produce. Yet this high-
ture,”
128 FROM TI-lE
THE AMERICAN SYSTEIVI
SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTlO.\'
PRODUCTIO"'\

\
“__.
“'!'i,:};‘mT

<
,

F1-SURE
FIGURE 3.2.
3.2. Wooden Sewing Machine Cabinet Made by the Wilson Sewing Machine Company,
l8"/6. This is a notable example of a sewing machine cabinet marketed as fine Victorian parlor
1876.
furniture. (Treasure.\
(Treasure.s' ofArt,
ofAr1‘, Industry and Manufacture
Manufacltrre Represented
Represented’ at the International
Irzlernatiortal Exhibition,
E.r/zilaition,
1876, l877. lnstitution Neg. No. 76-1241.)
1877. Smithsonian Institution 76-1 241 .)

low-end pieces. Since

end, high-style furniture provided models for middle-range and lowcend
machinery could not exactly reproduce these high-style objects, producers simplified
designs while trying to preserve an impression of high style. As Ettema argues, "A “A desire
to emulate makes high style artifacts models for the entire scale. The less expensive
objects are not naive imitations of inferior quality, they are less labor and material
intensive, and therefore are simplified objects designed in the same style."
style.”'°
10 The use of
of
machinery increased as producers moved from the middle range to the low end.
ln price and style, sewing machine cabinets can be regarded mainly as "low-end"
In “low-end”
furniture. It is therefore not surprising that producers of these cabinets such as Wheeler
and Wilson and especially Singer Manufacturing Company resorted to the extensive
 Mass Production in Woodworking Industries 129

mechanization of manufacturing processes. Furthermore, these firms came to employ

“heat-using” methods of production. The extent of this mechanization and the way it was
"heat-using"
carried out present a history that raises a number of questions about how representative the
woodworking operations of the sewing machine industry were, why furniture manufactur-
ers did not follow its lead, and what role the market and consumer preferences have
played in the size, organization, and operation of the furniture industry. This chapter does
not pretend to answer all of these questions, but it identifies some of them in the hope that
future scholarship will
wiJJ address them more fully.

Woodworking at the Beginning of the Sewing

Machine Industry
By the time of the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1853 a wide variety of
woodworking machinery was available in the United States. (See Figure 3.3 3.3.).) At least two
of the exhibitors at the Crystal Palace would become major manufacturers of woodwork-
ing machinery throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. 11 ll Those who toured
Crystal Palace had a chance to see what can be termed "standard"
“standard” woodworking ma-
chines including circular cutoff saws, scrollsaws, simple turner’s
turner's lathes, planing ma-
chines, tenoning machines, mortising machines, boring machines, dovetailing machines,
and a variety of related woodworking machines. (The history, operation, and capability of
these standard woodworking machines have been treated elsewhere and need not be
here.‘2)
discussed here. 12 ) ln
In addition to standard woodworking machines, visitors received the
very slightest glimpse of special-purpose woodworking machines. Machines were exhib-
ited, for example, for turning, boring, and mortising wagon hubs; for dressing barrel
staves; and for making felloes of wagon wheels. 13‘ 3 Yet as Joseph Whitworth learned while
he was a British commissioner to the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition, it was impossi-
ble to gather from the exhibition itself the extent to which American manufacturers had
mechanized woodworking.
Whitworth toured many of the manufacturing districts of the United States and wit-
nessed the application of woodworking machinery ''to “to every possible purpose.''
purpose. ’ ’ 14
14 Every-
where, he and the Anderson Committee on Machinery of the United States that followed
his footsteps noted specialized woodworking machines in operation. 15 15 Nowhere was this
tendency better exemplified than in the gunstocking operations at the Springfield Armory,
which were discussed in Chapter 11.. These stocking machines were not manufactured by
the woodworking machinery industry. Like most of the special-purpose machinery stud-
ied by the British, the Springfield machinery had been made "in “in house."
house.” Consequently,
although adequate information survives on standard woodworking machinery of the peri-
od, little or no substantive evidence remains about the ''universal[ly 1'' used special-
“universal[ly]”
purpose woodworking machinery. The historian who pays attention only to the standard
machinery so colorfully described and elegantly illustrated in works such as John Rich-
ards’s Treatise on the Construction and Operation of Wood-Working Machines (1872)
ards's
will have an incomplete view or understanding of woodworking in nineteenth-century
America.
America?" 16 Unquestionably, much of this special-purpose machinery operated on the

same principles as standard machinery, but its single- or special-purpose features set it
apart from standard machinery, as the case of the sewing machine industry's
industry’s woodwork-
ing operations makes clear.
130 !:'ROM
FROM THE AMERfCAN
AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

FIGURE 3.3.
FIGURE 3.3. Interior of the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition, 1853.
I853. (Scientific
(Scienr1j‘it" American,
August 13, 1853. Eleutherian Mills Historical Library.)

Cabinetmaking at Wheeler and Wilson

Manufacturing Company
With its initial strategy of capturing the home sewing machine market (as opposed to to
the commercial market of the boot and shoe and garment industries), WheelerWheeler and
and Wilson
Wilson
quickly moved the entire sewing machine industry into the furniture business. Although it
sold machines with plain wooden tables, the company also offered, offered, for
for an
an extra
extra $12,
$12, aa
nicely made (and soon highly ornamented) wooden cover to enclose the head when not in
use. For $25 in 1857, customers could purchase a mahogany or or aa walnut case that
walnut case that
completely enclosed the machine. Wheeler and Wilson stated stated that “these elegant
that ''these elegant
cases ...
. . . are ornamental parlor furniture."
furniture.”'7
I 7 Throughout much of the nineteenth cen-
tury, the company maintained the basic outlines of these sewing machine cases but sought sought
consciously to ornament them in accordance with current furniture industry styles. The
physical features of the sewing machine, however, with with its
its head,
head, treadle, flywheel, and
treadle, flywheel, an.d
belting, clearly imposed severe limits on the design.
By 1863, when it made almost thirty thousand machines, Wheeler and Wilson had had
begun to advertise its product by emphasizing the manner in which it was made. The
company published a small booklet on on the
the sewing
sewing machine
machine which
which described
described the
the Wheeler
Wheeler
and Wilson factory and was later reprinted in several American periodicals and news-
papers. The journalist who wrote the booklet included a brief description of the wood- wood-
 Mass Production in Woodworking Industries 131

working facilities where the cases were manufactured. Of the approximately four hundred
workers in the Bridgeport factory, one-fourth made cases and tables. Since Wheeler and
Wilson stressed that its production system was modeled on that used at United States
armories, it was no surprise to find machinery substituted for manual labor in the wood-
working department, "so“so that one man, on the average, does as much as ten men could
without machinery.''
machinery.”‘818

Without any surviving manuscript material it is difficult to gain an adequate picture of

precisely how or even how many sewing machine cases, as opposed to tables and simple
covers, Wheeler and Wilson made. Yet, given the firm's
firm’s location and the period in which
it flourished, some general perspectives on the company's
company’s woodworking operations can
be drawn.
Wheeler and Wilson’s
Wilson's move into the same factory where Chauncey Jerome had once
made more than 150,000 brass clocks and wooden clock cases annually could have been
of great significance for the production technology the sewing machine company used in
making its wooden covers and cases. This is not to suggest that the special machinery
designed to produce clock cases was converted to sewing machine cabinet manufacture.
Rather, it seems probable that mechanics who had worked in the Jerome factory later
worked for Wheeler and Wilson, bringing the specialized techniques of clock ease case pro-
duction to sewing machine cabinetmaking. Jerome's
Jerome’s clock cases were constructed of
twelve-ply veneer pieces, cut out and fitted together with highly specialized machines and
then form-sanded with another special machine. "With“With these great facilities,"
facilities,” claimed
the Yankee clockmaker, "the “the labor costs less then twenty cents apiece, and with the
stock, they cost less than fifty cents. A cabinet maker could not make one for less than
five dollars. This proves and shows what can be done by system."
system.”'919

The previous experience of Jerome clock case manufacture may not have been neces-

.,_-_

' L‘,-1é‘L~' /lrfnitii‘-23‘ EGOM

Ftounr. 3.4.
FIGURE 3.4 Woodworking Shop at the Wheeler and Wilson Factory. 1879. Several sewing ma-
chine cabinets and cases are evident in the illustration. This shop worked from material cut to
company’s mill in Indianapolis. (Scientific American, May 3, 1879. Eleutherian
dimensions at the company's
Mills Historical Library.)
13:~ FROM
t'ROM Tl-IE
THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

sary, however, because, as noted in Chapter 2, Wheeler and Wilson’s

Wilson's principal produc-
tion expert had a long career in both public and private armories. Therefore, it would be
surprising if Wheeler and Wilson had not built special machines, tools, and fixtures for its
woodworking operations. Certainly it did so for the production of the sewing machine
itself. Without doubt, Wheeler and Wilson bought and employed standard woodworking
machinery, including cut-out saws, planers, and the like, but it also built special machines
to produce its large runs of cabinets. Because it manufactured more and more of these
cabinets annually, there must have been a movement toward greater specialization of tools
and division of labor.
An excellent example of such specialization is the company's
company’s practice, begun in the
18605, of having its rough cut-out work done outside of Bridgeport, near supplies of
late 1860s,
timber. The company built a mill in Indianapolis, where raw material was cut to dimen-
sions and then shipped to the Bridgeport factory, where subsequent machining, assem-
20 (See Figure 3.4.) At roughly the same time, the
out.20
bling, and finishing were carried out.
Singer company began manufacturing some of its cabinetwork in the Midwest and, with
growing sales of sewing machines, moved toward the quantity production of furniture in
the last third of the nineteenth century.

Singer Manufacturing Company's

Company/’s
Cabinetmaking Operations
Much slower to get into the fancy case and cabinet business than Wheeler and Wilson,
the Singer company began in the late 1850s, when it introduced hornehome or, as the company
“family” sewing machines.
called them, "family" machines.“21 For at least a decade Singer contracted with

New York cabinetmakers to manufacture its cases, but in 1868 the company built a case
factory in South Bend, Indiana, and in 1881 a supplementary woodworks in Cairo,
Illinois. By the close of the century, Singer claimed that "the“the Cabinet Factory at South
Bend, Indiana, and its adjunct at Cairo, Illinois, compose one of the largest and most
complete woodworking establishments in a country that is celebrated for the supreme
making. " 22 In 1920,
excellence of its woods, and for the highest attainments in cabinet making.”22
when output had been sharply curtailed because of the loss of Singer’s
Singer's Russian factory to
the Bolsheviks (a factory that demanded woodwork for about eight hundred hundred thousand
machines a year),23 23
year), the South Bend factory turned out more than two million sets of
cabinets. Employing about three thousand workers, the factory had a total floor space of
1.35 million square feet and its own electric power plant of eighty-five hundred horse-
power.”
power.24 Before the war, almost four thousand people had worked at South Bend. The
development of this remarkable plant provides an excellent perspective on the mass
production of furniture in the United States from around 1870 I870 to 1920.
I920.
Before Singer built its case
ease factory in South Bend, Francis A. Ross, among other New
York cabinetmakers, manufactured its cabinets, tables, and box covers. Unfortunately,
nothing is known about Ross or his operation except that he employed a young cabinet-
maker named Leighton Pine. Singer's
Singer’s decision to establish a midwestern case factory and
its growth and that of the one at Cairo came about largely through Pine's
Pine‘s work. When he
i905, Pine was still general manager of all Singer's
died in 1905, Singer’s woodworking operations.
operations.25
25
In 1868, Pine, at age twenty-four, convinced Singer company officials of the desir-
ability of building its own sewing machine cabinets in the center of hardwood stands in the
Midwest, rather than in New York City. (There is evidence that as early as 1864, Singer
 Mass Production in Woodworking Industries 133

had tried without success to contract with various midwestern furniture factories for the
manufacture of its cabinets.”
cabinets. 26 The company sent Pine to the Midwest to find a suitable
location for a woodworking factory, and Pine settled on South Bend, whose town fathers
offered financial inducements and concessions. Pine supervised the construction of the
factory, a three-story brick building, 40 feet x>< 150 feet, which employed 160 workers
when opened in mid-1868.27
mid-1868. 27 By this time Singer was making almost sixty thousand
machines a year; within two years this figure would more than double and would double
again two years later.
Singer management in New York City contracted with another of its cabinetmakers,
John A. Liebert, a German immigrant, to work with Pine for a year in South Bend to get
the factory into smooth operation. Singer also hired W. B. Russell, another former
cabinetmaker at Ross’s
Ross's New York shop, to help with the operations. This arrangement
caused a great deal of friction between Liebert, Pine, and Russell, which, happily for the
historian, resulted in much correspondence to headquarters detailing overall operations in
the factory.”
factory. 28 Although there is no precise information about the machinery and methods
used at the new South Bend works, which initially produced twenty-one varieties of
tables, tops, and cases, this early correspondence makes clear that in November 1869 the
company installed the same inside contracting system which it had recently adopted in its
production. 29
machine works and which was highly characteristic of the armory system of production.”
With the three New York cabinetmakers nominally in charge of these contractors and of
the general management of the woodworks, it is also clear that the factory was plagued
with management problems and was not considered successful by Singer officials either in
York. 30 Liebert left the company and returned to New York when his
South Bend or New York.3O
year’s
year's contract ended, but Pine and Russell remained. Over the next twenty-five years,
Pine prevailed, yet controversy often arose between the two, causing ill-feelings and
general morale problems
problems.. 31
3'
Two other, unrelated bits of information emerge in this early period which are impor-
tant mainly because of future events in Singer's
Singer’s woodworking operations. There is clear
evidence that the company was making some of its products with veneer, yet rather than
making the veneer or obtaining it in the Midwest, the South Bend factory relied upon New
York suppliers from 1868 to 1871. 1871.3232 Later, the South Bend works contracted with

midwestern companies for its veneers and with the opening of the Cairo works in 1881
began both peeling and slicing its own. (See Figure 3.5.)
More important than veneer supply is the evidence that from the very beginning,
Singer’s woodworking operations relied on the company's
Singer's company’s central factory, first in New
Elizabethport, New Jersey, for machines and tools and even for informa-
York and then in Elizabethpo11,
tion about new woodworking processes.”
processes. 33 Although not exclusive or total, this reliance
on the home factory meant that the company was less dependent on the woodworking
machinery industry than were other woodworking concerns. It also meant that because the
same machinists built both Singer metalworking and woodworking tools and machines,
there was a clear diffusion of ideas from one branch of manufacture to another. ln In
addition, the home factory provided the case factory with all of its hardware for tables,
covers, and cases, including screws, hinges, pulls, and latches.
At no point in its early history did the South Bend factory supply all of the woodwork
Singer's American and foreign operations. Yet within months of commencing opera-
for Singer’s
tions, the Indiana works began to ship tables and cabinets, initially unfinished, to the
company’s Glasgow, Scotland, factory.“
company's Singer’s woodworking operation
factory. 34 But because Singer's
could not initially supply all domestic needs, the company continued to rely upon con-
134 FROM Tl
THEIE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

..-5’

// _;/5‘ ~ ' l . 7” 7 ”

em
~’/

_
Z Z
-‘J

\
/ /

/\v/
1/ /

/ we/er ‘ \\,/
P‘:/f;

4""
3 I
_' I T7’; ‘

i» //i ‘ l I

//7/ii)Ԥ%\
\\\\\l__,‘\L?'%;I'\§
4,’;//\\\
§~L' :-/"_bi
\
“'
4i
/ ,.

FIGURE 3.5. Diagram of Pcc!ed

Peeled and Sliced Veneer Production. Peeled or rotary veneer (left) is ic,
wood peeled or shaved off a round, rotating timber. and it has entirely different grain characteristics
from sawed timbers. Sliced veneer (right) is wood cut off a sawed timber.
timber, and it has the same grain
characteristics as the sawed timber.

tracts with cabinetmakers and woodworking concerns in New York and elsewhere. These
contracts not only allowed Singer to meet its needs for woodwork but also served as an
important check on unit prices of South Bend woodwork. The New York officials often
reminded Pine that his factory had to compete with Singer's
Singer’s other suppliers and therefore
created a continual incentive for Pine to cut costs. Certainly Pine and the company used
the inside contracting system to reduce costs; it annually renegotiated contract prices,
always cutting prices when contractors showed a profit at year's
year’s end.
As with all of the Singer company's
company’s records, there is a lacuna in manuscripts dealing
with casemaking operations between 1872 and 1880. During those years, the company's
company’s
annual output grew from about 220,000 machines to more than 500,000. Operations at
South Bend grew accordingly but precisely how and when is unknown. Leighton Pine left
Singer’s employ during this decade, from 1875 to 1879, to pursue his interests in the
Singer's
Oliver Chilled Plow Company but returned to make spectacular changes in Singer's Singer’s
woodworking
wood working technology during the 1880s.
l880s.35 These changes center primarily in the
35

company’s adoption of cheaper woods; its design of veneered, "built-up"

company's “built-up” (plywood)
tables and cabinets; and its move toward bentwood or formed wood cabinets. The result
was a more highly mechanized and more capital-intensive operation, which impelled the
company toward the mass production of its wood products.
Manuscripts dating from 1881 offer considerable evidence that the South Bend factory,
in operation for more than twelve years, was still unable to supply Singer with all of its
case and cabinetwork. Among others, the Indianapolis Cabinet Company (which until
recently had been owned by the Wheeler and Wilson Manufacturing Company), the
Indiana Manufacturing Company, and another firm in Cincinnati held contracts for large
numbers of tables and cases for Singer sewing machines.
machines.36
36 (See Figures 3.6 and 3.7.)

Singer even entertained bids from the Sligh Furniture Company of Grand Rapids, Michi-
gan, but rejected them because the price per unit was too high.”
high. 37 In addition to problems
of quantity production, South Bend received continual complaints about the quality of its
cabinets and the problems poor cabinetwork created for agents in selling machines.“
machines. 38
These problems would be heightened over the next decade as Pine and the South Bend
 Mass Production
Mass Produ ction in Wood
Woodworking
worki ng Industries
Indust ries 135

FIGUR
FIGUREE 3.6. Plain Walnu
3.6. Plain Walnutt Cabin et Made for Singe
Cabinet Singerr Sewin
Sewingg Machines, 1876. (Asher
(Asher &
& Adam
Adams’
Machi nes, 1876. s'
Pictor ial Album of Ameri can
Pictorial Album of/american Indust
Industry, Eleutherian
ry, 1876. Eleuth erian Mills Historical
Mills Histor Library.)
ical Librar y.)
- Ma...’--. 4’ _...____‘ M

be
"7 - ape‘ M . . WW- "*>4 . .._._.c.__..._. .,\,¢’\44~l

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I iii ‘ fi‘;~.,‘c- ,~.’£3 "ii.
i ii“ 1’to ff» -.
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V, iil.ii.:‘i_'f“-'1'.
sag ;_.;9‘ ;~ Iii‘ tiz;npi;i§'i:Ifil'!=Iiiffih:.
»rmmmimma@g@ggrtLg_.itt
._w' P - - . .
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“I
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1‘; ' 2;$

*"»ga,.“‘»d,*-= . -
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~_
-~-_-__g
~"-_-

‘fr"1*‘.:="_;=~:.~_“.‘*Z':-~*f‘'£;"~':_.
q,-_-S}
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“Fma_

%-at- ’5‘“"“€'$,.-:1‘:
'w,"—3*
=,._-.1_-—_-%.~=_-M,—m_M._
~.““'-

FIGURE 3.7. Fancy Cabin et (Waln ut, Maho gany,

FIGURE 3.7. Fancy Cabinet (Walnut, Mahogany. or Rosew
Rosewood)
ood) Made forfor Singe
Singerr Sewin
Sewingg Ma-
Ma-
chines , 1876. (Ashe r & Adam s' Pictor ial
chines, l876. (As/zer & Adams’ Pictorial Album of American Industry.
Ameri can Indust 1876. Eleuth
ry, 1876. Eleutherian Mills
crian Mills
Histor
Historical Library.)
ical Librar y.)
136 FROM THE
TilE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION
PRODuCTION

factory undertook a general program, ordered by Singer's Singer’s New York officers, to use
veneer when possible on all of the company's
company’s woodwork.”
woodwork. 39 It remains unclear why Singer
insisted on the use of veneer, but it is certain that this decision created a host of problems
and opportunities which demanded the full financial and technical resources of the Singer
Manufacturing Company.
Throughout the nineteenth century, the Singer company remained highly sensitive to
consumer tastes and to its competitors’
competitors' stylistic or design changes. The company held
annual meetings of its principal sales agents, who supplied information about what its
customers really wanted and why such-and-such a competitor was cutting into Singer's Singer’s
Singer’s responsiveness to these suggestions may help to account for the com-
market. Singer's corn--
pany’s success in the nineteenth century. Singer's
pany's Singer’s move to adopt all-veneer and built-up
company’s system of checking the pulse of
cases may have received its impetus from the company's
consumer taste, for there is evidence that the company saw itself as following the lead of
other companies with respect to woodwork/*0
woodwork. 40
Wheeler and Wilson seems to have pushed Singer into the business of all-veneer, built- built~
up woodwork. Not long after Wheeler and Wilson opened its Indianapolis mill (sometime
during the 1870s), the company began building up five-layer tables and panels with peeled
veneers and the top layer of sliced veneer.
veneerf“41 Singer soon wanted to copy this technique.

Leighton Pine saw advantages in doing built-up work. He had found that he could reduce
blistering problems when veneer (usually walnut) was laid on solid pine by introducing
another veneer whose grain crossed both the pine and the top veneer. As he explained,
“This holds the fibre of the pine and top veneer perfectly and makes a fine table that can
"This
be relied on to stand cold exposures."
exposures.” Anticipating the future, Pine noted that this
approach would work "well
“well as the surface of built up work.
work.”‘*Z
" 42
At a time when South Bend was turning out more than ten thousand tables tables“
43 (both solid

and veneered) weekly as well as a large (but unknown) number of covers and cabinets,
Pine and his men were adopting new machines and techniques for working wood. (See
Figure 3.8.) Two deserve mention. Faced with stepped-up veneer work, South Bend
designed and Elizabethport built steam-heated veneer-drying plates. The factory began
experimenting with this technique in February of 1881 and soon adopted it on a large scale
by building plates and presses for all sizes of work. To manufacture box covers more
readily, South Bend designed a machine, adopted early in 1881, I881, which Pine said would
“punch out"
"punch out” the necessary panels. Unfortunately, Pine gave no further description of this
ciearly was a special-purpose woodworking
machine, but from the context of the letter, it clearly
machine.“
machine. 44

manufac-»
Singer demonstrated an intense desire to secure information about what other manufac-·
turers (not just those making sewing machines) were doing in metalworking production.
production
technology. The same was true with woodworking, particularly since the company was
changing its woodworking techniques because of its decision to manufacture built-up
woodwork.“
woodwork. 45 An outstanding example of such information-gathering occurred at the

factory Wheeler and Wilson had sold, which, under the name of Indianapolis Cabinet
Company, began making five-layer built-up drop-leaf tables on contract for Singer. This
contract provided Singer's
Singer’s woodworking experts with the opportunity to see how the
Indianapolis firm produced its built-up work. Singer executives may have instigated this
contract because they had learned that the superintendent of the Indianapolis Cabinet
Company had been the cabinetmaker who had originally started Wheeler and Wilson’s Wilson's
Indianapolis operations and had directed the manufacture of all of its cabinets there.“there. 46
 Mas.s'Productio1z
Mass Production in Woodworking Indu.s‘trie.s
Industries 13 7

l:“IGURE 3.8.
FIGURE 3.3. Plain
Plain Walnut
Walnut Table
Table with
with Paneled
Paneled Cover Made for
Cover Made for Singer
Singer Sewing
Sewing Machines, I876. The
Machines, 1876. The
design of
design of both
both the
the solid and veneer
solid and veneer tables
tables was the same.
was the same. (Asher
(AS/16!’ and
rmclAdc1m.s"
Adams' Pictorial
Pictorial A/bum of
Album of'
American I/1c1u.s"t1'_\*,
Industry, 1876.1876. Eleutherian Mills Historical
Historical Library.)

To their amazement, Singer officials found that the Indianapolis operation “had
''had a very
poor organization for manufacturing, all their tools and fixtures are poor, their processes
for making tables are not economical, and bear no comparison to the advantages that are
made the most of at every possible point, to cheapen production at South Bend.''
Bend.” James
Van Dyke, the company's
company’s western technical expert, pointed up the critical differences
between the two factories. At Indianapolis glue was spread by hand with a brush, whereas
“at South Bend they pass the stuff between two rollers, which does the work far more
"at
perfectly and economically in materials as well as labor."
labor.” With special clamping devices,
workmen at South Bend could mount walnut edge strips four times as fast as with the hand
clamps used in Indianapolis. The cabinet company sawed the holes for sewing machines
in its cabinetwork one at a time rather than in multiple units as in the Singer factory, and
‘\/an Dyke noted that "they
Van “they bore holes for belts and brass plates by hand with brace and bit
instead of with power boring machines. "’ ’47
4 7 He also informed the New York office that the

Indianapolis company was sure to renege on its contract because the superintendent had
told him that labor and materials costs alone totaled nearly as much as Singer was paying
for this woodwork. Nevertheless, Singer learned something important at Indianapolis.
Van Dyke wrote George Ross McKenzie, "Those “Those folks were cutting their own body stuff
for tables (that is, shaving around the log the .Y16
3/is [inch)
[inchl white wood). This gives them
quite an advantage, and offsets their disadvantages as compared with South Bend/’48 Bend. " 4 s
Armed with this discovery, Van Dyke called Pine to Indianapolis, where the two
technicians thoroughly inspected the old Wheeler and Wilson veneer-peeling (or rotary
veneer) machines. They learned from the Indianapolis superintendent the cost per thou-
sand square feet of peeled veneer and upon comparing that figure with what Singer paid
for “body stuff''
Cor its ''body stuff” found that it could be cut for less than half the price. Immediately
Pine and Van Dyke pressed for the establishment of a supplementary plant, "at “at some
\38 FROM THE AMERICAN
AJ'vlERlCAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

point where the timber is very cheap,”

cheap," to shave :Y16
3/is inch veneer, to dry it there, and "to
“to
glue it up, at the same place, to all the table sizes we need, ready for shipment to either
South Bend or Elizabethport.
Elizabethport.”49
'' 49 Both men envisioned this new plant as the center for
built-up construction of newly designed box covers and full cabinets.
Pine and Van Dyke sketched out in detail the plant necessary for manufacturing built-
up work and figured the cost:
—A two story frame building ...
-A . . . 70ft.
70 ft. ><
X 175 ft with a shed
at one end to cover eight tanks for boiling the logs. .. .. .. $12,000
—4 Machines for shaving logs (three for the cotton I[or
-4 or white]
wood, and one for the Walnut veneer) 7,000
7.000
—1 Grinding machine for knives
-1 500
-25 Sets plate dryers, of 16 plates each ($500.00)
—25 12,500
—8 Boiling tanks
-8 2,500
—Boiler 200 H.P. & Engine 125
-Boiler I25 H.P.
HP. 10,000
——Shafting, Pullies, Belting, etc.
-Shafting, 1,500
—Power trimming knives
-Power 500
—Steam condensor
-Steam condenser pump 450
—Cranes for handling logs, car, tracks, etc.
-Cranes 800
—~Equipment for glueing
-Equipment glucing up complete 2,000
$49,500[sic]SO
$49,500[sic]5°

In addition, ten acres would be required to store logs before they were shaved. It is clear
from these projected requirements that the business of built-up woodworking, when
pursued on the scale intended by Singer,
Singer. was a capital-intensive, heat-using undertaking
and certainly beyond the means of the small-time cabinet shop.
Given a favorable response from New York headquarters, Pine and Van Dyke were
directed to find a suitable location for this projected veneering and built-up plant. Van
Dyke emphasized that such an operation must be in an area of cheap timber. He alluded
briefly
briefly to cottonwood as the timber that he and Pine had in mind to slice and glue together
to provide the body for the walnut veneer. Yet by the time the wood production experts
toured major timber areas in the Midwest, Pine had other ideas.
Notably energetic and always seeking to find cheaper ways to do things, Leighton Pine
began experimenting in early 1881 with the use of gumwoods, or trees of the genus
nyssa.“
nyssa. 51 Gumwood is a sorry wood. As most contemporary and modern guides to woods

and forests point out, it is a medium-weight wood, strong, hard, and moderately elastic.
elastic.”52

With 5 to 6 percent shrinking, it warps and checks badly and is difficult to work. LightLight;
yellow or often white, the gumwood was used mainly for hubs of wooden wheels, for
wharf piles, fruit baskets, and rollers in glass factories. Yet Pine wanted to use the vast,
mostly unwanted gumwood supplies not only for the ''body “body stuff''
stuff” of Singer sewing
machine woodwork but also for the finished wood of the products. Shortly before Pine
toured forest areas with Van Dyke, he had built several sample gumwood tables, which he
sent to New York for inspection. As he wrote in late May, they were "pronounced“pronounced
failures, as the wood will not take a deep stain and shows light when marred.”53
marred. " 53 Initial
rejection did not deter Pine, and on his subsequent site search he clearly wanted to be near
gumwood supplies so that eventually he could use this cheap material as a means of
lowering costs of Singer woodwork.
Thus at a time when South Bend was manufacturing "batches"
“batches” often
of ten thousand sewing
machine tables (solid walnut and walnut veneer laid on solid pine) weekly, Pine had
 Mass Production
Prodr1ction in Woodworking Industries !39

necessity" and that with the new

“built up tables are now a decided necessity”
concluded that "built
factory and possibly the use of gumwood, Singer would be able ''to “to make better and
cheaper built-up tables, than is done at any other factory. "
factory.”54 54

Van Dyke and Pine chose Cairo, Illinois, as the site for the veneer mill after ruling out
St. Louis, Kansas City, and Glasgow, Missouri (the latter where Singer obtained the
white wood-cottonwood—-veneer
wood--cottonwood-veneer as well as the walnut veneer it already used). Cairo
offered several advantages including an abundance of gumwoods (particularly sweet gum)
and also cottonwood, excellent river and rail transportation, a ready-built three-story brick
factory building (65 feet >< X 80 feet) complete with a new 250-horsepower steam engine,
and twenty-two acres of land, the land and factory available for $46,000. Headquarters
approved the purchase, which Pine completed in early June 1881. 1881.55
55

As soon as he had received approval, Pine wrote the company's company’s chief production
“millions” of feet of a "dark,
executive, then in Scotland, that around Cairo there were "millions" “dark,
fine grain, handsome figure gum wood ... . . . which Van and I think will cut into veneers,
and much of it can be used in place of walnut, and needs no staining. It is very handsome
and some we saw was as good a French Walnut as any one could desire. We have strong
hopes of making a good thing of this wood, and I can now see no chance for disappoint-
ment.”
ment." To allay any doubts that may have arisen in New York from its initial experience
with gumwood, Pine pointed out that this wood was “rapidly ''rapidly coming into favor as a
substitute for Walnut, and beautiful sets of furniture are being made of it. ... . . . A new
hotel at Cairo had considerable wainscoating [sic], partitions and trimmings made of it,
and it is very handsome in color and figure, and so close grained as to require but little
filling under the shellac finish.
finish.”56
" 56
Pine’s
Pine's enthusiasm for gum stemmed from the contracts he and Van Dyke had secured
with timbermen that called for a price of $4 per thousand feet feet.. Singer's
Singer’s timber buyer had
recently bought supplies of walnut at $50 and $55 per thousand. Clearly there were strong
incentives to view nyssa or gumwood as being as good as French walnut.
Traveling to New York after the Cairo property was purchased, Van Dyke arranged
with the Singer Elizabethport factory to construct the ''necessary
“necessary tools for cutting the
logs, the plate drying apparatus, the process for glueing up, and the balance of the
detail,” which was scheduled for completion and installation by
equipment in all its detail,''
January 1, l, 1882. In New York, Van Dyke questioned Singer officials about if and when
1882.57 ln
57

the Cairo works would begin manufacturing built-up covers and drawer cases in addition
to the already scheduled tables. This question would not be immediately answered.
Within a month, Pine was able to report rapid progress on the Cairo machinery. He
wrote to the company's “All of it has passed the experimental point. Our
company’s vice president, "All
cutting machines are simply immense, both in quantity and quality of work and exceed
anything I ever imagined in that line. Our drying presses are unequalled, as we know by
their use here since last February.”
February." Pine noted that Edwin Bennett, the production expert
who was instrumental in making reforms in production of Singer sewing machines in the
1880s, had designed the Cairo equipment. Elizabethport's
E1izabethport’s costs for it had not been more
than $6,000, and Pine claimed that it could not be purchased elsewhere for $50,000. Most
important, he believed the Singer-made veneering machinery was “the ''the best in the coun-
try.” After detailing the cost and performance of each piece of the Cairo machinery, Pine
try.''
“whole plant will be so far ahead of all other like institutions as you
concluded that the "whole
can well imagine."
imagine.”58 58

Pine’s letter makes clear that when it began operation in 1882, the Cairo woodworking
Pine's
140 f'ROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION
FROM

factory consisted of machinery designed and constructed by Singer. Its details, given the
closed nature of the company, were not accessible to the woodworking community or to
the public.
The institution
instrtution by the New York officials of what can only be described as an absurd
and chaos-producing managerial structure at Singer's
Singer’s woodworking factories (reminiscent
of South Bend’s
Bend's first years) made 1882 a year of trial by fire for these operations. Total
output actually decreased from 1881 production by some ninety-one thousand pieces, and
cost of production increased. Details of these troubles need not detain us, but some
general observations are in order.”
order. 59 First,
First. when Pine returned to manage the Singer case
factory in 1879, he ended the inside contract system. Yet because woodworking costs
increased during 1880 l 880 and 1881 under a foreman system of production management,
Singer executives in New York ordered Pine in January 1882 to reinstate the inside
contract system. Pine protested vigorously, but he carried out the company's company’s wishes.
Singer executives also pushed Pine to find other measures to lower costs and reminded
him that the cost of woodwork which the company contracted for to meet all of its
demands compared very favorably with, if it was not lower than, that produced by South
Bend.
Pine objected to this tactic and argued that "your “your comparison of the cost of outside
work is not a fair one; the outside makers accept orders for such work and quantities as
they can handle to advantage to themselves; we have no choice, but are compelled to
make all we can, and as best we can.''
can.” He suggested that if the outside contractors devoted
all of their resources to production for Singer, their work ''would“would cost much more than we
now get for it. lI know how easy it is for outsiders to talk, when they do not understand
means.” Pine concluded his protest by saying that he was tired of having
what quantity means."
the work of outside cabinetmakers held up to him "as “as a model for this factory to pattern
after.” If it had done so, Pine maintained, he and everyone else at South Bend would have
after."
been fired long before. The executives in New York had to recognize that the techniques
used by outside cabinetmakers were ''not “not at all adapted to the requirements of this
business.. .. .. .. I know that we are far ahead of them, and ...
business . . . I am aiming to get the best
business.”6‘-I
system for running this business. " 60

Pine’s argument seemed to border on countereconomies of scale, which along with the
Pine's
implication that Singer was obtaining cabinets from a number of smaller shops at cheaper
prices might support Alfred Chandler’s
Chandler's argument about the limits to the size of wood·· wood--
working factories. In subsequent letters, however, Pine made clear his logic. logic.“ Pressure to
61

increase output, changes in the design of Singer woodwork, and the introduction of a new
sewing machine model (whose production was currently plaguing the Elizabethport facto- facto--
ry) had all worked together to drive up unit production costs and to frustrate output. (Sec (See
Figure 3.9.) Pine assured New York that this situation was aberrant.
In addition to these problems, it is clear that the first year of production at Cairo was
fraught with technical problems. By midyear, Cairo's Cairo’s production amounted to only seven
or eight thousand tables, which were reported to have loose joints where bands were
butted together, broken veneer fibers, and veneer layers that were as easily separated with
a knife "as
“as mica."
mica.” Plagued with personnel problems and challenged for authority by W.
B. Russell, who had been given new responsibilities by the home office, Pine sought
desperately to straighten out the production problems at Cairo. Yet in October he reported
that the plant was able to turn out only one thousand built-up tables per day clay at a time when
total demand exceeded twelve thousand weeki weekly.62
y. c, 2
Pine’s perspective some strides were clearly made by the end of the year. He had
From Pine's
 /WQSS
Mass Produczion W0uu'w0r/cing Industries
Production in Woodworking !41

152-;
?"?*Z?'

FIGURE 3.9.
FtGURE 3.9. Singer
Singer "Drop"
“Drop” Cabinet,
Cabinet. 1893.
I893. This
This cabinet
cabinet was
was introduced
introduced in
in conjunction
conjunction with
with the
the
new Improved Family sewing machine in the early l880s. (Catalogue 0fSii2gc/' Sewiiig /\4'achin@s
new Improved Family sewing machine in the early 1880s. (Catalogue of Singer SeH·ing Machines
for Family Use, 1893.
i893. Elcutherian
Eleutherian Mills
Mills Historical Library.)
Historical Library.)
142 THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION
FROM TilE

succeeded in getting Singer into the production of gum or nyssa wood tables, covers, and
cases. Pleased with the appearance of new nyssa cabinets which Pine had sent to New
York, Singer executives decreed in December 1882 that "all “all woodwork for Europe will
be made of nyssa wood. "”°3 “period
63 Thus Singer began what two later writers called the "period

of indiscrimination” gumwood
indiscrimination'' in which gum wood was used as an imitation of walnut.“
walnut. American
64

consumers would soon be seeing nyssa wood cabinets in Singer retail stores. With new
techniques of working wood, with clear incentives to use cheap gum timber, and with an
output of more than eight hundred thousand units in 1882,1882,6565 Singer exemplified the most

extreme form of a large-scale woodworking industry.

In 1883 Pine and his production men ironed out many of the problems at the Singer
woodworking factories, adding new machines at Cairo and learning much more about the
critical factor of moisture content in the successful working of wood, especially of
veneer.“
veneer. 66 By May, Pine wrote that the operations at Cairo were satisfactory and that the

factory would produce some four hundred thousand table bodies. So successful were the
South Bend and Cairo factories that by midyear their ability to produce woodwork outran
demand, and they were forced to curtail output. Pine used the relative lull in factory
operations to explore all aspects of production costs at Cairo. He found that for the first
time Cairo produced built-up table bodies (both of walnut and gum veneer) which cost ''a “a
trifle less"
less” than the solid walnut tables made at South Bend.
Bend.“ These successes provided
67

Pine with the opportunity in the following year to expand the Cairo facility and its share in
the total output of Singer woodwork despite cutbacks in overall production.
Singer executives approved expansion plans because of a major change in the style of
portable covers (and later of much of its woodwork) which the company initiated in
1884.68
1884. 68 Raised and carved panel covers were soon to be replaced by ones made of bent or

formed plywood. Because of the self-fulfilling promise of nyssa or gumwood, Singer

executives envisioned making these covers "exclusively"
“exclusively” of nyssa but left open the
possibility of some being made of walnut. Pine priced out both types for three-ply work
and estimated that walnut covers would cost some 33 percent more than those veneered
with nyssa. Within a month, Cairo started turning out bentwood covers with tools and
forms built at the Elizabetbport
Elizabethport machine works. Pine noted that "it “it was quite a job to get
the forms right to bend the body of these covers''
covers” but that the Singer team had succeeded.
Beyond the mere tools, what remained for Pine to do at Cairo was to get the bentwood
“running with a system.''
work ''running system.” In
ln August he wrote that ''this
“this bent work was entirely new
to all of us, and its production has been a matter for experiment, but is so no longer. They
can be turned out with certainty and uniformity, and we want only enough of them to
make [so that it is possible] to reduce their cost to a low figure. "“P9 69 (See Figure 3.10.)

Having successfully developed a process to make bentwood covers, the Singer com-
pany moved over the next two decades toward the adoption of this technique for the
manufacture of all of its woodwork. By the twentieth century, when Singer output was
nearing three million units, the layered (or plywood), peeled-veneered, bentwood cabinet
prevailed. The steps taken during these years were not always sure ones, but Pine and his
colleagues proceeded from the technical basis which they had established between II868 868
and 1885.
Abundant evidence documents the adoption at Cairo and South Bend of increasingly
specialized machines and tools for working wood, many of which were built in Singer's Singer’s
Elizabethport
Elizabeth port works. As he learned more about the effects of moisture content in working
wood, Pine developed a rolling process to squeeze out water from peeled veneers, an idea
he took from a paper mill in South Bend and from a laundry wringer.7Owringer. 70 Singer patented
 Mass Production in Woodworking Industries 143

FIGURE 3.10.
FIGURE 3.10. Singer Bent Plywood Sewing Machine Cover. Leighton Pine and others at Singer's
Singer’s
woodworking factories at South Bend and Cairo developed this bentwood cover in 1884. (Cata-
0fSi'nger
logue of Sewing Machines for Family Use, 1893. Eleutherian Mills Historical Library.)
Singer Se,ving

this process and prosecuted companies that infringed on the patent. Pine worked it out in
1885 because the company had grown increasingly concerned about blistering of veneer
on the surfaces of its products. With the process, the company claimed, veneer could be
made more uniform in thickness and could therefore be laid more uniformly, thus elim-
Singer’s continued use of the process for veneer and built-up work gives
inating blisters. Singer's
evidence of its beneficial effects.
effects.“
71 1n
In addition to increasing output and trying to maintain
and improve the quality of the company's
company’s products, Pine was never allowed to ignore unit
costs. After 1885, one impm1ant
important way Pine met the cost challenge was by adopting oak for
Singer machine furniture.
furniture.”
72

Within the sphere of cost reduction, however, Pine was forced to follow overall
company management policy. Despite ending the inside contracting system at the Eliz-
abethport factory around 1883, Singer maintained the system at South Bend until 1887,
when Pine argued that inside contracting, ''while
“while ...
. . . invaluable in a new business, and
has served us well, ...
. . . has injured us of late years.
years."73
" 73 This was particularly true in the
finishing of cabinets, Pine reasoned, but the same ill-effects were felt in such other areas
as the cut-out department. With approval from New York, Pine once again directed
foremen and department heads rather than coordinating inside contractors. As at Eliz-
abethport, Singer's
Singer’s woodworks management practices were tightened, new work rules
were established, and greater control was vested in the hands of the company.
Although often experiencing periods of storm and trouble, Singer's Singer’s woodworking
operations played a vital role in the company’s
company's history and comprise an important chapter
144 FROM THE AMERECAN SYS'l‘l£i\/I TO MASS
AMERICAN SYSTEM tv!ASS PRODUCTION

in the development of the mass production of furniture in the second half of the nineteenth
century and the first decades of the twentieth. Some comparative analysis of the overall
state of woodworking in this period and of present-day scholarship in this area helps round
out the picture.
ln
In the early 1880s, when Singer's
Singer’s annual woodworking output ranged from eight
hundred thousand to almost a million units (which it valued at roughly a dollar per unit),
the company employed more than 1000 workers at South Bend and Cairo. By compari- compari~
son, the average American furniture factory employed 11 1 l workers and turned out products
valued annually at about $15,000.
$15,000.74
74 In Grand Rapids in 1880, when this city was becorn--
becom-·
ing one of the furniture capitals of the United States, fifteen firms together employed
about 2,250 workers and produced goods valued at slightly over $2 million.75 million. 75 By 1900,
Singer’s South Bend cabinet works alone employed 3,000 workers and manufactured as
Singer's
many as seventy-five hundred units daily.“
daily. 76 Even then, Singer could not produce all the
cabinets it needed because in 190
1901l it contracted with John Widdicomb Furniture Company
of Grand Rapids to manufacture two hundred thousand five-drawer oak sewing machine
cabinets for almost $4 apiece. One of the largest of the Grand Rapids furniture manufac-·manufac-
turers, Widdicomb shipped these cabinets to Elizabethport
Elizabeth port in weekly lots of two thousand.
The previous year, thirty-four factories made furniture in Grand Rapids. These factories
hired some 6,200 workers and turned out products valued at $7.5 million.” Singer’s
million. 77 Thus Singer's
contract with Widdicomb represented roughly 10 percent of Grand Rapids’ Rapids' total dollar-
value output. Singer's
Singer’s own output equaled about half that of Grand Rapids. The American
furniture industry as a whole in 1900 consisted of about eighteen hundred establishments
eighty—seven thousand workers (an average of fewer than 50 em-
employing more than eighty-seven em~
ployees per firm) and producing about $125,300,000 worth of work (an average of less
than $70,000 per firm)”
firm).7S These data suggest that Singer's
Singer’s woodworking operations were
atypical~even extraordinary-in
highly atypical-even extraordinary~in the furniture manufacture of the period.
Singer’s woodworking experience demonstrated that it was technically possible—if
Singer's possible-if not
always economically desirable-to
desirable~to concentrate the manufacture of sewing machine cabi-
nets in one or two very large factories. The company’s
company's commitment to this mode of
production was reaffirmed in 1901 when it built a much-enlarged cabinet works in South
Bend, which, as noted above, annually produced as many as two million cabinets in the
first two decades of this century. No furniture maker in this period ever matched that
output (certainly not in numbers and probably not in dollar value) or the scale of em-
ployment Singer maintained. Even the manufacturers who produced "low-end" “low-end” furniture
for Sears, Roebuck never approached Singer's
Singer’s output, nor is it likely that they mechanized
their production to the extent and in the manner in which Singer did. Few woodworking
establishments had the technical resources of an Elizabethport factory on which to draw.
This fact may help to explain Singer's
Singer’s performance, but there are other considerations.
One could argue, as did John Richards in his Treatise on the Construction
C0n.rtruc'ri0n and Opera-
tion of
a,[ Wood-Working Machines, that the furniture and woodworking industry was bound
to be highly segmented and, therefore, would always consist of small factories. In particu-
lar, Richards stressed that woodworking technology was widely diffused throughout the
United States and that it was relatively easy for new competitors to enter the industry. He
also believed that the very nature of working wood prohibited the system of production
that prevailed in American metalworking establishments.
establishments.” 79 The general diffusion of

woodworking technology may have contributed to a decentralized industry, but Singer's Singer’s
cabinet operations clearly show that there was nothing in the nature of wood that pre-
vented its use in mass production. Singer "mass-produced"
“mass-produced” wooden sewing machine
 /l/Iass
Mass Pr0a'irr'ti0n
Production in Woodworking liidii.s'H‘ies
Industries 145

furniture. The Singer case factories adopted and developed special-purpose machinery
and with peeled veneer entered the realm of a heat-using industry. so
industry.*O
The furniture industry did not to any great extent follow Singer's lead. There was some
change, however, in the woodworking industries; statistics on furniture in the 1905
census, for example, demonstrate a clear trend toward greater capitalization and increased
output during the previous fifty years?‘ years. 81 But there is no evidence of concentration in
furniture manufacturing or large-scale production comparable to Singer's. Singer’s.
The key to the history of Singer’s
Singer's woodworking operations may lie in the nature of the
product and the market rather than in the material. A ready-made market for sewing
machine cabinets existed in the United States and Europe. People bought a Singer cabinet
when they purchased a Singer sewing machine; they did not buy a cabinet for its own
sake. The Singer sewing machine, in effect, sold the woodwork of South Bend and Cairo.
Singer’s woodworking factories had been forced to compete in the regular furniture
If Singer's
market, there is no reason to believe that they would have attained the scale of operations
they did in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The furniture market itself
probably constrained the application of mass production technology within the industry in
a way that did not occur with Singer.
This is precisely the point that the mechanical engineers of the 1920s 19205 bemoaned. In ln his
“Engineering in Furniture Factories,”
plea "Engineering Factories," B. A. Parks, engineer for a Grand Rapids
furniture manufacturer, argued that “lack "lack of engineering ability in the furniture manufac-
turing organization shows its effect throughout the entire plant; in fact, the writer is
convinced that the average manager of aa_fnrniiure fltrniture plant is more interested in marketing
nzaizii/’acaii'i'iig it."
his product than in manufacturing "Furniture is constantly chang-
it. ” Why was this so? ·'Furniture
ing in style,”
style," Parks complained, and "also “also most plants manufacture quite an extended
line, and consequently a large variety of product must be handled in any given plant.'' plant. ” But
Parks saw a solution: “A''A point which most managers overlook and which is primarily due
to lack of engineers in the organization, is the possibility of reducing the variety of parts to
be manufactured through standardization of design, interchangeability of parts, and great-
er limitation of line [which] would not only directly reduce manufacturing costs, but
would also tend toward the development of automatic machinery, better utilization of raw
product, economies in handling parts in process of manufacture, etc. "’ ’82 82 Obviously, Parks

and his fellow members of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers believed that
the character of the furniture industry could be changed by the introduction of proven
mechanical engineering principles, especially standardization. They viewed furniture as a
consumer durable that could be produced in the same way and with the same benefits as
firearms, sewing machines, and automobiles. Neither the introduction of mechanical
engineering into furniture manufacturing nor a major change in the character of the
industry has occurred to any great extent in this century. Furniture may not be, after all,
like other consumer durables. Yet there are those who believe that eventually furniture
production will reach parity of mechanization with metalworking. The ideas of the ASME
Wood Industries Division have been restated by the author of the article on the furniture
Eiicyclopedia Britannica. He argued that recent
industry in the latest edition of the Encyclopedia
changes in the industry had "resulted
“resulted in the trend of woodwork towards engineering, a
accelerate.”83 Fulfillment of this prophecy remains to be seen.
trend likely to accelerate. " 83

Perhaps Singer’s
Singer's cabinetmaking operations can be more appropriately compared to
other woodworking industries. In 1n this century, there have been several innovations-for
innovations~—for
television-for which wooden cabinets became important. Like sew-
example, radio and television—for
ing machine cases, radio and television cabinets were "low-end" “low-end” furniture, their manu-
inanu-
146 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

facturers had an already established mass market, and the furniture was secondary to the
machine it housed. Consequently, in these industries woodworking establishments arose
similar to those of Singer. Archer W. Richards, an engineer for the Grigsby-Grunow
Company of Chicago, described one such example in a paper delivered to the American
“The Mass Production of Radio Cabinets."
Society of Mechanical Engineers, "The Cabinets.” In 1928,
Grigsby-Grunow established in a building owned by General Motors a woodworking
factory to produce "a “a complete piece of furniture to house ... . . . the radio receiver.”
receiver.''
Richards detailed the means by which his company had within two years brought produc~ produc-
tion to an output of five thousand units per day: ''The
“The furniture industry is one of the
oldest in existence, and while low-priced furniture has been made, the lesson learned in
mass production of other products did not seem to be accepted by the industry.''
industry.” As a
result, the Grigsby-Grunow Company "found“found it necessary to build a complete cabinet
plant which would combine the most modern production methods and machinery.'' machinery.”
Furthermore, Richards emphasized, ''the“the development was made, not by experienced
woodworkers of the old school, but by ingenious and resourceful production engineers,
who were inspired by their chiefs to undertake and creditably to master the best way of
producing attractive, efficient, and salable radio outfits. It is one of the instances that
demonstrates that trade knowledge is much less essential to success than is the thorough
production experience of technical engineers combined with a tremendous marketmarker demand
for the product.”
product.'' Although celebrating the wonders of engineering expertise, Richards
acknowledged that the "great
“great demand for radio cabinets made it necessary for manufac-
turers to arrange their methods and machinery on a highly productive basis.
basis.”84
" 84 No doubt
there were dozens of other companies that departed from techniques used by the furniture
industry in a way comparable to the Singer Manufacturing Company. The product and the
nature of the market seem to have been the crucial determinants.
industry—a nineteenth-century one-bears
One other industry-a one—bears useful comparison with Singer's
Singer’s
woodworking technology. Though not having a product whose sales were tied to demand
“real” product, the carriage and wagon industry rapid]
for the "real" rapidlyy moved toward the use of
special~purpose machinery in its operations. As discussed above, John Anderson and his
special-purpose
British colleagues were particularly struck with the degree to which this industry used
special machines and with the fact that much of this machinery was marketed on a routine
basis. The Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company provides a particularly interest-
interest~
ing case not only because it became in the 18805
1880s the largest manufacturer of wheeled
vehicles in the United States but because its factory was located in South Bend, where
Singer’s operations flourished.
Singer's

The Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company

When the partnership of H. & C. Studebaker was formed in South Bend, Indiana, in
1852, the wagon and carriage trade in the United States was undergoing what contempo··
contempo-
raries regarded as a revolution. Increasingly, as one writer pointed out, small-town
wheelwrights found that they could "no“no longer make an entire vehicle as formerly with
any success, but purchase wheels, axles, top frames, etc., of any and every pattern, to put
together and finish. All these parts are produced in great quantities, by machine.”85 in
machine.' ' 85 In
New York alone there were sixteen spoke factories, a similar number of felloe factories
and hub factories, and numerous factories that made all the parts of wagons and carriages
by machinery. At its founding, however, the Studebaker company hardly resembled these
 ft/lass
Mass Proa'm'riorz
Production in Woodworking Industries 14 7

New York factories. It began as a small-town wagon shop manufacturing three wagons
the first year but grew within a generation into a large integrated factory described in 1880
as le plus grand des grandessf‘
grandes. 86
Both Henry and Clement Studebaker had learned the trade of blacksmithing from their
father. Although they were regarded as "practical
“practical mechanics,"
mechanics,”87 87 the success of their

enterprise rested on their prime location near a good supply of timber and the availability
of a ''standard''
“standard” line of special-purpose wagonmaking machinery, particularly wheelmak-- wheelmak-
machinery.“ Thus the Stude
ing machinery. 88 Studebakers
bakers did not have to devote their energies to developing
machinery because they could buy it ready-made. (See Figure 33.11.) .II.) Joined in 1858 by
another brother, John Mohler, the Studebaker brothers directed new capital into their
wagon works. They were well prepared to reap benefits from wagon and ambulance
contracts made by the United States during the Civil War. The company historian wrote,
“the Studebakers were unable to satisfy fully the demands made upon
however, that ''the
them” by the Civil War.89
them" War. 89 Nevertheless, the company expanded in an attempt to meet
these demands. Its founders firmly believed that the war served to spread the name
“Studebaker” throughout the United States. With annual sales of about $350,000 and
"Studebaker"
tangible assets of almost a quarter of a million dollars, the brothers incorporated in 1868
as the Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company. The new company employed 190
workers and produced almost 4,000 units per year. By 1872 the corporation hired 325
employees who turned out 6,950 wagons and carriages. Two years later, immediately
before a fire destroyed the factory, 5550 50 workers manufactured 111,050 .9°
vehicles?“
l , 050 vehicles
Perhaps the fire of 1874 was a boon for it forced the Studebaker company to purchase
new machinery and to build a new factory. The brothers apparently contemplated moving
their company to Chicago or to Cincinnati but finally decided to remain in South Bend.
They built an impressive T-shaped, three-story factory with detached lumber sheds. By
the centennial year, this factory turned out a wagon every seven rninutes."‘ minutes. 91 Increasing
demand led to the addition of a new blacksmith shop 100 x>< 200 feet with a ceiling
expanse of three stories, another woodworking area, two stories, 80 x>< 200 feet, and
another engine room and lumber shed. A reporter in 1880 described the Studebaker
Brothers factory as a place marked by "order,
“order, system, intelligent supervision, the best of
material, and all the mechanical helps that genius can contrive and capital produce.' produce.”92' 92
Although impressive in size, workings, and output, the Studebaker factory seems to have
developed little new production technology. It had acquired some of the latest items
available from woodworking machinery companies such as J. A. Fay & Co. and Egan
Company of Cincinnati and the Defiance Machine Works of Defiance, Ohio. Ohio."393 As the

reporter noted in 1880, "The

“The Studebaker works, while a world within themselves. draw
upon all the mechanical world for its improvements in their line.''
line. ’ ’ He listed four examples
of the Studebakers'
Studebakers’ "constantly
“constantly drawing upon invention [from] without": "the “the skein-
setter, the apparatus for putting on tires, the hydraulic press for forcing in boxing, and
O’Brian’s priming.”94
O'Brian's priming. "9 4
The Studebakers saw themselves as "first-class
“first-class manufacturers,”
manufacturers," who through exten-
sive mechanization had driven down the cost of their wagons from $140 to $70 while
maintaining or improving quality. Uniformity provided work "impossible“impossible with the un-
aided human hand. Every piece of wood and iron is marked by rule, and shaped by
machinery so fixed that there can be no variation. This, with the excellent material used,
insures the perfect fit of every part, and the consequent perfection of the whole. whole/’95
" 95 The
company had adopted the rhetoric of other ''American
“American system''
system” manufacturers as well as
their special-purpose machinery.
148 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO tviASS
MASS PRODUCT!OJ\
PRODUC'l‘IOl\'

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3.11. Special-Purpose Wheel Machinery, J. A. Fay &

FIGURE 311. & Co., 1888. As early as
as the
the 1850s,
185503,
J. A. Fay &
companies such as .J. & Co. marketed a wide variety of highly specialized wagon and
carriage wheclmaking
whcclmaking machinery. This illustration provides a vivid example of such machinery.
1888. Eleutherian Mills Historical Library.)
(The Hub, January !888.
 Mass Production in Woodworking
Woor!woi"lo'i1g 1nc1u.s‘r‘rie.r
Industries 149

Throughout the 1880s and 1890s, Studebaker Brothers expanded to become the largest
maker of wagons and carriages in the United States. It manufactured some seventy-five
thousand vehicles in 1895 with a labor force of about nineteen hundred. By this time
Studebaker operated at the cutting edge of production technology, at least in certain
areas."°
areas. 96 Two examples are suggestive. At the same time that leading bicycle makers were
developing similar processes (see Chapter 5), Studebaker Brothers adopted resistance
welding and sheet steel stamping techniques. Electric resistance welding was developed
between 1886 and 1888 by the prolific inventor Elihu Thomson. This process automated
what has always been one of the most difficult tasks ofblacksmithingY
of blacksmithing.”7 As early as 1889,
Iron Age had predicted a revolution in metalworking because electric welding made
automation possible.98
possible. 98 Although not the first manufacturer to adopt resistance welding,
Studebaker Brothers became by 1891 the owner of ''one “one of the largest and most complete
plants” for resistance welding in the United States.
plants" States.”
99 The company butt-welded steel

wagon axles of up to an inch and a half in diameter. In addition, the iron tires that were
placed around the circumference of the wheels were welded with resistance techniques, as
were the hub bands and a variety of small parts of spring work. About the same time,
Studebaker Brothers adopted a technique to make wagon skeins (the metal sleeves that
fitted over the ends of the wooden axle arms for protection from wear) out of sheet
‘O0 which required large stamping machines or punch presses and several operations
steel, 100
with different sets of dies.
Although not in the area of woodworking, these developments in welding and sheet
steel working linked Studebaker Brothers to the metalworking industries in much the same
way the Singer case factory was tied to the home factory in Elizabethport. Electric
resistance welding in particular radically changed a major part of Studebaker production
technology because it replaced large numbers of skilled blacksmiths with machines. Its its
successful adoption also suggested that other changes---even
changes-even in woodworking—were
woodworking---were
possible.
Nevertheless, Studebaker adhered to some methods that might be considered anti-
quated. For example, photographs dating from around the turn of the century show the
hubmaking.
process of hub '0‘ One photograph suggests that Studebaker used manually index-
making. 101
ed machines to chip out hub mortises even though automatically indexing machinery had
been sold for some years. 102 ‘O2 (See Figure 3. 12.) Moreover, it reveals that even after they
came out of the machines, the hubs required hand chiseling to finish them correctly.
Another photograph shows a row of workers hand planing felloes after they had been
3. 13.) It must have been such methods that bothered the
fitted to the spokes. (See Figure 3.13.)
mechanical engineers in the early decades of this century. In general, however, the
Studebaker factory in South Bend, like the Singer case factory, offered testimony to
the engineer's
engineer’s notions that large output could be achieved through extensive mecha- 1necha-
nization, standardization, and other principles dear to the hearts of mechnical engi-
neers.
Studebaker Brothers moved successfully from wagon and caniage carriage manufacture to
automobile production, first using its manufacturing plant to produce wooden bodies for
another manufacturer. In 1904, the company began to sell its own gasoline engine auto- auto»
mobiles, but for seven years it purchased chassis from another company and added its own
bodies at the South Bend works. During these years it made about twenty-five
twenty~five hundred
gasoline-powered cars and trucks (as well as nearly nineteen hundred "electrics").
“electrics”). The
company expanded radically in 1911 and changed its name to the Studebaker Corporation
when it purchased the plant and assets of the Everitt-Metzger-Flanders Company. (The
Flanders of the Everitt-Metzger-Flanders Company was the same Walter Flanders who
provided rich suggestions for Ford Motor Company's
Company’s production technology; see Chapter
150
JSQ FROM TilE
THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION
PRODUCTION

‘”.; l~Q

$5 a

FIGURE 3.12.
FIGUkE 3.12. Manually Indexed Hub Chipping-out Machines and Handwork, Studebaker Brothers
Factory, ca. 1890. (Studebaker Collection, Discovery Hall Museum, South Bend, Indiana.)

6.) The Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company produced more than a million
horse-drawn vehicles in its forty-three years of business, making its factory and proprie-
tors well known throughout the United States. The Studebaker brothers moved beyond
South Bend to invest substantially in Chicago real estate and society and to establish a
branch carriage factory and showroom on Michigan Avenue.
A venue. From these activities came a
friendship with another celebrated manufacturer, Cyrus H. McCormick, whose reaper
factory was as celebrated as that of the Stude
Studebakers’
bakers' in South Bend. 103
‘O3 As will be seen in
the following chapter, however, unlike the Studebaker factory, the McCormick works
could not purchase ready-made special-purpose machinery to produce reapers and conse-
quently relied for a long time upon general-purpose machinery and skilled machinists for
its operations. Constant changes in the model of reaping machines also mediated against
the McCormick factory's
factory’s adopting special-purpose machinery to any large extent.
Model changes or style changes bothered the mechanical engineers who in the early
part of
ofthis
this century wanted to introduce mass production methods in the furniture industry.
The rhetoric of these engineers remarkably paralleled that of Samuel Colt, who had told
the parliamentary Select Committee on Small Arms in 1854 that anything could be made
by machinery. Colt and the engineers notwithstanding, however, the American furniture
industry did not adopt the production technology that proved so successful in such areas of
 Mass Production in Woodvvorking
Woodworking Industries
liidtistries 151

3.13. Hand Planing Felloes, Studebaker Brothers Factory, ca. 1890. (Studebaker Collec-
FIGURE 3.13.
tion, Discovery Hall Museum, South Bend, Indiana.)

metalworking as firearms, sewing machines, bicycles, and automobiles. There was no

Henry Ford of the furniture industry.
Explanations for this failure have almost always focused on the nature of the material
wood. The working of wood has inherent limitations: the size of the production unit is
constrained, and the choice of production machinery is narrowed. But the case of Singer
Manufacturing Company's
Company’s woodworking operations in the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries seriously calls this ''nature
“nature of the material''
material” argument into question. Singer built
cabinets in such huge factories and on such a large scale that one is tempted to use the
expression mass production to describe these operations. Though not achieving the vol-
ume of Singer’s
Singer's output, Studebaker also developed large-scale woodworking operations
largely because of the nature of its product.
The character of the furniture industry probably has been determined more by the
market than by the material. This fact greatly distressed the mechanical engineers. Prod-
ucts could not be standardized, and product lines could not be maintained long enough to
justify the construction of special-purpose machinery and other "efficient"
“efficient” production
techniques. The American system of manufactures developed in areas where producers
could sell large numbers of nearly identical goods. The furniture market did not have this
characteristic. Instead, fashion, style, and taste prevailed. Why Americans were willing to
buy millions of the same model of Singer sewing machines and millions of all-black Ford
Model T’sT's but not something equivalent in furniture is an important question, one that
requires study beyond the scope of this work.
CHAPTER 4

The McCormick Reaper

'The
Works &
"Works St American
Manufacturing Technology
in the Nineteenth Century
There is not enough consistency [in the agricultural implement industry] to admit of exact
treatment, and there is great variation in methods pursued, work covered, and system
employed. . . . Agricultural machines hove,
employed . ... have, as a rule.
rule, comparatively few fitting points, partly
because the action of these implements is not mainly between the parts of the implement itself,
but upon the soil or crops, so that interchangeability is not as important a feature. This is
really a prime distinction between agricultural implements and the other forms of
interchangeable mechanism which have been previousl_i>
previously treated.
—Charles
-Charles Fitch. “Report on the Manufactures of Interchangeable Mechanism''
Fitch, "Report Mechanism’ ((1880)
1880)

Father [Cyrus H. McCormick] and Mr. Spring went to the Works 1‘oa’ri_y
wday with Mr. Wilkinson,
who is to be our new Superintendent at the Works. He comes to us from Shumway Burgess &
C0,, holt
Co., bolt Mfrs. He has had considerable experience as aaforeman
foreman of shops and as a
Superintendent of Manufacturing Works. He has been with the ColtColl Firearms Co.,
C0., the
Connecticut Firearms Co., the Wilson SewinR
Sewing Machine Co.,
C0., and manv
many other concerns. He will
of Lfecmder] JJ.. McCormicl<
take the place ofL[eander] McCormick as Superintendent at the Works.
Worlcs.
—Cyrus McCormick, Jr., Diary, May 6, 1880
-Cyrus

c h a r lharles
e s Fitch's
Fitch’s inclusion of a section on the manufacture of agricultural imple-
M
• • • • • ments in his ''Report
“Report on the Manufactures of Interchangeable Mechanism”
Mechanism'' in
the Tenth Census is puzzling. The section seems entirely out of step with the rest of the
report, and Fitch strains to find words and phrases to tie it to his sections on arms
production, sewing machine manufacture, and clock- and watchmaking. Students of
American technological history often read accounts of Cyrus McCormick’s
McCormick's reaper demon-
strations at the 1851 London Crystal Palace Exhibition and statements that McCormick's
McCormick’s
reapers were constructed with interchangeable parts. The obvious success of McCor-
mick’s
mick's reaper and his company suggests that the McCormick reaper works must have been
one of the more technologically progressive establishments in the United States. This
view does not conform to that of Fitch, who intimates that the entire agricultural imple-
ment industry was backward when compared to sewing machines, for instance.

153
154 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

Through a study of the manufacturing operations of the McCormick reaper company

from its creation in 1841 until about 1885, this anomaly can be resolved. This study
confirms Fitch’s
Fitch's misgivings about the state of the agricultural implement industry in 1880;
in fact, it blackens the picture. Until about 1880, the McCormick works in Chicago
depended primarily on skilled blacksmiths, skilled machinists, and skilled woodworkers
to build its reapers. From the beginning of the business, Cyrus McCormick's
McCormick’s youngest
brother, Leander, was responsible for the production of the reaper. Leander, whose only
experience had been as a country blacksmith from Rockbridge County, Virginia, operated
the reaper works as though it were a large country blacksmith shop. Rarely did he draw
upon the stock of knowledge about large-scale manufacture that had developed in New
England, and even more rarely did he use the special tools devised there or the New
England concepts of specialization in machine tools.
Had Leander and Cyrus not had an irreparable fight in 1879~80, 1879-80, the reaper works
might not have undergone any notable changes until Cyrus’s Leander’s death. But
Cyrus's or Leander's
Cyrus replaced his blacksmith brother as superintendent with a New England rnechanic—--
mechanic---
the Mr. Wilkinson mentioned in Cyrus, Jr.'s,
Jr. ’s, diary quoted in the epigraph to this chapter.
This mechanic, who had once worked at Colt's
Colt’s armory, stayed with McCormick for only
about a year. Yet during his tenure he convinced Cyrus McCormick, Jr., that basic
changes were necessary and passed on to him that thc:t old New England quest for in--
terchangeability. He also taught Cyrus, Jr., the rudiments of armory practice, especially
the desirability of a model-based gauge andjig
and jig system. By I1881
881 the younger McCormick
had become superintendent of the reaper works and soon would direct the entire company
because of his father's
father’s failing health. Not until the early 1880s,
l880s, therefore, did McCor-A
McCor-
mick’s reaper works adopt New England armory techniques of production.
mick's
This chapter explores the long period of reaper manufacture under a tradition of skilled
blacksmithing and the changes that took place at McCormick's
McCormick’s factory during the 1880s.
This study calls into question long-held presumptions about McCormick in particular and
about the extent of the diffusion of the American system of manufactures in general.

Almost from the beginning, participants in the reaper's

reaper’s history as well as those who
chronicled its development fought vigorously over who really invented the reaper. As
with the sewing machine, men had long dreamed of and tried to devise a mechanical
means to reap grain, yet the basic element of such a machine eluded would-be inventors
18305. In the United States both Obed Hussey and Cyrus Hall McCormick,
until the early 1830s.
one from Ohio, the other from Virginia, hit upon the idea of using a vibrating knife or
blade to cut the stalks of grain. Hussey made his reaper work effectively by vibrating the
blade in slots cut in guide teeth or fingers. He patented this machine in 1833 and began to
sell it in 1834. McCormick claimed that he had anticipated Hussey in the essentials of the
reaper, but he did not patent his machine until mid-1834. McCormick's
McCormick’s blade lacked the
effective slotted finger bars of the Hussey machine. Yet, as is often the case in the history
of American invention, McCormick moved through the courts to become eventually the
famed hero who invented the reaper.1
reaper. 1
The history of the reaper and its manufacture does not lend itself to heroic treatment.
Throughout most of the nineteenth century it is a history notable for constant change of
mechanism and design. As will be seen later, changes made in the name of progress
militated against the rise of a mass production psychology among reaper manufacturers
and retarded the adoption of techniques aimed at large-scale production.
Thirty-one-year-old
Thirty-one--year-old Cyrus Hall McCormick began building reapers to market commer-
commer»
 The McC0rm1ck
McCormick Reaper Works iSS

cially in 1840. They were made in the family's

family’s blacksmith shop at Walnut Grove planta-
Steele’s
tion near Steele's Tavern in Rockbridge County, Virginia. Robert McCormick, Cyrus'sCyrus’s
Cyrus’s youngest brother, with aid from their slaves, handcrafted
father, and Leander, Cyrus's
these early reapers from local wood and iron. The McCormicks fabricated all but the steel
sickles, or knives, which they purchased from John McCown’s
McCown's nearby hammer works
until 1842 and from Selah Holbrook of Port Republic, Virginia, in 1843. Although
designed like the machine with which Cyrus had so easily reaped the family’s family's grain in
1839, both 1840-model reapers failed to perform satisfactorily. McCormick’s
McCormick's biographer
blamed the failure on defective workmanship, a problem Robert and Leander tried to
years?2
eliminate in subsequent years.
Cyrus firmly believed workmanship was important. In 1846 he wrote his brother that
“much
' 'much you know depends upon having the workmanship right—indeed
right-indeed almost every-
thing.”3
thing.' ' 3 Again in 1841, the father-son team built 2 reapers for Cyrus. The following year
they constructed 7 and in 1843, 29. The Walnut Grove smithy turned out 50 machines in
!1844
844 and 1845. By this time, Cyrus had begun selling territorial rights to manufacture and
market his machine, and in 1846 the various shops together with the one at Walnut Grove
built 190 machines. The reapers made at the McCormick plantation in 1846, the year of
Robert’s “pronounced failure."
l<.obert's death, were a "pronounced failure.” The editor of Southern Planter, also an
agent for McCormick, noted in his journal that he had received "great “great complaint of the
manner in which it [McCormick's
{McCormick’s reaper] was gotten up." up.” Despite this failure McCor-
mick continued to sell reapers and territorial rights to manufacture and market them.
Cyrus spent virtually all of his time between 1840 and 1846 on the road demonstrating and
selling his machine or rights to it. While Robert and Leander built the Virginia reaper,
·;;elling
Cyrus’s younger brother William kept the inventor's
Cyrus's inventor’s accounts, including those for the
widespread advertising upon which McCormick heavily relied.“ relied. 4
Although temporarily set back by complaints in 1846, Cyrus McCormick continued to
believe something he had realized in 1842: ''We “We find no difficulty in selling as many
machines as we can get made.''
made.” Knowing the limited resources and output of the Walnut
Grove blacksmith shop, Cyrus had purposely included manufacturing rights in his con-
tracts with others for marketing the reaper. Some of these contracts specified that McCor-
mick merely receive a royalty for machines made and sold. In other cases McCormick
contracted with a company to build a certain number of machines for him at a specified
price. The companies or individuals that agreed to build reapers faced the same technical
problems in construction that dogged Robert and Leander McCormick at Walnut Grove.
Usually Cyrus gave the contractor a model of his reaper (not a model in the sense used in
Chapters 1l and 2, but a miniature reproduction of the full-scale machine) and offered
technical assistance. In most of his contracts he met with disappointment in workmanship
“incompetent” men. By August 1845 Cyrus realized that the extreme decentraliza-
and "incompetent"
tion of production he had established would cause him inordinate problems and perhaps
ruin the reputation of his machine. He sought to tighten up matters: "Cin. “Cin.[cinnati]
[cinnati1 and
W.[estern] N.[ew]
N .{ew] York are the most important points perhaps for manufacturing and to
consolidate and have all done well is the great matter now.”5
now." 5
When he wrote this, McCormick had just contracted with A. C. Brown of Cincinnati
and two firms in Brockport, New York (Bachus, Fitch & & Co. and Seymour, Chappell & &
Co.). Evidently he felt optimistic about these firms'
firms’ ability to produce satisfactory ma-
chines. By December 1846, he was even more sanguine about production in the West. He
wrote his brother William that he had "come
“come to the conclusion that 100 or 150 Reapers
should be made at Cincinnati or some other point in the West"West” because "every
“every facility
156 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

can be had, good machinery, and I think means could be had to build at least 100, and
probably more. "”66 At the same time, he urged Leander to come to Cincinnati to superin-
tend production and offered him either wages or an interest in his business.
Early in January 1847, Cyrus closed an additional contract with Brown for one hundred
reapers. The contract included clauses pertaining to Leander’s
Leander's supervision of production
in Cincinnati. Cyrus wrote Leander that he was "to“to have superintendance [sic] of building
with the right to discharge hands, reject bad materials, correct defects that may occur
C.—Brown to have and keep all requisite materials provided, & C.-Brown
& C.-Brown C.—Brown bound to
complete them by 15th May~—you
May-you to receive $14 per week.”week." McCormick also extended
his contracts with the two manufacturers in Brockport, New York, writing one of them
that ''I
“I can't
can’t manufacture myself to half supply the demand.''
demand.” To meet the demand for the
1847 harvest, he also contracted for one hundred reapers with Charles M. Gray and Seth
P. Warner of Chicago.
Chicago.77 This latter contract would soon lead Cyrus McCormick to settle
permanently in Chicago and to centralize production.
The one hundred reapers made by Charles Gray and Seth Warner apparently excelled
any that had been made elsewhere. The close of the 1847 harvest brought the end of
McCorn1ick’s contract with the Chicago firm except for the $2,500 in royalties which
McCormick's
Gray and Warner owed McCormick. Pleased with the quality of the Chicago product,
McCormick entered into a partnership with Gray as a means to continue the satisfactory
production of his reaper as well as to discharge the debt. The agreement of partnership
called for Gray to build and equip a new reaper factory and to purchase necessary
materials to produce reapers. In addition, Gray was responsible for the factory's
factory’s manage-
ment, including its accounting, for which he received $1,000 annual salary. McCormick
handled the marketing end of the business and dealt with patent litigation. He also
received a royalty of $30 per machine and $2 per day salary. The partners evenly divided
the profits of McCormick & & Gray. The new factory ((40
40 X>< 100
I 00 feet, two stories high, with
a ten-horsepower steam engine) opened in time to produce five hundred reapers for the
1848 harvest. By the end of the harvest, Gray and McCormick had begun to feud, at first
privately and then in court, about financial matters.
mattersfi8
In October 1848 McCormick, trapped by Gray's
ln Gray’s dealings and pressed financially, was
forced to form a new partnership with William B. Ogden and William E. Jones under the
banner McCormick, Ogden & & Co. The company set out to build fifteen hundred reapers
for the 1849 harvest in the year-old factory that Gray had set up. The profits and fees of
$65,000 which McCormick collected from the sales of the fewer than fifteen hundred
machines actually produced provided him with the means to buy out Ogden and Jones.
McCormick immediately formed another partnership with Orloff M. Dorman, who con· con--
tributed some $12,000 to the new firm, C. H. McCormick & Co. Although no hostilities
arose, McCormick ended this partnership after a year and struck out on his own. own?9
Cyrus was alone only in a legal sense because in 1848 he had wooed Leander to
Chicago to supervise the production of his reaper. The reluctant brother William also
finally agreed to move to Chicago in 1849. Cyrus directed the company and pocketed its
impressive profits while Leander provided technical know-how and William conducted
the day-to-day business.
From the beginning of his undertaking until about 184
1847,
7, Cyrus McCormick had experi-
enced problems in the production of his patented reaper. Because the family blacksmith
shop in Virginia had been unable to make more than fifty machines at most (and those of
dubious quality), McCormick had contracted with other makers in Virginia, New York,
Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois to build his machines. Under this arrangement, there was no
 M(‘Cormick
The M cC orrnick Reaper Works 157

chance for uniformity in the shape, materials, or workmanship of the Virginia reaper
either between or within the various shops. By 1851, when he had acquired complete
control of the company he had created in Chicago and when the outstanding contracts
giving others the right to make the reaper had expired, Cyrus finally gained an opportunity
to standardize his product. Only manufacture at one factory would ensure a degree of
uniformity in shape, materials, finish, and workmanship. (See Figure 4.1.)
The factory Charles Gray had built and equipped for making McCormick’s McCormick's reaper
caught the eye of a reporter for the Chicago Weekly Democrat. In the three-story main
building a steam engine drove "some
“some fourteen or fifteen machines: viz. a planing ma-
chine, two circular saws, a tenent saw, a lathe for turning handles of rakes, pitchforks,
etc.;
etc.: also two lathes for turning iron, ...
. . . two morticing [sic] machines and two grind-
stones.” A blacksmith shop attached to the main building contained ten forges, and there
stones.''
were plans to expand this part of the facility "as “as it is at present too contracted for the
wants of the factory."
factory.” Altogether the reaper works employed thirty-three
thiziy-three men, ten of
whom were blacksmiths. 10 '0
By September 1849, when McCormick purchased Ogden's Ogden’s and Jones’s
Jones's shares of the
partnership, the factory had been lengthened to 190 feet and contained three planers, six
saws, two wood lathes, seven metal lathes, three boring machines, and sixteen blacksmith
forges heated by a single blower. A thirty-horsepower engine drove the machinery and
factory.“
about 120 men worked at the factory. 11 Fire in late March 1851 destroyed part of the

McCormick works. When rebuilt, the new four-story factory contained machinery ''of “of the
'2
latest design." 12 William wrote a friend that “more
"more than 1000 [reaping] machines nearly
ready for shipment very narrowly escaped''
escaped” the fire. Despite damages, he anticipated that
the factory would finish between 1,400 and 1,500 reapers. According to the company's company’s
records, however, only 1, 1,004
004 machines were produced that year. Nonetheless, the Mc-
Cormick reaper works greatly impressed the "noble “noble citizens"
citizens” (William's
(William’s words) of
Chicago. The Daily Democrat claimed near the end of 1851 that this plant was the largest
reaper works in the world. 13 13
When McCormick began to build reapers at Chicago-and
Chicago—-and indeed throughout much of
the period to 1890-he relied upon specialty contractors to supply him with several parts.
From Aldrich & White of Fitchburg, Massachusetts, McCormick purchased sickles at
$1.30 each, made "of “of the best quality of iron and with full complement of best double
shear steel on the edge."
edge.” A firm in Elizabeth
Elizabethport,
port, New Jersey, sold McCormick malleable
iron finger bars in which the sickle ran. Thomas Sherry of Chicago provided "all “all of the
castings and cast iron for the manufacture”
manufacture" of the machines. Under contract with McCor-
mick, Elihu Granger made the patterns for Sherry's Sherry’s foundry. In all of these contracts,
Cyrus specified that he expected a high grade of workmanship and quality of material. 14 14
The Chicago reaper factory brought these various contracted pieces together, drilled
and machined some of them, riveted some parts together, welded others, filed and fitted
others, and combined these finished metal pieces with the wooden frame that was made by
the company's carpenters. Initially Cyrus even contracted to have the machines painted
''according to the directions of said McCormicks Agents.”
“according Agents.'' His contract with two painters
closely resembled those of the inside contracting system that has been discussed before.
This was the only such contract because McCormick hired departmental foremen at an
annual salary and directly controlled all of the factory employees. Because of the pre-
dominance of castings in the metal parts and the specifications given contractors for
malleable and wrought parts, McCormick’s
McCormick's reapers were roughly uniform with others
made for the same harvest but not necessarily with machines made in other years. During
158 !"ROM
FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

E; Q@ BE
fhlfhflf WEWm %@ % w “Q

Liiucaa u, 1851.
'l,toogh put his Reaper together by the
Tliough the farmer may put. th~ ubove
above ent,
tml,iI give the following
Di RE 0
Dl GTT Il 0O N
N S:
!.
I. Lap the in hound and cro•scross piece which has
hn1 two holes for l.l1C7lXl(3,
I'M tile ax I<>, XV. Put.
Put in the <!river
ll!'l'\'¢!‘ (9
('3 <Jr
or 12 for lower or liiglier stubble) and
higher stuhbl•) nnd boll
bolt on
for high or low stubble. J,,>wer
fot· ].o\ver hole placed
pluced on the axle
a.xle for higher •tubhle.
stubble. the guard {small
Uw gunrd (s.m>"tll iiusoiroii
('a-..,t... irmJ piece)
1~iece) to keen plume, sen
keep- it in pleeeJ s•~c that
tlmt the guard does
dorij
ii. the augul"r
II. Bolt th<• migulrrr board (S, in the out.)
cut) marked thus ---—-,
tlJU• - - , lo tn its
it< not tighten on the driver. The block in the ddrer driver to bebo tightened on the
place with the 8 incll
ploee inch bolt in the back end, which
Wllieh rests the plat-
rest> close to tlw plut- crank, when it wears.
crnnkl wean-1.
form. Bolts having beviled
Bolt• beviletl bends heads b,•Jong
belong to
t.o corresponding pine es, ea, hcnda
heads of
bolts to the left.
tongue bnlt• 8-inch bolt (in the box) goc•
left.. The 8-inrh goes through the
III. Put the axle in phwe.
Ill. place. hue
bllck encl
end of of !Lngle
angle board (S S in
boar<l (S in the out). ern""
the cut), cross piece and in
piece and in hound
hound C.
C.
lY.
KY. Pl11ce
Place the frame on the other end of the •xle
tha wheel f(llme axle lapping
l(2]7pilJg tho
Uw The 5t
'fhe bolt thr<mgh
51: lIli)lt< throu,gh oro's
crqss pipes
piMe acpd
and iii
in l\0Li!lli,!lGi'(l‘
hound ncnr the same place. The
place, 'fhe
finger be-am
"finger beam above below-suiting the higher or lower (.!Ut
uhove or b.clow--&uiting cut nt Q...
at. Q.
V. Put on the main brace braceD, D, marked thus=~ thus ==, one side of drivees
ona sid~ dr-iver‘s 8ent
sent. on t~e~Jif~~~}:~pi~J~~;;;c._4
&ame
some bolt.
VI. Separator
Sepnrator W, (marl<cd
(ma rl-ted O)0) to its corresponding mnrlc,
itseorresponding mnrk, there is a• lit-lla
little OPERATION.
wooden pin to be removed to give gi~·c pln.ee
place to .r~.a bolt. ·' 1 11.. Run the Reaper
R-euper on h<tr-d
hard ground, see that
groundl and sr,e wm·k~ free, as
t!w.t it works a,s i~
lb may
VII. Dividing
VH. Di•iding iron mm·hd marked til thus
us ~-,><;. If the reel he be required
requil'ed very low, hg~t nt
be tight
b!) at for!jt. l~Vi>rk the _reel
\V.,rk the. reel as
us high us n• the smallest graingroin will admit
thi~
this iron iij. off~ for ~mall
is taken ofi‘,fnr small when.t,
wlient. ' nf,ns
of,us 11. it runs ighter to he
runs.fighter higher. The httml
be htgher. will stn·t~h
lnmd w1ll stretch at first,
first, snd
and must
VHI. Side honrd
VUL board (with in-non nailed to it) marked U, to its
brnce naile,! iisplace,
pl•ce, remov- he tnken
taken up, and the the end
and kept tied, tied, or it
it. will
will lil.,ten,
fasten, nnd
and be injured
injured in
in the
ing na small block to give pl:we place to it. <>\'s
i.'O~~s.
K.‘ ‘ .

IX. Two •m•llsmall posts erected and cloth bur on top marked T. 2. Grind
2.. Grind eicktc
sickle with with zin short
~frm·t bevil, on the
bevi1, on the smooth aide,when
smooth sidE\ when required,
required
(but not often).
(but often). To To behe ati little
little broken
brokon will not not injure
injure it, but may be
be evi:
evi-
bearer V.
X. Reel IJenrer rlerrceof
detJee> of good temper.
XI. Reel shaft
slw.ft Z to its place, 11rms arms put in with blocks (on each end) 3. The
3. The above
above cut out shows
shows exactly how how thethe rnking
raking should
should he done. The
be done. The
far ward as the reel tnrm.~:t
fm-ward after brn~cs
turns, and 11.t'ter braces nn: nnd tightened by n cro~s
are in and cross Ralrer can hrtve
Raker have :1n.. little int(<rrnhu~ion between
littto interrniaaion bet\.\'cen slienves.
s.herwes. and
nnd then with at a nary
vt:ry
pi-n- in the one with long tenun
‘pin tenon (there is brace fo-r
l: :s one bruce for each m1d end with 1onrr
lung quick .<weep,
q~<ick sweep, (catching
(catching by the heads) pull the sheaves
tiJC benuo) sheaves round, leaving the
t-enon)
t/anon) the bonrds
hoards are
tire th-en
then nnHed
nailed on the blocks. s~~e d in cut.
hlocks. See cub. The boards bunrd~ butts next the grain.
grnin. . 0-U
41/
have to be strained into
ha.ve intu :1n shnpe
shape. that wHlwill fit, fir, n~
as the uruis parallel.
Hl'!llS are not parnHeL Keep the nutter (washers
the. nutl~ (waslmrs only put on where bolts bulls Rre
are eh'Jiged
chryged, because
becnuse
})ach
Each of these hourrls hnving an block on the end (rind
boarrls having (nnd thet.he end without the tho not so liable
Unble to loo8.e
loose nutts) andnnd keys light,
tight, and oil uil well,
well. '
block is next the wheds)
hlook wheels) put, so as to passt
put on, so"" passl of nn inch inoll from the an- •n- When iron and wood work together, very little oil is best, bost.und
and I will ndd
add,
f,'Ular
gular board.
hoard. thnt long exp~ricnce
that experience bfl.s convi~ced me that ~he
has convinced axle~ of un ReRper
the main axles Reaper a:r~are
X11.
XH. If fingers
fingers do not fit fit right, they can be bB knocked out with a punch, better
bettf':r to run in th{~ woud,(ha.ving
Jn the wood~(havwg siO\Yslow mot.wn)
motion) tlmuthan UH?trll-nothing
metal--nothing to got
tQ get
and with theth" wedges trained right with very little trouble. loosa,a1ndil‘
looa<•, and if ever theythey wear
wear to
to require
requireit. it will only
it, it only then
then bebe necessary
necessary to to
XIII.
XIIL The small ground wheel h"" has a third and lower sctt st-.t.t by bolting the put. boxers
put boxeB in, and the axles will be perfect.
block on
blwk on the u-pper
upper instead
instend of the lmceT lower &ide, aide, and
nnd the side next the horseg horses _ By the Shipper,
Sliipper, the cogs moy may behe geared deeper or shallower,
•hallowcr, or put en- err.
may be raised or lowered some two twu inches hy changing the position of the Lirely out of gear when not cutting.
hrdy '
tongue which
whkh mo.ymay be done if required lay by boring another hole in the
iu tbe Thu strip
Tlte on the
<trip on the angle
n.ngk hoard may be
board m"y be rni•ed
raised oror lowe,.,d
lowered to to •uit
suit the
the reel.
reel.
tongu-e.
tongllev As the
A• the Reapur
Reaper is not not wholly
wholly put
put. together
together •I at the !nctory,
factory, ill
in some
some ca&e•
oases
very slight trimming at the lnps laps may he t'onnd neees~nrv.
be found necessary.
XIV. 'fhe W~>•hor may be placed on eith<>r
The square washer either end of the axle to the lmntl
If the flies, it
h•nd flies, it. will be
be owing
owing to its its stretching, or or the
the •baft
shaft not
shallower and other washers
gear deeper or ahnllower can be added.
wllllbers of leather cau level, or Hmthe pulley not being fair.
G. H. M'CORJIIICX,
C. HFCORHIGK, Patentee.

FIGURE 4.1. Cyrus McCormick's

McCormick’s Instructions for Reaper Assembly, 1851. A major proponent of
advertising, Cyrus McCormick used similar illustrations for handbills and newspaper advertise-
2lClV€1l1‘6-
ments to show farmers what his patented Virginia Reaper looked like.
likc. (McCormick Collection,
Collection
State Historical Society of Wisconsin.)
 The McCormic/<
McCormick Reaper Works 159

18405 and throughout the 1850s,

the late 1840s 18505, the McCormicks changed virtually every part of
their reaper from year to year. In his biography of McCormick, William T. Hutchinson
detailed these changes. He noted that "scarcely
“scarcely a single element was left untouched
untouched.. .. .. ..
Although no basic changes were made, the alterations made annually are evidence of the
never-ending experimental work in progress and of the presence of competition."
competition_”‘515

Although market-oriented Cyrus McCormick considered annual changes-andchanges-—and some-

times changes within a model year-important,
year—~important, they extracted certain costs. Perhaps the
most important was the actual expense of production. In 1849, for instance, McCormick
estimated his manufacturing cost at $55 per machine. 16 16 The company devoted so much
time and effort to perfecting its new model machine each year that it usually got into
production too late to satisfy all the demand. As a result, the annual output was lower than
it might have been, and agents and farmers were often disillusioned with the company's
company’s
performance. Another problem bred by annual changes was in the supply of repair parts,
“repairs” as they were called in the nineteenth century. Very early in the company's
or "repairs" company’s
history, McCormick set up a repair department which maintained a duplicate of every
year’5
year's model and the patterns that formed its basis. When a customer needed a part, he
had to tell the company which one he wanted and the year the machine was made. The
head of the repair department took the appropriate pattern to the foundry, which made the
17 Until McCormick adopted a complete set of gauges—and
casting. 17 gauges-and there is no evidence
1880—the
that he did so until 1880-the farmer assumed the responsibility of fitting the new casting
or wrought-iron part into his machine. Agents usually kept a large stock of parts to avoid
delays in obtaining them from the factory. Apparently the company sometimes acciden-
tally sold pieces for repairs that had been used as patterns, thus forcing it to find an old
machine to use as a pattern. Leander wrote Cyrus in 1859 about such a search: "I “I have
been engaged in having all the old parts of different years build of Mach[ine]s hunted up
mach[ine l finishing &
and putting as far as there is near enough for a whole mach[ine] & making such
complete.” But McCormick did not supply any wooden parts for his machine. When
complete."
these were requested, the company advised the inquirer to find a local carpenter. ‘8 tR

McCormick’s policy of annual changes, which he believed were dictated by the mar-
McCormick's
ket, was supported by the factory's
factory’s production system. Because no special-purpose ma-
chine tools were used and general machine tools included mainly drill presses and metal
lathes, changes did not necessitate scrapping costly tools. Presses to punch out sickle
plates, to make cold iron nuts (or rivets), and to shear bar stock easily accommodated
changes in design. A heavy dependence on blacksmiths who riveted and welded pieces
together and who fashioned the few wrought-iron pieces not contracted out to specialty
shops also made it easy to make major or minor changes in models. Alterations in
woodwork were wrought easily, especially since all of McCormick's
McCormick’s woodworkers were
carpenters.”
skilled carpenters. 19

Management of McCormick’s
McCormick's reaper factory throughout the 1850s,
18505, therefore, centered
in three areas: deciding what to produce; supplying parts contractors with correct patterns
and purchasing an adequate supply of materials; and directing factory workers. Leander
carried out most of the experimental work and, with his brothers, settled on the final
model. He also managed the factory's
factory’s workers. William negotiated materials purchases.
Cyrus, although he solicited advice, always made the final decision on how many ma-
chines the company would make. With this approach to production, the factory turned out
reapers (or combined reapers and mowers) whose quality varied annually with the nature
of design. Agents often complained about the workmanship of the McCormick reaper; one
from New York wrote that the New York State products excelled those of Chicago in
16() FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

workmanship and noted that '' “$5

$5 expended in workmanship extra would save twice the
repairs” and double sales.
amount in repairs" sales?“
20

McCormick’s factory made slightly more than one thousand reapers per year from
McCormick's
1851 to 1853. Sales increased in 1854 when more than fifteen hundred machines were
produced. Suddenly, in 1856, the factory experienced great pressure to' to'turn
turn out four
thousand machines. (See Table 4.1.) The McCormick family's family’s response to this unprece··
unprece-
dented jump in demand provides us with an idea of how the three brothers viewed large·· large--
scale production and sales. In the midst of the harvest of 1856, when the factory always
felt pressed to get out as many machines as possible, Cyrus wrote a customer who wanted
some spare finger bars: "My “My fingers are made at five different establishments inN. in N. York
and N. Jersey, and come along slow. I cannot finish over 40 Machs. a day [even] if they
were on hand."
hand.” Evidently Cyrus considered moving his factory so that output could be
expanded to more than forty machines per day. His brother William protested, saying, "I “I
consider it out of the question. I wouldn't
wouldn’t and neither would you want to bother with this
business after a few years when every county is filled up with it [reapers]." {reapers].” A few days
later William told Cyrus that despite large sales in 1856 he considered ''the “the propriety of
{manufacturing} over 2000 machines for [[l8]57
[manufacturing] doubtful.” Thinking further about the
18]57 doubtful.''
matter, he sought to convince Cyrus that "2000 “Z000 is a big business
l7usine.s‘s & if they can surely be
made & & sold need not care for more.more.”2‘
" Another fire after the production season in 1856
21

allowed Cyrus to rebuild a larger factory although it seemed to increase William's William’s ap-
prehensions about big business.
business.2222 Cyrus finally urged his brother to calm down: "Don't “Don’t
man!”23 When considering making changes in reapers for 1857, however, the
be scared man!" 23

inventor insisted that "caution

“caution is essential in every particular in changing from what is
well.”2"'
well." 24

Cyrus was obviously pleased by the 1856 design and advocated few changes except a
heavier reliance on malleable castings rather than the more brittle cast iron. Despite the
reaper works’
works' relatively large output, McCormick noted that his "machines “machines generally
went together well this year I hear, except that all the sickle butts were tight in casting,
trouble. ” Everything seemed promising for 1857, and Cyrus sought to make
giving much trouble.''
and sell another four thousand reapers.
reapers, He wrote his brother that "we “we must drive & & do
. . . to
more ... 10 sell”
sell'' and asked him to purchase stock for four thousand machines. By
November, shortly before the factory would begin production for the harvest of 1857,
William was able to "predict
“predict a good time for at least another four years. years.”25
" 25 Now, he,
too, wished to make four thousand reapers.
Leander’s reaction to increased production of the Virginia reaper is more difficult to
Leander's
establish. While William pointed out that producing ''4000 “"4000 machines makes great work,'' work,”
the youngest McCormick never complained or expressed apprehension about his job.
Apparently Leander ran the factory effectively during the 1856 and 1857 harvests. In 1857
William proudly reported to Cyrus that "we “we have never had the work so far forward" forward”
during the height of the rush to produce reapers. Yet Cyrus worried about Leander’s Leander's
performance as superintendent. He urged his brother to show up promptly every day at
7:00 A.M. and to maintain regular hours of work. Shortly before the factory was to begin
7:00A.M.
production for the harvest of 1859 Cyrus finally asked William whether Leander "at- “at-
tendledl to business in a spirited
tend[edJ spiritecl manner.”
manner.'' Obviously concerned about Leander's Leander-’s ability
to get out more than forty-five hundred reapers, the inventor even proposed hiring Charles
Gray, his former partner with whom he had earlier fought about financial matters, to help
Leander prepare for the company's
company’s growing bu5iness.2(’
business. 26
That McCormick could consider bringing back Gray, against whom he still harbored
 /1/I<'Cormicl< Reaper Works
The McCormick 161

'1‘Ani.E
TABLE 4.1. MCCORMICK Mncnnvns
McCoRMICK BUILT. 1841~1885
MACHINES BuiLT, 1841-1885

Year Hand Rakers Self-Rakers Mowers Droppers Harvesters Binders Total

---------- -------------

1841 2 22
1842 7 7
1843 29 29
1844 50 50
1845 50 50
1846 190 190
1847 450 450
1848 700 700
1849 1.494 1,494
1.494
1850 l1.603
,603 l1.603
,603
1851 1,004 1,004
1.004
1852 1.011
1,011 1.011
1,011
1853 1 . 101
1.1 OJ 1.101
L!Ol
1854 1.558 1.558
1855 2,534
2.534 2.534
1856 4,076 4.076
4,076
1857 4,065
4.065 4.065
4,065
1858 4,565 4.565
1859 5,1 18
5,118 5,118
5.118
1860 4.083 4,083
4.083
1861 5.491 5.491
5,491
1862 4.965 203 5.168
5,168
1863 2.259
2,259 2.053 4,312
1864 2,027 4,063 6.090
1865 2.503
2,503 1.283
1,283 3.786
1866 2.519
2,519 5.004 7.523
7,523
1867 3,998 3.800 7,798
1868 3.522
3,522 5,377 609 9.508
9.501\
1869 6.932 2.494
2A94 9.426
1870 7,032 2.001 9.033
9,033
1871 8,497 I1,500
,500 9.997
1872 2.996 2.996
1873 8.747
8,747 I1.278
,278 10.025
10,025
1874 7.229
7,229 2,044
2.044 841 10,114
1875 3.338
3,338 2.501 632 5.005 11.476
ll ,476
1876 5.987 3,623 852 3,497
3.497 64 14,023
1877 1.000
I .000 1,146
I, 146 354 3.053 1,040 6,593
1878
IS78 1.822
1,822 2,513 776 6,391 6.316 17.818
17,818
1879 l1,129
'129 3,165 862 7.798
7,798 5,806 18,760
18.760
1880 2,499 6,098 507 7,205 5.246
5,246 21.555
21,555
1881 2,513 9,474 I1,020
,020 8.618
8,618 9.168 30.793
30,793
1882 2.739
2,739 15,040 1.514 13.210 14.180
14,180 46.683
1883 4,255 14,347 552 14,045
14.045 14.821
14,821 48.020
1884 3,703 13,697 681 18,128 18.632 54,841
1885 2,221
2,22! 14.436
!4.436 1,152
l, 152 15.565 15,528 48,902
48.902
----------~-------------· ----- --·---------------------- --------------------- ----- - - --------

TOTAL 47.432
47,432 91,500 110.821
110,821 10.352
10,352 102.515
102,515 90.801
90,801 453,421

Source." “McCormick Machines Built since 1841,"

Source: "McCormick 1841,” McCormick Estate Papers. M/I,
M/1, Box
Box. 18.
162 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTJON
PRODUCTION

grievances, indicates the depth of his concern about Leander's

Leander’s apparent nonchalance.
nonchalanee. He
I-1e
never hired Gray, however, and Leander continued to handle production without prob-
lems as long as output remained around five thousand reapers per year. Yet once Cyrus
began to envision producing ten, twenty, or even forty thousand machines annually
Leander protested.
Both William and Leander lacked Cyrus’s Cyrus's optimism for prospective reaper sales and
his flair for business. When in 1857 early sales lagged and it appeared to William that only
about three thousand reapers would be sold rather than the four thousand machines under
construction, the two younger brothers panicked. Rather than despair, Cyrus prescribed
what he considered would be the best remedy: ''I “I think advertising extensively
exrensivel_v .. .. .. in
many .... . . papers .... . . may be important.” arranged with James Campbell.
important." He ananged Campbell, one of ofhis
his
eastern agents who often purchased materials for the factory, to travel around the country
“stirring up"
"stirring up” (Cyrus's
(Cyrus’s words) agents and writing advertisements for suitable newspapers.
McCormick’s market-
Rather than having a thousand machines left over after the harvest, McCormick's
ing techniques provided sales for all but 154 reapers, which he probably sold the next
harvest at a significant discount—-perhaps
discount-perhaps only slightly above his cost of $46.41 per
machine without overhead expenses.expenses.”27

Cyrus’s marketing abilities notwithstanding, his desire to produce more machines

Cyrus's
generally
gene rail y met with opposition from his brothers. Paradoxically, after McCormick lost his
battle for his second patent extension, William wrote him, "I "1 [have] often said your
money has been made not out of your patents but by making and selling the machines.” machines.''
William also thought "more “more attention should be bestowed upon improvements from year
to year."
year.”2828 Despite Wi11iam‘s
William's recognition that Cyrus had already earned a fortune, he
would nevertheless continue to consider five thousand machines per year an ·'enormous''“enormous”
business that should satisfy Cyrus. Cyrus McCormick must have been well aware of his
brothers’
brothers' business philosophy but believed he could show them differently because in
1859 he took both of them into his business as partners.39
partners. 29
McCormick’s agreement with his brothers did not constitute a true partnership because
McCormick's
neither William nor Leander had enough money to purchase a share in the factory. Under
the name C. H. McCormick & Bros., Cyrus agreed to share one-fourth of the profits with
capital at 8 percent,
each of his brothers, to supply the firm cap1tal percent. and to equip the factory at cost
(but to charge the company SIO,OOO S10,000 rent for his factory). 1nIn addition to profits, William
and Leander each received an annual salary of $5,000. The brothers made this agreement agreement:
for twelve years. By 1864, however, they had found 1tit unsatisfactory. At this time,
Leander and William each purchased a one-fourth interest in the capital of the company.
After Willianfs
William's death in 1865, 1865. Cyrus and Leander reached a new agreement.W
agreement.?‘9 (Sec(See
Figure 4.2.)
The nominal partnership of I1859 859 fortunately occasioned a thorough inventory of the
l\/lCCOI‘miCl(
McCormick factory tools and machinery, part of which remained in the hands of Cyrus or
McCormick and another part was charged to C. H. McCormick & Bros. This inventory
shows the extent of technological development at the reaper works.' works.“1 lnIn the blacksmith
shop the company owned the following tools: 123 blacksmith tongs, 19 sledges, 30 hand
hammers, 16 cold chisels, 33 punches, 70 section chisels, 31 chipping chisels, 55 SS
swedges, 10 I 0 anvils, 4,447 pounds of cast-iron forms for old model reapers,
reapers. 837 pounds of of
cast-iron forms sttllstill used,
usee!, and miscellaneous (shovels, rakes.
rakes, tempering cans.
cans, bellows,
and so on). Cyrus maintained the following equipment used in the blacksmith shop: 8
blacksmith forges, 8 bolt machines with two sets of dies each (each machine and set of
dies valued at $12), and 11 bolt-cutting machine with 3 sets of dies ($50). These bolt
 Worlts
The McCormick Reaper Works 163

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FIGURE 4.2. McCormick Reaper Factory, Chicago.

Chicago, ca. 1860. This drawing was made about the time
Cyrus McCormick brought his younger brothers William and Leander into formal partnership in his
reaper business. (From William T. Hutchinson, Cyrus Halt McCormick: Seed-Time, 1809-1856.)
Hall McCormI'c'k.' l809—l856.)

machines were probably rudimentary devices for rotating either cutting dies or the bolt
shank itself. Eugene Ferguson has suggested that the machines were placed in the black-
smith shop because the shanks required heads to be put on, on. a process carried out by the
skilled blacksmiths who worked there.
In the sickle room, where the individual sickle knives were riveted onto the sickle bar,
Cyrus owned a riveting machine (valued at $5), a shearing machine to trim the sickle
knives ($25), and three drilling machines for boring holes either in the knives, the sickle
bar, or both ($25 each). The riveting machine was probably an elementary device, judging
from its assessed price of $5 (even if it had been amor1ized
amortized for several years). Here the
company owned two sickle gauges-probably simple devices to check for the correct
placement of holes in the knives-and
knives—and three blocks for straightening sickle bars after all
knives had been riveted onto the bar.
Some of the heavier turning and drilling operations were done in the so-called engine
room, where holes were drilled and reamed in the wheels. Cyrus kept the following
machines: 1 1 key sear l[5eat?] ($100),
seat?} lathe ($1 00), 11 upright key sear [seat?] lathe ($25), 11 large
upright drill for wheels ($250), 4 horizontal drills ($50 each),
each). 11 large horizontal drill
($50), 6 turning lathes ($175), and 11 turning lathe ($50). C. H. McCormick & Bros.
maintained the tools that were used in these machines as well as other tools: 29 dogs, 21
turning tools, 8 scrapers, 3 reamers, 5 wrenches, 1l pair of tongs, 13 chisels, 13 punches, 6
hammers, and 1ll/4V4 dozen files. In addition, three different kinds of gauges appear in the
inventory of the engine room tools. Sixteen gauges for a wheel (valued at $8 for the lot),
nineteen crank gauges (total value of $9.50), and eight gauges for the main wheel
(altogether valued at $8) were listed. 1I have been unable to find any substantive informa-
tion on these gauges or even to ascertain whether they were identical gauges or sets of
!64
16 FROM THF
Tllli AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODlJCI'IO~...J
AMI:ORIC/\1\ SYSTEl'vl PR()DUC'l‘lON

gauges to check, for example, nineteen critical points on a crank. The assessment of va.lue value
of fifty cents and one dollar per gauge, however, raises serious questions about their
quality. Traditionally the preparation of gauges used in the armory version of the Ameri-
can system of manufacturers constituted one of the major expenses of production hard-
ware. Nevertheless, whatever their quality or exact use, McCormick's
McCormick’s factory was using
gauges for three components as early as 1859.
There is no evidence that in subsequent years Leander expanded the use of gauges in
reaper production. Evidence exists that he continued to rely upon skilled machinists to
fashion heads on bolts whose threads had been cut by relatively simple devices. From the
inventory of the McCormick finishing shops we may also conclude that a significant
amount of handwork went into completing the Virginia reapers.
C. H. McCormick & Bros. listed the tools in its finishing shop in 1859: 99large large drills, l
mach. punch, 92 boring drills, 67 hand drills, 98 cold chisels, 12 finishing hammers, 5
finger sets, 22 turning lathe tools, 10 hand lathe tools, 12 l2 reamers, 12lathe
12 lathe drills, 25 lathe
25lathe
drills, 33 chassers, 6V2
61/2 dozen large files, 77‘/2
1/2 dozen small files, 15 iron vises, 3 hand

screw plates and dies, and 81 [either pounds or actual numbers] dies and taps plus a large large~
list of miscellaneous dies, taps, punching and other tools. The inventory also lists 2,465
pounds of used files. Cyrus owned a number of machine tools used in the finishing
department: 5 upright drills (McCormick
department; (l\/lcCormick factory make at $100 each). each), 33 upright dnlls
drills
$100
(eastern make at $1 00 each), I1 big press with I1 I1 shears and 6 dies (($400),
$400), lI big press with
19 dies and 34 old dies ($275), 11 big press with I1 set dies ($275), 1l big press with 1l set
dies ($75), 1I iron planer ($175), I1 large turning lathe ($750), 1l turning lathe ($175).($175), 11
turning lathe ($75),
($75). and I1 turning lathe ($25). Prices for machinery and tools in the
inventory probably varied with the quality and size of the tools and also with the number
of years they had been owned by the company or by Cyrus.
factory operated five woodworking shops in which Cyrus owned
The McCormick factoi·y
extensive equipment. This included: 11 wood lathe, l cross-cut saw. saw, 1l Woodworth planer,
5 circular saws and frames, 2 circular saw frames, 2 Daniels planers.planers, 3 horizontal boring
machines, 11 upright mortising machine, l1 compress saw & frame, 11 gaining machine with
6 heads, 2 upright boring machines, 1l mortising and boring machine, 2 chamfering
machines, and, 1l rake hand lathe fi.c.,
[i.e., Blanchard-type lathe].
lathe!. A variety of hand vises.
vises,.
saw blades, and small tools complemented the wood shops’ shops' machinery.
By 1859 the McCormick works had opened its own foundry. lts Its equipment seems
typical of any small foundry. Leander's
Leander’s reliance on cast iron and cast malleable iron
dictated against the use of drop-forging equipment, one of the hallmarks of New England
armory practice. Not until the early l1880s
880s is there mention of drop-forging at the McCor··
McCor-
mick works.
To sum up, the factory inventory of 1859 delineates a manufactory not unlike a large
general machine or jobbing shop. The McCormicks relied almost wholly on skilled men
and general machine tools rather than special-purpose machine tools for the fabrication of
their products. There is no comparison between McCormick’s
McCormick's machinery and that, say,
purchased in 1854 by the Anderson committee for the Enfield Armoury. Armoury.” 32 McCormick’s
McCormick's
machinery is entirely different from the highly specialized machine tools that charac- charac-
terized New England armories and the American system of manufacturing. Virtually
absent is a rigorous gauging system whereby every critical dimension is checked. Com- Com-<
pletely absent is a rational jig and fixture system.
Year in and year out the McCormick
lVlcCormick reaper works made reapers without ever establish-
ing a model in the New England armory sense of a paragon or an '"ideal “ideal form”
form" machine
 The Mr'C0rmir'l< Rwpcr
fhe McCormil'k Reaper Works 165

from which all gauges,

gauges. jigs, fixtures, and cutters were designed. With armory practice, a
factory’s mission was to turn out production machines that emulated or conformed exactly
factory's
to the model. With McCormick, there was no model or ideal form, and what it called a
model was an ephemeral machine, a marketing rather than a manufacturing concept.
The American Civil War, traditionally seen as a great boon to reaper sales, sales. brought
hardship to the McCormicks.
McCormicks, at least in their own eyes.“
eyes. :n Sales vacillated throughout the
war. (See Table 4.1.) Following the lead of other reaper manufactures, McCormick
introduced more complex self-raking reapers in 1862 i862 (when the factory built 203 self-
rakers) and within three years completely phased out hand rakers. (See Figure 4.3.)
Difficulties at the reaper works centered about designing and producing the self-raking
machine and, more important, procuring skilled machinists, carpenters, blacksmiths, and
molders. The company also faced frequent strikes because these workers realized that they
could make continued wage demands. These labor problems did not, however, induce
Leander to make significant changes in the production process at the works either during
or after the Civil War.
War.“-' 4
Manufacture for the harvest of 1862 caused few notable problems. Yet in preparing for
the next harvest season, William and Leander had begun to feel the pressures and uncer-
tainties of the war. William recognized the increasing scarcity of hands, both in Chicago
and on farms. The former would hamper production possibilities at the factory, and the
latter would probably ''make
“make a small number wanted.”
wanted.'' On the other hand, William
reasoned, a shortage of farm hands might induce farmers to purchase the new self-raking
reaper, which eliminated the need for a laborer to rake the cut grain off the reaper‘s reaper's
platform. William noted that despite labor shortages, the factory could "easily"
“easz'ly” turn out

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FIGURE 4.3. McCormick Self-Raking Reaper,

Reaper. 1862. Known as the Reliable,
Reliable. this machine was
introduced in a minor way in 1862 and continued to be manufactured until about 1871. (Interna-
tional Harvester Corporate Archives.)
166 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS
fVIASS PRODUCTION

four thousand machines and asked Cyrus to determine how many should be hand and how
many should be self-raking reapers.35
reapers. 35
William’s chagrin, Cyrus had gone to Europe to market the company's
Much to William's company’s
“fleelingl
products. William even accused his brother of "flee[ing] away from this land of blood &
death»-where we are trodden by abolitionism in the North-without
death-where North-—without liberty of speech-&
speech——&
south.” William’s
with utter ruin in the south.'' William's charges merit consideration; Cyrus probably
found it easier to live in Europe than to be torn directly between continuing his prosperous
business in the North or giving up all for the support of his South. Cyrus had even lured
Leander to Europe to help set up machines and work with an English contractor on
production of the McCormick reaper. Leander stayed in Europe only a short time, howev-
er.
er, and would later write Cyrus that he considered his trip "one of the blunders of my
life.”3"‘
life. " 36
Strikes in the foundry in September 1862 forewarned of walkouts during the rush to
produce machines for the 1863 harvest. Upon his return to Chicago, Leander found all
work behind schedule and doubted the possibility of producing four thousand machines.
As pressure began to build during the 1863 production season, William began to panic.
He warned Cyrus that molders, carpenters, and machinists were about to strike for higher
wages and that the factory desperately needed finishers but could not get them. Despite
production of only four thousand reapers, he sought to convince his brother that the
business and its concomitant problems were "immense."immense.”37" 37
Leander believed that had he remained in Europe an additional month, the factory
would have manufactured few self-raking reapers. Late in the production season, he had
had to fashion new patterns, first of wood and then of iron, for the new machine. Jn In
addition, he told Cyrus that the factory had had to build "new “new iron machinery"
machinery” to make
some of the parts of the self-rakers.
self-takers. Leander also noted for the first time in his COJTespon-
correspon-
dence that the factory was constructing fixtures for machining some of the parts on the
self-raker.38
self-raker. 38 Cyrus had written from Europe several times requesting changes in the

design of the machine. Each time Leander capitulated but finally protested, noting that it
“impossible to count the cost or trouble of such changes." He had employed extra
was "impossible
men at higher than normal pay to press the work forward, and still the factory was late in
its production. William added that "strikes
“strikes have prevailedémen
prevailed-men go off to escape [the] {the}
Dlralft. . . . Workmen such as we most needed are independent." With what work force
D[ra]ft. ...
remained, the factory operated during evenings. Leander also rented some extra machine-
ry. Both brothers in Chicago clearly recognized that the self-raking reaper demanded more
material and better workmanship than the old hand raker. William claimed it doubled the
work. He later wrote Cyrus that farmers were willing to pay cash for the McCormick
machines, but the factory simply could not build them.~°"’
them. 39
When the annual postharvest tranquility began to set in at the reaper works, William
took time to reflect
reflect on the hectic production season and its problems. He saw a clear need
for additional machinery, but more important was an early decision on the fmal final design of
the machine for the next harvest. "Experimental"
“Experimental” work had severely delayed initiation of
production. The company had almost always dragged out its experimental work too long
but had usually recovered in time to produce the number of machines Cyrus had re-
quested. One of the unique problems of 1863, wrote one of the clerks in William’sWilliam's office,
was ''green
“green and obstreperous”
obstreperous'' hands. The factory had depended on skilled workers, and
the Civil War had depleted the supply of this class of labor. In ln addition, the final design of
the McCormick self-raker for 1863 had not compared favorably to that of other manufac-
turers. McCormick had never succeeded in perfecting an effective combined mower and
 /l4r‘COI"nu't‘l< Reuper
The McCormick Reaper Works
Works" 167

reaper—nor
reaper-nor had any other maker. Yet others had given up and introduced an efficient efficient,
single-purpose mower. Now the company faced designing such a machine which would
not infringe on others'
others’ patents. William suggested to Cyrus that the company should
change its policy of carrying out all development in-house. '·I "1 believe,"
believe,“ he wrote, "we “we
should look to combine good points in other machines with ours & to buying a good light
mower. We should rely on our manufacturing facilities more than upon invention.
invention.“4° " 40 No
doubt William realized—-at subconsciously—that the war made it difficult for the
realized-at least subconsciously-that
company to rely solely upon its manufacturing facilities, particularly because full utiliza··utiliza-
tion of the factory depended upon an adequate supply of skilled molders, machinists, and
carpenters.
Leander wrote his brother that despite the late, small production for 11863 863 he saw no
reason why five or even six thousand reapers could not be made for the 1864 harvest. He
pointed out that he needed to buy machinery to replace what he had rented during the
self-raker’s complexity and design required more machining of parts and
spring rush. The self-raker's
demanded that the factory prepare more carefully to produce them. William also advo-
cated manufacturing six thousand reapers (two-thirds to be self-raking machines), pro-
vided that adequate preparation was made. madef“ 41 He complained to Cyrus that the inventor

wanted to make too many changes and that the European business had bad placed too many
demands on the Chicago factory.
factory.” "Let
42 “Let us not be hindered about these llittle
[little]J changes in
this country,"
country,” William exclaimed and then asked rhetorically, "had “had you not better for
Europe manufacture in Europe?"
Europe?” He concluded his lecture by reiteration: "I “I repeat that if
we go to tinkering with alterations for this country we shall get behind & fail again. again.”*?‘
"-n
To prepare adequately for the 1864 harvest, Leander and William negotiated additions
to the factory, the largest being the foundry to accommodate the increase in castings
required by the self-raker. After Leander purchased additional lathes and mortising ma-
chines, he thought the only remaining problem was the great scarcity of labor and its
consequent high price. He noted in a letter to Cyrus that "good “good men [areJ
[are] very scarce
the]l government offering them from 2 to $3 [per day] for all sorts [of] mechanecks
[with the
[sic].” Soon he would be writing about a molders'
[sic]." molders’ strike, about "troubles
“troubles in getting work
done,” and about having "to
done," “to pay extravigant [sic] prices and hire extra machinery & very
many things not worthwhile to enumerate.'
enumerate.”4“ ' 44
Both Leander and William continued to complain to their brother that his European
business hampered Chicago factory operations,
operations. particularly since he had demanded cer-
tain changes from the American production machine, thus requiring different patterns and
machining. In December 1863 or January 1864, Cyrus, apparently unshaken by his
brothers’
brothers' objections, asked them to prepare early three hundred self-rakers for Europe.
Friction arose over this request. Leander enumerated the changes in woodwork, castings,
and machining necessary to make the European machine and tried to explain the resulting
interruption of the flow of work at the Chicago factory, which he regarded as a waste of
time. William echoed this attitude, calling Cyrus's
Cyrus’s request "a
“a serious drawback to the
entire business here ...
. . . where labour has the power & & is on strike half the time. Our
men refused to work the other day clay under a new foreman & we had to withdraw him." him.” He
“employing the right men ...
added that ''employing . . . is a most troublesome business.”
business.'' In late
February, William wrote Cyrus that the factory had completed seventy-five European
reapers and would make no more. William sent patterns for these machines and admon-
ished Cyrus to find a maker in Europe. Reluctantly, Cyrus yielded to his brothers' brothers’
demands. Before the end of the American harvest of 1864, he returned to the war-torn
United States. William wrote at the end of the year, when preparations were under way for
168 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

the next harvest, that after they refused to make any more European reapers, construction
of the six thousand machines for 1864 had gone "right “right through without a halt"halt” and
anticipated.“
consequently had cost less than he had anticipated. 45

Production for the 1865I 865 harvest dropped off significantly from the six thousand of 1864
to fewer than four thousand machines. Perhaps one reason for the decline was the intro-
duction of a mower and the cessation of the hand-raking reaper, which had been produced
in various forms since 184 1841.
I. But in 1866 an unprecedented seventy-five hundred ma-- ma-
chines were built, including five thousand mowers. The end of the Civil War obviously
served as a boon to McCormick’s
McCormick's ability to produce such a large quantity of reapers and
mowers. The war'swar’s end was also followed by William
WilliamS.S. McCormick’s
McCormick's death. For many
years William had suffered from an apparent nervous disorder, no doubt exacerbated by
the long hours of work and anxiety of running the reaper business as well as managing the
entire McCormick holdings in real estate and stock. Through the years, William had
occasionally tried to restrain Cyrus's
Cyrus’s enthusiasm to produce ever more machines. Perhaps
William’s death in September 1865 eliminated one hindrance to larger annual production
William's
and played a role in the jump of output by almost four thousand machines.
The years between the end of the Civil War and the Chicago fire of October 1871 1871
constitute one of the most interesting periods in the history of the McCormick reaper
factory under the direction of Leander McCormick. During this time tension grew be-
tween Cyrus and his brother over the perennial issues of how many machines to produce
each season, what changes to make from year to year, and what price to charge. These
issues define the basic elements of a business philosophy or a production psychology-—
psychology---
they must be settled before one can begin to talk about mass production. Cyrus's Cyrus’s intimate
involvement with the affairs of the company for the first time since establishing his
business in Chicago brought those deep-seated issues to the surface.
In the fall of 1865, when the sting of William's
William’s death dominated Leander’s correspon--..
Leander's correspon
dence, he wrote Cyrus about what changes were necessary for the 1866 production period.
An increase in output demanded acquisition of new machine tools, and Leander specu-
lated that he would have to go to New York to buy them. He also advocated construction
of a new building at the factory because ''the “the work is greatly retarded by the miserable
cramped arrangement of work.”46
work.' ' c> Although a new building could not be built for several
4

months, Leander bought six new engine lathes and fitted them into an already over-
crowded factory.“7
factory. 47 Few serious problems arose for Leander in getting out seventy-five
hundred mowers and reapers for 1866. No longer affected by William’s William's fear that reaper
sales would suddenly end, one of the principal clerks in the McCormick offices wrote that
despite many years in business and the current production of seventy-five hundred ma-- ma-
chines, "we
“we know of no spot that is supplied fully with machines, though in some
co[untie]s lll[inoi]s we have sold from 40 to 50 every year since we began.”
co[untiejs in lll[inoils began." He added
that the McCormicks were no longer, as they once had been, "simple “simple enough to suppose
we should overstock the country in less than seven years.”“8
years. " 48
Rather than fearing overproduction, the company wondered whether it could manufac- manufac--
ture more than seventy-five hundred machines per year. Additions to the factory, a new
steam engine, and a new cupola in the foundry allowed an increase in production to almost
eight thousand for 1867 and ninety-five hundred for 1868. (See Figure 4.4.) Charles
Spring, who took on almost all of William McCormick’s
McCormick's responsibilities, wrote Cyrus
that these additions would pay for themselves in one yearflg year. 49
After the harvest of 1867 Leander announced the "complete“complete st/1cces.s"’
success" of the McCor-
McCor--
mick mowers and reapers made that year. To Cyrus he expressed his belief that ''we "we can
 The M("Cormzr/<
McCormick Reaper Works
Wor/ts 169

FIGURE 4.4. C. H. McCormick &

FIGURE 4.4. & Bro. Factory, North Side Chicago,
Chicago. 1868. (“McCormicl<‘s
("McCormick's Prize
Harvester,” 1868, McCormick Collection, State Historical Society of Wisconsin.)
Harvester,"

sell all that we can make,''

<;ell make,” yet he warned that few would be made if Cyrus kept insisting
on "mixing in a new and untried machine."machine.” Leander rejected Cyrus's
Cyrus’s desire for expan-
sion not only because he thought an unproved reaper might jeopardize the standing of the
company but also because he had begun to build a production system that could no longer
easily accommodate changes. He explained: "We “We have had much of our work largely
under way knowing the difficulty of being late as heretofore and all of our machinery is
fixed and made to suit this, & & much of it not suited to any other work && would require
much alteration, all of our patterns, flasks and men, are trained to work at this particular
work.”
work.'' Maintaining that the mower need not be changed but merely refined, Leander
described for Cyrus how such refinements were being made: "We “We are taking much paines
[sic] to fit up all parts patterns & we have gearing from cut patterns, which will make all
[sic)
work better.
better . .. .. .. With the new cut gear &
& newly fitted up patterns our machine will run
20 pr. cent lighter than heretofore.
heretofore.”5O
" 50
Unfortunately, it is difficult to determine exactly what Leander meant when he stated
that all of the factory's
factory’s machinery had been fixed and was not suitable for any other work.
There is no hint during previous years that the factory built or operated to any great extent
special-purpose machine tools. All evidence suggests the contrary, that the factory oper-
ated a large number of engine lathes and other general machine tools such as planers and
presses. Leander must have been alluding to the fixtures and dies used in these machines
rather than any highly specialized or single-purpose machine tools. His ambiguous state-
ment that his men had been trained to make one particular product model may suggest that
he had instituted a more rigorous division of labor system at the factory. In any case it
indicates that the factory depended on workers who, though not so highly skilled that they
170 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

could easily accommodate design changes, had acquired limited skill through a repetitious
learning process. Leander had not totally done away with skilled workers but had boxed
himself in by not eliminating them from the production process?‘ process. 51
Cyrus McCormick must have yielded to Leander's Leander’s plea not to change the design of the
self-rakers and mowers. For two years the factory turned out the same product (although it
attempted to add a new machine to the line in 1868-the "dropper"). “dropper”). But sales declined
dramatically in the harvest of 1869; as Leander cried, "We “We will have hundreds of them
left over.
over.''
” Looking back on what went wrong, the vacationing Leander emphasized to
Cyrus that ''something
“something new is a popular word.' ' The old Reliable, as the self-raker had
word. "52
52

been dubbed, had outlived its time. Manufacture of a new, improved machine with a
lighter draft—the
draft-the Advance—-now
Advance-now seemed necessary to Leander. (See Figures 4.5 and
4.6.)
4. 6.) Cyrus felt otherwise and requested that one thousand Reliables be built for the
“satisfied that our old machine (Reliable) has had its day
harvest of 1870. Leander, still "satisfied
dare, ” expressed his opinion to Cyrus that "it
and is out of date," “it was wrong to build [a single]
one of the old Style but [because the inventor has insisted] we have 11,000 ,000 of them on the
way. " Uncharacteristically, the younger McCormick boasted that the company could sell
way.''
ten thousand Advances alone and perhaps even more. more.53
53

Leander's
Leander’s confidence about how many machines might be sold carried over into his
attitude toward production. He contemplated taking a trip to Pittsburgh to examine bolt-
heading machinery and even thought of traveling to Providence, Rhode Island, to see
similar machinery. Considering replacing blacksmiths by these bolt headers, Leander
pointed out to Cyrus that these machines had been employed successfully in many large
factories. They would cost somewhere between three and five thousand dollars. To
complement this machinery, Leander also wanted to buy a press for punching nuts and
washers.54
washers. 54 Although he eventually purchased bolt-heading machinery, there is no evi-
dence that Leander went to Providence or to any other machine tool center in New
England. Had he gone, he might have radically changed the manufacturing operations at
the McCormick factory. Instead of Providence-mProvidence—or even Pittsburgh-Leander
Pittsburgh—~Leander toured
establishments in western New York.
After the production season for the 1870 harvest but before the factory geared up for
1871
18 71 Leander finally took a trip in search of machine tools. The effect of his visits to
several establishments in the area of Utica and Buffalo was profound. Writing to his
brother he exclaimed, "I “I have been in Utica Steam Cotton Mills, and really it is worth a
trip from Even Chicago to see the rattle & buz of Machinery, such perfection of work,
perfect order, Every part performing its part of the work. You ought by all means to
stop ... [to]1 see it."
. . . [-to it. ” Although textile manufacture had nothing in common with reaper
production, the order and perfect coordination of the mill offered Leander a sight that he
had never experienced and an insight he would never fully grasp. Leander saw other
factories, which he did not identify. Writing about one of these he noted, "I “l know of
nothing that is equal to it."it.” In Buffalo, he saw bolt-heading machinery and made arrange-
arrange··
ments to purchase two machines (at $2,000 each) and one for round heads (at $500). $500).”ss
Returning to Chicago, Leander began to direct the factory's
factory’s preparations for the 1871
production season. This harvest would see the introduction of a new grain shipper ar·· ar---
rangement on the McCormick self-raking machine, a change most pleasing to Leander.
shipper’s production presented him with a challenge. In mid-September he advised
The shipper's
Cyrus that for production of the shipper the factory needed two lathes, ''which “which we are
obliged to build as there are none such to be bought.''
bought.” With them he anticipated that one
man would be able to perform the work formerly done by two on regular lathes. Even with
 The McCormick Reaper Works
Works" 171

---r 1 .

“ex

It ,1
.,‘ t tr‘?!
»¢~"“’”'T

t
- Nov

7 -it
\~. /T,__i.;_/ L

‘ -QIYX‘ \_i_"j r -.~,

IGU RE 4.5. McCormick Advance Self-Raking Reaper, 1869. A lighter-weight machine than the
FFIGURE
Reliable, the Advance was introduced in 1869. McCormick attempted to sell it as a combination
reaper and mower, but for mowing, McCormick’s
McCormick's Prize mower (See Figure 4.6) was far cheaper
and more effective. (International Harvester Corporate Archives.)

'8.

FIGURE 4.6.
4.6. McCormic
McCormickk Prize Mower, 1869. (International Harvester Corporate Archives.)
172’)1., FROM THE AMFRlCAN
AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

more productive tools, Leander anticipated that the cost of the shipper would exceed $100
and could reach upward to $125. According to him, the high setup costs drove up the price
shipper.“
of the shipper. 56

With this new machinery, both purchased and made in the works, the reaper factory
turned out an unprecedented 9, 9,997
997 machines for the 1871 harvest, just three short of the
absolute limit upon which Leander had insisted in August 1870. Even before the harvest
of 1871 had begun, the production and sales picture looked so promising to Cyrus that that: he
again began to toy with the idea of moving the entire factory to the southern outskirts of
Chicago, a move he had considered for two years. Pleased with the factory's factory’s current
performance, Leander voted against such a move. move.-*7
57 For one brother good times meant

expansion, for the other, satisfaction. Leander’s

Leander's objections notwithstanding, Cyrus pur-
chased property for a new factory. He told Leander that he bought property for buildings
“so large as I think they should be-—to
"so be~to admit of expanding business."
business.” Reflecting
Reflecting further,
he wrote, "I
“I may just add that with the new factory with ample room and first rate in all
respects would with our means & & influence & advantage might yet be making some other
leading machinery/’58
machinery. " 58 Cyrus thought not only about increasing reaper and mower pro-
duction but also diversifying his product line, perhaps adding threshers to complement the
reaper line. This diversification did not take place until after Cyrus's Cyrus’s death, but in
expansive moments he always considered it.
Cyrus’s plans for a new reaper factory were temporarily halted by the report
Cyrus's rep011 of very
poor sales during the 1871 harvest. In mid-July Leander predicted that seven thousand or
even eight thousand new and old ole! model machines would be left over. Calculating neces-
sary production for 1872, he could not see manufacturing more than four or five thousand
machines. Moreover, even though the design experts at the factory made some important
changes in the newer machine, Leander believed that because of the large leftover stock of
1871 machines, "we “we cant [sic] expose to the public this last improvement, as it w[oul]d
w[ ouiJcl
injure so large an amt of old work." A month later, Leander again surveyed the situation
and lashed out against his brother. "As “As you well know the prospects in the business were
never perhaps as flattering as at that time [March 1871 1871],” “You and Mr.
J," he wrote Cyrus. "You
Spring were figuring on 20,000 machines, you must have new buildings put under way at
once, while lI did all I could in every way to avoid it. it, as you know. It took the hardest sort
of pleading to keep you out of it.'' it.” Expressing pride about his conservatism, Leander
“l mention all of this to call your attention to the fact that all was success &
concluded, ''I
the more work the more money, was the idea. We did not build [a new factory or twenty
machines] and well that it is so.
thousand machinesj so.”59
" 59
Leander also lamented the increased production cost of reapers and mowers, yet
because of the poor sales the company faced reducing the selling price by about 25
percent. Charles Spring, who had become the general manager of the business after
William’s death, advocated selling the leftover machines at $!40
William's $140 each, a figure Leander
believed came close to the actual factory cost. Furthermore, Spring advised Cyrus to
produce another large amount and sell them at slightly above cost in order to crush
competition, which he believed to be the source of McCormick's McCormick’s poor sales. Leander
would hear of no such thing. He complained to Cyrus that "we “we have the most expensive
machine in the country to build, & yet must undersell others & break them down to build
up ourselves.
ourselves . .. .. .. Il have no opinion of any breakneck atTangement
arrangement of 14,000 or 20,000
machines.”“‘)
machines. " 60 He agreed with Spring, however, in calling for a price reduction.
Cyrus McCormick's
McCormick’s response to Leander's Leander’s survey of the company’s
company's situation at the
end of the 1871 harvest touched off a continued discussion about the basic philosophy of
 T/re McCormick
The Mc"C0r/nit"/< Reaper Works 173

the business. The founder stated explicitly and categorically for the first time that although
he was sixty-two years old, he did not wish to continue reaper manufacture on the same
small scale as in past years. Leander said that in principle he agreed but the fact that seven
or eight thousand machines were left over from 1871 and four thousand thousand from 18701870
dictated against expanding or even maintaining production. Regarding the company's company’s
pricing policy, Leander wrote that "it “it is thought so here, as Il understand it,
it. that the price
of our machine was so high that others came in & took the field with a lower priced
machine.” Whatever the price of the machine, he argued, ''I
machine.'' "l have not favored so large an
increase of business. lf we have bmlt
busmess. If built only 8,000 this year it would have been very much
better for us. I have had none of the 14000 or 20000 fever myself. Our machine is very
complicated having a great many parts and none of which you can dispense with and
accomplish what we do. It has worked well & sramis we/I is the universal declaration with
stands 1vell
the new working arrangement.
arrangement.“"“
"(' It is difficult to determine Leander's
1 Leander’s thinking about
how quantity would affect the cost at the factory. From the context of his letter to Cyrus,
two arguments could be suggested: (I) (1) Leander implied that increased production actually
raised costs; (2) he implied that even if production were greatly increased, the factory cost
would remain the same. In ln any case, there is no clearly articulated notion of economies of
scale in Leander's
Leander’s correspondence with Cyrus McCormick.
These issues of how many machines to produce and how much to charge were elimi-
nated by the Chicago fire of October 1871, whichwhich destroyed
destroyed the McCormick
McCormick reaper
reaper works
works
along with two thousand machines stored there and $200,000 worth of materials that had
production.“
been gathered for 1872 production. 62 Leander’s
Leander's concern about seven or eight thousand
leftover machines suddenly turned into a sense of relief because most of these machines
had been shipped to agents throughout the United States, where they could be sold for the
1872 harvest. The fire served as a blessing of sorts for Cyrus because now he could
Leander"s protestations that the North
rebuild the works where and how he wished without Leander's
Side factory was good-and
good—and big—enough.
big--enough. Blessings notwithstanding, the fire did cause a
great loss to C. H. McCormick & & Bro. Charles Spring estimated it as follows:
follows;

on stock $193,157
on machinery 35,057
on reaper 181,695
on buildings 609,000
on real estate 360,475
360.475
$1,379,38463
$l.379,384@3

Insurance covered slightly overover aa quarter of

of aa million
million dollars
dollars of
of the
the loss. Setting up
loss. Setting up
temporary shops at the North Side factory site and repairing the engine and machine tools
that were repairable, Leander and his men built almost three thousand Advances for 1872 l872
while at the same time
time planning
planning the
the new
new South
South Side
Side works
works at
at the
the corner
corner of
of Western
Western and
and
Blue Island avenues. The construction of the new reaper works offered the McCormicks a
fresh start, an opportunity to adopt new production technology. As it turned out, Cyrus
and Leander lost that opportunity.
Hardly before the remains from the fire had had cooled,
cooled, machinists
machinists began
began reconditioning
the machine tools that had not been completely ruined while patternmakers set set about
making new patterns for the current model reaper and mower. Working through office
clerks, Leander began a search for new lathes, gear-cutting machines, and other machine
Leander’s procurement of these tools offers an interesting commentary on his
tools. Leander's
awareness (or lack of it) of standard practices in buying machine tools. Two examples will
174 FROM THE
!'ROM Tl-IE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

suffice. For cutting teeth on the geared part of the reaper wheels, Leander contracted with
Lucius W. Pond of Worcester, Massachusetts. When in March 1872 the factory received
the machine, Leander expressed his surprise that the fixture for holding the wheels in the
cutter had not been sent with the machine. After firing off an inquiry about the fate of this
fixture, he received the following reply from Lucius Pond: "We “We were considerably
surprised at your supposing we were making one of them for you as it is not customary to
furnish such fixtures any more than it is to furnish mandrills and cutters, and we have no
recollection of ever having furnished .... . . one [for anybody]."
anybody]/’ Before contracting with
Pond, Leander had corresponded with William Sellers of Philadelphia, asking if he could
supply the McCormick factory with a gear-cutting machine that would cut not only
internal
interna! gears on reaper wheels 26'/2
26\h inches in diameter but also bevel and spur gears.
Sellers wrote back that he knew of no such universal gear-cutting machine. As a second
instance, Leander ordered some presses and their dies for punch work from the Stiles &
Parker Press Co. of Middletown, Connecticut, one of the leading press and punch tool·· tool--
makers in the United States. Upon receipt of the tools, the McCormick factory protested
not only the price of the dies but also the charge for the bed plates of the presses. The
proprietor of this Yankee firm, N. C. Stiles, replied that he had been in business for
fifteen years and had worked at the bench for many years before that. Moreover, he was
thoroughly familiar with the way ''Eastern
“Eastern shops''
shops” conducted their business. Never before
had he heard of anyone expecting to receive a bed plate without extra charge. "Suppose
“Suppose
your job required 50 bed pieces [i.e., 50 different operationsl,” “Should we
operations]," Stiles asked. "Should
have furnished them without charge[?J"
chargel?j” Stiles added that McCormick's
McCormick’s offer to pay $200
for the tools in question was insulting because he had $448.60 tied up up in
in them.
them.“64

episodes—only two among many-betray

These episodes--only many—betray a profound ignorance of the way
things were done in the New England machine tool industry. Leander presumed that
fixtures were supplied with the machine tools he ordered, although he had never specified
that he wanted them when ordering the tools. He had merely told the tool builders what he
wanted to use the machine tools for (cutting internal gear teeth on the inside of a 26 1'/2-inch
/2-inch
wheel, for example). This assumption seems just as naive today as it did to the toolmakers
in question a hundred years ago. The new McCormick reaper works would continue the
basic practices of manufacture upon which it had relied for many years, practices outside
the New England tradition of manufacture. Leander equipped the factory with dozens dozens of of
belt-fed
new belt- fed engine lathes, overlooking the advantages offered by tun·et
turret lathes and milling
machines, both of which were easy to acquire in the machine tool market by 1872. 1872.6565

The rush to produce reapers at the old factory site while also building and equipping a
new factory took its toll on the company. Charles Spring wrote Cyrus McCormick that
“losing more ground than we can regain in years.
they were ''losing ” Leander worked throughout
years."
the summer of 1872 on the new factory as well as gathering an adequate supply of repair
parts lost in the fire to serve as patterns. While Cyrus seemed always to remain in New
York on business, Leander dealt with such problems as making arrangements for the
construction of workers’
workers' houses near the new factory because none was available in the
area.“
area. 66

During this time the brothers continued to negotiate matters of partnership--interest

partnership»—interest
held by each, rental of the factory, ownership of tools, salaries, and responsibilities.
Leander wanted to bring his oldest son, Robert Hall McCormick, into the business both as
a shareholder and as assistant superintendent. Cyrus consented to Hall's
Hall’s participation in
the company as well as to selling his own machinery to the new company, styled C. H. & dz.
L. J. McCormick & & Co. Yet the brothers had not finalized a written agreement. Pressures
 The Mrformielc
McCormick Reaper Works 175

of opening the new factory in 1873 (when more than ten thousand machines were pro-
duced) as well as these negotiations taxed Leander's
Leander’s nerves. Finally in mid-May he
informed Cyrus that he would not continue in the business unless a written agreement
were made; he even offered to sell his interest in the new factory. After additional months
of negotiations with his brother, Leander laid down the terms on which he would con-
“In the first place I cant [sic] carry more than one sixth [interest] of the whole
tinue: "In
business under any circumstances, and secondly, I must have a salary of not less than
$10,000 covering the past year for my service. The number of' of machines to be limited to
10,000 and no other kind ()/'machinery
of macfiinery to he
be bui/r 0fparri'es.“7
built without the consent ofparties. 67 Once

again, Leander sought to restrain Cyrus's

Cyrus’s growing desire for increasing the scale of his
business as well as diversifying its products.
Cyrus responded at length to Leander's
Leander’s conditions, noting, "You“You ask a good deal of
me.”
me." Leander had specified verbally that any written agreement should be binding for
only one year. Cyrus singled out this point and wrote his brother that for the past two years
of negotiations they had been talking about a five-year arrangement. He emphasized again
that only through a longer contract and vigorous prosecution of the business could they
make reaper manufacture ''a “a grand success.”
success.'· Responding to another of Leander's
Leander’s verbal
demands—that
demands-that Cyrus should be more active in the business than hitheito—the
hitherto--the inventor
pointed out that he had kept "at “at bay”
bay" the lawsuits that continually threatened to interrupt
the operations of the company. He would continue to work on legal matters, but he could
“much of my time to looking after the manufacturing or general interests of the
not give "much
business.”68
business. " 68
Finally, in November 1873, the brothers began to feud and to abuse each other
verbally. After an encounter with Leander, Cyrus wrote his brother that "I “I can not permit
you to come to my room to continue and perpetuate your calumnious & bullying abuse of
an ‘old scoundrel’ and 'old
'old scoundrel' ‘old scamp,'
scamp,’ as you have at different times termed me, while 1I told
you that nothing your mouth could utter or fists gesticulate could induce me (at my age!)
to foist myself by a personal encounter with you." you.” He demanded that Leander withdraw
certain charges and accusations and also admonished his brother to pay closer attention to
business. In particular, Cyrus had discovered that the factory was "paying“paying too much for
labor all through. ""69
69 Leander finally yielded to Cyrus's
Cyrus’s wishes, and the brothers declared
a Lmporary
temporary cessation of hostilities although not a peace. During the next five years their
relationship would grow stormier until finally Cyrus decided that his business would
prosper better without Leander. Events during the period leading up to this decision show
how little attention Leander paid to the operations at the factory and, consequently, how
its production processes remained virtually static until Cyrus fired him as superintendent.
Although the company’s
company's advertising literature claimed
ciaimed that the capacity of McCor-
McCor..
mick’s new reaper works exceeded that of the old by three to four times,
mick's times,7° output during
70

the first few years of its operation hardly exceeded that before the fire. The last full year of
Leander’s tenure, when he was only nominally the superintendent, the factory produced
Leander's
fewer than nineteen thousand machines, albeit of five different varieties. Production in
1877 waned to a twelve-year low (excepting the year of the fire), largely because a large
number of machines were left over from the previous season, when an unprecedented
fourteen thousand machines were made, but also partially because of renewed dissatisfac-
tion on Leander’s
Leander's part.“
part. 71 Cyrus had hired a patent expert (who also deemed himself an
expert mechanic) to buy patents for improvements on reapers and mowers, to try to use
the patent system as a means to gain strategic advantage over competition, and to maintain
an adequate perspective of the performance of all the reaper companies in the field. The
176
I76 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS
t\/IASS PRODUCTION

expert, Charles Calahan,

Colahan, toured the McCormick works near the end of the 1877 produc--
tion season. Immediately he saw problems, particularly with the manufacture of a self- self--
binding reaper, introduced in small numbers the previous season. (Sec (See Figure 4.7.) The
binding mechanism of this machine required greater precision of machining than other
parts of the McCormick reaper. Writing to Cyrus, he stressed that "you “you must inaugurate
more system, order & & discipline [at the factory),
factory], in order to secure perfect construction
previous to shipping; this would save thousands—~tens
thousands-tens of thousands of dollars. dollars.”72
" 72 Addi--
tional correspondence from Colahan
Calahan indicates that Cyrus took his criticism of the factory
seriously and undertook measures to impress upon Leander the need for more order and
discipline.”1
disciplinc.7-
Leander must have heeded Cyrus's
Cyrus’s admonitions. The following year the factory turned
out a record eighteen thousand machines at an average cost of $28.88 each compared to
the sixty-five hundred of the previous year, each of which cost $55.02. $55.02.” 74 Although this

was the largest increase in output and the most impressive decrease in unit cost in the
factory’s history, Charles Calahan
factory's Colahan still found cause for complaint. He wrote Cyrus that
“while at Chicago I examined the Binder in process of construction ...
''while . . . with [thej
[the] view
[[of]
ofJ anticipating expert services in the field
field.. .. .. .. I1 found some work slighted, or roughly
done, and called Supts. office, and Mr. Baker’sBaker's attention to it." it.” Calahan
Colahan noted, "I “I fear
fGar
my ‘meddling’
'meddling' incurred the displeasure of those who should (in my opinion) appreciate
my intentions better—and
better-and I am at a loss to understand why Mr. L. J. McCormick was so
anything.”75
unwilling to hear me say anything.' ' 75 These charges against Leander came at a time
when he had begun to launch an attack on his older brother. Leander had written and

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FIGURE 4.7.
4.7 McCormick Harvester and Wire Binder, 1876. Although introduced in a limited way
in 1876, the wire binder was first manufactured in quantities by McCormick in 1877 ((1.000)
l ,000) and
I878 (6.000). Eventually, in 1881, McCormick introduced the twine binder (See Figure 4.8).
1878 (6,000). 4, ~n
(International Harvester Corporate Archives.)
 Tlze Mt'Corm1'(.'k
The ivfcCormick Reaper
Reuper Works 177

circulated a document in which he claimed that Cyrus's Cyrus’s father Robert was the true
inventor of the reaper and that Cyrus had merely patented those ideas. In addition,
mventor
Leander had initiated negotiations with other reaper manufacturers to sell them manufac-
turing rights to a patent he owned but which he planned to use against his own company. company.7“ 76

Correspondence from Leander indicates that he had become bitterly jealous of the
hero-worship accorded his brother. Cyrus McCormick’s
McCormick's name had become synonymous
public’s mind, while Leander, who perhaps rightly be-·
with reaper manufacture in the public's be-
lieved
licved that Cyrus would have been nothing without the help of his father, William, and
himself, had remained anonymous. William Hutchinson, in his biography of Cyrus,
attributes the major cause of the many years of dispute between the two brothers to intense
jealousy on Leander's
Leander’s part.”
part. 77
By the end of the 1879 production season, when the factory turned out almost nineteen
thousand reaping and mowing machines (including almost six thousand binders), Leander
was waging open warfare against Cyrus. He bluntly stated that he planned to open his own
manufacturing plant and actually contracted with at least one foreman at the reaper works
to start work for him in September 1880. 78 Cyrus, now seventy years old and increasingly
1880.78
burdened by arthritis, sought to put the McCormick company on a more permanent basis
than the partnership, whose formal agreement of 1874 had expired. Apparently still
company’s manufacturing operations
convinced that Leander contributed positively to the company's
Leander's share in the partnership (although he could have
and unwilling to purchase Leander’s
viith his brother to incorporate the business at a capital
so). Cyrus negotiated with
easily done so),
of $2.5 million. The inventor subscribed to three-fourths of the stock while Leander and
articles of incorporation called for Cyrus to be
his son Hall took the other quarter. The a11iclcs
president of the company and Leander to be vice-president. In addition, they specified that
Leander should be elected to the office of superintendent of the manufacturing depal1mcnt department
for a five-year term. Guaranteeing a salary of $7,500 per year, the articles a11icles also stipulated
“shall give reasonable attention to his said office"
that Leander ''shall provided that Hall
office” and prov1dcd
McCormick could serve as assistant superintendent with a $4,000 salary. Cyrus's hope
79 Cyrus’s
salary.7"
that such an arrangement would bring an end to Leander's Leander‘s hostility soon evaporated.
The McCormick Harvesting Machine Company Board of Directors met for the first
in September 1879 and ratified the articles of association.
time 111 association.” xo Cyrus McCormick
distributed stock to three of his longtime employees, Charles Spring, William Hanna, and
James Whedon, an act that welded their loyaltyloyalty· to him even more firmly than before. As
directors rather than tattletale functionaries these men could exert more influence on the
Cyrus~than before. In the months subsequent to the first board meet-
company~—and on Cyrus—than
company--and
ing (at which Leander was formally elected superintendent of the mechanical department),
the period traditionally devoted to intense preparations for the coming production season,
Leander’s continued absence from the factory.
these men became increasingly aware of Leander's
Charles Spring wrote Cyrus in early October that the superintendent had ''been “been at the
lately” and a few days later wrote again that in three weeks Leander had
factory very little lately''
not spent ten hours at the works. Two weeks later, he advised the aging inventor:
“Leander came home day before yesterday. He takes no interest in matters at the factory,
''Leander
will get out of the business as soon as he can.
can, (tells this to Whcdon).
Whedon). It will never run right
at the factory until they [Leander and Hall]Hall j arc
are out of it. "s 1
it."“‘
James Whedon, who had been elected secretary of the company, gave Cyrus McCor-
Leander’s performance: "You
mick, Jr., more specific details of Leander's “You \Viiiwill please to say to your
father that I was at the factory on Saturday .. .. .. and that l
I hear on all sides reports of the
business . .. .. .. Baker [one of the fore-
disinterestedness of both Hall and Leander in the business.
)78 FROM THE
Tl IE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

men]
menj says that neither of them help him or advise with him. Voice [another foreman] tells
the same story. Mr. L. J. I. is not there but very little &
& then only to pour his woes into the
ears
cars of any who will listen to him. I am told that he does not pretend to direct and
superintend things saying 'any ‘any Employee has as much attthoritv
authority as 1.’
I.' "782
82

Cyrus and his son, who had taken over many responsibilities from his father, faced
Leander’s failure to fulfill the obligations of his office but also with
dealing not only with Leander's
his resistance-both
resistance--both as a director and as superintendent-to
superintendent—to increasing the output of the
works. For 1880, Leander wanted to produce only fifteen thousand machines, a decrease
of more than twenty-five hundred from the previous year. Yet Cyrus's Cyrus‘s expert, Calahan,
Colahan,
had predicted an "unequalled"
“unequalled” demand for machines in the coming harvest. He encour·· encour-~
aged Cyrus to make sure that adequate preparations were made. Moreover, Calahan Colahan
advocated the introduction of additional styles of reaping and harvesting equipment.
Colahan"s
Calahan's advice, coupled with repot1sreports prepared by Charles Spring about the number of
sales the company had lost the previous harvest through its inability to build enough
machines, convinced Cyrus that well over twenty thousand machines should be made for
880. Leander resisted, not because he thought they could not sell
J1880. scll that many but because
he did not see how the factory could produce so many. Charles Colahan Calahan disagreed. As he
wrote Cyrus McCormick, "Manufacturing
“Manufacturing is comparatively an easy matter when the form
of construction is decided in time to perfect preparations [in order] to secure perfect work;
and we usually loose [sic)
[sic] the first year on account of want of energy ho[t] time.”83
noft] time. " 83
By February 1880 Cyrus McCormick had decided that he could no longer tolerate
Leander’s
Leander's and Hall's
Hall’s abuses of their elected offices as well as their refusal to assign the
company several patents which they held. He submitted a statement to the Board of
Directors about the poor management of the factory and the patent abuses. abuses.“ 84 Touching off

a debate that ran for two months, Cyrus's

Cyrus’s statement eventually led Robert Hall McCor~ McCor ..
mick to resign as assistant superintendent. The responses by Hall and Leander, coupled
Leander’s notification to the board that he would be in Europe for six months from
with Leander's
mid--April (a critical period at the factory), finally brought Cyrus to propose to the board
mid-April
that “the
''the position of Superintendent of the manufacturing department, occupied by L. .J. J.
McCormick, be declared vacated/’85
vacated. "R 5
On April 14, 1880, the board ratified Cyrus's
Cyrus’s motion. At the following meeting, May
4, 1880, it resolved that Lewis Wilkinson be appointed superintendent of the manufactur-·
manufactur--
ing department.
By firing Leander and hiring Lewis Wilkinson, Cyrus McCormick initiated one of the
most important changes in his business since he had originally decided to settle in Chicago
in 1848. This event brought an end to the blacksmith—machine shop~carpenter shop
blacksmith-machine shop-carpenter
approach to reaper manufacture and signaled the beginning of production under the
American system of manufactures. As noted in Chapter 2 in the discussion of technical
choice in the sewing machine industry, the person in charge of manufacturing largely
determined the production system. Leander JJ.. McCormick in 1880 was still very much the
Virginia blacksmith he had been when he first arrived in Chicago in 1848, and the
factory’s operations reflected
factory's reflected his background. I have been unable to document a single
instance when Leander made any substantial contact with the New England system of
manufactures delineated in Chapters 1I and 2. Not until Lewis Wilkinson took the superin-
tendent’s job did McCormick begin to adopt to any great extent the system used in New
tendent's
England armories and other manufactories. Leander'sLeander’s firing also meant the end of a
conservative production policy, which in part had been dictated by the system Leander
had set up. By 1884, the year of Cyrus’s
Cyrus's death, the company was making more than fifty
 The McCormick Reaper Works 179

thousand agricultural implements (including binders), and under Cyrus McCormick, Jr.'s, Jr. ’s,
leadership the works was turning out more than one hundred thousand implements by
1889.86
1889. 86 Cyrus’s
Cyrus's long-held wish to manufacture reapers on a grand scale came true only
after he fired Leander. V
Cyrus McCormick, Charles Spring, and Cyrus McCormick, Jr., hired Lewis Wilkin-
son because of his wide background in manufacturing. According to Cyrus, Jr., Wilkin-
son had worked at the Colt armory in Hartford, the Connecticut Firearms Company, and
the Wilson Sewing Machine Company, as well as other manufacturing firms. firms.“
87 (The

Wilson Sewing Machine Company of Wallingford, Connecticut, had, at its height in the
1870s, made slightly more than twenty thousand machines per year.) Wilkinson immedi-
ately began operating the factory at night so that enough machines could be produced for
the harvest that was almost upon them. Cyrus McCormick, Jr., served as assistant super-
intendent at the factory, and the young Princetonian carefully studied Wilkinson’s
Wilkinson's
work.“
work. His father noted that Cyrus had ''applied
88 “applied himself indefatigably to the knowledge
and development of the most important part of our business in the office, at the Works &
in the field.''
field.” Looking back at the 1880 production season and viewing the intense
preparations being made for a record production of more than thirty thousand machines in
1881, Cyrus noted Wilkinson's
Wilkinson’s seven-month performance: "The “The present Supt. at the
Works has also filled his position with great success, having accomplished many improve-
ments in the special departments there thus facilitating to a large degree the extra produc-
tion which the increase in the business, has necessarily demanded.”89
demanded. " 89 (See Figure 4.8.)

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FIGURE 4|8v
FIGURE 4.8. McCormick Harvester and Twine Binder, ca. 188i.
\881. McCormick adopted twine for the
binder, which required a different tying or binding mechanism than one for wire. As with all
McCormick machines, the early harvester and twine binder was made principally of a wooden
framework. (International Harvester Corporate Archives.)
180 FROM THE
Tlll' AiviERICAl\ SYSTEM TO MASS PR()lJUCl'IOi\J
/\lVlF.RICAl\I SYSTILM PRODUCTIO'\'

Beginning his tenure late in the production season, Wilkinson could not effect many
dramatic changes in the factory operations, but he tried to bring brmg more order and discipline
to the work and workmen. which Leander hac! had not clone
done for several years. Not until the fall
of 1880,
I880, normally the period when design changes were made in machines and the factory
geared up to make them, did Wilkinson's
Wilkinson’s rich experience in Yankee armory practice begin
to show up. For the first time in the company’s company's records the words "gauges,"
“gauges,” "pattern
“pattern
machines," and "jigs," “jigs,” consistently appear. Cyrus, Jr., recorded these words in his h1s
pocket diary as new concepts rather than old hardware.” hardware. 00 And Charles Spring‘s corre-
Spring's corn::--
spondence showed a sudden awareness that the design and preparation of patterns and
gauges required several months of work work.”. 91 The pattern machine was no longer a field-
tested experimental machine that served as a guide for manufacture; manufacture~ it became the basis of
the entire production system. The best machinists at the factory carefully filed and scraped
critical surfaces so that the model fitted together as perfectly as possible. From this
paragon machine, jigs, fixtures, and gauges were made so that production machines
would be made like it.” it .02
Although Lewis Wilkinson remained with the McCormick company for only one year,
he exerted a decided influence on the factory and its personnel, particularly on Cyrus, Jr.,
who unofficially succeeded him as superintendent. Under Wilkinson's WiIkinson‘s tutelage, the young
McCormick learned the rudiments of American armory practice. In addition to grasping
the importance of models, jigs, fixtures, and gauges, Cyrus, Jr., seems to have under-
stood the possibilities of special-purpose, or single-purpose, machine tools for large-scale
manufacture. He specifically mentioned such tools in an article describing the McCormick
reaper works for Scientific American in 188!: I881: "For
“For example, the introduction of the
inclosed gear frames for reapers, mowers, and droppers necessitated a machine which
could bore all the holes required for shafts, etc., etc. , at one operation, and several of these are
in use."
use.”"303 (See Figure 4.9.) During his many years as superintendent, Leander McCor-

mick had designed a limited amount of special-purpose machinery. Yet during the next
two decades, under Cyrus, Jr.’s, Jr.'s, direction, the company relied more and more upon
special machinery. In 1900, I900, for example, the company exhibited eleven different special-
purpose tools of its own design at the International Exhibition in Paris."4 Paris. 94
Cyrus McCormick, Jr., Jr.. directed additions to the factory during the summer and early
I881 after Wilkinson left. In September, before preparation got under way for the
fall of 1881
I882 season, Cyrus, Jr., announced that he would be the new superintendent and that
1882
George A Averill,
veri II, a longtime foreman of the McCormick foundry, would be his assistant.
With the additional space and a "new “new regime"
regime” (Cyrus, Jr/s,Jr.'s, words), the works produced
more than forty-six thousand machines in 1882, I882, an increase of over 50 percent from
1881.95
1881. 95 (See Table 4. lI for a breakdown of these implements.) Charles Spring commented

on the factory operations soon after Cyrus, Jr. Jr.,, had taken over: "1
“I think the works as now
organized is in better working trim than it has ever been before since my connexion with
the business and I am confident it will show good results at the end of 1882. I882.“'' As
production got under way, Spring delineated for the younger McCormick what quantity
production meant on a day-to-day basis: "We “We must make 200 machs a clay day every day to
get the 40000 out by harvest, and we must ship 12 I2 carloads a day from Jan 1st lst to get them
shipped."’%
all shipped. " 96
At a board meeting Leander McCormick and his son Hall, who were still directors
despite their severance from the company as employees, criticized such a production as
“wild and visionary"
"wild visionary” and voted against producing so many machines. Cyrus, Sr., on the
other hand, believed that with forty thousand machines, ''the “the sky seems bright and
 11/1'r'C0rn1i<.'!< Reaper
The McCormick I/I/orks
Reoper Works 1g I

._,..; ‘\$

i /."/’. »

../>-

FIGURE 4.9.
FIGURE 4 9 Setting up Finger Bars, McCormick Factory.
Factory, 1881.
I88l. Despite the examples of special-
McCormick, Jr.,
purpose machinery cited by Cyrus McCormick. m 1881,
Ir.. in I881. hand methods such as these were still a
significant aspect of McCormick's production. Under the younger McCormicks
McCormick"s production, McCormick's "new regime" regime“ in
lf580s, the factory became increasingly mechanized. (Scientific
the l880s, (Sr'ie1zr1_'/it American. 14, 1881.
AlI?€l‘f('(Ill, May I4. I88].
Eleutherian
Elcutherian Mills Historical Library.)
182 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

brightening.”
brightening.'' The old inventor's
inventor’s skies brightened even more when his son reported on
August I, 1882,
I882, that the total output had exceeded forty-six thousand machines rather
than the planned forty thousand and that all of these machines had been sold. Optimism
reigned at the factory for the first time in its stormy history. Charles Spring succinctly
summed up the situation: ''Since
“Since the joint Stock Company was formed we have improved
the business in a great many respects, but in no place is it more patent than at the works. I
believe we could build 60,000 machines [a la yearJ
year] now.”"7
now. "'n
The grand old man of the reaper industry, suffering greatly from arthritis, finally took
an opportunity to see the happy workings of his own factory at the height of production for
I883. Cyrus, Jr., recorded the visit in his diary: "Mr.
1883. “Mr. Averill and I rolled him all over the
shops and he spoke to [the foremen] Buly; Mr. Hamilton; Voice; Haskins; Schaffer;
Pridmore; Wood; Mr. Bishop; and old Barney in the foundry who has been with us for 33
years. Father examined the working of a center draught mower in the yard yard.. .. .. .. He
enjoyed the trip very much and it was of the greatest interest to the men at the works to see
him—the
him-the head of the business, and the founder of our great industry.”98
industry. "Y 8
Yet the battle for production at the McCormick works was never completely won. It
had to be won yearly-perhaps
yearlyw-perhaps monthly or daily. Only six weeks after his father’s
father's death
on May 13,13. 1884,
I884, Cyrus McCormick, Jr., recorded in his small pocket diary that ''this “this is
the worst day we have known in the business. Agts. writing that they can’t can't get enough
machines. . .. .. Great t1ood
flood of orders and no machines."
machines.” The young president had dis-
covered, in this year when almost fifty-five thousand machines were made, something
that an office clerk had noted almost twenty years earlier: "It“It seems that the more we sell
the more we can sell.
sell.”9‘)
"'J 9 (See Figures 4. I0 to 4.15.)
4.10
Cyrus McCormick, Jr., as president of the company, continued to take an interest in
the factory and its ability to produce machines on a large scale. By 1902 it had become
public knowledge that under his leadership, the company had increased its production
‘O0 Now the McCormick reaper works produced machines "on
fivefold. 100 “on a grand scale,'''
scale,” a
scale that his father had once made a desideratum for remaining in business. Only as an
old man, however, when he had fired Leander as superintendent and would no longer
listen to his conservative advice did McCormick's
McCormick’s company begin to move toward mass
production. Without question, there were certain costs to this expansion and the institution
of a new system of manufacture. Labor problems ranked foremost. The net result of the
changes initiated by Wilkinson and pursued vigorously by the younger McCormick was
that the company gained increasing control of work processes from skilled workmen.
These workmen, many of whom had spent their careers at the McCormick factory, did not
“grand object"
see the "grand object” of the armory system in the same way that the Ordnance Depart- Depart-~
ment officers had done when they relentlessly pursued the system in the antebellum
period. Consequently, when the McCormick molders went out on strike in 1885, I885, they
were joined by machinists and other metalworkers who had traditionally remained at the
bench when the molders struck. This series of changes in approach to production between
I880 and 1884, which offered a sharp break with the past, played a fundamental role in
1880
the "prelude
“prelude to Haymarket.”‘O'
Haymarket." 101 The hardware, processes, and customs of the armory
system provided powerful instruments of control over labor. When they were installed
suddenly, such as at McCormick, strife was bound to result. .

The story of the manufacture of the McCormick reaper offers an interesting parallel to
that of the Singer Manufacturing Company. Both were leaders in their respective indus-
tries and for a long time manufactured products with what B. F. Spalding called a
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FIGURE 4.10.
FIGURE 4. 10. McCormick Factory, I885. Catalogue, McC0rm1'rl<
(lflustrated Annual Catalogue,
1885. (Illustrated Machines,
McCormick Mac/zines,
Machine
McCormick Harvesting Mac"/tine Company, 1885,
I885, McCormick Collection. State Historical Society
Collection, State Historical Society
of Wisconsin.)

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FIGURI-1 4.11.
FIGURE McCormick Foundry.
4. 1 1. I885. The company claimed that
Foundry, 1885. that this was the
this was the "'largest
“largest mold- mold-
(Illustrated Almuaf Catalogue, M<'Cormir'/t M616’/7fll€.\', /Vf('C()I‘J?7lt"/\’ Har-
World." (f!lustrared
ing floor in the world." Annual Cu!alogue, McCormick Machines. McCormick Har-
vesrirzg Histoncal Society
I885, McCormick Collection, State Historical
I'Csting Machine Company, 1885. Society of Wisconsin.)
of Wisconsin.)

I83
183
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W_M‘_ ,_ I
::@’»ifT'?Y'"" _s "" .<i»&=’*I*’ i,.¢c1»=?ii% i ¢’ it Z. Iii
FIGURE 4.
FIGURE 412.
12. Lathe and Press Room of the McCormick Factory,
Factory. 1885.
I885‘ Note the clutter of the aisles
and the materials handling method>..
methods. (Illustrated
(ll[u.s"rratedAimua/
Annual Catalogue, /l/lr'C0i'/m'cl<
McCormick Machiizes,
Machines, McCor-
Harvmtiitg Macltine
mick Harvesting Machine Company, 1885. 1885, McCormick Collection,
Collection. State Historical Society oJ oi
Wisconsin)
Wisconsin.)

FIGURE 4.13. Shafting Room. McCormick Factory, 1885.

FICiURE 4.13. I885. Judging from this and many other
illustrations, McCormick had not acquired by 1885 any of the automatic screw machines that other
factories, such as that of Singer Manufacturing Company, had become dependent upon, upon. Also, the
parts at the vises along the windows suggest that as late as 1885 precision manufac»
workmen filing pat1s manufac-
ture had not become predominant at McCormick. (Illustrated
(l'llustm!r1d Annual Catalogue, McCormick
Mr-Cormick Ma-
Ma»
cltines,
chines, McCormick Harvesting Machine Compan_v,
Company, 1885,
i885, McCormick Collection,
Collection. State Historical
Society of Wisconsin.)

184
 The M("Cor'mi(.'/<
McCormick Reaper Works 185

FIGLRE 4.14.
hGLRE 4.14. “Setting Up"
"Setting Up” or Assembling Mowers. McCormick Factory, 1R85.
l88S. (J!Iustrated
(Illustrated An-
nual Catalogue, McC0rrnit'/<
McCormick Mac‘/titres,
Machines, McCormick HmTesring Machine Company,
Huwesting Mar‘/iiite Comprmy, 1885, McCor-
Collection. State Historical
mick Collection, Histoncal Society of Wisconsin.)

liiuropean approach. The heads of both companies placed more emphasis on sales and
European
marketing than on manufacturing. When they did take interest in factory operations it was
usually in response to negative reports about the quality of their machines or an inability to
produce enough of them. In both cases company leaders insisted that their products be of
the highest quality, and the craft approach to manufacture provided this quality. When the
European approach could no longer meet the challenge of quantity production, Singer and
McCormick looked to the American system of manufactures.
Yet the two histories also provide sharp contrasts. At Singer, the factory produced the
~arne model sewing machine year in and year out. There was no season of production, no
same
annual model change, no question of how many machines to produce. Rather than how
many to produce, Singer was always burdened by the question of how to produce enough
machines. The McCormicks-—at Leander~won'ied continuously about
McCormicks-at least William and Leander-worried
their business getting too big,
big. about producing too many machines. Their fears were
probably exacerbated by the phenomenon of the "annual
“annual model change,"
change. ” This expression
must be used cautiously, for unlike the annual model change in the automotive industry,
McCormick and the rest of the reaper industry often made changes for reasons of genuine
lv1cCormick
improvement (such as the self-raker,
self-raker. the wire binder, the cord binder,
binder. and the harvester)
rather than simply for the sake of change. Yet McCormick also made changes for no real
reason. Farmers came to expect changes from year to year. Nevertheless.
Nevet1heless, McCormick
never developed an explicit, self-conscious marketing strategy based on yearly models.
The historian must often untangle cause and effect. Early in the reaper’s
reaper's history, real
improvements took place from year to year, and perhaps these changes set a pattern for
186 FROM TilE A\1FRICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION
THE AMERICAN

FIGURE 4.15.
FrciURE 4.\5. "Fitting Factory, 1885. The binder was the most compli-
Binders.“ McCormick Factory.
“Fitting Up Binders,"
cated mechanical part of the McCormick harvester. Introduced i876. it commanded the gre~test
lntroducccl in 1876, greatest
·'Fitting'' was the correct term for the assembly of
precision in production and quality of materials. “Fitting”
binders, as evidenced in this illustration. (!/Ius/rated
hinders, Annual Cutulogue,
(Illustrated Aiuiurzl McCormick. Machines.
Cutrzlogiie, McC0rmI'cl< Mac/tines.
Harvesting Machine Company, 1885,
McCorIiiir'k Hctrvemrzg
McCormick 1885. McCormick Collection, State Historical Society
of Wisconsin.)

both manufacturer and farmer. The industry was drawn into a habitual cycle of change
McCormick's case, ruled out any major development in manufacturing
which, at least in McCormick’s
technology. One can speculate that had McCormick adopted the American system of
business—say, 1851
manufactures early in his business-say, him--
l85l when this is generally attributed to him----—
he might have broken this cycle by producing a large number of cheap(er) Inachines and,
machines and.
like Singer, marketed them over a long period of time. In fact, however, his company
McCormick’s history provides
continued to follow the vicissitudes of the entire industry. McCormick's
an early example of the "productive dilemma" discussed by William Abernathy, which
“productive dilemma”
forces a manufacturer to choose between change and lower productivity on the one hand band
and sameness and higher productivity on the other. ‘O2 102

Although it is tempting to draw parallels between annual model changes at McCormick

and those at General Motors, this is probably not advisable. The reason is that between the
histones of these two companies the Ford Motor Company arose. Ford pursued specializa-
histories
tion in production to its logical conclusion—gross overproduction-and, in a sense,
conclusion-gross overproduction—and,
created for the first time a genuine necessity for the annual model change as a marketing
strategy. Until Ford, complete saturation of the world market by a single product had
remained only a theoretical concept. The Ford Motor Company achieved unprecedented
productivity partly because of its innovation of the assembly line. The importance of this
 The McCormic‘/t ll/0rk.s‘
McCormick Reaper Works 187

innovation
1nnovation is underlined in the following chapter. Although the bicycle industry in the late
nineteenth century brought to perfection the American system of manufactures it was
unable to solve the problem of finishing and assembly of parts. The Ford assembly line
(Chapter 6) overcame this problem, creating in turn
tum problems of its own.
 CHAPTER 5

From the American

System toward Mass
Production: The Bicycle
lndustry in the
Industry
Nineteenth Century
Another n·ent event having an effect
e_/feet 011
on the designing and manufacturing
ntannfarturing oj' ofnizzch1'ner_\'
machinery entirely
entirel-y
mzlookecl
unlooked .fi1r for at the time of its inception
itzeeption was the /nonztfacture
nwnuj(1cture of the lJic_\‘<'le.
b1cyc!e. This event brought
out the capabilities
capczhilitier of the Atnerican
American mechanic as nothing else hurl had ever (lone. (le/nonsti"aIeo' to
done. It demonstrated
the world that he and his kind \\'ere were capable of oj'de,s'igi1ing nuiking speciczl
designing and making special macliiiiery,
machinery, tools,
fl.t'1‘Lll'€.3‘.
fixtures, and clei'1'ces'for niannfacturing in a(1 mctnner
del'ices for economic manufacturing trul_\" iiiurvelous‘,'
manner truly marvelous: and has led to
the installation oj' of the interchangeable
interr"hangeoble s1·stem
systeni ofinonttfacture
of lnanufacrure in rta thousand
tlioztsand and one shops
W/l€l'(" it was f()I‘I71L’l'l_\‘
where formerly thought to be impractical.
llH[Jl‘(l(‘l'l('£ll.
—-Joseph Woodworth, A.merican
--Joseph American Tool Making and intercliungecihle
lnterchangeahle ll/lit/in/'actitI"i'Iig
Manlljctctllring ((1907)
1907)

I never saw
sow art .JOb
job wltere
where the Westem
We.s'tern man
mun won/4/
would not Euste/"11 mun
mH beat the Easlem man out e\'er_r
every time. You
/Eristern men] know
jEastern men} l'l1li(.'ll about tool making, ond
knmv too much and nor
not enough about l7t()t'l€v\‘.
ahout making money.
-—A American lv/({('hin
--A Chicago mechanic in Arne/‘trait ist ((1895).
Mrtcliinist 1895 l.

BW
•
y i880,
I 880, when Sin gcr' s and McCormick’s
Singer’s McConn ic k' s sales had begn
begunn to increase dramat-
increasc drama
• • • ically, forcing them to find new ways to manufacture their products, many
sewing machine manufacturers and agricultural implement makers lost their share of the
t-

market. Some went out of business, but others turned to a different line of manufactur-
ing—notably to the bicycle-—in
ing-notably bicycle-in order to use their manufacturing plant. This transition
took place particularly in the 1890s
l890s during what contemporaries called the ''bicycle“bicycle
craze.” Beginning in the late 1880s, this craze reached a feverish pitch by 1895-96
craze.·' l895—96 and
then collapsed entirely in I897.
I 897.
Although the bicycle craze was shm1-lived,
short-lived, the bicycle and its manufacturing industry
exerted a profound influence in America during a period of rapid social and technological
change.‘
change. 1 No better testimony exists about the intluence
influence of the bicycle than that of W. J.J,
McGee, one of the era's
era’s major figures in American science. In ln an article titled "Fifty
“Fifty
Years of American Science" in the Atlantic Monthly in 1898, McGee argued:

189
190 FROM THE
TilE Al\/IERICAN
AMERICAN SYSTEM TO IVIASS
MASS PRODUCTION

A typical American device is the bicycle. Invented in France.

France, it long remained a toy or a
vain luxury. Redeviscd
Rcdcvised in this country, it inspired inventors and captivated manufacturers,
manufacturers.
and native genius made it a practical machine for the multitude; now its users number
millions, and it is sold in every country. Typical, too, is the bicycle in its effect on
millions.
national character. It first aroused invention,
invention. next stimulated commerce,
commerce. and then
developed individuality, judgment, and prompt decision on the part of its users more
rapidly and completely than any other device; for although association with machines of
any kind (absolutely straightforward and honest as they arcare all) develops character, the
bicycle is the easy leader of other machines in shaping the mind of its rider, and
transforming itself and its rider into a single thing. Better than other results is this: that
the bicycle has broken the barrier of pernicious differentiation of the sexes and rent the
bonds of fashion, and is daily impressing Spartan strength and grace.
grace, and more than
Spartan intelligence. on the mothers of coming generations. So, weighed by its effect on
body and mind as well as on material progress. this device Inustmust be classed as one of the
world’s great inventions?
world's inventions. 2
In speaking of the bicycle as a progressive technology, McGee overlooked the impor-
tance of the bicycle industry in refining the system of production begun in armories in the
antebellum period. This refinement of the armory system of manufacture took place
almost entirely in New England within firms squarely based in the arms armsmaking
making tradition.
In this chapter, the history of the leading bicycle manufacturer in this tradition, the Pope
Manufacturing Company, will be discussed. Yet bicycle makers outside the armory
tradition and located primarily in the Midwest developed an important new method of
metalworking. This technique—-stamping
technique-stamping or pressing-—has
pressing---has played a fundamental role in
mass production industries of the twentieth century. Although the history of stamping is
obscure, the work of the leading bicycle manufacturer that employed this technique, the
Western Wheel Works, will also be treated in this chapter.
Taken together.
together, refined armory practice and well—developed
well-developed stamping techniques pro- pro ..
vided the technical basis for automobile manufacturing in the early twentieth century. In
this sense, the bicycle industry was transitional. Yet the industry proved to be transitional
in other ways as well. Despite the refinement of "old''
“old” manufacturing technology and the
techniques. the bicycle industry merely exposed and did not solve a
introduction of new techniques,
fundamental problem in the production of complex consumer durables: assembly. Solu-
tion to this problem awaited the Ford Motor Company in the second decade of the
twentieth century. The bicycle itself was a transitional technology, for it led many an
American—and not a few bicycle mechanics——to
American-and mechanics-to a contemplate and to project a faster.
faster,
more powerful, and less fatiguing form of personal transpm1ation.
transportation? The automobile,
3

whose early form looked much like a bicycle,

bicycle. fulfilled this objective so dramatically that
W. J. McGee could not have anticipated it clearly in 1898. I898.
It
lt might be helpful to review briefly
briefly the chronology of the bicycle in late nineteenth-
nineteenth·
century America.“
America. The high-wheel, or ordinary, bicycle came to the United States from
4

England. Albert A. Pope, a Boston merchant who became known as the ''father “father of the
America,” saw a Smith & Starley bicycle at the 1876
bicycle in America,'' I876 Centennial Exhibition in
Philadelphia. Captivated by these curious high-wheeled machines, Pope traveled to En- Ein-
gland to study their manufacture and sales and to take an exhilarating country tour on one
of them. Returning to the United States, Pope began to sell imported English cycles. In
I878, however, he contracted with the Weed Sewing Machine Company of Hartford,
1878,
Connecticut, to manufacture an American version of the English ordinary. The product.
the Columbia, initiated the bicycle era in America.5
America. 5 (See Figure 55.1.)
.1.)
 Bl'('y\‘(‘/L’ Industry
The Bicycle 191

\ \
\ \

.»/
M/

/
/
/

// //

FIGURE 51.
FIGURE 5.1. Columbia Light Roadster High<WhccI
High- Wheel Bicycle. I886. (National
Bicycle, 1886. (N-ationa1Muscum 0fAmcrican
Museum of American
History. Smithsonian Institution Neg. No,
No. 5843-B.)
192 FROM TJ
THEIE AMERICA:\
AMIZRICAN SYSTf:M
.ԤYST[iI\/I TO MASS l'ROLJUC:TJO]\;
PROl)UC'l‘l()l\‘

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FIGURE 5.2.
FrGURF Columbia Womcnis high~wheeled era. bicycling
Women's Safety Bicycle. 1896. Unlike the high-wheeled
with a "safety"
“safety” bicycle was not for men only. (National Museum of American History. Smithso·
Smithso-
nian Institution Neg. No. 41230.)

bicycle—the chain-driven bicycle with two wheels of equal

By the time the safety bicycle-the
size—was introduced in the United States from England in 11887,
size-was .S87, the Pope Manufacturing
Company and a few competitors had produced a total of perhaps 250,000 high-wheelers.
But the safety bicycle produced a new and unprecedented wave of enthusiasm. When the
l896—97, the industry consisted of more than
safety bicycle boom reached its peak in 1896-97,
three hundred companies and produced well over a million bicycles per year. (See Figure
5.2.)
5. 2.) The Pope Manufacturing Company continued to be the recognized leader in bicycle
production, although the Western Wheel Works outstripped Pope's Pope’s production in 1896 by
bicycles.“ Yet
ten thousand bicycles. 6 Y ct the entire industry was doomed to rapid decline beginning in
1897 because the market for bicycles simply vanished. As Arthur S. Dewing wrote in
l9l3, "people
1913, “people ceased using bicycles,"
bicycles,” and this brought "the
“the practical cessation of a
manufacturing industry.
industry.'"7 All efforts to keep the industry afloat,
' AH
7 afloat, including consolidation
and merger, failed.

The Pope .Manufacmring

Manufacturing Company
and Armory
Armon)·'
Practice
Pmctice
Tradition has it that Pope's
Pope’s first bicycles were made in a corner of the Weed Sewing
Machine Company.
Company.“B This tradition leaves the impression that perhaps only a mechanic or
two with limited tools set about the task of rnaking
making a few bicycles. During the summer and
 The Bicycle
Thl' Biz“_\"r*le Jndust!}'
112111-:.m3‘ 193

fall of 1878, the Weed company produced fifty bicycles, and this small figure may well
support a corner-of-the-shop vision. Yet by 1880 the bicycle had become an important
item of manufacture for the Weed company, which sought to turn out five hundred cycles
a month and had already produced twelve hundred machines. (See Figure 5.3.) By 1881,
monthly production had risen to twelve hundredY
hundred.9
The Weed Sewing Machine~Pope
Machine-Pope Manufacturing Company connection provides an
elegant case for Nathan Rosenberg's
Rosenberg‘s concept of technological convergence and for the
term armory practice. 1° It is unclear exactly why Pope chose the Weed company to make
10

his bicycles, but it seems likely that Pope's

Pope’s initial dictum that, unlike the British cycles,
Columbias would be made of machine-produced interchangeable parts played a major role
'1 Organized in 1866, the Weed Sewing Machine Company began selling
in his decision. 11
sewing machines in the same manner that the Pope Manufacturing Company began selling
bicycles, that is, without its own manufacturing plant. For ten years the company had
contracted with the Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Company, one of the New England small-
arms
arrns makers that pioneered in the design and construction of special-purpose machine
tools, for the production of its sewing machines. The Sharps company originated in
Windsor, Vermont, but moved to a new building in Hartford before the Civil War.
Significantly, when the Sharps company changed ownership in 1875 and moved west to
Bridgeport, the Weed Sewing Machine Company began its own production in Hartford by
occupying the Sharps plant, perhaps by purchasing many of its machine tools, and almost
certainly by hiring many of the Sharps Hartford employees. 12 *2 Hence the techniques and
traditions of manufacturing firearms remained in the same building for the production of
sewing machines and bicycles. Later, Pope would make automobiles here. 13 13 (See Figure
company’s manufacturing operations,
5.4.) Moreover, the superintendent of the Weed company's
George A. Fairfield, had been an inside contractor at Colt'sColt‘s Hartford armory and an

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FIGURE 5.3.
FrGL'R.E 5.3. “Bicycle Room” of the Weed Sev.·ing
''Bicycle Room" Sewing Machine Company Factory,
Factory. 1880. (Scientific
Aiitericair,
American, March 20, 1880. Eleutherian Mills Historical Library.)
194 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

associate of Charles E. Billings and Christopher M. Spencer, both of whom had worked
for Colt and other armsmakers and had earned reputations as brilliant machinists. In the
company’s superintendent before
mid-l860s Billings had even served briefly as the Weed company's
mid-1860s
he was succeeded by Fairfield in 1868. *4 14

As in the antebellum arms industry, drop-drop-forging

forging provided the foundation of meta.l-
metal-
working at the Weed Sewing Machine Company. This is not surprising given the connec-
tions of Billings, Spencer, and Fairfield with Colt. Almost every part of the sewing
machine, excluding the cast-iron frame, was first forged in the company's
company’s drop-forging
room. These parts were then moved to the machining room to be finished by grinding,
turning, milling, drilling, or some other metal-removing operation. In addition to its own
parts, the Weed company produced forgings for other sewing machine companies as well
as for agricultural implement makers and steam engine manufacturers. Employing the
same techniques, the Weed company drop-forged and then machined the major parts for
the Columbia bicycle, such as hubs, cranks, and steering heads. 15 15 (See Figures 5.5-5.9.)
Although drop- forging techniques had been
drop-forging extant for more than half a century, manu-
facturers such as the Weed company continued to refine the process. By 1880 I880 forging was
far more complex than a simple drop of the die. The Weed company relied three-·
upon a three-
step process for making fine forgings which minimized the amount of metal removed
during machining. This process included a rough-forming stroke in a drop forge, a
''flash,'' and a finishing stroke in another
pressing operation to trim off the unwanted “flash,”
drop forge. For complex parts, however, such as several pieces of the Columbia bicycle,
as many as five different operations were necessary. The only new problem in forging
bicycle parts, as opposed to those for sewing machines, was posed by their size. Adoption
of larger drop forges met this demand. Thus at the most basic level, production of the
Pope Columbia bicycle was rooted firmly within the New England tradition of manufac manufac~..
turing firearms and sewing machines.
The machining practices at the Weed company during its early years of bicycle man-- man ..
ufacture followed the same approach. Many of the machine tools familiar to New England
armories were used at the Weed company for its sewing machine parts and for the Pope
bicycle-milling machines, turret lathes, screw machines, grinding machines, drilling
bicycle—milling
and boring machines. 1616 Machining of drop-forged parts provided shapes and precision not
attained in drop-forging while drilling, boring, and other machine work performed opera·· opera»
tions not possible in the forging shop (for example, completion of the hub after drop· drop--
forging and milling by boring the hole for the axle through the hub and by drilling and
tapping holes for the spokes in the hub flanges). Yet the techniques employed here varied
only in degree, not in kind, from accepted New England armory practice. It is doubtful
whether the Weed company initially built or bought any special-purpose machine tools for
machining bicycle parts; set up differently with special fixtures and cutting tools, the
machinery used for sewing machine manufacture fulfilled the requirements for production
of the high-wheel bicycle.
There is one possible exception to this generalization: ball-bearing manufacture. Use of
ball bearings was a major innovation of the bicycle which caused reverberations through-
through--
out machine-building. Not long after the introduction and acceptance of the bicycle, most
newly built machines turned on ball bearings. Weed company mechanics set up a separate
ball—bearing production room and built special machinery for their manufacture.”
ball-bearing Al-·
manufacture. 17 Al--
though no specific documentation exists on this operation, it is reasonable to extrapolate
though
Robert S. Woodbury’s
from RobertS. Woodbury's account of the grinding machine that the balls and their races
ease-hardened, and finally ground on
were first drop-forged or perhaps turned, then case-hardened,
 The B i't'y('!e Industry
Bicycle 1'ndti.i'z‘ry 195
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5.4. Weed Sewing Machine Company Factory, Hartford. Connecticut, 1881.

FIGURE 5.4. I881. The Weed
Rifle Manufacturing Company. Later
factory had formerly been owned by the Sharps Rifle Latcr the Pope
Manufacturing Company would buy out the Weed Company and expand its factory operations. ("A
Manufacture,” Bicycling World, April 1,
Great American Manufacture," I881. Smithsonian Institution
I, 1881.
Photograph.)

FIGURE 5.5. Machining Rear Hubs for Columbia Bicycles, Weed Factory, 1881. (“A Great
I881. ("A
American Manufacture," Bicyclin[? World, April I, 1881.
Manufacture,” Bi'cyc1r'ng I881. Smithsonian Institution Photograph.)
196
I9() f'ROM
FROM TilL
Tllli A\1FRIC/\N
AI\"IERl(‘AN SYSTEIVI l'ROD\JCTIO!\'
SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUC'l‘IO;'\'

FIGURE 5.0.
FIGURE 5.6 Inspecting and Gauging Columbia Bicycle Parts,
Parts. Weed Factory, 1881.
I88I. ("A Great
American Manufacture," Bit-yclirzg
Bicvc!ing World, April 1, 1881.
I, I881. Smithsonian Institution Photograph.)

FIGURE 5.7.
FIGURE 5.7. Truing
Truing Columbia Bicycle Wheels. Factory. 1881.
Wheels, Weed Factory, I88l. ("A
(“A Great American Man··
Man»
ufacturc,’ Bicycling
ufacturc," Bi¢'yclir2g World, April I, 1881.
I881. Smithsonian Institution Photograph.)
 The Bicycle 1mlu.i"Iry
Industry 197

FIGURE 5.8. Assembling Columbia Bicycles, Weed Factory, 1881.

FIGURE 5.8. l88I. (''A
(“A Great American Manufac-
ture,”
ture," Bicycling World, April 1,
I, 1881
I88].. Smithsonian Institution Photograph.)

5.9.
FIGURE 5. 9. Warehouse for Columbia Bicycles and Pmis, W ccd Factory.
Parts, Weed Factory, 1881
I88 I.. (“A
(''A Great Ameri-
Manufacture,'' Bicycling World, April I, I881.
can Manufacture,” 188 I. Smithsonian Institution Photograph.)
198 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

special machinery to eliminate warps and to produce exceedingly smooth surfaces. Here
again, though, specialized grinding machinery already existed for optical parts and needle
manufacture. More important, by 1860 Joseph Brown had developed a special machine
for grinding sewing machine needle bars. Brown & Sharpe sold these machines to other
manufacturers; possibly the Weed Sewing Machine Company used such a grinder for
sewing machine production and adapted it for grinding bicycle ball bearings.”
bearings. 18 Thus
despite the difference in products, the means of production—grinding—appears
production-grinding-appears to have
been the same for sewing machine and bicycle making within the Weed Sewing Machine
Company.
The form of the high-wheel bicycle posed new production problems for the Weed
Sewing Machine Company, and these problems would later be exacerbated by the intro-
duction of the safety bicycle. Finishing (painting and nickel-plating) required larger-scale
ovens and baths than those used in sewing machine manufacture and exacting preparation
and polishing operations. Assembly, however, proved to be the most serious bottleneck.
Whereas in 1853
I853 Joseph Whitworth had witnessed the complete assembly of a Springfield
musket in only three minutes, the assembly and adjustment of a single big bicycle wheel
took as much as twenty times as long. 19 19 A wheel assembler strung the finished hub and
rim together with machine-made spokes. Once all the spokes were put in, the workmen
had to true the wheel, a tedious process requiring careful tightening and loosening of
individual spokes. Many of the same problems obtained in the final assembly of the
complete bicycle. Even though interchangeable parts were used, assembly was not the
simple matter it had been at Springfield Armory,
Armory,.
While the Weed company worked out methods in 1880 I880 to produce twelve hundred
Columbias annually, Albert A. Pope unfolded his first major promotional campaign. He
encouraged his Boston friend and lawyer, Charles Pratt, to write and publish The Ameri-
can Bicycler, which gave a short history of the bicycle and cycling, described the exhila-
ration of riding an ordinary, and told how everyman could join in the fun. Pope also
owned or supported Bicycling World, a semiweekly journal begun in 1880 I880 that covered
bicycling activities throughout the United States, and a shorter-lived periodical, the
Wlteelman.”
Wheelman. 20 As part of his promotional activities he was instrumental in the formation

and expansion of local cycling clubs and the national League of American Wheelmenf“
Wheelmen. 21
(See Figure 5. IO.) In addition, Pope sponsored monthly poster contests, which brought to
5 .10.)
perfection this popular nineteenth-century advertising technique. By 1881,
I88I, these activities
began to pay off with a jump in demand for cycles. To meet this increased demand, the
Weed company expanded its plant and hired additional workmen so that by the middle of
the year it could turn out twelve hundred machines per month-roughly
month—roughly fifty per day.”
day. n
Demand continued to grow. Albert Pope and his fellow bicycle manufacturers sought
to nurture this demand by initiating an institution that became an important promotional
and sales activity during the height of the bicycle era and later for the American auto-
mobile industry: the trade show. Begun in 1883 in Springfield, Massachusetts, bicycle
trade shows drew large numbers of exhibitors, sales agents, and paying public. By 1894 I894
both Chicago and New York hosted annual shows and counted their money when, as in
I896, Chicago drew more than 225 exhibitors and 100,000 admissions and New York 400
1896,
exhibitors and 120,000
l20,000 admissions.”
ad miss ions. 23 (See Figure 55.11.)
.11.)
Pope’s acumen as an entrepreneur did not stop with promotional activities. From the
Pope's
outset, he sought monopolistic protection by purchasing virtually every patent connected
with the bicycle, some dating from the velocipede craze of the 1860s. By 1881 I881 he had
secured a patent monopoly that would not begin to deterioriate until 1886. I886. Pope sold
 Blcycle Industry
The Bicycle I99
199

as

qr,

FIGURE 5.10.
FtGURE 5.10. Local Chapter of the League of American Wheelmen, 1880s.
18805. (National Museum of
American History. Smithsonian Institution Neg. No. 57820.)

-- » . / ’P . I.
Vi, V V /,//W V <1

FIGURE 5.11.
5.11. National Bicycle Exhibition, Madison Square Garden, 1895.
I895. (Scientific
(S<'i'e/itific American.
February 9, I895.
I 895. Eleutherian Mills Historical Library.)
200 PRODUCTJOI\
SYSTt-:\1 TO MASS PRODUCTIOI\'
FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM

bicycles beginning at $120 and going up in price as size and finish were larger and more
elegant.
elegant.“24 Pope’s bicycle’s promise and his promotion of bicy··
Pope's early recognition of the bicycle's bicy--
cling would not come free to others desiring to manufacture bicycles. Until he lost his
patent position, Pope extracted a fee of $10 manufacturers. 25 When
$l0 per bicycle from other manufacturers.25
he first began selling bicycles, two other firms also made high-wheelers, yet his patent
monopoly helped drive both companies out of business.business?“26 The boom demand which Pope

created almost single-handedly, however, supported a half-dozen other cycle companies

by 1884-85.
I884-85.37 27

None threatened Pope with serious competition until 1885, I885, when A. H. Overman of
Hartford set up a two-story bicycle factory at Chicopee, Massachusetts, long a manufac·· manufac--
turing center in New England.
England.” Manufac-..
28 Overman originally contracted with the Ames Manufac

turing Company of Chicopee to manufacture his Victor, so it is entirely reasonable to

assume that he departed little from methods employed by the Weed company or any other
factory. 29 About the same time, lver
New England factory.” Iver Johnson, a firearms maker in Worces-
ter, Massachusetts, began to produce his Springfield Roadster using the same techniques
for bicycles as for rifles and handguns.
handguns.3°
30 Other firearms makers followed suit.

Thus the first decade of bicycle making in America produced few startling innovations
in manufacturing techniques. Other firms most likely followed the Weed Sewing Machine
Company in employing Yankee armory practice. Increased annual output resulted from
devoting more of existing plant to bicycle production or to expansion of manufacturing
plant along familiar lines. Yet a few innovations did take place. Most important from a
twentieth-century perspective was the adoption of electric resistance welding, a process of
fusing metals by the direct application of electricity rather than through an arc (as is
commonly imagined when one thinks of electrical welding).
Developed between 1886 I886 and 1888 Thom-
I888 by the well-known electrical inventor Elihu Thorn-
son, electric resistance welding automated what has always been one of the most difficult
arts of the blacksmith.
blacksmith.“ 31 (See Figure 5.12.) Almost as soon as the Thomson Electric

Welding Company, based in Lynn, Massachusetts, began marketing commercial apparat-

us, the Weed company purchased one setup and soon after bought another to weld the
rims of the Columbias, cutting down significantly on production time.” time. 32 Pleased with this
process, the Weed company tried to employ it in assembling cycle frames to replace
brazing, a technique requiring a great deal of time and skill. A sufficiently strong weld
was not produced, however, and hand brazing of frames continued in cyclemaking well
century. 33 Pope used electric welding for rims until about 1894,
into the twentieth century.33 I894, when
wooden rims came into style and temporarily replaced steel rims.
That few other innovations in bicycle and tricycle manufacturing took place in the
1880s is reflected by the American Machinist, a weekly journal for machinists, engineers,
founders, boilermakers, patternmakers, and blacksmiths. The editors appear to have been
unaware of the growing importance of the bicycle until late in 1886, I886, when they published
“Bicycle Engineering,"
a small article, "Bicycle Engineering,” which suggested that firms engaged in the man-- man-
ufacture of light machinery and other products consider taking up bicycles. Little else on
cycle manufacture appeared in the American Machinist until 1895, I895, when the safety
bicycle boom was shaking the established New England armory modes of production.
Iron Age, a hardware journal, followed this same pattern.
Had the safety bicycle we know today not been developed, the bicycle craze probably
would have ended with the ordinary or high-wheel bicycle in the late 1880s and a total
production of between one hundred thousand and three hundred thousand cycles. Just as
the English had developed the high-wheeler, however, they also pioneered the chain- chain--
 The BlL'_\’(‘l€
Bicycle liidustry
Industry 20 I

FIGURE 5.12.
FIGURE 5.12. Thomson Electric Welder,
Welder. 1891.
I891. Although this particular resistance
resistance welder
welder was
was
designed to butt-weld wire, it illustrates how welding was done. The two pieces toto be welded
welded were
were
mounted in the quick-loading clamps at the upper left.
lcft. When the
the pieces were loaded.
pieces were loaded. the
the operator
operator
simply pushed the lever in the upper right corner to the right momentarily.
momentarily. and
and the weld was
the weld was
completed. (National Museum of American History. Smithsonian Institution Neg. No. 74-7158.)
No. 74-7158.)

driven safety in the rnid-l880s.

mid-l880s. Only the bravest men rode high-wheelers,
high-wheelers. but the safety
bicycle, when promoted sufficiently, gained a certain universality; the whole family rode rode
safetieskfather, mother, and children alike.
safeties-father, alike.“ When the safety bicycle boom reached its
34

mid-I890s, the industry produced 1.2 million machines

peak in the mid-l890s, machines annually,
annually, aa figure
figure that
that
adds meaning to the loose term mass pFOLlMC[lOII.35
production. 35

A. H. Overman introduced Victor safeties in 1887,

I887, and when Albert Pope first mar-
keted the Columbia version in 1889I889 the safety had already begun to catch hold—even
hold---even
many stubborn high-wheel riders had traded in their ordinaries for a safety. The Report on
Manitfacturing
Manufacturing of the 1890I890 census listed twenty-seven firms manufacturing bicycles,
presumably safeties, and best estimates suggest that about forty thousand cycles were
made in the census year.
year?"36 During the years !890-97
l890—97 a number of developments in in cycle
cycle
manufacturing methods occurred both within and outside of New England armory
practice.
Demand for the safety undoubtedly played a major role in the development
development of of new
new
manufacturing techniques. Yet equally important was the form of the safety bicycle,
which introduced new problems of manufacture. Visualizing the ordinary and the safety,
one can readily see major differences: the safety bicycle has a chain and two sprockets for for
its driving mechanism, whereas in the ordinary the pedals and cranks are attached directly
202 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

to the axle of the big wheel; the safety's

safety’s cranking mechanism required an extra axle and
set of ball bearings as well as a structure to support them (crank hanger); and the safety
also required about twice as much framing material. With the addition of extra framing,
an extra axle and bearings, and chain and sprockets, bicycle designers sought to reduce
weight (originally between forty and seventy-five pounds) without sacrificing strength.
These efforts culminated in the 1880s with first-class cycles weighing between twenty and
twenty—seven
twenty-seven pounds.
The promise of the safety bicycle lured a number of arms manufacturers and sewing
machine companies into cycle manufacture. Iver Jver Johnson Arms Company switched from
ordinaries to safeties and soon found John P. Lovell Arms Company, Remington Arms
Company, Winchester, and the Colt armory competing with it. The White Sewing Ma- Ma~
chine Company, the Elgin Sewing Machine Company, and the American Sewing Ma Ma--..
chine Company, among others, began to compete with the Weed company. Other New
England industries developed a cycle line; the E. Howard Watch and Clock Company of
manufacturer.”
Boston produced bicycles as did a New Haven cutlery manufacturer. 37 Mass production

of cycles in a modern sense was another matter. Most of these firms that adopted bicycles
as a second or third line of manufacture turned out between five hundred and three
thousand machines a year, or roughly one and a half to eleven cycles per work day. Most
of these firms seemed satisfied to use their extra plant for cyclemaking, adding a mini-·mini-
mum number of tools made by the New England machine tool companies such as Pratt &
Whitney and Brown & Sharpe. They developed few noteworthy new techniques.
Not until bicycle making became a first line of manufacture did any significant innova-
innova~
tions take place, a fact confirmed by the experience of the Weed Sewing Machine
Company’s
Company's production of cycles for the Pope Manufacturing Company. ln 1890, Albert
Pope gained control of the Weed company, ended its production of sewing machines, and
devoted its full attention to cycles and cycle parts. Significant innovations immediately
began to appear, and soon Pope Manufacturing Company became one of the largest cycle
factories in the United States, hiring more than three thousand employees, producing
more than sixty thousand bicycles annually, and selling a large range of parts to other
manufacturers. 3838
Unlike other bicycle manufacturers, Pope integrated backward. The company estab-
lished in 1893 a pioneering cold-drawn steel tubing plant to produce tubing (for frames)
formerly obtained from England. Moreover, Pope purchased and enlarged the Hartford
Rubber Works to manufacture pneumatic tires, which were another major contribution of
the bicycle to modern transportation. Both the tubing mill (which was substantially
enlarged in 1896) and the rubber factory produced supplies well in excess of the Pope
Company’s needs; the surplus was sold to other bicycle manufacturers.
Manufacturing Company's
Both of these plants represented substantial capital outlays and required an unprecedented
level of know-how to operate successfully. Pneumatic tire making was an entirely new
manufacturing art in 1890. Similarly, Pope's
Pope’s seamless steel tube mill was the first of its
kind in the United States, which probably explains why it worked
worked "only
“only after
after long
long and
and
failures.”39
costly effort, with many failures. "39
The Pope company also moved horizontally. About the same time that Albert Pope
dissolved the Weed Sewing Machine Company, he founded the HartfordHa1tford Cycle Company,
although he did not publicly announce his connection with this firm. George Pope,
Albert’s cousin, assumed the presidency of the new concern.
Albert's concern.“ Pope’s motive was simple.
40 Pope's

He prided himself that the Pope Manufacturing Company's

Company’s Columbia was the finest-and
finest—-and
usually the most expensive-bicycle
expensive—bicycle made in the United States. Pope seems always to
 The Bicycle lndustt}
Inalusrry 203

have been uncompromising on the quality of the Columbia, yet he recognized that if the
bicycle was to be more than just a fad for wealthy gentlemen, he must bring out a
medium-grade, medium-priced bicycle that was within reach of the middle class. As had
Singer with the Domestic sewing machine, Pope felt that a medium-priced Columbia
would jeopardize the reputation and harm the sales of his first-class bicycle. Therefore, he
established the Hartford company to reach the middle-class market and to compete head-
on with the less expensive bicycles of other manufacturers.
manufacturers.“ 41

Hartford Cycle Company set up its own machinery to produce its cycles with the
exception of ball bearings, which it obtained initially from the Pope company. The-
oretically, the Hartford company operated independently of the Pope Manufacturing
Company, but existing manuscripts show that Albert Pope made its critical decisions and
that George Day, successor to George Fairfield as superintendent of both the Weed and
advice. 42 Han·y
Pope companies, often gave technical help and advice.“ Albert's
Harry Pope, another of Albert’s
cousins, filled the position of superintendent at the Hartford company and seems to have
had some previous experience in manufacturing. Finally, in 1895, I895, the Hartford Cycle
Company became officially affiliated with the Pope company, although it maintained its
separate factory. To understand the entire approach to and problems in cycle manufacture
by the Pope company, developments in both factories should be considered.
Pope seems to have integrated in every direction except forward into marketing. Unlike
Singer with sewing machines and Ford with automobiles, the Pope Manufacturing Com-
pany did not establish retail stores to market its products. No information exists to answer
the question of whether Pope consciously decided not to integrate forward or failed in an
attempt to do so. Whatever the reason, the Columbia and Hartford bicycles were sold
through hardware and general merchandise stores, through bicycle shops carrying more
agents. 43
maker's products, and through individual agents.“
than one maker’s
Despite this conservative marketing strategy, Pope continued to employ many of the
same advertising schemes and to support institutional arrangements that he had favored in
the 1880s. Bicycle posters grew more numerous and more elaborate. In fact, Pope's Pope’s
poster contests and exhibitions proved to be a spawning ground for commercial artists
who later became famous. Maxfield Parrish, among others, completed artwork for Pope
and won a Pope-sponsored contest in 1895. These posters toured the country in exhibits
sponsored by Pope and local retailers of his bicycles. 44 Pope also solidified his commit-
bicycles.“
Wheelmen (LAW). With substantial financial backing
ment to the League of American Whcelmen
from Pope, the LAW waged legal battles in New York and other urban areas to get the
bicycle classified as a transportation vehicle, a critical problem because cities like New
York had prohibited bicycles on city streets. Pope and the LAW also launched the long
and effective Good Roads campaign to bring about the construction of roads. This move- move··
ment was crucial in the creation of both state and federal legislation resulting in a more
extensive highway system in Amcrica.
America.“ 45

In manufacturing parts for the Columbia safety bicycle, the Pope Manufacturing Com-
pany initially remained within the tradition of New England armory practice. 46 Yet even
practicefifi’
within this tradition, the range of choice for some production processes was remarkably
wide. One example—the hub—clearly demonstrates this point
example-the manufacture of a bicycle hub--clearly
and shows how Pope slowly adopted new production techniques.
steei, then
drop- forging the shape of the hub out of steel,
Traditional armory practice dictated drop-forging
taking it to the machining room to bore the hole for the axle, to recess the ends for the
bearing cups, to drill the spoke holes in the flanges, and finally to machine the outside of
the hub either on a lathe or on a milling machine. (See Figure 5. 13.) I3.) Each machining
204 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTIO"i
PRODUCTION

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Finished.

FIGUREs.
FIGURE 5.13.
13. Sections of Hub Forging and Finished Hub for Columbia Bicycle, 892. (Iron Age,
Bicycle. I1892.
June
lune I,
l, 1892.)
I892.)

operation could be carried out on a variety of machines. Boring the axle hole, for instance,
could be performed on a lathe, in a drill press, or in a boring mill. With the development
of heavier machine tools and with screw machines, many bicycle manufacturers moved
away from drop-forging altogether. These makers used a plain round bar of steel as the
raw material for hubs. Rather than forging the bar to shape, it was fed through the hollow
spindle of a lathe or screw machine and then machined to shape. This process entailed
bringing to bear on the bar a number of different tools: a rough forming tool, a finishing
tool, drilling and recessing tools, and a cutoff tool. Despite the choice of screw machines
(semiautomatic or automatic), the hub could not be completed in a single machine tool. It
required rechucking in a different lathe, usually a turret lathe. Every shop had its own
preferences. As with most parts of the safety bicycle during the cycle craze the machine
tool industry adapted and marketed its machine tools for hub production, including hand
and automatic screw machines and turret and chucking lathes.lathes.”
47

Although for several years the Pope Manufacturing Company advertised that its drop--
drop-·
forged hubs provided greater strength and quality than the straight-machined hubs of other
manufacturers, it eventually stopped forging its hubs/*8 I895 the company developed
hubs. 48 In 1895
special machines to manufacture its hubs from bar steeL steel.49
49 Despite this departure from

drop-forging, Pope and other manufacturers remained wedded to the tradition of metal-- metal··
working by removing metal from a workplace in a machine tool. This tradition will be
contrasted below with that of stamping sheet steel, which was employed successfully by
the Western Wheel Works. Although exact dates are unclear, Pope eventually stopped
drop-forging other parts of the Columbia, including the crank hanger, and adopted West-West--
ern stamping techniques. Nevertheless, drop-forging remained important for the produc-
tion of pedal cranks and sprockets.
spr0ckets.5°
50

Extremely wide variation occurred among bicycle manufacturers in making hubs and
all other parts of the bicycle. No one seems to have conducted a comparative cost study of
the various methods of production, yet these must have varied
varied significantly. One reason
for the lack
lack’ of accounting is that mechanics argued that the machining processes did not
matter; rather, shop organization and management made the critical difference in cost.cost.5‘
51

Such thinking led Frederick W. Taylor at roughly the same time to develop his system of
scientific management, based on the assumption that even though an article could be
machined in a dozen different ways, the critical factor was management. Taylor and his
followers were, in a sense, suboptimizing manufacturing operations by finding the "one “one
best way''
way” to perform a given or already established machining operation rather than
finding the least expensive machine process.
 The Bicycle Industry 205

At Pope Manufacturing Company, as well as at other firms manufacturing in the

armory tradition, the lack of any rigorous system of cost accounting probably resulted
from the institution of the inside contracting system. As discussed in earlier chapters,
inside contracting fostered the prevalence of traditional approaches in production and
prohibited a manufacturer from ever gaining information about the real costs of produc-
tion processes. Inside contractors headed some twenty departments at the Pope works,
including the drop-forging; the brazing; ball, chain, and spoke; toolmaking; press; ma-
chining; and various departments for finishing and assembly. The machining department,
the largest, was made up of subdepartments usually identified with specific operations
such as the ''hub
“hub job”
job'' and the “crank job.'' 52 lt
''crank job.”52 It is of particular interest to consider the
operations of the assembly, finishing, and testing departments.
Assembly of safety bicycles involved a great deal of labor, just as it had with the high
wheel. For instance, the Stearns Manufacturing Company in Syracuse, New York, em- eni-
ployed 250 men to assemble and braze its annual production of five thousand cycles, one-
Company’s output in 1896.
twelfth the Pope Company's I896.”53 Pope’s
Pope's managers had concentrated on
assembly problems in all aspects of cycle building. Most subassembly work was carried
out in departments that produced the finished parts; for example, the ball, chain, and
spoke department assembled cycle chains. This department first machined parts for the
chain—five
chain-five parts per link, the block, two side pieces, and two rivets. Pope mechanics
devised an automatic chain assembly machine, which wove the five pal1S parts together to
produce a fifty-three-link chain. Yet chain assembly was not entirely automatic. The ends
of the rivets remained to be spun down to complete the riveting process. This task was
completed by using a manually operated machine, the operator feeding the chain rivet-by-
rivet under a treadle-controlled riveting machine. Almost every assembled chain came
out crooked, often between one-thirty-second and one-quarter inch. Workmen straight-
ened the chains by hand with hammers.
hammers.-5454

Because wheel assembly involved so much labor, the Pope company established a
separate department for this operation. The contractor divided the process of assembly
into four steps. The first was stringing up of the wheels, which meant running the spokes
through holes in the hub flanges
t1anges and screwing them into the nipples attached to the rim.
Other workmen then trued the wheels in a truing stand in which wheels were spun around
by hand. One mechanic commented that the Pope stand was "a “a thoroughly Yankee
machine, adjustable all over, and having every essential for the avoidance of needless
labor. ”55
labor.'' 55 After truing, the crossings of the spokes were lightly soldered with either a small

gas flame or a copper iron. Finally, because some of the spokes protruded through the
rim, they had to be ground flush with the inside of the rim to prevent puncture of the
pneumatic tire. After finishing this step, the complete wheel was transferred to another
part of the factory where the tire was put on.
Assembly of the frame surpassed wheel assembly in complexity and labor require-
ments. After all the various partspans of the frame had been made-the
made—the crank hanger, the
joints, the end pieces, and the head piece—and
piece-and after correct lengths of tubing had been
parts were assembled in a Pope-developed frame-pinning jig.5"
cut, these pal1s j1gY' This jig com-
bined the several-step processes used by other cyclemakers. First, it correctly aligned the
assembled frame in a horizontal plane. Next, a workman drilled holes for connecting pins
with the attached drilling jigs and the swing-arm drilling press. The workmen then
inserted steel pins and peened their ends with another attachment until the pin pulled the
joint up tightly. Now the frame could be brazed, the most critical of all Pope operations.
Pope’s brazing room for frames consisted of thirty stations, one for each joint in the
Pope's
206 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

frame. Each workman specialized in brazing one joint of the cycle, a thirty- to ninety- ninety--
second operation. The frame was thus transferred from station to station for complete
brazing. A workman located between stations performed this transfer process and at the
same time wiped off superfluous spelter
spclter with an iron rod while the brazed joints were stiLl stili
hot, a process that eliminated sandblasting and excessive filing. Pope mechanics had
carried out numerous experiments on brazing techniques before they mastered a process
that minimized the amount of fire used, heated the joint as little as possible (thus minimiz-
minimiz··
ing damage to the quality of the steel), and still produced a strong joint in a minimum
amount of time. So critical was the brazing process that, to help guarantee that joints were
brazed with skill and care, Pope braziers worked on daywork rather than piecework—the.
piecework-the
only such instance in the Pope company.
company/.5757

After brazing, another group of workmen filed the frames. Workpieces were held in
common vises mounted on workbenches. Judging from accounts of cyclemaking at af
Pope’s Hartford Cycle Company, filing was a bottleneck in the assembly and finishing
Pope's
process which was cured only by adding numbers to the filing corps.corps.58
58 Pope practice then

called for the brazed and filed

flied frames to be trued or realigned in custom-designed fixtures
which were, according to American Mac/tinist, “magnificently built and ...
Machinist, "magnificently . . . beautiful
tool-making.”59
examples of art in tool-making. " 59 The fixtures applied force wherever it was required to
true the frame. Workmen used specially designed gauges to determine correct alignment.
Once the frame was aligned, it and the other filed parts underwent the process of
enameling, carried out in several rooms containing baking ovens and paint and water vats.
Initially the parts were dipped in boiling water, removed, dried, and then smoothed by
hand with emery cloth. After washing the smoothed parts with benzine, workmen dipped
them in enamel for their first coat and placed them in coal-fired ovens to be baked for
Some parts received as many as four coats of paint, each followed by
several hours. So,me
baking.6O Pope added a final baking process, which was carried out in special gas-fired
baking. 60

ovens usually for eight to twelve hours. The temperature constraints of the final bake
made this process critical. Temperatures had to be high enough for proper baking but not
too high because the brazing material would run back out the joints (which probably
happened more than once).°1
once). 61 Thus the painting of the Columbia, like its assembly, was a
long series of steps involving an appreciable amount of labor in working the parts and in
moving them between processes. Nickel-plating of various parts such as the cranks and
pedals was equally complex, requiring initial polishing, then cleaning, plating, and finally
buffing."2
buffing. 62

After all the subassemblies and finishing were completed the bicycle was put together
and crated. No information exists on this assembly process, and therefore it may be fair to
assume that it posed few technical problems.
Many of the aspects of manufacturing the Pope Columbia have been explored here.
Mundane processes such as painting and assembly have not hitherto been generally
considered part of the American system of manufactures, yet the historical record of firms
such as Singer and Pope indicates that they posed serious problems in production. Any
study of the development of mass production technology must consider the processes of
finishing and assembly. The diffusion of armory practice into other areas of manufacture,
such as sewing machines and bicycles, brought new problems that had not existed in the
production of small arms. The Pope Manufacturing Company worked on these problems
for almost two decades, yet it consistently viewed its efforts as being “in
''in vain.
vain.'’ '’63
63 Unlike

the Ford Motor Company fifteen years later, Pope’s

Pope's approach to assembly did not cause a
 Bic_\>(’/e Industry
The Bicycle Industf)' 207

revolution in manufacturing and work. Nevertheless, Pope'sPope-’s methods in testing and

quality control proved to be of major importance for the automobile industry.
Because Pope prided himself on the quality of the Columbia, he demanded
demanded aa rigid
rigid
system of quality control. An inspection department was set up, as in many of the New
England armories, with a separate corps of inspectors. Before machining, each drop-
forging was inspected. About 5 percent were rejected. After machining, inspectors
inspectors
gauged the critical running pants
parts and examined others for appearance before subassembly.
Enameled and nickel-plated parts
patis underwent inspection, and finally the complete cycle

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FIGURE 5.14.
FIGURE 5.14. A pparatus, 1896.
Pope Testing Department Apparatus, l89(.) Item 1l is a detail of item
Item 3, an Emery
hydraulic-testing machine built by William Sellers Company and designed to test test tensile, compres-
compres-
sive, and transverse strains. Item 2 is a vibratory strain-testing machine for
SIVe, for bicycle
bicycle tubing.
tubing. Item
ltem 44 is
is
a wheel-testing machine on which destructive tests were carried out under various loads and speeds
various loads and speeds
(Scienri1j‘ir‘Amer'ir~an,
of rotation. (Scientijlc ll, 1896. Eleuthcrian
American, July II, Eleutherian Mills Historical Library.)
20R MASS PRODUCTION
FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

was checked. The Pope company claimed that its cranks were inspected eight times before
being sold and some parts as many as a dozen times.
testing
Albert Pope also established a testing department, which carried out destructive testing;
on its bicycles and bicycle components. (See Figure 5.14. 5.14.)l Pope mechanics devised
simple machinery for some of these tests such as the chain tester, a device that measured
the force required to break one. Knowing this average figure, the chain department
checked every chain it made on the testing machine by applying a force slightly below the
average breaking point. Other instruments were more complex; the frame tester, for
instance, could apply and measure compression and tension forces at all parts of the
frame. Results from this machine enabled Pope designers to change frame designs to
minimize usage of tubing while maintaining frame strength and rigidity. The Pope testing
department also adopted, through its tests, a nickel alloy steel tubing because it gave
greater strength per unit weight.
Not satisfied with simple data on how much weight a wheel could withstand, Pope
testers constructed a vibratory machine that measured how long a heavily loaded wheel
could withstand intense vibration. These tests were conducted toward the goal of improv-
could
ing the design of Pope’s
Pope's cycles, especially by cutting down weight without sacrificing
strength. Swaging of spokes was one result of such tests. A few other cycle manufacturers
carried out similar tests, but Pope appears to have been the innovator of “scientific"scientific
testing" in the industry. By and large, other cycle builders imitated Columbia styles,
testing”
always assuming that they were superior in design and construction."4
construction. 64
The inspection system and testing department provided benefits but not without costs.
Columbia/Hartford Cycle dealer com-
When cycle competition began to stiffen, a Pope Columbia/Hm1ford
plained because the companies would not offer discounts as did other manufacturers.
George Pope, president of the Hartford company, responded to the secretary of his
company, "He“He [the agent] well knows that we probably put more money into the experi-
menting departments and into care of inspection, etc., than any other concern in the
business. If he does not give us credit for this, he admits that our goods are no better made
mad.e
than those of the concerns that are giving 40 to 50 percent discount.' ' s British cycle
discount.”"5
6

manufacturers also conducted rigorous inspections and experiments on their bicycles. An

economic historian recently suggested that the British cycle industry did not become
competitive until it dropped this rigid system of quality control.
control.“ Pope's insis-
66 Despite Pope’s

tence on rigorous testing and inspection, his company remained competitive. But it did
not maintain its position as the largest producer of bicycles in America. Rising swiftly
from a wooden toy factory, the Western Wheel Works of Chicago became the "world's “world’s
manufacturer,”
largest bicycle manufacturer," turning out ten thousand more cycles in 1896 than Pope.
Pope.“67

The Western Wheel Works and Stamping Techniques

Whereas bicycle manufacture in New England was taken up largely by armsmakers,
sewing machine companies, or similar small-item manufacturing concerns, western bicy-
cle builders emerged primarily from the ranks of carriage- and wagonmakers, wooden toy
and novelty specialists, agricultural implement makers, or as totally new enterprises. 65
enterprises.“
Some of these companies, particularly the larger ones, built many of their own machine
tools. For companies that had previously worked in wood, bicycle manufacture presented
entirely new demands for precision production. Of course, as in all machine work, such
 Bz'('yr'le Industry
The Bic_vclc 209

demands varied according to the quality of the product,C>'J

product,‘°" and western manufacturers
turned out cycles ranging from the lowest grade to some of the highest. Companies that
made children's
children’s wooden carriages or hobby-horses turned to cycle manufacture in the
years between 1893
I893 and 1897,
1897. when wooden rims almost totally replaced metal rims.
Many of the western bicycle manufacturers initially produced only wooden rims but later
turned to making entire bicycles.
When these western companies began to make bicycles they adopted radically different
techniques of production than those used in most New England factories. Western com-
panies had not previously employed the tools and techniques of armory practice, and they
did not adopt this approach for the manufacture of bicycles.”
bicycles. 70 These major differences are
superbly exemplified by western manufacturers‘
manufacturers' adoption and development of sheet steel
technology—a revolution in metalworking. The Western Wheel Works was an
stamping technology-a
active participant in this revolution.
Successors to the Western Toy Company (which specialized in toy wagons), the
Western Wheel Works began making safety bicycles before 1890. Initially it imported
stamped or pressed frame joints from Germany, but hut soon it developed its own techniques
of presswork and found American toolmakers to build its equipment.
equipment.“ 71 It extended these

techniques beyond the fabrication of frame joints and crank hangers to making hubs and
sprockets. By 1896, Western Wheel employed press techniques for almost every part of
its Crescent, a cycle that was included in the "first“first class"
class” of bicycles. These parts
included the hubs, steering heads, sprockets, frame joints, crank hangers, fork crown,
seats, handlebars, and various brackets. (See Figure 5.15.) Western mechanics reduced
machining work to a bare minimum. As noted earlier, in Yankee armory practice drop-
forging and machining were the principal processes of metal fabrication; almost all of
these were eliminated by the Western Wheel Works. As the company's company’s trade literature
noted in 1898: "Our
I898: “Our use of stampings in the construction of our bicycles has proven
highly satisfactory and practical. ...
. . . The result obtained by us in stamping ... . . . can
never be equalled by the working of forgings. In 1890
I890 we were the first to use a sheet-steel
stamping in the construction of the bicycle. It is distinctively Crescent.
Crescent.”72
" 72 This new
approach to metalworking may be best demonstrated by considering the fabrication of
three different components of the Western bicycle.”
bicycle. 73

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A__ __,_~ f"_____ ‘ i §f=lZi?‘\

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FIGURE 5.15. Examples of Bicycle Parts Stamped out of Sheet SteeL
Steel. 1890s. (Bliss lE.W.]
[E.W.] Com-
Camlogiie and Price List, 1900. Eleutherian
pany, Catalogue Eleuthcrian Mills Historical Library.)
210 FROM TIIE
THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

Crank-hanger production provides a sharp relief between armory practice and Western
techniques. The crank hanger is that part of the safety bicycle through which the pedal
axle runs and from which the tubing radiates to the steering head, the rear wheel, and the
seat. In a sense, the crank hanger is the heart of the bicycle. Manufacturers such as Pope
argued that drop-forging provided critical strength. Yet a drop-forged crank hanger re- re-A
quired a tremendous amount of machining-mostly
machining—mostly boring or drilling-to
drilling—to hollow out the
holes of the axle, axle bearing, and tubes. About 80 percent of the metal from the solid
forging was removed by cutting operations. The Western technique started with sheet
steel. Through a series of punching and pressing operations, carried out in power presses.
presses,
with periodic annealing (softening of the steel) in between, the crank hanger was formed.
The process also usually entailed brazing or electric resistance welding where the ends of
the sheets met (See Figure 5.16.) Resistance welding proved to be especially effective for
this step because it automated a process that otherwise required highly skilled workers.
The technique of stamping crank hangers and other joints became so successful in produc--
produc-·
ing the desired quality, strength, lightness, and cost that it was adopted by almost every
bicycle maker, even the venerable Pope Manufacturing Company.
Yet other bicycle parts made in this way were viewed with more skepticism, as is
clearly demonstrated in the Western method of making bicycle hubs. (See Figure 5.17.)5. l7.)
First, flanges for the spokes were formed from a flat disk of metal through seven pressing
operations, each carried out on a different machine with an annealing process performed

. , _. , . nu,“ 7‘; .. . , , g _ _ _

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7
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” 4

FIGURE 5.16.
FIGURE 5. 16. bxamples of
l:<.xamples of Electrically
Electrically Welded Bicycle
Bicycle Parts
Parts Made
Made from Sheet
Sheet Steel,
Steel, 1896.
1896. These
artifacts were all
artifacts all welded
welded with Thomson
Thomson Electric
Electric Welding
Welding Company equipment;
equipment: tapered tubing
tubing (top):
(top);
steering head (bottom left); crank hanger (center); rear axle holder and frame (right). Except for the
rust, which has developed during the past eighty-five years, these artifacts are in the same condition
they were when they left the welding machine; the welds have not been filed or ground down.
(National Museum of American History. History, Smithsonian Institution Neg. No.
N0. 74-7157.)
 The Bicycle Industry 211

Q 5}:
a. h.
b.

7/
D-“
_
Z5
£5

c. -=_\

AKA
E. .
I
l
/

%“\\
FIGURE 5.17.
FIGURE 5.17. Steps in Making Hubs. This simplified cutaway drawing shows how hubs hubs were
were
produced from sheet steel. The actual process entailed several
several more steps than
more steps than illustrated
illustrated here.
here. In
In
step d, the punch press has formed the inside cup for the ball bearings. Step e shows howhow the
the steel
steel
tubing was brazed onto the flange and how spokes were attached
attached to the flange.
to the t1ange. The axle and
The axle and
bearings were later inserted similar to Figure 5.
5.13.
13.

between each pressing step. As with crank hanger production, these intermediate anneal-
ing steps forced the Western company to develop a smooth system of materials handling
in transferring parts between the pressroom and the annealing room. Western
Westem mechanics
also planned their work so that no pressman ever remained idle. The pressman sat at his
machine never having to move because a runner kept him well supplied with parts and
removed finished pieces to the annealing room. After the flanges
flanges were completed they
were brazed onto a body of heavy, drawn tubing and then chucked in a lathe for a fine
cutting and truing operation.
Initially, the hubs were considered finished after brazing, but by 1896
l896 Western me-
chanics had added this small turning step to gain greater precision. When produced in
large quantities, press-formed hubs cost significantly less than the machined hubs of
Yankee practice. Most Yankee shops, however, never adopted the method, maintaining
2\22 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM
SYS'l'l-LM TO MASS PRODUCTION
PRODUCTIO'I

always that the product was inferior. As George Pope wrote concerning another bicycle
part, "Like
“Like all Western made stuff, it is awfully cheap looking and of course we do not
want it.
it.”74
" 74 Undoubtedly, Yankee mechanics were correct that Western hubs were not as
strong as the forged or solid-bar machined hubs. There remained, however, the question
of whether the Western hub was "good“good enough"
enough” for a bicycle and whether Yankee hubs
were ''too
“too good.''
good.” Herein lies a crucial question in American manufacturing technology.
A similar question arose concerning sprocketmaking. With the same ingenuity used·for
usedfor
making hubs, Western mechanics developed a novel method of fabricating large
sprockets. (See Figure 5.18.) An initial pressing operation lifted the edge of a round, flat
steel disk to form a cup. A flat ring of metal the depth of the soon-to-be-cut teeth was then
placed inside the cupped disk. Another press bent the rim of the cup over the ring, and
another closed it down tightly on the ring. Thus the original disk now had a thick ring (a
double thickness of the disk plus a smaller thickness of the inserted ring) about its
circumference. Five ribs radiating from the center were then stamped into the disk to
stiffen the arms of the sprocket, which were also punched out. Another operation punched
out the center hole. Finally, a milling machine (one of the few New England machine
tools used by the Western works) cut the teeth of the sprocket. After milling, the ring that
thai
was originally inserted in the disk fell out in pieces, leaving a small gap in the sprocket.
This is an extremely ingenious method to make a sprocket; its final form, with thin arms
stiffened by pressed ribs, cut down on both cost and weight. It represented a radical
departure from armory practice of drop-forging and then machining and served as a
preview of automobile manufacturing techniques of the twentieth century.
Many other differences in specific manufacturing processes between the armory tradi-tradi~~
tion and Western practice could be studied, but to do so would be less than fruitful. The
examples covered adequately point up the radical departure which the Western company,
among others, made from New England armory practice. The Western Wheel Works did
use some Yankee machine tools, for example, gear-milling machines. It also used other
machine tools, mostly of its own design and make. Almost all of these were fully
automatic machines for such processes as cutting chain parts, assembling and riveting
chains, and making nipples.”
nipples. 75
In almost every process using machines, the Western Wheel Works employees sat to
operate the machines and did not have to move any material before or after carrying out
the operation. Runners‘
Runners handled all such materials flow. Horace L. Arnold, writing under
the name Hugh Dolnar in the American Machinist, identified Western Wheel Works
practice as being along “German
''German locksmithing lines, with regular beer at 9:30 am daily.''
daily.”
“the shop is under extremely good management, and no job is allowed
Yet he added that ''the
to cost more than is needed to produce good, solid, reliable work.work.”7°
" 76
Unfortunately, I have uncovered no information on how the Western company as- as--
sembled, finished, and controlled the quality of its bicycles, but it is fair to assume that
these problems were attacked with the same ingenuity evident in frame-, hub-, and
sprocketmaking. Had the bicycle industry continued to flourish
flourish rather than collapsing in
1897, the Western Wheel Works’
Works' apparent principle of bringing work to the men might
have led the company to build mechanical conveying systems to replace the runners who
carried work to and from machine operators and assemblers. Yet this kernel of manufac··
manufac~
turing productivity had not fallen on good ground, and it remained for the automobile
industry, notably the Ford Motor Company, to carry to its ultimate conclusion the idea of
bringing work to the men. That the automobile industry picked up where bicycle makers
left off is not surprising because the bicycle spawned the automobile.
 T110 B1'cyt'Ic'
The Binc!e
. [l‘1éfl{SI‘K\'.
!ndustrv 213
7

~)\
T
./7 @[ '

~-----

~~~- "
~
aa_. h.
b.

@
lt@T> r:|;_' d.

fee
rT@i

i.©@Q 1.f.
FIGURE 5.18.
FiGURE 5.18. Steps in Sprocketmaking. This simplified cutaway drawing shows how sprockets
were made from sheet steel. From the initial disk (step a). a cup was formed (step b).
h). Workmen
inserted a metal ring (step c) and folded the edges of the cup over the ring (step d).
cl). In
in step e,
strengthening ribs have been raised in the radiating arms and around the center hole. Teeth were
then cut in the workpiece to complete the sprocket (step f). The metal ring fell out in pieces. An
example of this type of sprocket can be found in the historic bicycle collection of the Schwinn
Bicycle Company.
214 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

Writing in an article on the bicycle industry in 1895,

I895, Albert A. Pope predicted or
“advent of the motor-carriage.''
anticipated the ''advent motor~carriage.” Good Roads, which Pope and other avid
bicyclists had sought, would be essential: ''The
“The day of the horse is already beginning to
wane, and as soon as the practical motor-carriage can be had by men of moderate means
we must have good roads, not only in and about cities, but throughout the entire coun-
try.”77
try. " 77 The same year these words were published, Pope employed Hiram Percy Maxim
to begin building experimental automobiles. In his reminiscences, Horseless Carriage
Days, Maxim maintained that he had hit upon the automobile idea himself in 1892
I892 while
riding his bicycle:
I saw [transportation] emerging from a crude stage in which mankind was limited to the
railroad, to the horse, or to shank’s
shank's mare.
marc. The bicycle was just becoming popular and it
represented a very significant advance, I felt. Here I was covering the distance between
Salem and Lynn on a bicycle. Here was a revolutionary change in transportation.
transpmiation. My
bicycle was propelled at a respectable speed by a mechanism operated by my muscles. It
carried me over a lonely country road in the middle of the night,
night. covering the distance in
considerably less than an hour. A horse and carriage would require nearly two hours. A
railroad train would require half an hour, and it would carry me only from station to
station. And I must conform to its time-table, which was not always convenient.”
convenient. 7X

At that moment, Maxim related, he tumbled to the notion of a self-propelled vehicle.

Maxim tells us that he did not pursue his by-no-means unique idea in 1892; he waited until
I895.
1895.
Looking back from the perspective of 1937,
I937, Maxim sought to explain his and the entire
industry’s delay in not constructing automobiles before 1895. "The
industry's “The reason why we did
not build mechanical road vehicles before this,"
this,” Maxim wrote, "was
“was because the bicycle
had not yet come in numbers and had not directed men’s men's minds to the possibibilities of
independent, long-distance travel over the ordinary highway. We thought the railroad was
good enough." But the invention and large-scale manufacture of the bicycle "created
“created a
new demand which it was beyond the ability of the railroad to supply. Then it came about
that the bicycle could not satisfy the demand which it had created. A mechanically
propelled vehicle was wanted instead of a foot-propelled one, and we now know that the
automobile was the answer. "”79 “demand” which the bicycle created was, of course,
79 The "demand"

the desire for swift and cheap personal transportation. Whether this transportation was
“the ride to work"
used for "the work” or for recreational purposes hardly mattered. With the mass
production of the Ford Model T, this demand was not only met but for almost two decades
was enlarged and sustained. Both the bicycle and bicycle production technology provided
the basis for the age of the automobile in America.
Joseph Woodworth's
Woodworth’s statement about the importance of the bicycle for production
technology, which heads this chapter, emphasizes interchangeability of parts. Based on
our understanding of the progress and diffusion of the American system of manufactures
in the second half of the nineteenth century, as exemplified at the Singer and McCormick
factories, "the
“the installation of the interchangeable system of manufacture in a thousand
and one shops"
shops” was unquestionably an important result of bicycle manufacture?“
manufacture. 80 Yet
Woodworth had not yet recognized the revolutionary character of the introduction of
presswork by western bicycle makers. Perhaps not until the rise of a large-scale auto- auto~
mobile industry could this technique's
technique’s versatility have been evident.
When sufficiently large, the automobile industry also demonstrated the importance of
finishing, assembly, materials flow, quality control, and testing, which this chapter has
suggested became critical for a few bicycle makers such as the Pope Manufacturing
 fi1(1L4.S‘f.l’_\’
The Bicycle Industry 2
215

Company. Henry Ford and the production experts at the Ford Motor Company especially
recognized the problems that had arisen as a result of high-volume output, capitalized on
some of the solutions offered by the bicycle industry (such as presswork and electric
resistance welding), and during two years of intensive work between 1913 and 1915 I915
suggested solutions of their own. When taken together, the Ford methods constituted for
the first time the most radical and meaningful system of mass production.
CHAPTER 6

The Ford Motor

Company & 81 the
Rise of Mass Production
:Rise
in America
ll/lass production is not merely quantity production, for this may be had with none of
Mass ofthe
the
requisites of mass production. Nor is it merely machine production, which also may exist
without any resemblance to muss
mass production. Moss
Mass production is the focussing upon a
manufacturing project of the principles of power, accuracy, economy, system, continuity, and
speed.
.·.peed.
-—Henry Ford, "Mass
--Henry “Mass Production," Encvclopaedia
Encyclopaedia Britanmca
Britannica ((I926)
1926)

Henry Ford had no ideas on mossmass production. He wanted to build au lot of autos. He was
determined but, like everyone else at that time, he didn't know how. In later years he was
glorified as the originator of the mass production idea. Far
For from it; he just grew into it, like the
rest of us. The essential tools and the final assembly line with its many integrated feeders
resulted from an organization which was continually experimenting and improvising to get gel
better production.
—~Charles Sorensen, My Forty Years \t'ith
--Charles with Ford (I956)
( 1956)

Ford did not have to spend his life, like Oliver Evans, furthering ideas ungrasped by his
contemporaries. He may have had the same some indomitable energy; but he also had the advantage
of coming not ator the start but at the end of the mechanistic phase. Success does not depend on
genius or energy alone, but on the extent to which one's contemporaries have been prepared by
what has gone before.
-—Siegfried Giedion, Mechanization Takes Command (1948)
--Siegfried (I948)

erhaps more than any other historian, Siegfried Giedion has placed the work of
perhaps
iHenry
• • • Henry Ford, or more correctly the Ford Motor Company, in an appropriate
context of technological development. Giedion recognized the important prior develop-
ments in production of interchangeable parts, the idea of continuous flow, the rise of an
efficiency movement, and the rich suggestion of Chicago slaughterhouse "disassembly"
“disassembly”
lines. From Giedion’s
Giedion' s perspective, Ford comes at the end of a long historical process
which, in a Hegelian sense, becomes recognizable only at the end, when ever-unfolding

217
218 TilE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION
FROM THE

historical reason makes itself known.

known.‘1 Although this interpretation of Ford deserves
careful attention, it underestimates the singular importance of the changes made at the
Ford factory in 1913 and 1914 (as well as how they came about) and the way these
changes were rapidly diffused throughout the Western world. Both the act of mass-- mass-
producing the Model T Ford and the rapid diffusion of the techniques by which it was
mass-produced had a profound impact on the twentieth century. Fordism, a word coined
to identify the Ford production system and its concomitant labor system, changed the
world?
world. 2
This chapter examines the rise of mass production at the Ford Motor Company between
I915. While concentrating on originality at Ford, it also emphasizes the prior
1908 and 1915.
developments upon which Ford depended. By contrasting Ford methods with those of oi
Singer, McCormick, and Pope the role of the Ford Motor Company in the rise of mass
production technology in America can be properly assessed. Finally, this chapter briefly
considers the means by which knowledge of Ford methods diffused rapidly throughout the
American technical community.

Mass production at the Ford Motor Company was rooted in the Model T idea and the
fruition of that idea. Established in 1903, the Ford Motor Company was Henry Ford's Ford’s
third attempt at automobile manufacture. Not controlled by Ford until 1907, the company
sold a number of medium-priced automobiles including the Models A, B, C, F, K, N, R,
and S. By 1906,
l906, it had become apparent to Henry Ford that, in light of the existing and
potential demand for automobiles in the United States, the "greatest “greatest need today is a light,
low-priced car with an up-to-date engine of ample horsepower, and built of the very best: best
material. .. .. .. It must be powerful enough for American roads and capable of carrying its
passengers anywhere that a horse-drawn vehicle will go without the driver being afraid of
ruining his car.
car.'’ '’33 According to many Ford experts, the Model N possessed some of these
characteristics and could rightly be seen as the forerunner of the Model T.4 T. 4 Henry Ford,
however, found enough fault with theN the N to decide that a new model was needed, one that
would be larger and more powerful but still be called "light" “light” and sell for less than the
Model N. Ford battled with other company directors about the desirability of a new
model, but when he acquired controlling stock in the Ford Motor Company in 1907, l907, the
debate ceased.
Henry Ford ordered that a separate area at the Detroit factory be set aside for the design
of what became the Model T, and he started his best mechanics to work on that design.
Together, Henry Ford, C. Harold Wills, Joseph Galamb, C. J. Smith, Charles Sorensen,
and others arrived at a mechanical synthesis which, if not consciously designed to be,
would become a "car “car for the masses. "’ ’55 It fulfilled Henry Ford’s
Ford's vague 1906
l906 prescription
“most needed”
for the "most needed" automobile design. A simple block, cast in one piece, provided
the foundation for the twenty-horsepower, magneto-fired engine. The engine drove a
planetary transmission with two forward speeds and a reverse, which were operated by
foot pedals. A liberal use of vanadium-alloyed steel, along with some common-sense
structural design, provided the Model T chassis with the desired strength, durability, and
lightness. Altogether, the T fulfilled Henry Ford's Ford’s mandate for simplicity of design and
repair. It
lt was destined also to fulfill the Nati0n’sNation's prophecy that "as
“as soon as a standard
cheap car can be produced, of a simple type that does not require mechanical aptitude in
the operator, and that may be run inexpensively, there will be no limit to the automobile
market.” The world, according to Harper’s
market." Harper's Weekly, stood perched awaiting a car and a
manufacturer for the masses: ''There“There is no doubt .. .. .. that the man who can successfully
 The Ford Motor Company 219

/-*3-F,
x /,
“i fin
I >.Z‘.~. . “%»%-*~~*
f ,,

i §...;@ J W.
I

iii?
nu.‘
\w -' \»a v§

FIGURE 6.1. Model T Ford, 1913.l9l3. Ford Motor Company produced the Model T from 1908
l908 to 1927;
I927;
some 15I5 million cars and trucks were made. (National Museum of American History, Smithsonian
Institution Neg. No. 44002.)

solve this knotty problem and produce a car that will be entirely sufficient mechanically,
and whose price will be within reach of the minions
millions who cannot yet afford automobiles,
will not only grow rich but be considered a public benefactor as well.'
well. ’ '’66 When the Model
T left the Ford Motor Company experimental room in 1908, 1t it met all of these mechanical
demands. Through an alignment of circumstances that would wouid have been difficult to
predict, Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Company put the car within reach of those
millions of Americans. (See Figure 6.1.)
Allan Nevins and Frank Hill record the response by Ford agents to the first announce-
ment about the Model T, made March 19, 1908. One agent wrote. “We have rubbed our
wrote, "We
eyes several times to make sure we were not dreaming";
dreaming”; another exclaimed, "It “It is
without doubt the greatest creation in automobiles ever placed before a people and it
means that this circular alone will flood your factory with orders.”
orders.'' Even before the
factory had turned out a single product, agents had ordered fifteen thousand of the new
Model T'T’s.7
s. 7 From the beginning of Model T production until the end of World War I the
Ford Motor Company, its factory, and its output of automobiles grew dramatical1y.
dramatically.
An alchemy of circumstances allowed for this growth. The roots of many of these
circumstances are found in Henry Ford’s
Ford's business philosophy and its application by the
company’s financial wizard, James Couzens. The company was financed from
Ford company's
22() THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION
FROM TilE

within, and after Henry Ford gained control he followed a policy that dictated against
taking money out of the company through large dividends (or even large salaries for its top
people). The massive profits that began to accrue were consistently plowed back. At the
time, as in hindsight, it seemed that the Ford Motor Company did not want to make
money as much as it wanted to build cars. With unquestioned financial stability and
without any set notions about how automobiles should be made (that is, about the actual
manufacturing processes), Henry Ford allowed an extensive amount of experimentation to
be carried out in the factory and a surprising rate of scrapping processes and machine tools
when they did not suit the immediate fancy of his production engineers. Ford had attracted
to his factory a core of perhaps a dozen or a dozen and half young, gifted mechanics, none
of whom had developed set ways of doing things. Encouraged by Ford, this group carried
out production experiments and worked out fresh ideas in gauging, fixture design, rna ma--..
chine tool design and placement, factory layout, quality control, and materials handling.
Had the factory been rooted in a definite manufacturing tradition, such as Yankee armory
practice or even "western"
“western” practice as exemplified by the Western Wheel Works, the
Ford company might never have furnished cars for the masses. In a sense, the Ford
production engineers took what was best from each approach to manufacture and over·· over»
came limitations to these methods by adding their own brand of production techniques.
When they were finished, they had created-in
created—in Allan Nevins's
Nevins’s words—a
words-a lever to move
the world.

Until about two years before the introduction of the Model T the factory of the Ford
Motor Company resembled more closely a poorly equipped job shop than a well-planned
manufacturing establishment. Originally working in rented shops, the Ford Motor Com· Com-
pany built its own factory in 1904 on Piquette Avenue in Detroit. The three-story plant,
402 >< X 52 feet, hardly matched the nearby Packard factory or that of Ransom Olds in
Lansing. Because the company purchased most of its parts, the Piquette Avenue plant was
designed for automobile assembly rather than for accommodating machine tools in large
quantities. What tools the company possessed were general machines, operated by hard~ hard-
to-find
to- find skilled machinists. Production during the first year at Piquette-1,
Piquette—l,745
745 auto-
mobiles—exceeded
mobiles-exceeded slightly that at the old factory in 1903-4.
l903—4. On the third floor, pre-
assembled engines, frames, and bodies were put together into complete automobiles by
teams of workmen. Perhaps fifteen such teams worked at different assembly stations, each
demarcated by various piles of parts and by wooden stands upon which the cars were
assembled. This method of automobile manufacture continued until the end of 1905,
when Henry Ford joined with James Couzens to form the Ford Manufacturing Company
as a means of obtaining control of the Ford Motor Company and as a mechanism to begin
manufacture of parts for the recently introduced Model N, the light, four-cylinder
runabout which Ford planned to sell for $500.
$500.88 The organization and staffing of the Ford
Manufacturing Company (consolidated with the Ford Motor Company early in 1907) laid
the foundation, or more accurately, established the precedents for the rise of mass produc--
produc-
tion at Ford in the early years of the following decade.
Rather than setting up to produce Model N engines and small parts in the Ford Motor
Company’s
Company's Piquette plant, the Ford Manufacturing Company rented a factory on Bellevue
Avenue in Detroit and began to equip the shop. In purchasing machine tools Henry Ford
came in contact with Walter E. Flanders, a machine tool salesman whom Charles Soren·· Soren-
sen regarded as a "roistering
“roistering genius.”9
genius. " 9 Rather than a genius, Flanders was simply a
genuine Yankee mechanic, a breed unknown to the young machinists around the Ford
 Tne Ford Motor Company
The 22 I

shops. A native of Vermont, Flanders had mastered the machinist’s

machinist's trade almost before he
reached manhood and had witnessed quantity manufacture as an employee of the Singer
Manufacturing Company. Before selling machine tools for Potter & Johnson, Landis Tool
Company, and Manning, Maxwell & Moore (at the same time), the Yankee had built tools
for the Landis company, one of the important pioneers in precision automotive grinding.
Through his salesmanship, Flanders helped shape the approach to engine manufacture at
the Ford Bellevue plant. He then suggested to Henry Ford that he hire Max F. Wollering
to superintend the plant. Although young, Wollering proved to be the most competent
manufacturing mechanic Ford had yet hired. Within a short span of years he had been
employed by International Harvester as a toolbuilder and superintendent of gas engine
production and by the Hoffman Hinge and Foundry Company of Cleveland, Ohio. Ohio.”10

Wollering began at the Ford plant in the spring of 1906, and by August of that year Henry
Ford had attracted Flanders to fill the post of overall production manager for the two
companies.
compames.
In planning for the large-scale production of the Model N, Henry Ford caught for the
first time that age-old New England contagion for interchangeability. Perhaps Flanders
had passed it on to him. In an oral history interview conducted in the early 1950s, Max
Wollering said that the common belief that Flanders had played a critical role in bringing
the idea of interchangeabihty
interchangeability of parts into the Ford Motor Company was ''all “all hooey.”
hooey.''
“There was nothing new [about interchangeability] to me,"
"There me,” Wollering contended, "but “but it
might have been new to the Ford Motor Company because they were not in a position to
have much experience along that line.”line.'' Whatever the origin of the idea, he emphasized
that Henry Ford firmly grasped the importance-if not the techniques—of
techniques-Df achieving
“One of Mr. Ford's
interchangeability. "One Ford’s strong points was interchangeability of parts,”
parts,"
“He realized as well as any other manufacturer realized that in order
Wollering said later. ''He
to create great quantity of production, your interchangeability must be fine and unique in
order to accomplish the rapid assembly of units. There can't
can’t be much hand work or fitting
if you are going to accomplish great things."
things.” As Wollering reiterated, Ford "stressed
“stressed that
point very, very much.''
much.”‘111

“We are making 40,000 cylinders,"

"We cylinders,” the Ford company advertised, "10,000
“10,000 engines,
40,000 wheels, 20,000 axles, 10,000 bodies, 10,000 of every part that goes into the
. . . all exactly aZz'ke.”‘2
car ... alike." 12 Although he advertised uniformity before his factory had
actually achieved it, Henry Ford essentially gave Wollering and Flanders caite carte blanche to
fulfill that which he had promised. When Wollering began his tenure he set the mechanics
under him designing and building fixtures, jigs, and gauges for all the parts made at the
Bellevue plant (devices he called "farmer
“farmer tools”
tools" because with them he asserted that he
farrnboy turn out work as good as that of a first-class mechanic). Wollering
could make a farmboy
supervised the heads of each of seven departments: block, crankcases, and axles; bushings
and small parts; engine assembly; second floor machinery; toolmaking; engine testing;
and overall inspection. 1'33
Flanders’s
Flanders's arrival four months later initiated changes in machine tool placement,
production departments, and materials purchasing policy. The Yankee mechanic placed
machine tools according to sequential operations on various parts rather than by the types
of machine (such as milling machines all in one department). 14 14 If hardening or softening
or any such nonmachining operation needed to be carried out during this sequence,
Flanders placed a furnace or whatever in the correct sequential location if possible. With
regard to machining operations, Flanders impressed upon Ford and all the mechanics at
the factory the desirability of interchangeable parts and the notion that absolute in-
222 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

FIGURE 6.2.
6.2. Static Assembly, Model N, Ford Motor Company Piquette Avenue Factory, 1906.
The cramped condition of the Piquette AAvenue
venue factory would soon lead Henry Ford to expand the
plant in 1907 and build the Highland Park plant, which opened in 1910.
I910. (Henry Ford Museum, The
Edison Institute. Neg. No. 833-37306.)

terchangeability would become imperative in high-volume production. Flanders, as well

as Wollering, also showed the Ford production mechanics the productivity gains possible
through the use of special- or single-purpose machine tools. In October 1906, the Ver-
monter wrote a policy statement for manufacturing operations at Ford which dictated
long-term purchasing of materials while at the same time requiring the supplier to can·y carry
the inventory. Flanders demanded that the factory keep on hand only a ten-day supply of ol
these materials.”
materials. Being a bold fellow, he even made suggestions to Ford about sales
15

policy. Charles Sorensen aptly summarized Flanders’s

Flanders's contributions to the Ford company,
“created greater awareness that the motorcar business is a fusion of three
saying that he "created
artsathe an
arts-the art of buying materials, the an
art of production, and the art of selling."
selling.” Clearly, as
Sorensen recognized, Flanders-particularly
Flanders—particularly in his rearrangement of machine tools---tools-—
“headed us toward mass production."
"headed production.”'6 16 (See Figure 6.2.)

The consolidation of the two Ford companies in 1907 and the enlargement of the
Avenue
Piquette A venue factory allowed the company to move all of its machinery out of the
Bellevue plant into the enlarged works. This move also allowed Flanders and Wollering
additional opportunity to refine machine tool placement and the flow of materials through--
through·
 The Ford Motor Company 223

out the factory. Perhaps at this time simple gravity slides (not unlike rain gutters) were
installed in the factory between machine tools to move parts from one machining opera-
tion to another, thus expediting the flow of materials.
materials.”17

Walter Flanders remained at Ford less than two years. Accepting a more attractive
offer with the Wayne Automobile Company, he also took with him Max Wollering and
Ford’s advertising manager, LeRoy Pelletier.l8
Ford's Pelletier. 18 In hindsight, it appears that Flanders
stayed at the Ford Motor Company just long enough to introduce the fundamentals of an
admittedly modern version of New England armory practice to the handful of young
mechanics Ford had assembled. Had he remained longer he might have indoctrinated
them with the belief that this approach was the one best way to manufacture cars. For the
next three years the Ford engineers elaborated the basic principles shown them by Flan-
ders, but eventually they moved beyond Flanders, taking only what suited them.
Henry Ford possessed an uncommon gift--orgift—-or was unusually lucky-in
lucky-—in attracting to his
company well-educated mechanics who believed that ''work “work was play.”‘9
play.'' 19 C. Harold
Wills, Oscar Bornholdt, Carl Emde, Peter E. Martin, Charles Sorensen, and August
Degener, among others, formed the backbone of the Ford production team, a backbone
given strength by Flanders's
Flanders’s and Wollering's
Wollering’s brief residence at the Ford factory. Drafts-
man, toolmaker, and better-than-amateur metallurgist, Harold Wills played a major role
in Ford automobile design and factory layout from 1902 until after Highland Park was
built. After Flanders left, Ford put Wills nominally in charge of manufacturing operations
and machine tool procurement. Wills left these duties almost completely to ''Pete'' “Pete”
Martin and "Cast-iron
“Cast-iron Charlie”
Charlie" Sorensen. Henry Ford despised job titles, but Martin
functioned as the factory superintendent and Sorensen as his assistant. According to
Sorensen, Martin oversaw production while he worked at "production
“production organization and
development.” Ford had hired both men shortly before Flanders arrived; Martin
development.''
eventually became general superintendent and a vice-president of the Ford Motor Com-
pany while Sorensen became the mastermind behind Ford production plants in Europe,
the River Rouge, and the Willow Run bomber factory. Carl Emde, a technically trained
German immigrant, assisted Oscar Bornholdt in tool design and construction. Again, Ford
had hired both machinists before 1906. Their contact with Flanders and Wollering proved
very fetiile.
fertile. When Bornholdt left Ford in early April 1913, Emde took charge of tool
design. By this date the Ford shops had arrived at a distinctive approach to machine tool,
jig, and fixture design that clearly showed the marks of Bornholdt and Emde. Even before
the Ford Motor Company was formed, Henry Ford hired August Degener as a draftsman.
By the time the Highland Park factory opened in 1910, "Gus" “Gus” had become the superin-
tendent for inspection.”
inspection. 20
Because Flanders left shortly after the company had announced the Model T-and T—and long
before it had actually produced one-this
one—this team of mechanics suddenly became responsible
for “tooling
''tooling up”
up'' for Model T manufacture. They faced more pressing problems than
Flanders had encountered because of the rapidly rising demand for the Model T. When
Flanders wrote his policy memorandum of October 1906, he called for the production of
11,500 automobiles (in three models) during the year from October 1906 to September
1907. Actual production reached only about 8,250. Nevins argued that quantity produc-
tion at the Ford Motor Company began in the fall of 1907, but during the year previous to
June 16, 1909, the factory turned out only 10,660 automobiles, less than a 30 percent
increase from the 1906-7 period. period.“
21 Table 6.1 shows the rapid rise in sales and the

decrease in price of the Model T from its beginning in 1908 until 1916.
To P. E. Martin and Charles Sorensen fell the chief responsibility of getting the Model
224 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

TABLE
TABLE 6.1.
6. l. MANUFACTURING AND
MANUFACTURING AND MARKETING or Monet
MARKETING OF T FORDS,
MODEL T Foaos, l908~1916
1908-1916

Calendar Retail Price Total Model T Total Model T

Year (Touring Car) Production Sales
- -----~"-------- -------------- "~------

1908 $850 n.a. 5,986

1909 950 13,840 12,292
I910
1910 780 20,727 19,293
1911
19 I1 690 53,488 40,402
1912 600 82,388 78,611
1913 550 189,088 182,809
l9l4
1914 490 230,788 260,720
19l5
1915 440 394,788 355,276
1916 360 585,388 577,036

Sources: Columns 2 and 4: United States Board of Tax Appeals Reports, vol. 1II,
1, p. 1116,
I l 16, as reprinted in Alfred
D. Chandler, JL,
Jr., Giant Enterprise,
Entoprise, p. 33; column 33: my compilation based on monthly production reports, Ford
Archives.

T into production. Although preparations may have seemed frenzied at times, the two
superintendents, with toolbuilders Bornholdt and Emde, approached production methodi-
cally. As Henry Leland had done with Willcox & & Gibbs sewing machines and Singer had
done with its machines, the Ford production men wrote out operations
operations,sheets.22
sheets. 22 These
detailed the machining operations on various parts, the requisite material inputs, and the
necessary tools, fixtures, and gauges (all of which were numbered and referenced to
drawings of parts) and suggested how the factory ought to be laid out according to the
sequential structure delineated on paper. Preparation of these sheets brought order and
clarity to what might have been a chaotic effort to produce the new model. In detailing
requirements in machine tools the sheets also suggested possibilities for the design of
entirely new machines. Rather than hardening into rigid policy statements, the operations
sheets served as guides to production and materials procurement.
With information from operations sheets, Sorensen rearranged machine tools for
Model T engine production, following the practice of sequential machining operations
that Flanders had suggested.”
suggested. 23 The engine of the Model T differed significantly from that
of the N, consisting of a single-cast block and a magneto rather than two castings (each
with two cylinders) and a battery-fired ignition system. Sorensen's
Sorensen’s ability as a pattern-
maker was clearly established by his solution to the problem of making a one-piece block.
More important, he demonstrated his ability to bring original ideas to overall production
when he recommended to Ford that stamping techniques rather than usual casting methods
be employed for making crankcases.
Sorensen knew about steel stamping methods because he had grown up in Buffalo,
New York, where the John R. Keirn stamping company made bicycle crank hangers and
other bicycle parts. According to his reminiscences, Sorensen had often prowled around
the scrap pile at the Keim
Keirn plant, picking up pieces that only a boy would find useful. Not
long before Sorensen initially advocated pressed steel crankcases, William Smith, part-
owner and superintendent of the KeimKeirn mills, had called at the Ford factory and suggested
Ford’s
that Ford's rear axle housings could be made of pressed steel. Henry Ford encouraged
both Sorensen and Smith. Soon Harold Wills and Sorensen went to Buffalo to see the
Keim plant. Smith and his team of engineers made a suitable rear axle housing for the
Keirn
 Compcznv
The Ford Motor Company 22
225

gal’

1-

*"‘"'a-.'~.~.
7%
at

6.3. Punch Press Operations, Highland Park Factory, 1913. Much of Ford's
FIGURE 6.3. Ford’s punch press
machinery came from the John R. KeirnKeim Company of Buffalo, which Ford purchased in 1911 and
are visible.
moved to Detroit. At the far right, stacks of Model T transmission covers and crankcases arc
(Henry Ford Museum, TbcThe Edison Institute. Neg. No. 0-6341.)

Model T and offered them at a cheaper price than cast ones. Before Model T products
Ford’s approval) adopted the use of pressed steel parts
proceeded too far, Sorensen (with Ford's
possible—crankcase, axle housing, transmission case. Ford purchased the Keirn
wherever possible--crankcase, Keim
company in 1911 and moved it to Detroit. (See Figures 6.3 and 6.4.)
With the company's
company’s equipment also came a group of talented engineers who played a
decisive role in the development of mass production at Highland Park. This group in-
cluded William Smith (who continued engineering work), John R. Lee (who became
Ford’s welfare department head), William Knudsen (who directed Ford’s
Ford's Ford's assembly plant
operations in other American cities and eventually became the president of General
Motors), Charles Morgana (who worked with Carl Emde as the Ford machine tool
purchaser and conveyor of specifications for capital equipment), John Findlater (a die-
maker who became Ford'sFord’s master of presswork), and E. A. Walters (who succeeded
Findlater in 1919
J 919 as the chief expert in presswork).
presswork).24
24

company’s production engineers and machinists worked out details of man-

While the company's
ufacturing the Model T and Fred Diehl devised a materials purchasing system along the
lines suggested by Walter Flanders, Henry Ford and James Couzens concentrated on plans
to construct a new factory in which the car for the masses would be built. In 1906, before
226 FROM TIIE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION
f'ROM THE

igswtsa >.

FIGURE 6.4.
6.4. Punch Press Operations, Highland Park Factory, 1913.
I913. (Henry Ford Museum, The
Edison Institute. Neg. No. 833-2295.)

the design of the Model T had been completed, Ford had purchased a sixty-acre tract of oi
land at Highland Park on the northern edge of Detroit and had begun work with architects
on the proposed factory. Although neither Ford’s
Ford's biographers nor Ford company pioneers
mentions Flanders in connection with the Highland Park factory design, the Yankee must
have at least told Ford how he would build a factory if he were in Ford'sFord’s place. Ford.
Ford,
Couzens, Flanders, and others clearly recognized that the Piquette Avenue factory, even
when enlarged, was inadequate for the growing production of Model N’s N's and that antici-
pated for the Model T. Not long after Flanders left Ford he professed that in order for less
“to equal in quality cars now selling at $700 to $900, it is not only
expensive automobiles ''to
necessary to build them in tremendous quantities, but to build and equip factories for the
economical manufacture of every part.part.”25
" 25 With large profits pouring into Ford's
Ford’s enter"
enter»-
prise, it seemed natural to think about erecting a substantial factory along the lines
envisioned by Flanders. The directors of the company approved the expenditure of a
quarter of a million dollars in mid-1908. The factory opened formally on New Year’s
Year's Day
1910, although construction at Highland Park continued throughout the next half-dozen
years until the sixty acres would hold no more buildings.
buildings?“ (Sec Figure 6.5.)
26 (See

The design of the Highland Park factory allowed architect Albert Kahn to elaborate
upon work he had started in 1905, when at age thirty-six he designed a new factory for the
Packard Motor Car Company, a "daylight
“daylight factory"
factory” of extensive windows set in rein·-
rein--
 The Ford Motor Compmty
Company _227

FIGURE 6.5.
6.5. Highland Park Factory, 1923. This aerial photograph was taken at the peak of High-
Park’s production. The 8,000-horsepower power plant is in the center of the photograph and
land Park's
the sawtoothed roof of the machining area is visible at the left. This area was connected by a glass-
enclosed craneway to a four-story building 865 feet long and 75 feet wide. (Henry Ford Museum,
The Edison Institute. Neg. No. 833-34974.)

forced concrete. The principal structure at Highland Park consisted of a four-story build-
ing 865 feet in length and 75 feet in width with some fifty thousand square feet of glass
(roughly 75 percent of wall area). In a matter of months Kahn placed beside this structure
a single-story building with a sawtooth glass roof, 840 X>< 140 feet, which served as the
principal machine shop. Kahn connected these buildings with an impressive, glass-en-
closed craneway, 860 x>< 57 feet. The main building as well as the machine shop opened
completely into the craneway on all floors so materials could be moved with ease from
one building to the other through the craneway. This craneway would serve as the major
distribution point for all raw materials that made up the Model T.T9727

P. E. Martin and Charles Sorensen laid out careful plans for a smooth move into the
new factory. Henry Ford simplified their plans in 1909, when he announced that the Ford
Motor Company would henceforth make only the Model T and that the runabout, touring
car, town car, and delivery car would all consist of identical chassis.
chassis.”
28 Now the plant

superintendents no longer had to worry about transferring the Model N production equip-
ment. Besides freeing the usable machine tools, Ford's
Ford’s decision allowed Martin, Soren-
sen, Emde, and Bornholdt to initiate the design, construction, or procurement of large
numbers or special- or single-purpose machine tools. This is what the American system of
manufactures was all about. Before moving machine tools to Highland Park, Sorensen
228 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

and Martin drew up layout boards—scaled

boards-scaled figures showing the correct placement of the
machinery. They numbered each machine site and then attached brass plates to the
machine tools at the Piquette factory. With these plans, the company’s
company's millwrights easily
designed the electrically driven shafting at the new Highland Park works and correctly
placed the machinery. When Highland Park began production, department by department,
it was, as Sorensen later wrote, a "progressive"
“progressive” but not a "fully
“fully integrated operation.”29
operation. " 29
During the next four years Sorensen and his fellow production engineers would effect
profound changes at the "Crystal
“Crystal Palace”
Palace" factory.
In the period between the opening of Highland Park (January 1, 191 1910)
0) and the installa-
tion of the first assembly line (April 1, 1913) the work of the tool department, the move of
the Keim pressed steel plant to Detroit, and the six- to tenfold expansion of output
(depending on how one counts) distinguish manufacture of the Model T. Historians of the
Ford Motor Company, when talking about factory operations, usually make immediate
reference to what they and others have called the "classic"
“classic” work by Horace Lucien
Arnold and Fay Leone Faurote, Ford Methods and the Ford Shops (1915). (19l5).3°30 Although the

work is a classic, few historians have fully understood it, and none has placed it in the
context of another series of articles on the Ford factory, written by Fred Colvin in the
American Machinist in 1913.1913.31
31 In many ways the Colvin series surpassed that of Arnold

and Faurote in that it gave better details about the machine tools and the fixture and
gauging system at the Ford factory. Colvin also compared and contrasted the Ford meth-
ods with those of other leading shops, and he grappled with the meaning of large-scale
production. Most important, however, the American Machinist series described Ford
factory operations immediately before the dawn of the assembly line, thus allowing us to
see how far Sorensen and others had carried Walter Flanders's
Flanders’s Yankee notions and how,
once moving assembly was tried, those notions that dealt with assembly were suddenly
scrapped.
When Fred Colvin visited the Ford Motor Company plant in the spring of 1913, 1913,32
32 he

was impressed by the way Ford engineers had concentrated on the “principles
''principles of power,
accuracy, economy, system, continuity, and spced"-Hcnry
speed” Henry Ford’s elements of mass
Ford's clements
production. Noting that Ford manufactured over half the entire United States output of
cars, Colvin suggested, ''We“We think of 200,000 automobiles in a single season as being
unheard of, if not impossible, as we can hardly imagine such an output. ... . . . We lose all
sense of proportion, and we get to the point where we are quite as ready to accept a million
as the proper figure as the paltry(?) 200,000.”
200,000.'' The well-knovm
well-known technical journalist tried
to suggest the meaning of such an output. A million lamps; eight hundred thousand wheels
and tires; ninety thousand tons of steel; four hundred thousand cowhides; 6 million pounds
of hair for seats; and about 2 million square feet of glass went into the year’s
year's production.
A complete Model T emerged from the factory every forty seconds of the working day.
Five trains of forty cars each left the factory daily, loaded with finished automobiles. In a
span of five years the company had gone from producing about six thousand Model T's T’s to
roughly two hundred thousand and had lowered costs. "What “What more could the greatest
high priest of efficiency expect?"
expect?” Colvin asked.
asked.”33 Unknown to Colvin, a month before

these words appeared in print the priests of efficiency at Ford had made their first
experiment with an assembly line.
The power plant at Highland Park, designed by Ford'sFord’s construction engineer, Edward
Gray, and built by the company, consisted of a three thousand-horsepower gas engine,
which turned direct cun-ent
current generating equipment. Power was distributed throughout the
factory by electric motors, which drove units of line shafting and belting. When Colvin
 The Ford Motor Company 2
229

toured the factory, construction was nearing completion on an additional five thousand-
horsepower gas engine. The increasing output of Model T's T’s demanded power of this
magnitude.“
magnitude. 34

“The Ford testing method is unique and simple,''

''The simple,” Colvin wrote when he assessed
standards of accuracy at Highland Park.35
Park. Every critical part of the Model T was ma-
35

chined in standard fixtures and checked by standard gauges both during and after the
operation sequence. With proper attention by the tool department and the inspection
department, the factory maintained essential accuracy. When a unit such as the engine,
the transmission, or the rear axle assembly was put together, its bearings were checked
with an electric motor. Unlike most automakers, Ford did not run its engine before
assembly into the chassis. Not until the car was ready to leave the factory was the engine
started. The company did not road-test any Model T. Sorensen, Martin, Martin. and others
maintained that if parts were made correctly and put together correctly, the end product
would be correct.
Principles of economy abounded at the Ford factory. Colvin suggested that the ever-
declining price of the Model T served as a testimonial to these principles. He cited
numerous instances of economy at Highland Park, all of which were tied to the principles
of system, continuity, and speed so evident there. Establishing a theme that would be
picked up by other journalists such as Arnold and Faurote, Colvin emphasized the close
grouping of machine tools and how this economy of space militated against letting work
accumulate in the aisles and made imperative a smooth flow of work throughout the banks
of machine tools.“
tools. 36
Not long after the Highland Park plant had opened, a newsman from the Detroit
Journal described the salient feature of the Ford production process as "System,
“System, system,
system!”37
system!" 37 In his American Machinist series, Fred Colvin reiterated this theme. Only the

word "system"
“system” could be used to describe the way Fred Diehl purchased materials, their
distribution throughout the factory from the main crane
craneway,
way, and the method the company
used to handle finished stock. But Colvin was more impressed by the placement of
machine tools: "So “So thoroughly is the sequence of operations followed that we not only
find drilling machines sandwiched in between heavy millers and even punch presses, but
also carbonizing furnaces and babbitting equipment in the midst of the machines. This
aLso
reduces the handling of work to the minimum; for, when a piece has reached the carboniz-
ing stage, it has also arrived at the furnace which carbonizes it, and, in case of work to be
finished by grinding, the grinders are within easy reach when it comes from the carboniz-
ing treatment.”38 Ford’s machine tool expeti,
treatment. " 38 Ford's expert, Oscar Bornholdt, had likened this sequen-
tial operations setup to ''the
“the making of tin cans.''
cans." ''At
“At the Ford plant,”
plant,'' Bornholdt wrote,
“the machines are arranged very much like the tin-can machines
"the machines”—one
"-one right after the
other.”
other. 39

Sorenscn'and
Sorensen· and Martin had devised a work-scheduling system for the factory. From
experience, the average output of each machine tool was recorded and served as the basis
for scheduling. If output of a certain class of machine tools in a department was rated at,
say, one hundred pieces per machine per day and there were five such machines, total
average output would be five hundred pieces. If the production schedule for a single day
called for only four hundred pieces, the scheduling system dictated that one machine be
shut down while the others turned out their full day's day’s average. Special timekeepers
monitored how closely the departments kept to their production schedules.
schedules.“
40 Largely

through such systematization, the Ford engineers maintained continuity in the input and
output of materials at a calculated rate.
230 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

§s"""I<’l%€ - -

FIGURE 6.6.
FIGURE 6.6. Quick-Change Fixture for Crankcase Drilling, 1913. This photograph is one of many
examples that Fred Colvin used to illustrate the way Ford machine tool designers had built speed
into manufacturing operations at Highland Parle
Park. The crankcase was quickly loaded into the fixture
and then the entire assembly was rolled under the multiple spindle drill press. (Henry Ford Museum,
The Edison Institute. Neg. No. 0-6342.)

The principle of speed was apparent to Colvin everywhere he turned in the Ford plant.
He stressed, however, that the most impressive application of the principle was in the
design of fixtures and gauges by Oscar Bornholdt, Carl Emde, and others in the tool
department. The bulk of Colvin's
Co1vin’s series concerns the design and use of these devices,
whose speed, accuracy, and simplicity epitomized the entire Ford production process.
(See Figure 6.6.)
The Ford tool experts designed almost all of the fixtures and gauges so that they could
be used by unskilled machine tenders. Simplicity, therefore, was an important concern,
yet in certain instances this succumbed to the more important considerations of speed and
accuracy. Excited by the rationality of absolute interchangeability of parts and painfully
aware of the problems created by noninterchangeability in the troublesome assembly
process, Ford's
Ford’s production engineers placed accuracy at the top of the list in fixture and
machine tool design requirements. By 1913 Emde and others had achieved simplicity and
speed in most of their design work without sacrificing accuracy. This achievement deeply
impressed Fred Colvin, who had studied many of the leading factories in the United
States. For example, the Ford team engineered milling machine fixtures and tables that
 The Ford Motor Company 231

aw

_...fi
\.,._-..

FIGURE 6.7. Machining Engine Blocks, 1915. Ford used multiple head milling machines to ma-
chine the blocks and the heads of the Model T engine. Special, easily loaded fixtures held fifteen
blocks at a time for accurate machining. (Henry Ford Museum, The Edison Institute. Neg. No.
0-3927.)

held fifteen engine blocks at a time, each easily snapped into place and held rigidly, and
similar devices for holding thirty cylinder heads at once. (See Figure 6. 6.7.)
7 .) Colvin mar-
veled that when brought together the head and block would hold compression with only a
plain gasket and without customary-and
customary—and time-consuming-joint
time-consuming—joint scraping.
scraping.“ 41 Readers

interested in more details about Ford fixture design should consult the almost countless
examples given by Colvin in his series of articles.
Ford tool design depended on a subtle but important interplay with the machine tool
industry. Charles Sorensen suggested that Ford men designed all the new machine toolstools at
at
Highland Park, built a prototype for each, and then relied upon commercial toolbuilders to
supply additional machines. He recalled that when Charles Morgana sent out specifica-
tions for a Ford-designed machine tool to machine tool manufacturers, the latter often
came back to Morgana saying that there must have been an enor error because the machine
could not do what it was supposed to do. Morgana would then show the toolbuilders that
no mistake had been made because the Ford-designed and Ford-built prototype could could
indeed turn out the specified number of units within the specified limits of precision. "So
“So
it went on with the thousand pieces of machinery that we bought,''
bought,” concluded Sorensen.
Sorensen?-2
42

Sorensen no doubt claimed too much in saying that the Ford Motor Company's
Company’s tool
232 FROM TilE
Tl-IE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

FIGURE 6.8.
FIGURE 6.8 19I5. Developments in
Ford Crankshaft Grinding Machines, 1915. m grinding technology,
such as the machinery for grinding crankshafts, played an important part in the achievement of
accurately machined automobile parts. (Henry Ford Museum. The Edison Institute. Neg. No.
833-2296.)

department designed and built at least one of each kind of machine tooi tool in the Ford
factory. The Ford team built many of the special machines used for Model T production,
but as Ford machine tool purchaser A. M. Wibe]
Wibel maintained, the company relied heavily
on midwestern toolbuilders such as Foote-Burt, Ingersoll, and Cincinnati Milling Ma-
chine for initial construction, if not design.
design.”43 Unfortunately, we know less about the

general development of machine tools between 1900 I900 and 1915 than for the entire nine-
teenth century, so any assessment of the state of the art must be tentative.
tentative.“44 One can only

speculate that improvements in the accuracy and speed of machine tools during this
period, which resulted largely from metallurgical development and greater rigidity, pro--
pm·
vided a critical component in Ford’s*and
Ford's-and the entire automobile industry's-rapid
industry’s~rapid expan··
expan~
sion of production capability. In view of the assembly problems at the Singer Manufactur-
ing Company caused by inaccurately machined parts one cannot overemphasize Ford’s Ford's
insistence on accuracy. In Chapter 2 the question was raised of whether in the 1870s
lS70s and
1880s high-volume, economical production of accurate parts was technologically possi-
ble. By 1913,
19I3, when Colvin wrote the series in the American Machinist and when Ford
 The Ford Motor Company 2233

FIGURE 6.9. Drilling and Reaming

FIGURE Roaming Engine Block, 1913. This is one example of multiple spindle
drilling and reaming machinery designed to machine the Model T engine block. (Henry Ford
Museum, The Edison Institute, Neg. No. 833-219.)
833~2l9.)

initiated line assembly techniques, the machine tool industry was capable-perhaps
capable—perhaps for
time~of manufacturing machines that could turn out large amounts of con-
the first time-of
~;istently accurate work.“5
sistently work. 45 (See Figure 6.8.) From the time the Ford Motor Company
moved into the Highland Park factory, its production engineers and its principal owner did
not compromise on this issue. As will be seen, this accuracy provided the rock upon
which mass production of the Model T was based. Nevins quotes an authority on the
automobile industry who argued that the "Ford “Ford machinery was the best in the world,
everybody knew it.'it."“°
' 46
Henry Ford's
Ford’s determination to produce only the Model T provided his engineers the
perfect opportunity to install single-purpose machine tools. The engine department, for
example, relied extensively on such machines. Ernde’s
Emde's department built special block and
head spotting machines, which faced, or machined, the bearing points that were used for
locating these parts in subsequent machining operations. Special machines bored out the
cylinders and the combustion chambers of the head. Another machine tool drilled at one
time forty-five holes in four sides of the block. (See Figure 6.
6.9.)
9.) Colvin pointed out that
“these spindles are non-adjustable so far as location is concerned.''
''these concerned. ” The Ford engine tools
provided examples ''of“of the single-purpose machine carried to the limit.''
limit.” Other special-
purpose engine tools included a drilling machine for babbitt bearing anchor holes, other
types of drilling machines, and broaching machines for valve stem bushings. These
examples could be multiplied by the number of other partsmaking departments.
departments.“
47
234 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCT!Ot\
PRODUCTION

FIGURE 6.10.
6.10. Magneto Coil Assembly, Highland Park, 1913.
I913. (Henry Ford Museum, The Edison
0~6337.)
Institute. Neg. No. 0-6337 .)

Ford’s and his production engineers'

Henry Ford's engineers‘ constant experimentation with new pro-
duction methods and their willingness to scrap processes and tools are perhaps best
illustrated in pressed steel work. Ford had adopted the use of stamped steel rear axle
housings, a process developed in Buffalo by the John R. Keirn Keim company. Ford purchased
the company and moved its machinery and its leading mechanics to Highland Park in
1911.
I911. Not long after setting up at the "Crystal
“Crystal Palace,"
Palace,” the old Keirn
Keim team and the Ford
engineers scrapped the rear axle housing stamping process after they developed a superior
process that involved
invol vcd flaring
Haring out the ends of drawn steel tubing and riveting them to a
malleable cast-iron differential housing.
housing.“ 4 ~'> The Keirn
Keim mechanics found other applications
for punching, pressing, and stamping, however, such as setting three shafts for transmis-
sion gears in the flywheel
flywheel by a single punching operation.
operation.” 40 As Colvin pointed out,

machine tools and other production processes were constantly undergoing examination
and change at Ford. This was clearly the case with processes by which the Ford auto- auto~
mobile was put together.
Assembly of Model T components and the entire automobile greatly impressed the
American Machinist writer. He wrote that after he had watched the entire assembly
process he could "see “see that the production of 800 cars a day is not merely guesswork.”5"
guesswork. " 50
Colvin detailed either in the text or through photographs the motor assembly department,
rear axle assembly, magneto assembly, radiator assembly, and finally the overall assem-
Workbenches for putting together the field windings
bly. Ford engineers had set up simple workbenches
of the magneto. (See Figure 6. 6.10.)
I 0.) At the back of each bench and on its sides, small bins
held the various parts that made up the field assembly. A workman stood at the worktable,
putting together the parts of this important subassembly.
subassembly?‘ 51 For assembling engines, Ford

engineers also used workbenches.

workbenches, but instead of being located against a wall, the engine
assembly benches were placed in the open so that men could work on both sides of them.
(Sec Figure 66..11.)
(See I I.) Parts bins were placed in the middle of the tables, easily reached frorn from
side.” Colvin emphasized that there was no fitting--and
either side. 52 fitting—-and therefore no fitters--in
any Ford assembling department.
department.“ 53 The rear axle assembling department relied upon

assembly stands almost identical to those used in many New England England shops,
shops, particularly
the Pope Manufacturing Company during the bicycle craze of the 1890s. l890s. (See Figure
 The Ford Motor Company 2235

FIGURE 6.11.
6.11. Engine Assembly, Highland Park, 1913.
I913. Individual workmen assembled entire en-'
en-
gines by themselves. Unlike most of the photographs used by Fred Colvin in 1913,
I913, the original print
of engine assembly no longer survives in the Ford Archives. (American Machinist, June 12,I2, 1913.
I913.
Eleutherian Mills Historical Librmy.)
Library.)

saw”

I »~__

6.12. Rear Axle Assembly Stands, Highland Park, 1913.

FIGURE 6.12. I913. Individual workmen assembled
rear axles entirely by themselves at these stands. (Henry Ford Museum, The Edison Institute. Neg.
O-6336.)
No. 0-6336.)
236 FROM THE ANIERICAN
AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

.£¥;§'

. at
~. ..@,.»-~.'sl~

t. _ i

FIGURE
FIGURE 6.13.
6.13. I913. (Henry Ford Museum, The
Dashboard Assembly Stands, Highland Park, 1913.
Edison Institute. Neg. No. 0-6335.)

6. I2.) These stands provided the necessary open work area and also held 2~ parts in bins
6.12.)
conveniently reached by workmen. The stands were placed far enough ap: ap. . so that hand
trucks could move material to and from them. As with other subassemb1
subassembi ;s,
:s, individual
workmen performed the entire process of rear axle assembly. Colvin said that the design
of the stand "show[s]
“show[s] that motion study has been carefully looked into, whether it is
called by that name or not.”54
not. " 54 Faced with laborious threading of radiator fins and tubes
together, production engineers designed a simple mechanism that pushed ninety-five
tubes through the holes in the strips or fins in a single stroke. After mechanized core
assembly was completed, however, the remainder of radiator assembly consisted chiefly
of laborious hand soldering of the core to the tank and to the frame.”
frame. 55 (See Figure 6. I3
13 for
dashboard assembly.)
“It is impossible to give an adequate description of the general assembly of the Ford
"It
automobiles, as this could only be done with a modern moving-picture machine,”
machine," wrote
Colvin about the final assembly process. ''As
‘ ‘As in the machining department the keynote of
the whole work is simplicity, even to the assembling horses or stands shown."shown.”5°56 (See

Figure 6.14.)
6. 14.) Laborers distributed the necessary parts at each station and timed their
deliveries so that they reached the station shortly before the parts were needed. While the
automobile frames remained static upon the horses, dynamic assembly teams or gangs
moved from station to station down the row. Each gang had been programmed to perform
 The Ford Motor Company 2
237

FIGURE 6.14.
FIGURE 6.14. Static Assembly of Model T Chassis, 1913.
l9I3. Unfortunately, the moving assembly
gangs were not included in the photograph. (Henry Ford Museum, The Edison Institute. Neg. No.
0-I267.)
0-1267.)

a specific task or series of tasks. Colvin pointed out that this method resembled that used
orchestrated—-as the
at the Baldwin Locomotive Works and other shops. When carefully orchestrated-as
Ford assembly team was-the
was—~the method worked well.
well.-*7 One might imagine, however, that
57
problems of correct delivery of materials and of assembly gangs not keeping within their
time limits (and therefore getting into each others'
others’ way) plagued the Ford factory. These
problems were soon eliminated.
In "moving
“moving the work to the men,"
men,” the fundamental tenet of the assembly line, the
Ford engineers found a method to speed up the slow men and slow down the fast men. The
assembly line would bring regularity to the Ford factory, a regularity almost as depend-
able as the rising of the sun. With the installation of the assembly line and the extension of
its dynamism to all phases of factory operations, the Ford production engineers wrought
true mass production.
It has generally been assumed that because Nevins and Hill were given complete access
to the Ford Motor Company archives and because Nevins was usually a careful scholar,
their account of the development of the assembly line is, if not definitive, at least accurate
in its broad outlines. The authors maintain that employment of conveyor systems and
gravity slides throughout the Ford factory led almost naturally to the assembly line.
Pointing out that "no “no contemporaneous documentary record of the great innovation
exists,” Nevins and Hill turned to the recollections of the Ford pioneers, made some forty
exists,"
years after the event.”
event. 58 Some of these former employees suggested that conveyor systems
238 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTfON
PRODUCTION

FIGURE 6.15.
FrGURE 6.15. Ford Foundry Mold Conveyors,
Conveyors. 1913.
I913. Molds were carried around on the platforms
(lower foreground) past bull ladles from which molten iron was poured. (Henry Ford Museum, The
Edison Institute. Neg. No. 0-6338.)

and gravity slides had been in use well before April II,, 1913,
I913. and that their elaboration
eventually led Sorensen et al. to install an assembly line in the magneto depattment,
department,
which in turn led to lines in the engine assembly department, the rear and front axle
assembly departments, and finally to chassis assembly.
Although they were aware of the Colvin series of articles in American Machinist,
Nevins and Hill ignored the contemporaneous evidence-particularly pictorial evidence---
evidence-~
in this gold mine of information. Colvin spent ten days at Highland Park perhaps less than
two months before the first experiments were conducted on a magneto assembly line.” line. 59
Throughout his articles, Colvin mentions and documents with photographs piles of parts
and hand trucks that carried these parts through the factory. Nowhere does he mention
conveyors or gravity slides, and none appears in any photograph. Fred Colvin was too
keen an observer, too much an advocate of smooth flow of materials, to overlook gravity
slides, gravity rollers, and conveyor systems. He does document fully a monorail system,
which moved large trays or platforms of work throughout the factory. This materials
handling system was typical of many shops, but the conveyor systems and gravity slides
that show up in the photographs of the Ford factory in 1914
I914 and 1915
I915 were different.”
different. 60 It
appears, therefore, that conveyors and gravity slides were adopted either immediately
before the assembly line experiments or resulted from the ''work
“work in motion''
motion" principle
 The Fera Motor Compan)'
Ford Molor Company 2
239

M
1,’

» - =2:
"' W -. .. M5 , ~,
" Y 1. -r '<-’&??"?§%.’§‘1%*'*=*I|iuwrausi...1_..<; 4... 1.

FIGURE 6.16. Molding Machines, Ford Foundry, 1913.

I9I3. In the center of this photograph are shown
molding machines and the hoppers that fed them. Sand-conveying machinery appears in the left
foreground. (Henry Ford Museum, The Edison Institute. Neg. No. 0-6339.)

brought to life by the assembly line. The latter view seems more likely. In any case, these
two elements of mass production fed on each other; by 1915I915 both had reached a maturity
I913.
unknown in 1913.
In his reminiscences, Charles Sorensen claimed that the idea of an assembly line
I908 and that on consecutive Sundays in July of that year, he, Henry
occurred to him in 1908
Ford, Harold Wills, P. E. Martin, and Charles Lewis, an assembly foreman, laid out a
crude chassis assembly line. Wills and Martin rejected the idea out of hand, Sorensen
remarked, and it was buried in the rush to open the new Highland Park plant.
plant.“61 Although

perhaps apocryphal, Sorensen's

Sorensen‘s account suggests that the Ford engineers had been con-
cerned about the problem of assembly. Faced in 1913 I9I3 with the task of putting together
almost two hundred thousand Model T Fords, however, Wills and Martin consented to
more extensive experiments.
Sorensen did play a major role in the development of the assembly line.“
line. 62 I-Ie
He contrib-
uted his expertise in patternmaking and foundry work to the operations of the Highland
l9l3, a conveyor-type mold carrier began operation in the
Park foundry. In February 1913,
foundry. (See Figures 6.15 and 6.16.) The mold carrier moved past molding machines (at
which point the completed molds were set on the carrier) and around past a bull ladle
which allowed for continuous pouring of molten iron. (The engine blocks, however,
240 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

""' E}

i,j~., . ~fl‘3r ~.,._ .13 V

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... . .... ,_ _..

‘rt2; M.
i ‘Q - tr‘ ¢'>.V z, '1ill ‘\.' -. ~= .

" ‘/‘ ".fi€%\\ "l'Ilz'.I@"*" ix Z‘/,%»s

r-_..qr_ -ween
ti. 1i
‘.3

i
g§;»~i=
égép ,1;Ii» --__';1 -= wi*ii F
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it '
/
, W, .
, it, fig, ~ ’,~ -, . 3. _‘. ._. ’/~_‘ -,
‘ /tx';:".m;,_
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'i1
‘K32. ‘.7‘lQ, /.§— :1"
-a».,n_vw#_.;_\-
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Ii, ' it U"-‘*' ’ " ' “
r-¢. \§,3Q
. _.-_»K,‘ \“E .x' ‘A s. ' »._ W "\-

FIGURE 6.17.
FIGURE Westinghouse Foundry, I890.
1890. A conveyor system (1)
(I) carries machine-made molds
past pourers. Men break open the molds after sufficient cooling (2). The sand conveying system is
illustrated in (3). (Scientific American, June 14,
I4, 1890.
I890. Elcutherian
Eleutherian Mills Historical Library.)

continued to be laid out on a pouring floor rather than being put on the carrier.) As early as
I890, the Westinghouse Airbrake Company had devised a similar mold carrier. (Sec
1890, (See
6.17.).) Integral to both the Westinghouse and the Ford mold caniers
Figure 6.17 carriers was a convey-
ing system that moved sand from the spot where the molds were taken off the canier carrier and
shaken open to a sand-mixing operation and thence to hoppers above the molding ma-
chines.“
chines. wheelbarrows and almost all hand shoveling. The pro-
63 This system eliminated wheelbatTows

ductivity of the Ford foundry astonished technical journalists. Rough calculations show
that although the Ford foundry had half the area of Singer's
Singer’s Elizabethpol1
Elizabethport foundry (in
I880), it poured daily more than ten times the amount of iron. By 1914,
1880), I914, ten continuous-
continuous--
pouring mold caniers
carriers had been installed at Highland Park.
In addition to the mechanized foundry of Westinghouse Airbrake, developments out- out--
 The Ford Motor Company 241

side metalworking practice played on the minds of Ford production men. Three industries
in particular seemed to provide models of efficient and smooth materials handling. In his
autobiography, written in collaboration with Samuel Crowther, Henry Ford suggested that
the "disassembly"
“disassembly” lines of Chicago meatpackers served as a model for "t1ow “flow produc-
tion” at the Ford factory.
tion" factory.“
64 (See Figures 6.18 and 6.19.) Packing houses had come to

public attention with the 1906 publication of Upton Sinclair's

Sinclair’s The Jungle, which de-
scribed their operations in vivid detail. William Klann, head of the engine department at
Ford, recalled that he had toured Swift's
Swift’s Chicago slaughterhouse and had then suggested
to superintendent P. E. Martin, "If “If they can kill pigs and cows that way, we can build
cars that way and build motors that way.”65 way. " 65 Klann also stressed that the Ford flow
production also drew upon the mechanical conveying system of both the t1our flour milling and
brewing industries.
In 1904, the year before he joined the Ford Motor Company, Klann worked as a
machinist repairing grain elevators and other mechanical conveyors in breweries for the
Huetteman & Cramer Machine Company of Detroit. Klann claimed that both breweries
and foundries used essentially the same hoppers and conveyors to feed those hoppers for,
respectively, malting and moldmaking. Huetteman & Cramer made this equipment.
Klann recalled that a fellow employee at Huetteman & & Cramer, who also later worked for
Ford, first interested Henry Ford in mechanical materials handling "by “by showing him a
catalogue” of foundry and brewing conveyors and hoppers.
catalogue" hoppers.“ Although relatively new in
66

foundry practice, mechanized conveyance had been used in breweries soon after Oliver
Evans developed his automatic t1our flour mill in the late eighteenth century.
century.“ 67 (See Figure

6.20.)
Since the days Evans first operated his automatic flour mill on Red Clay Creek in
northern Delaware, the flour milling industry had used and continued to refine his system
of mechanical conveyance. Minneapolis had become the flour milling capital of the world
by the late nineteenth century, and many informed people were well aware of the sophis-
tication of automatic materials handling equipment in these mills. Indeed, the American
system of milling was an object of pride in the United States at this time.“
time. 68 Ford produc-
tion men should have at least heard about these mills. Certainly William Klann had. Klann
summed up the importance
imp011ance of all three of these industries: "We
‘ ‘We combined our ideas on the
Huetteman & Cramer grain [conveying] machinelryl
machine[ry] experience, and the brewing experi-
ence and the Chicago stockyard. They all gave us ideas for our own conveyors.”69
conveyors. " 69 Yet
another process technology may have int1uenced
influenced the Ford production men.
Ford’s principal machine tool expert, Oscar C. Bornholdt, had in 1913
Ford's I913 compared the
sequential arrangement of machine tools at the Ford factory to the layout of food canning
striking—illustration of a successful mechanized cannery in
machinery. An earlier-and striking-illustration
Chicago shows that not only were canning machines arranged sequentially but that they
were linked by automatic conveyance systems that brought the work to the worker. worker.” 70 The

illustration is richly suggestive. (See Figure 6. 21.) If Bornholdt had established in

6.21.) In his own
mind an analogy between Ford's
Ford’s machine tools and canning machinery, there is no reason
to doubt that he did not make and exploit a similar analogy between materials flow at the
Ford factory and the movement of cans in a food-processing facility. Moreover, Klann's I(lann’s
tour of a Chicago meatpacking plant could have easily included a cannery. If Bornholdt
had seen a mechanized cannery, it is reasonable to assume that other key Ford employees
were familiar with similar systems.
The unquestioned success of the mechanization of the Ford foundry, as well as the rich
suggestions of meatpacking, milling, brewing, and canning, touched off a burst of experi- ex peri-
242 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTE:vl
SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION
PRODLCTION

FIGURE 6.18.
FIGURE 6.18. “Disassembly” Line, Slaughterhouse, 1873.
"Disassembly" I873. An early example of "flow"
“flow” produc··
produc-
tion, slaughterhouses such as this one began first in Cincinnati and later became famous in Chicago,
“hog-butcherer of the world,”
the ''hog-butcherer world,'' in the era of Henry Ford. (Harper's
(Harperflr Weekly, September 6, 1873.
I873.
Eleutherian Mills Historical Library.)

FIGURE 6.19.
FIGURE 6.19. “Disasscmbly” Line, Slaughterhouse, 1873.
"Disassembly" I873. Note the ham traveling down the
gravity slide. (Harper's Weekly, September 6, 1873.
I873. Eleutherian Mills Historical Library.)
 The Forci
Ford Motor Company 243

._M_.C ._ _ i

Evans’s Automatic Flour Mill.

FIGURE 6.20. Evans's MilL Occoquan, Virginia, 1795.
I795. Conveying devices carry
wheat from either wagon or boat through all the steps of screening, grinding, and bolting. (Annales
ties arts et
des er manufactures, 1802.
I802. Eleutherian Mills Historical Library.)

FIGURE 6.21. Norton's

Norton’s Automatic Canmaking Machinery, 1885.
I885. This can line, distinguished by
special-purpose machinery and a conveyor system, was the creation of Edwin Norton, who later
organized both the American Can Company in 190I9011 and the Continental Can Company in 1904.
I904.
(American Machinist, July 14, 1885.
I4, I885. Eleutherian Mills Historical Library.)
244 FROM THE
Tl-IF. AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

mentation and change at the factory in which everything was put in motion and every man
brought to a halt. Sorensen claims-and
claims—and Nevins and Hill corroborate-—that
corroborate-that he designed a
conveyor system for moving radiator work through the machining and assembly pro-
cesses. He creates confusion, however, by adding that the radiator conveyor took finished
radiators all the "way to the assembly line.”7l
line. " 71 There was no chassis assembly line until
August 1913. If Sorensen did install a radiator conveyor system before the magneto
assembly line installation of April 1, 1913,
I913, he must have done so in February or March.
Fred Colvin visited the factory sometime between January and “the ''the spring of 1913.''
I913.” Had
the radiator conveyor been installed or even partially installed, Colvin would have noted
it, for he treats in detail the production and assembly of radiators in one of his articles.”
articles. 72
This discussion is not solely for the purpose of quibbling with Nevins’s
Nevins's and Hill's
Hill’s
details of the development of the assembly line. As already noted, these authors suggest
that the installation of conveyor systems in radiator assembly and in engine assembly, as
well as all the supposed gravity slides and gravity rollers in the machine shop, brought
Sorensen et al. logically to the assembly line. All of the contemporary evidence, however,
especially that in Colvin's
Colvin’s lengthy series on Ford methods, suggests the contrary. No
doubt the foundry conveyor system encouraged the Ford engineers to try the magneto
assembly line, but it was the rapid rise of the assembly line that brought about the
immediate installation of conveyor systems wherever they could be installed. Whatever its
origin, its importance is that the Ford production experts were bringing about such rapid··
rapid-
fire changes that none of them could keep straight which came first, the assembly line or
mechanized conveyance. Only a devoted diarist could have kept these changes straight,
and none of the Ford men was a diarist. They were too busy. (See Figure 6.22.) The
adoption and elaboration by Ford of sequential arrangement of machine tools and the
dynamism of the foundry's
foundry’s mold carrier may have led logically to full-scale mechanized
Nevins’s metaphor or rivulets flowing into streams
conveyance and assembly lines, but Nevins's
flowing into great rivers is inappropriate.
flowing inappropriate.”
73 With the speed, magnitude, and impact of

change at Ford, this was the Deluge, the Great Flood, which wiped out all former notions
of how things ought to be moved and assembled.
As with the question of whether conveyors and work slides or the assembly line came
first, there is ambiguity about exactly when and where the assembly line was first imple-
mented at Highland Park. The standard account of Allan Nevins quite rightly relied
heavily upon the work of Horace Arnold, which was written about a year after the
innovation took place. But Nevins also drew upon the oral history interview of William
Klann, who was the foreman of motor assembly at Ford in 1913. I913. Klann’s
Klann's reminiscences
are among the most extensive and vividly detailed of any of the Ford Motor Company
employees who worked during the Model T era and who were interviewed for the
commissioned history of the company. By combining the accounts of Arnold and Klann,
Nevins concluded that the first attempt at moving assembly took place in the magneto coil
department under the direction of James Purdy. But in discussing the results of this
experiment, the historian cited the productivity figures reported by Arnold for the
flywheel
flywheel magneto assembly. Nevins obviously confused the magneto coil assembly, a flat flat
metal disk that supported sixteen coils and was mounted rigidly on the rear of the engine
block, and the flywheel flywheel with sixteen V-shaped
flywheel magneto, a flywheel V-shaped permanent magnets
bolted on its front side. Elsewhere in the first volume of his study of Ford, he reproduced a
photograph of workmen assembling the magnets onto the flywheel flywheel and called this the
“first magneto assembly line.
"first line.”74
" (See Figure 6.23.)
74

Even when this distinction is kept in mind, however, confusion and contradiction
 The Ford Motor Company
Conzpany 245

"C

WC,”

6.22. Some of the Principal Creators of Mass Production at Ford Motor Company, 1913.
FIGURE 6.22. I913.
superintendcnfs office at the Highland Park factory. Seated (left to right): Charles
This is the superintendent's
Sorensen, P. E. Martin, and C. Harold Wills. Standing directly behind Sorensen is Clarence W.
Avery. Note the Model T chassis in the rear of the office. (Henry Ford Museum, The Edison
Institute. Neg. No. 833-697.)

Arnold’s account contains inconsistencies which are perplexing to the historian.

prevail. Arnold's
III the same work he gave both April 1I and May 1I as the date of the first subassembly line.
In
More important, he included a photograph captioned "West “West End of Flywheel-Magneto
Assembling Line: This is the first of the Ford sliding assembly lines."
lines.” (See Figure 6.24.)
Yet this picture shows the transmission mechanism being assembled rather than the
assembly of the sixteen permanent magnets onto the flywheel. Fred Colvin later re-
produced the same photograph and correctly labeled it •“Assembling
'Assembling the Transmis-
sions.”75
sions.' ' 75
In his oral history interview, Klann was asked specifically about the first Ford sub-
assembly line. Obviously having examined Arnold's
Arnold’s account of this development, Klann
repeatedly and adamantly argued that the magneto coil assembly was the first to be put on
a moving line basis and that moving line assembly of the permanent magnets onto the
flywheel actually followed placing the engine assembly and the transmission gear and
flywheel
clutch assembly on a moving line.line.“
76 Because he was the foreman of engine assembly in

I913 and because his command of detail was so evident when he was interviewed in the
1913
early I1950s, Klann’s account is persuasive. Yet it conflicts
950s, Klann's conflicts with nearly contemporaneous
evidence. Specifically, a photograph of magneto coil assembly operations which Arnold
246 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

6.23. "The
FIGURE 6.23. “The First Magneto Assembly Line,"
Line,” 1913.
I913. This is a photograph of what Allan
Nevins, among many other historians,
historians. called the first magneto assembly line. In his text, Nevins
said that the magneto coil assembly was the first subassembly to be put on a line basis, but this
illustration shows assembly of the flywheel magneto, the other half of the entire Model T magneto.
(Henry Ford Museum, The Edison Institute. Neg. No. 833-167.)

first reproduced in April of 1914I914 calls Klann's

Klann’s account into question for it shows pro-
cedures that clearly precede the assembly line. line.”
77 It is possible that Arnold used an
outdated photograph, but it is not probable given the immediacy of the other photographs
he used to illustrate his articles.
The historian, therefore, is left with trying to resolve conflicting evidence, some
generated a year after the fact and some forty years later. Arnold's
Arnold‘s and Klann's
Klann’s respective
accounts of the first, critical subassembly line at Ford cannot be satisfactorily reconciled.
Arnold’s
Arnold's account with its substantial data on productivity gains achieved with the moving
assembly of the flywheel magneto ultimately stands as the most convincing.”
convincing. 78 The anom-
aly of the photograph showing transmission assembly on the ''first “first of the Ford sliding
lines” can be explained away in a number of ways which need not detain us.
assembly lines"
What is important is that whichever subassembly came first—magneto coil, permanent
carne first-magneto
magnet, or transmission—the
transmission-the development of the assembly line at Ford was so swift and
powerful that it defied accurate, unambiguous, timely documentation by the Ford Motor
 The Ford Motor Company 247

WEST END OF FLYWHEEL-MAGNETO

Vv’l*..S"l‘ I*l.\ID I*‘LYWI."iEEL~l\/i AGZ\Tif1’I‘(.)
ASSEMBLING
ASSFIIVIBLING LINE
FIGURE 6.24.
FIGURE 6.24. Assembling Transmissions on What Horace Arnold Called "the “the first of the Ford
I913. Despite the caption, workers are assembling transmissions on the
sliding assembly lines," 1913.
back half of the flywheel. After completion of this operation, the flywheel was flipped
flipped over, ready
for assembly of sixteen permanent magnets. (See Figure 6.23). Note the pipe nipples at the bottom
of the frame used to raise the height or
of the line because workers complained of backaches suffered
(Engineerittg Magazine.
from stooping. (Engineering I914. Eleutherian Mills Histoncal
Magmine, July 1914. Historical Library.)

Company and its employecs.

employees.”7 ll Within a year of the first line, virtually every assembly

operation at Ford had been put on a moving line basis, and those early ones had been
radically revised. No better example exists than the one that Horace Arnold called the first
Ford assembly line.
On April 1I,, 1913,
I913, workers in the Ford flywheel
flywheel magneto assembling department stood
for the first time beside a long, waist-high row of flywheels that rested on smooth,.
smooth, sliding
surfaces on a pipe frame. No longer did the men stand at individual workbenches, each
putting together an entire flywheel
flywheel magneto assembly from the many parts (including
sixteen permanent magnets, their supports and clamps, sixteen bolts, and other mis-
cellaneous parts). This was no April Fool's
Fool’s joke. The workers had been instructed by the
foreman to place one particular part in the assembly or perhaps start a few nuts or even just
flywheel down the row to the next worker. Having pushed
tighten them and then push the f1ywheel
it down eighteen or perhaps thirty-six inches, the workers repeated the same process, over
and over, nine hours, over and over. Martin, Sorensen, Emde, and others had designed
what may have been the first automobile assembly line, which somehow seemed another
248 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

step in the years of development at Ford yet somehow suddenly dropped out of the sky.
Even before the end of that day, some of the engineers sensed that they had made a
fundamental breakthrough. Others remained skeptical. Twenty-nine workers who had
fundamental
each assembled 35 or 40 magnetos per day at the benches (or about one every twenty
minutes) put together 1l ,.188
188 of them on the line (or roughly one every thirteen minutes and
ten seconds per person). There were problems, to be sure. The workers complained about
aching backs because of stooping over the line; raising the work level six or eight inches
would solve that problem. (See Figure 6.24.) Some workers seemed to drag their heels
while others appeared to work too fast. Although a piece rate system would probably
eliminate the slow ones, the engineers knew that Henry Ford would never tolerate such a
system. Soon they found that by moving magnetos at a set rate with a chain, they could set
the pace of the workers: speed up the slow ones, restrain the quick. Within the next year,year,,
by raising the height of the line, moving the flywheels
flywheels with a continuous chain, and
lowering the number of workers to fourteen, the engineers achieved an output of 1,335
flywheel magnetos in an eight-hour day-fiveday—five man-minutes compared to the original
twenty.”
twenty. 80
One can only imagine how excited the Ford production engineers were about the
problems and possibilities of the assembly line. It became an object of study not only by
Martin, Sorensen, and Emde but also by the heads of other assembling departments.
Almost immediately after seeing the flywheel magneto assembly line, William Klann, Klann.
head of the engine assembly, received permission to build an engine assembly line. The
rush to implement such a line-beginning
line—beginning with putting the crankshaft in the engine
block—led
block-led to an accident on the second day of operation which injured a workman
seriously enough to bring James Couzens into the factory to inspect this ''Goldberg
“Goldberg job. "’
job.''
Couzens wanted to call a halt to Klann's
Klann’s experiments. But when Klann assured Martin and
“could be made foolproof,"
Sorensen that the line "could foolproof,” he received their permission to
continue. Klann recalled that he started the line again the next day after adding certain
safety devices to keep the engines from falling off the conveyors. "In a few weeks we had
the job licked,''
licked,” Klann boasted. ArnoldAmold wrote that new attempts were not made until
November 1913. In any case, productivity gains were enormous.enormous?“ 81 Klann and the Ford

production engineers also turned to transmission assembly.

The Model T' T’ss transmission consisted of three distinct subassemblies: the transmission
mechanism, the flywheel
flywheel magneto assembly, and the transmission cover. Assembly of the
transmission mechanism onto the back side of the flywheel
flywheel was put on the line soon after
the line had been built for the permanent magnets onto the front side of the flywheel.
flywheel. (Or,
(Or.
if one believes Klann, this was done first.) Beginning with the f1ywheel,
flywheel, workers added
the triple gears, the driven gear, three drums, and the numerous parts of the clutch to form
a complete subassembly. This line was developed so that when the transmission mecha mecha--..
nism was completed, the flywheel was simply flipped flipped over, ready for the magnets to bebe:
installed further down the line.
line.”82

In June 1913, Klann changed transmission cover assembly into a line operation. On
this subassembly, the production engineer had to resort to f1at-top
flat-top metal tables instead of
rail slides because the shape of the cover did not lend itself- itself to rails. Line operation
immediately brought cover assembly time down from eighteen man-minutes to nine
minutes and twelve seconds. As Klann pointed out about the adoption of line assembly
“There wasn't
techniques, "There wasn’t any discussion on whether this would work. You couldn’t
couldn't go
wrong because the first one worked all right."
right/’83
83

By November 1913, Klann, Emde, and others put the entire engine assembly-made
assembly~made
 The Ford M010!‘
Motor Company 2
249

up of several subassemblies-on
subassemblies-—on an integrated assembly line. (See Figures 6.25 and
6.26.) This was not one long line but two lines at right angles with several machine tools,
babbitting ovens, and other miscellaneous machinery interspersed. Engine line assembly
proved to be a matter of constant experiment and refinement. As Klann remarked, "We “We
rnonkeyed with that thing all kinds of ways before we got it to work on a moving line.'
monkeyed line.”84
' 84
By the time Klann and his colleagues had gotten "all “all of the kinks”
kinks" worked out, lowering
engine assembly from 594 man-minutes to 226 man-minutes,
man-minutes,“ 85 Charles Sorensen and his

assistant Clarence W. Avery

Avery had tried moving line assembly principles on the chassis.
public’s mind, "the"
This operation became, in the public's “the” assembly line.
Horace Arnold described the Ford chassis assembly line as "a “a highly impressive
spectacle to beholders of every class, technical or non-technical.”
non-technical.'' Charles Sorensen
called it "the
“the most spectacular one."
one.” Sorensen may have imagined such a spectacle in
i908 and may have even tried to realize it. But in August 1913
1908 l9l3 the apparent success of the
flywheel magneto line and the unqualified productivity gains of the engine and transmis-
sion assembly lines led Sorensen and others to begin experimentation with chassis assem-
bly. Sorensen was not to be denied this time. Appointed directly by Henry Ford, Soren- Soren~
sen’s assistant Clarence Avery (who had been Edsel Ford’s
sen's Ford's manual training teacher in
high school) proved to be a decisive factor in the success of the assembly line at Ford. As
Avery said in 1929, "It “It was my good fortune to have [been assigned] the problem of
developing the first continuous automobile assembly line.
aeveloping line.”86
" 86 Avery was a bright, well-
educated young man who had wanted to get out of teaching into the "real “real world"
world” of
manufacturing. When assigned to him by Ford, Sorensen had instructed Avery to master
conceptually every manufacturing operation at Highland Park. Park.“~n After eight months of
study, Avery was ready to help Sorensen. As Fred Colvin had pointed out in the American
i'vfachinist,
Machinist, stationary chassis assembly at Ford was not a matter of guesswork. With
several assembly gangs moving up and down the rows of chassis and with delivery of
correct scheduling, the orchestration of the assembly
parts at each station demanding con·ect
process had required motion and time studies (albeit perhaps elementary ones) to avoid
-.;:haos.88
chaos. 88 It was from these studies or from this knowledge about how long certain opera-
tions took that Sorensen and Avery laid out the basic plans of the first chassis assembly
lines.
The use of time and motion studies for the layout of the final or chassis assembly line at
Ford raises an important question: To what extent did Taylorism or scientific management
or any other contemporary form of systematic management shape or inf1uence influence the devel-
opments at Ford's
Ford’s Highland Park factory?
factory‘? The Ford Motor Company, after all, arose in
the era when Taylorism was approaching the height of its influence. The widely pub- pub»
licized Eastern Rate case (1910)
( l9l0) and the publication of Frederick W. Taylor's
Taylor’s Principles
ol Scientific Mancigement
of Management ((191 l) occurred just before the innovations at Highland Park,
1911)
and it is natural to assume that there was a connection. Whether that was in fact the case,
however, is by no means certain, because the contemporary sources are not adequate to
assure a definitive answer. In addressing this issue, the initial problem is arriving at a
reasonable definition of Taylorism or systematic management.
If by Taylorism we mean rationalization through the analysis of work (time and motion
studies to eliminate wasteful motions) and the "scientific"
“scientific” selection of workmen for
prescribed tasks, then we can agree with the recent judgment of Stephen Meyer lll H1 that
Ford engineers "Taylorized''
“Taylorized” the Highland Park factory. Indeed, this was the conclusion
of Allan Nevins in his standard work on Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Company. Ford's Ford’s
engineers, Nevins suggested, "had “had doubtlessly caught some of his [Frederick W. Tay-
250 FROM THE
Tllli A1v!ERlCAN
AMl€RlCAN SYSTE,v1
SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION
l’RODUClil()N

FIGURE 6.25.
6.25 Part of Engine Assembly Line Operations, Highland Park, 1915.
I915. (Henry Ford Mu-
seum, The Edison Institute. Neg. No. S33-2346.)
833-2346.)

lor’s] ideas."
lor's] ideas.” Moreover, Nevins wrote that Clarence A Avery,
very, who was clearly critical in
m
the development of the moving chassis assembly line, had ''kept
“kept in touch with the ideas of
men like Frederick W. Taylor.”
Taylor." Meyer generalized by arguing that "Ford
“Ford managers and
engineers may not have followed a specific program [of systematic or scientific manage-
but they surely followed general principles.
ment], hut principles.”8°
" 89
Unquestionably, Ford engineers standardized work routines at Highland Park after they
analyzed jobs and work flow flow patterns. With the widespread use of special-purpose ma-
chine tools at Ford, the engineers hired semiskilled and unskilled workers to operate these
machines (scientific selection of workmen, as Taylor called it). As early as 1912 or 1913,
the Ford factory had a time study department, although some Ford employees later
department.9°
recalled that it was first known as the work standards department. 90 The very idea of

establishing work standards—how

standards-how much output a manufacturer could expect from a
certain machine tool, a work process, or a series of processes if labor did a fair day'sday’s
work—is
work-is the very heart of Taylorism in particular and systematic management in general.
Moreover, in the Ford factory, there was a clear division of labor between management
and workers along the lines advocated by Taylor in his Principles of Scientific Manage-
ment (for example, machine tenders did not perform any maintenance on their machines
but left this to specialists).
specialists)?“91

Despite these facts, there is much reason to doubt that Taylorism contributed signifi-
 The Ford Motor Company 251

FIGURE 6.26. Installing Pistons in Model T Engines, Highland Park, ca. 1914. (Henry Ford
Museum, The Edison Institute. Neg. No. 833-832.)

cantly to the new assembly system at Highland Park. Henry Ford himself claimed that the
Ford Motor Company had not relied on Taylorism or any other system of management. As
Horace Arnold noted in 1914, "In “In reply to a direct question he [Henry Ford] disclaimed
any systematic theory of organization or administration, or any dependence upon scien-
tific management.'
management.”92 '92
Four months before he died, Frederick W. Taylor spoke in Detroit to some six hundred
reflecting upon
“leading” manufacturers of the city. In reflecting
superintendents and foremen of "leading"
his experience in Detroit, Taylor proudly declared that the manufacturers there "were “were
endeavoring to introduce the principles of scientific management into their business and
success.” This especially interested Taylor because it
that they were meeting with large success."
was "almost
“almost the first instance, in which a group of manufacturers had undertaken to
install the principles of scientific management without the aid of experts.''
experts.” According to
Allan Nevins, however, many of those who heard Taylor saw the matter differently. They
“several Detroit manufacturers had anticipated his ideas.'
argued that ''several ' The Ford Motor
ideas/’9393

Company could have been "Taylorized"

“Taylorized” without Taylor.
By focusing on those elements of the Highland Park factory that were Taylorized, one
runs the danger of misjudging the fundamental differences between the Ford philosophy
(Fordism) and that of Taylor (Taylorism). It was Henry Ford himself, or, more accurately
his ghostwriter, who pointed up these differences. To explain his system, Taylor often
resorted to his tale about Schmidt, the scientifically selected worker who was told how to
252 FROM Tllli
TilE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS
ivlASS PRODUCTION

6.27. Engine Drop, Final Assembly Linc,

FIGURE 6.27. Line, Highland Park, 1913. Careful study of this
photograph suggests that at least three assembly lines were in operation and that chassis were still
being pushed by hand along a single track with the aiel
aid of clollys.
dollys. (Henry Ford Museum, The Edison
Institute. Neg. No. 833-198.)

load pig iron scientifically (that is, after time and motion studies had been carried out) and
was placed on an incentive wage system. Previously, Schmidt had hand carried each day
twelve and a half tons of pig iron up a ramp and dumped it into a railroad car. But after he
underwent the magic of scientific management, Schmidt was able to hand carry forty-
seven and a half tons of the ninety-two-pound pigs each day. The Taylor approach was to
assume that thejob
the job of loading pig iron was a given; the task of scientific management was
to improve the efficiency of the pig iron carrier. Ford's Ford’s production experts saw the
problem differently. Why, they asked, should pig iron be hand loaded? Could this not be
done by some mechanical means? (Ford engineers would later ask why one had to bother
directly out of
with pig iron at all. Why not pour castings directly of the
the blast
blast furnace
furnace and
and dispense
dispense
entirely with handling and reheating pigs‘?)""
pigs?) 94

The Ford approach was to eliminate labor by machinery, not, as the Taylorites custom·
custom--
arily did, to take a given production process and improve the efficiency of the workers
through time and motion study and a differential piecerate system of payment (or some
such work incentive). Taylor took production hardware as a given and sought revisions in
labor processes and the organization of work; Ford engineers mechanized work processes
and found workers to feed and tend their machines. Though time and motion studies may
have been employed in the setup of the machine or machine process, the machine ulti-
 Company\
The Ford Motor Company 253

l
l

Fiouni-; 6.28.
FrGURE 6.28. End of the Line, 1913. As in Figure 6.27,
Line. Highland Park, l913. 6.27. final assembly operations
had not yet been put on the "chain
“chain system"
system” when this photograph was taken. Note that Model T car
bodies are being put on the chassis on one of the assembly lines. Those not receiving bodies were
destined for rail shipment without bodies. (Henry Ford Museum, The Edison Institute. Neg. No.
0-3342.)

mately set the pace of work at Ford, not a piecerate or an established standard for a "fair
“fair
day’s work."
day's work.” This was the essence of the assembly line and all the machinery that fed it.
While depending upon certain elements of Tay
Taylorism
lorism in its fundamentals, the Ford assem-
bly line departed radically from the ideas of Taylor and his fo!!owers.Y
followers.955
The first attempt at line assembly in August 191
19133 was crude but phenomenally success·
success-
ful in increasing productivity. At one end of a long open space in the Highland Park
254 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUC'l"IOI\’
PRODUCTION

FIGURE 6.29.
6.29. Body Drop, Highland Park, 1913. Many historians have argued that this photograph
depicts how Model T bodies were first put on the chassis once the assembly line was developed.
James O’Connor,
O'Connor, who was a foreman for the Highland Park assembly line from 1913 to 1927,
argued persuasively in the 1950s that this body chute was used only to drop bodies temporarily onto
the chassis to haul them to the loading dock where the chassis, fenders, and bodies were packed.
packed
separately into boxcars for shipment. Note that the car with the body on it does not have fenders,
which lends great credence to O’Connor’s
O'Connor's statement, as does comparison with Figure 6.28. (Henry
Ford Museum, The Edison Institute. Neg. No. 833-917
833-917.)
.)

factory, the Ford engineers put a windlass

Windlass and stretched out a rope 250 feet down the open
space. Based on their knowledge about optimal installation times for various chassis
components, the engineers placed these components at different intervals along the path.
Whereas the man-hour figure had been slightly under twelve and a half with static
assembly, the first assembly line attempt (in which six assemblers followed the slowly
moving chassis as it made its way past the various components) reduced the figure to five
and five-sixths man-hours.
Experiments continued. (See Figures 6.27-6.31.)
6.27—6.31.) On October 7, 140 assemblers had
been placed along a 150-foot line. Man-hour figures dropped to slightly less than three
hours per chassis. By December, Avery and those working with him had extended the line
to 300 feet and had increased the assembly force to 177 men. Time: two hours, thirty-
thirty·-
eight minutes. After Christmas, 191 men worked along the 300-foot line but pushed the
assembly along by hand. Man-hour time increased rather than dropped. Sixteen days
later, the engineers had installed a line on which the car was carried along by an endless
 7716
The Ford Motor Company 255

at ‘T5 \ at
3 -11,. *5»

iii“ ‘ ‘
6.30. Radiator and Wheel Chutes, Final Assembly Line,
FIGURE 6.30. Line. Highland Park, 1914.
I914. By this time
the final assembly line had been put on the "chain
“chain system"
system” (sec
(see lower left), which controlled the
forward progress of the chassis. The frame not only served to carry the chain but also to raise the
height of work to a more comfortable level. (Henry Ford Museum.
Museum, The Edison Institute. Neg. No.
833-895.}
833-895.)

chain. In the next four months, lines were raised, lowered, speeded up, slowed down.
Men were added and taken off. As Charles Sorensen wrote, all of ·"this "this called for patient
timing and rearrangement until the flow flow of parts and the speed and intervals along the
operation.”%
assembly line meshed into a perfectly synchronized operation.' ".J 6 By the end of April
1914, three lines were fully in operation, and the workmen along them put together 1,212
chassis assemblies in eight hours, which worked out to ninety-three man-minutes. (See
Figure 6.32.) Assembly figures became consistently predictable. Horace Arnold noted the
effects of these developments: "Very“Very naturally this unbelievable reduction in chassis-
assembling labor costs gave pause to the Ford engineering staff, and led to serious search
for other labor-reduction opportunities in the Ford shops, regardless of precedents and
traditions of the trade at large.”"7
large.' ' 97
Experiment and refinement continued on the existing subassembly lines. These adjust-
ments provided productivity gains comparable to those achieved with chassis assembly
256 PROM THE AMERICAN SYSTFM
FROM TIIE SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

6.31. Driving Off the Assembly Line, Highland Park, 1914. At the end of the line,
FIGURE 6.31.
workmen filled the radiator and started the engine before driving off the line. (Henry Ford Museum,
The Edison Institute. Neg. No. 833-997.)

and led the company to adopt entirely new lines. On June 1, l, 1914, chain-driven assembly
lines began to roll out front axle assemblies. These reduced assembly time from 150 I 50
minutes (a January 1l,, 19 13, figure) to 26
1913, Y2 minutes (July 13, 1914). Other subassemblies
26‘/2.
followed.9 8 (See Figures 6.33-6.35.)
followed."8 6.33~6.35.) All of the assembly stands over which Fred Colvin
had marveled only months before and which were characteristically Yankee had been
taken to the scrap pile.
The Ford engineers next designed and installed conveyor systems to feed these hungry
lines. As Arnold wrote in July 1914, "Besides
“Besides these almost unbelievable reductions in
assembling time [wrought by the assembly line], the Ford shops are now making equally
surprising gains by the installation of component-carrying slides, or ways, on which
components in process of finishing slide by gravity from the hand of one operation-
performing workman to the hand of the next operator.
operator.”99
" 99 Reductions in labor costs were
thus achieved by assembly lines, conveyor systems, gravity slides, and the like along with
the Ford system of machining, which had removed virtually all skill requirements for
operation and whose fixtures and gauges allowed foremen to demand speed. But these
great achievements had wrought serious labor problems at the Ford factory. Henry Ford'sFord"s
five-dollar day was an attempt to eliminate these problems.
Although the motives behind the five-dollar day are rooted in a sort of industrial
beneficence on Henry Ford's
Ford’s part and a consciousness on James Couzens's
Couzens‘s part that such
a wage and profit-sharing system would pay for itself in free advertising, the five-dollar
 The Ford Motor Company 257

FIGURE 6.32.
FiGURE 6.32 General View of of'“The Line,” Highland Park, 1914. When Horace Arnold toured the
'The Line,''
Highland Park factory in 1914 and wrote of the assembly line that assembled a car in ninety-three
man-minutes.
man-minutes, this is the line of which he was speaking. (Henry Ford Museum, The Edison Institute.
'kg. No. 833-987.)
“leg.

day must be seen as the last step or link in the development of mass production. During
1913 the labor turnover rate at the Ford factory had soared to a phenomenal figure. Keith
fiiward points out that turnover in 19
Sward 1913 “So great was labor's
J 3 reached 380 percent: "So labor’s distaste
for the new machine system that toward the close of 1913l9l3 every time the company wanted
ro
to add 100 men to its factory personnel, it was necessary to hire 963."
963/"O"
100 Not only did

this burden the administrative machinery at Highland Park, but it also affected the opera-
tions within the factory. High turnover was also accompanied by growing signs of union-
ization at the Ford factory. Other Detroit automakers had already experienced strikes. The
P:ation
Ford management sought to relieve these pressures by carrying out labor reforms in 1913.
258 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

FIGURE 6.33. Rear Axle Assembly Line, Highland Park, 1914. (Henry Ford Museum, The Edison
Institute. Neg. No. 833-910.)

Jobs were reevaluated and brought into parity with each other. The company gave special
raises to efficient employees. And finally, an across-the-board pay increase, averaging 13
percent, was announced on October 1, 1913. The company set $2.34 as the minimum
daily wage for every employee.
These reforms, however, did not stem the rising tide of labor problems. The growth in
output of the factory, the installation and rigorous improvement in the efficiency of
assembly lines in three different departments, and the promise of one being installed in
every department added additional force, swelling the tide of labor turnover and dissatis-
faction higher and higher in the final months of 1913. Attempting to reward workers who
had stayed with the company for three years or more, the Ford directors gave a 10 percent
bonus on December 31, 1913. Out of some 15,000 employees only 640 qualified for the
bonus, a figure that indicates the extent of worker turnover. The following day, or perhaps
a few days later, Henry Ford, James Couzens, P. E. Martin, Charles Sorensen, Harold
Wills, John R. Lee (the personnel depa1tment
department head), and Norval Hawkins (the sales
manager) met, discussed the labor problems, and considered increasing daily earnings
(wages and "shared"
“shared” profits) to $3.00, $3.50, $4.00, $4.50, $4.75, or $5.00. Ford had
clearly become concerned about the inequity between the salaries and profits of directors
(as well as the salaries and bonuses paid to the production experts)
expetts) and the wages earned
by the majority of workers in the factory. The turnover rate, the signs of unionization, and
 The Ford Motor Company 259

FIGURE 6.34. Dashboard Assembly Line, Highland Park, 1914. Contrast this with Figure 6.13.
FIGURE 6.34.
(Henry Ford Museum,
Museum. The Edison Institute. Neg. No. 833-326.)

the manifest inequity of income combined in Ford's

Ford’s mind (and Couzens's)
Couzens’s) to produce a
quick solution to all three. Ford, Couzens, and Horace Rackham (a director of the
company) met on January 5, 1914, and adopted the five-dollar day. Since Ford owned
controlling stock, the meeting was pro forma. Couzens had been convinced of the desir-
plan——perhaps he had engineered it*so
ability of the plan-perhaps it-so he and Ford encouraged Rackham to
make the vote unanimous. Couzens got his free advertising, Ford his hero-worship,
“acceptable” workers extraordinarily high earnings.
'·'acceptable" earnings.“101 The basic psychology of the

plan, however, and its basic effect were that now the company could ask its workers to
become for eight hours a day a part of the production machine that the Ford engineers had
designed and refined during the past four years.
The five-dollar
five-dollar day assured the company that the essential human appendages to this
rnachine would always be present. This ''bonding''
machine “bonding” effect of extremely high earnings was
evident within a month after Ford announced it. As an anonymous housewife of a Ford
assembly line worker wrote to Henry Ford on January 23, 1914, '·The "The chain system you
have is a slave driver.’
driver/ My God.',
Godl, Mr. Ford. My husband has come home & & thrown himself
down & won't
won’t eat his supper-so
supper-—so done outt
out! Can't
Can‘t it be remedied‘? . . . That $5 a day is a
remedied? ...
hlessing~a
blessing-a bigger one than you know but oh they earn it." it.”l°2
102 As part of the five-dollar

day scheme, Henry Ford also scaled up the paternalistic operations of the Ford sociologi-
cal department, which determined if workers qualified for profit-sharing by investigating
lives—an extra burden on top of those already imposed by Ford production
their private lives-an
“)3
technology. 103
260 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION
PRODUCTION»

FIGURE 6.35.
6.35. Upholstery Line, Highland Park, 1916. Even skilled processes such as upholstery
were put on a moving line basis at the Ford Motor Company's
Company’s Highland Park Factory. (Ford Motor
Company.)

The story of mass production at the Ford Motor Company was not something that only
historians of a later generation would delve into and try to understand. Henry Ford’s Ford's
contemporaries, many of whom were competitors, closely watched the doings at Highland
Park, attempting to understand and emulate the revolutionary developments. Henry Ford
encouraged their interest. Unlike the Singer Manufacturing Company, the Ford company
was completely open about its organizational structure, its sales, and its production
methods—at least after Henry Ford was satisfied that his company was on the road to
methods-at
mass production. 104'04 As Horace Arnold wrote in 1914, "The
“The Ford company is willin.g
willing to
have any part of its commercial, managerial or mechanical practice given full and unre-
stricted publicity in print.''
print.”‘O5
105 Ford engineers had no skeleton closets in their factory.

Proud of their work, they were anxious to have technical journalists tour the shops and
write extensive articles about Ford methods. When Horace Arnold was writing the series
articles for Engineering Magazine Henry Ford himself devoted attention to the author.
of at1icles
Fay Faurote experienced the same cooperation and developed a friendship with Ford over
the next fifteen years.
As a consequence of Ford’s
Ford's openness, Ford production technology diffused rapidly
throughout American manufacturing. The American Machinist series of 1913, Engineer-
ing Magazines
Magazine's series of 1914 and 1915 (which resulted in Arnold’s
Arnold's and Faurote’s
Faurotc's Ford
Methods and the Ford Shops), a series in Iron Age in 1912-13,19l2—l3, and occasional but
incisive articles in Machinery were the primary agents of this diffusion. 106
106 One can thumb
through the pages of these and other technical and trade periodicals in the days after the
 The Ford Motor Company 261

assembly line appeared in print and find automobile companies that were trying moving
line assembly techniques even though they made only one or two thousand cars.1°7 cars. 107
Manufacturers of other products also tried the assembly line. Within a decade, many
household appliances such as vacuum sweepers and even radios were assembled on a
108 The Ford Motor Company educated the American technical commu-
conveyor system. 108
nity in the ways of mass production.
Yet exactly one year after the first assembly line experiments at Ford Motor Company,
Reginald Mclntosh
Mcintosh Cleveland wrote an article titled "How “How Many Automobiles Can
America Buy?”
Buy?" Although writers such as Edward A. Rumely and Harry Franklin Porter
celebrated Henry Ford, because of his insistence on standardization, as ''The
“The Manufactur-
Tomorrow,'' Cleveland pointed out that already the American automobile industry
er of Tomorrow,”
had succumbed to "the“the fetish of 'The
‘The New Model.’
Model.' "” Manufacturers had resorted to this
"creed"
“creed” in order to sell cars. Ford dogmatically resisted this practice. Through standard-
ization of design and the resulting development of mass production technology, Ford
demonstrated a "big
“big lesson"
lesson” to the entire automobile industry
industry.. 109
‘O9 Yet eventually--long
eventually—-long
after
ufter other manufacturers would have predicted-Ford
predicted—Ford himself had to resort to model
change in order to keep his company from complete collapse. This change came after
some fifteen million Model T's T’s had been produced. By this time, Ford production tech-
nology had become so highly specialized that the changeover to a new model, the A,
brought unimagined problems for the Ford Motor Company. The working out of these
problems over a five-year period brought Ford into a new era of mass production technol-
ogy, that of the annual model change, which demanded ''flexible production.'' This
“flexible mass production.”
was part of what Charles F. Kettering called "the “the new necessity."
necessity?” ‘O110
l
 CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER

(2ul~de~sac: The Limits of

Cul~de-sac:
Fordism & 81 the Coming of
'~Flexible
‘ O 0

Flexible Mass Production''

Production
While the bringing out of yearly models results in many disadvantages and, for that reason, we
are all against yearly models, 1I don’t
don't see just what can be done about it.
--—Alfred
·-Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. (July 29, 1925)
I925)

.fact had annual models in the twenties, every year after 1923, and has had
General Motors in fact
them ever since, but ...
. . . we had not in 1925 formulated the concept in the way it is known
today. When we did .formulate
formulate it I cannot say. It was a matter of evolution. Eventually the fact
that we made yearly changes, and the recognition of'
of the necessity of change, forced us into
regularizing change. When change became regularized, some time in the 1930s, we began to
speak of annual models. I do not believe the elder Mr. Ford ever really caredfor
cared for the idea.
-~Alfred Jr. (1963)
--Alfred P. Sloan, J1‘. (I963)

We are going to get rid of all the Model T sons-of-bitches. We are going to get away from the
Model
Model T methods of doing things.
—-Charles
·-Charles E. Sorensen ((I927)
1927)

paradox Company’s supreme

aradox is part of the stuff of history. The Ford Motor Company's
• • • success in mass-producing the allegedly unchanging Model T created in Amer-
Iii
•
ica
i.ca what Daniel Boorstin has called the "search
“search for novelty."
novelty.”‘1 The end result of this
search was the institution of the annual model change in the American automobile indus-
try, an epoch rung in by Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., and General Motors, not by Ford?
Ford. 2 Through
unprecedented experimentation, bold moves, and widespread publicity, Ford had given
the world the first system, in the fullest sense of the expression, of mass production:
single-purpose manufacture combined with the smooth flow of materials; the assembly
:>ingle-purpose
line; large-volume production; high wages initiated by the five-dollar day; and low
prices?3 Ford effected not simply a technological turning point but, as Peter Drucker
prices.
pointed out long ago, an economic revolution. Ford showed dramatically that maximum
profits could be achieved by maximizing production while minimizing costs and thus
headf‘4 Yet this revolution was short-lived. As the
turned the theory of monopoly on its head.
decade of the 1920s proceeded, Ford saw its 55 percent market share of 1921 dwindle to

263
264 FROM Tllli AMERICAN
PROM THE PRODUCTION
AMER!CAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTJOI'i

30 percent in 1926 despite significant body and mechanical changes in the "unchanging"
“unchanging”
Model T and a deliberate schedule of price reductions.
reductionsf‘5 Faced with notably worse sales in
the first half of 1927 (less than a quarter of the market), Ford finally announced the end of
the Model T era. The market had saturated at the milestone of fifteen million of the mass-
produced cars known popularly as Flivvers and Tin Lizzies.
The saturation of the Model T market and the rapid growth of GM'GM’ss Chevrolet Division
were part of a larger movement in the American economy characterized by increased
consumer purchasing power to which Ford's Ford’s earlier work no doubt contributed. Sloan and
his managers came to see that growth would occur not by the production of basic needs or
by a ''car
“car for the masses”
masses'' but by selling cars whose appearance, if not features, changed
annually. As Boors
Boorstin
tin described the rationale of this new policy, ''Americans
“Americans would
climb the ladder of consumption by abandoning the new for the newer." In this con-
sciously orchestrated economy of change and consumption that stressed style and comfort
above utility, mass production as Ford had developed it with the T was no longer suitable.
Twas
The ground rules had changed. The Ford Model T dictum of maximum production at
minimum cost gave way to planning for change. Only when change could be planned
satisfactorily was credence paid to the old dictum.
dictum.°6 This was the era of ''t1exible
“flexible mass
production.”
production.'' 2
Thus between 1925, when GM began to discuss the strategy of model changes, and
1932 or 1933, when change had become policy not only at GM but also at Ford, mass
production moved through a period of transition. To comprehend mass production in
twentieth-century America fully, it is imperative to understand this transition-to
transition—to under-
stand the process of the “changeover.”
''changeover.''
The epigraphs that preface this chapter are suggestive of how GM and Ford respec-
tively experienced the transition to producing the annual model. Just as formulation of the
“matter of evolution''
overall policy was a ''matter evolution” at GM, so was the development of changeover
know-how and procedure. Chevrolet was OM's GM’s challenger to Ford’s
Ford's predominance in the
low-cost market. During the transition period, Chevrolet production rose from 280,000
passenger automobiles in 1924 to just over a million in Ii928. styling
928. Each year sty! ing changes
were made in the model. Unlike Ford's Ford’s sudden, unprecedented changeover, Chevrolet
evolved its changeover know-how while steadily increasing its output. In 1929, however,
Chevrolet introduced a major change, increasing the engine from four to six cylinders,
and expanded its output to almost 1.5 million units. The changeover took only three
weeks, a record that so impressed GM executives that they treated William Knudsen,
Chevrolet’s president and a former Ford production wizard, to a lavish banquet.
Chevrolet's banquet.77
Knudsen certainly deserved the credit for this feat. He had made it possible for
Chevrolet not only to change its models frequently without serious delay but also to
expand output (and profits) every year since 1924. More important, Knudsen played a
critical role in raising the level of General Motors Company's
Company’s mass production know-
how. Although not as central as a Martin or a Sorensen had been to the rise of mass
production at Ford between 1910 and 1914, Knudsen had been an important figure in the
Ford production organization. It was to the former Keim Keirn employee Knudsen that Henry
Ford turned in 1918 when the program to mass-produce submarine chasers appeared to be
faltering and in 1919 when Ford sought to expand operations abroad. But during the crisis
at Ford in 1921, Knudsen resigned from the company because Henry Henry’ Ford regularly
decisions.“
overrode his decisions. 11

On February I, 1, 1922, Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., invited him to join General Motors. Well
 The Limits ofF0rdism
of Fordism 265

Knudsen‘s contributions at Ford, Sloan instructed him to evaluate the problems

aware of Knudsen's
entailed in the production of General Motors’
Motors' new "copper
“copper cooled”
cooled" (air-cooled) engine.
Within weeks, GM president PietTe
Pierre S. duPont, who had just taken over the command of
the Chevrolet Division, named Knudsen vice-president in charge of operations at Chevro-
let. DuPont immediately set Knudsen to work on the formulation of a long-range plan for
the manufacture of the Chevrolet car, which would be in accordance with recent decisions
made by GM'sGM’s Executive Committee. The premature introduction of the copper-cooled
engine set back Chevrolet's
Chevrolet’s program and necessitated its reformulation. In January 1924,
Knudsen became president and general manager of the Chevrolet Division and in 1937,
president of General Motors.
Motors."9
From his arrival at Chevrolet, Knudsen worked to build Chevrolet's
Chevrolet’s share of the
market. Some executives at GM wanted the Chevrolet Division liquidated. They argued
that the company could not hope to compete with Ford in the low-priced market, and its
loss of almost $9 million in 1921 lent credence to their views. Sloan prevailed, however.
Joss
The Knudsen-run Chevrolet Division became the foundation for the corporation's
corporation’s strategy
in the automobile industry. The wisdom of this strategy was clearly demonstrated in 1932,
Chevrolet’s profits helped to keep the entire corporation out of the red. 10
when Chevrolet's ‘O
When Knudsen went to the Chevrolet Division, its production men feared that he
would bring in a team of Ford mass-production expens.experts. But Knudsen chose neither to
import
impmi Ford people nor to create an imitation of the Ford Motor Company. Aware of the
havoc that a major change in the Model T would wreak at Ford and recognizing as clearly
as any GM executive the advantages of decentralization, he built an organization and
production system that could accommodate change and expansion. In 1927, I927, when
Chevrolet sold more than a million cars and forced an end to the Ford Model T, Knudsen
explained how the company had achieved such progress in the past five years. His
analysis also makes it clear how Chevrolet later accomplished so smoothly the changeover
from the four- to a six-cylinder engine in 1929.1929."
11

Improvements in the Chevrolet’s

Chevrolet's design and performance were a major reason for its
success. According to Knudsen, the Chevrolet Division '·modernized
“modernized its [product's]
[product’s]
appearance so as to remove the inevitable stigma which rests on low priced articles that
it.” At the same time, the company overhauled its cost estimates, recognizing that it
show it."
had to achieve a high volume of output before ''the “the necessary earnings could be pro-
duced. ” Knudsen and his Chevrolet production men achieved the desired high volume by
duced."
replacing old machine tools with new ones and adopting "sequence
“sequence lines”
lines" or, as Knudsen
called it,''
it,” get[ting]
get[tingl all noses pointed in the same direction.”'3
direction,'' 12 In this latter respect.
respect,
Knudsen clearly drew upon his experience at Ford Motor Company, but his machine tool
purchases reflected a radical departure from the Ford idea of ''single-purpose
“single-purpose manufac-
ture.''
ture.“
Under Knudsen’s “all old machines were discarded,
Knudsen's direction, as he wrote in 1927, ''all
new heavy type standard rnachines
machines (not single purpose) were installed, and fixtures
strengthened so as to withstand the spring, which is the greater factor [in causing inaccu-
rately machined parts] than wear.”
wear." This new direction at Chevrolet allowed limits of
precision to be lowered, resulting in the reduction of scrapped material. To this end,
“gauges and indicators, particularly the latter, were devised for all operations of major
"gauges
importance and the inspection system was given full opportunity to come into its own." own.”
Chevrolet also began running careful checks of the raw materials it purchased. At this
point, Knudsen reported, "The “The conveyor carne
came into its own."'3
own." 13 ltIt is important to empha-
266 FROM THE AMERICAN
AMERJCAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION
PRODLCTlON

size that the entire Chevrolet production system, though led by a former Ford production
expert, was based on standard or general-purpose, not single-purpose, machine tools. For
this reason, Chevrolet could accommodate change far more easily than could the Ford
Motor Company.
Knudsen also pursued decentralization. In 1922, he reported, Chevrolet operated two
main manufacturing plants, one at Flint, Michigan, where motors and axles were made,
and the other at Toledo, which produced transmissions. At four assembly plants (Tarry- (Tany-
town, New York, Flint, Michigan, St. Louis, Missouri, and Oakland, California), these
subassemblies and thousands of parts purchased from vendors were brought together to
make the Chevrolet. By 1927, Knudsen had successfully carried out a capital expansion
program to enlarge the Flint and Toledo plants and augment manufacturing facilities at
Detroit and Bay City, Michigan. Three new assembly plants had been opened following
an extensive survey of population centers and the national transportation network. As
Chevroiet’s production facilities in 1927, the Flint works manufactured
Knudsen outlined Chevrolet's
motors, motor stampings, and car body stampings; Detroit produced forgings, front and
rear axles, and axle stampings; Toledo specialized in transmissions; and Bay City made
carburetors and parts that were hardened and ground. Each of these plants was run
independently by a local manager. To supplement the components made at Chevrolet
plants, the division purchased a large variety of parts made by other GM divisions
J axon Wheel, Inland Manufacturing, Muncie Products, New Departure,
including Remy, Jaxon
and Fisher Body Corporation. Knudsen had convinced GM executives that a Fisher Body
plant should be attached to each assembly plant so that body production could be coordi-
nated precisely with the daily output of each assembly plant.”
plant. 14
With this decentralized production system, the Chevrolet Division could accommodate
change, especially when it was carefully planned, such as that from the four-cylinder to
the six-cylinder engine in 1929. Planning for this new car actually began in the summer of
1927, when Knudsen informed GM's GM’s executives that he proposed to lengthen the wheel-
division's car as a prelude to the adoption of the six-cylinder engine. Thus
base of his division’s
major changes were made in the body one year and in the power plant the following year.
When Knudsen and his team of engineers prepared for the changeover from four-to six-
cylinder engines, they set up and perfected a pilot line for producing the engines at the
division’s experimental plant in Saginaw and between September 11 and November 15
division's
made the first two hundred engines before moving the finished machinery, jigs, fixtures,
and gauges to the Flint plant. At the same time, additional machinery for six thousand
Meanwhile, the Flint plant
engines per day was ordered for Flint and installation begun. Meanwhile.
continued to produce the four-cylinder automobile. Finally, on October 25, Chevrolet
closed the Flint motor factory, changed over its machinery to the six-cylinder job, and
reopened the plant on November 15. December production reached two thousand engines
a day, and by the end of January Knudsen had achieved his production goals for the new
automobile. Thus when the new Chevrolet was introduced officially on January 1, l, 1929,
Chevrolet’s factories had turned out
buyers did not have to wait. Within eight months, Chevrolet's
over a million sixes, and total production for the year exceeded 1. 1.33 million units. 15
15
Ford’s changeover from Model T to Model A in 1927 occasioned a six-
By contrast, Ford's
month shutdown and a great upheaval within the company. Charles Sorensen's Sorensen’s invective
"get rid of all the Model T sons-of-bitches" and "away
to “get methods” is
“away from the Model T methods"
a superb description of the vengeance, ruthlessness, and seeming chaos of this unprece-
ehangeover. For almost two decades Ford production men, with some important
dented changeover.
exceptions, had sought mainly to produce more Model T's Jess cost. Now they were
T’s at less
 The Limils
Limits of Fordism 27
267

asked to produce an entirely new automobile. The magnitude of the task overwhelmed
them. Ford had once produced a record of over two million units annually, yet in 1928 it
could not get eight hundred thousand off the new assembly line that had statted started up in
October 1927. The changeover from T to A, however, provided Ford with an important
learning experience. In 1932 another major model change, the V-8,
!earning V-8, was introduced. The
company’s production men believed that this changeover was less painful and accom-
company's
plished more quickly than the one of 1927-28 because it was carefully planned. But
industry analysts noted that the difference in ease of changeover was of degree, not of
kind. Building on the V -8 experience, however, Ford handled subsequent changes more
V-8
easily, despite, as Allan Nevins and Frank Ernest Hill expressed it, a deteriorating
organization.
This chapter will examine in detail mass production in transition at the Ford Motor
Company from about 1925 to 1932. General Motors was clearly the major innovator of
the annual model change, and it seems to have coped far better with the technical and
managerial problems of planned change than did Ford. The primary records of OM's GM’s
pioneering work on the changeover remain closed to the historian, if they survive at all.
By studying Ford, however, one can see in sharpest relief the contrast between the mass
production technology pioneered at Highland Park and the new mass production necessi-
Sloan's words, "the
tated by the operation of, in Sloan’s “the ‘laws’ . . . in the
'laws' of Paris dressmakers ...
industry.'' Ford had driven the strategy of mass production to its ultimate
automobile industry.”
form and thereby into a cul-de-sac. It lt was only with the rapid decline of the Ford Motor
Company in the mid-1920s and the changeover to the Model A that Ford learned- learned—
painfully, reluctantly, and at great cost-the
cost-—the lessons pioneered at General Motors. "Sloa-
“Sloa-
nism”
nism" had triumphed over "Fordism";
“Fordism”; marketing had triumphed over pure production.
Charles Kettering of General Motors had said that it was important ''to“to keep the consumer
production-jlexible mass pro-
dissatisfied,” and this demanded that a new era of mass production-—flexible
dissatisfied,''
duction-be initiated in America. 16 1°

Despite the legends about the never-changing Model T, major changes were made both
in the Model T and in the technology of its production between the cluster of develop-
1927).
“mass production" (1908-15) and the demise of the T ((1927).
ments that brought about "mass
These changes bore heavily on Ford and his company in the year or two preceding the
changeover and are, therefore, essential in understanding it.
Hardly had Ford reached an annual output of half a million automobiles at the five-
year-old Highland Park plant when he bought a two thousand-acre tract of land east of the
River Rouge and southeast of Detroit. Although his short-range goal was to construct blast
dcepwater port and
furnaces and a tractor factory there, he projected the establishment of a deepwater
an integrated manufacturing operation that would make the Ford Motor Company vir·- vir-
“we may take ten years to
tually self-sufficient. Ford told a journalist in mid-1915 that "we
them,'' but he grew increasingly determined to
bring things to the point where we want them,”
“industrial colossus."
make the Rouge site into what Nevins and Hill have called an "industrial colossus.”1717

Between the end of World War I1 and the major recession of 1920 Ford moved quickly
to develop the Rouge. Huge raw materials bins were constructed alongside the river, work
began on the great power house, coke ovens were built, a blast furnace was fired up, and
important, the B
much of the railroad and transportation system was laid out. But most important. B
building, constructed during the war to mass-produce the Eagle boat, was substantially
altered to accommodate a bodymaking plant for the Model T. Bodies were produced for
the first time in August 1919. Here, also, operations began for the manufacture of the
26
268 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

Fordson tractor. Previously, the Fordson had been produced in Dearborn under Charles
Sorensen’s direction, and its transfer to the Rouge brought Sorensen to the command of
Sorensen's
the entire Rouge complex. From this time through the Model A period Sorensen acted as a.s
Ford’s vieegerent in all matters concerning the Rouge. Sorensen became in fact, it not
Ford's vicegerent
name, the chief engineer of the Rouge. 1‘3R
Soon after the recession of 1920 turned into the boom of 1921, Rouge operations began
to grow "like
“like Topsy"
Topsy” and to gather an enormous momentum, which carried Model T
production to the point of rapidly diminishing returns. The thirty thousand-kilowatt power
plant went on line, delivering electricity to Rouge facilities and to about a third of
Highland Park's
Park’s operations. Ford also opened the world's
world’s largest foundry at the Rouge, an
immense structure, 595 feet wide and 11,188 , 188 feet long. By 1922, ten thousand men
gathered there to make and machine castings for Fordson tractors and initially for Model T
engine blocks.”
blocks. 19 Foundry operations achieved, although not without problems, Henry
Ford's
Ford’s dream of eliminating waste by pouring iron from cupolas charged directly with
molten iron from the blast furnaees. 20 Soon the foundry building would also house all of
furnaces?“
the machining operations for all Ford castings. Between 1920 and 1923, Ford moved
through a series of political and bureaucratic hurdles to finish dredging operations on the
River Rouge and a cutoff canal. The successful resolution of this thorny problem, as well
Ford’s purchase of the capital-starved Detroit, Toledo &
as Ford's & Ironton
lronton Railroad, meant that
the company could feed its raw-material-hungry Rouge plant with adequate supplies of
coal, iron ore, and wood both by water and by rail. Thus, unlike General Motors, Ford
had moved far into backward integration. As Nevins and Hill said, at Ford, “the ''the flow of
supply fed the flow of production.”Z‘ 7.1.)
production." 21 (See Figure 7. 1.)
During these years of development at the Rouge, Ford’s “flow of production''
Ford's ''flow production” proved
to be a gusher. Production in 1915 had reached five hundred thousand automobiles. By
1919, the company was manufacturing almost eight hundred thousand cars and, despite a
significant drop in 1920, faced a steep climb to the peak of Model T production in 1923. 1923,
trucks. This rapid growth laid bare the inadequacies of the High~
two million cars and trucks.” 22 High--
land Park plant for the increasingly economical production of the Model T and added
momentum to the importance of the Rouge plant in the Ford empire. As the Rouge
flourished at the hands of Sorensen and his lieutenants, the birthplace of the assembly
line, Highland Park, and its chief production man P. E. (Pete) Martin waned. (See Figure
7.2.) This growing split between the two Ford Detroit plants will become an 1mportantimportant
part of the changeover story.
In the early 1920s, this split was not apparent to the Ford production men, who were
fully occupied with the phenomenal increase in output. To meet the demands of produc- produc,
tion increases, these men had developed a procedure that became routine in the early
1920s.23
1920s. Ford’s engineers had established production schedules based on a sixteen-hour
23 Ford's

day, or two eight-hour shifts. When increases in output were called for, Sorensen and
Martin (and by 1923, Ernest C. Kanzler*) directed the engineering department, headed

*Ernest C. Kanzler was Edsel Ford's brother-in

brother-in-law
.. law (they were married to sisters). A Harvard-trained
lawyer, he had worked for a legal firm that conducted suits against Ford on behalf of the Dodge brothers and the
Chicago Tribune. Having been more than an occasional guest at Henry Ford's home. however,
however. he was invited to
join the Ford enterprise when Henry Ford initiated his tractor company, Henry Ford & & Son. His position was
assistant to Charles Sorensen. Having had some technical training in high school and exhibiting a remarkable
desire to Jearn
learn everything about manufacture (by all accounts,
accounts. he daily donned coveralls and mastered every
manufacturing and assembly
asseniblyjob
job in the Ford Company), Kanzler quickly became an outstanding
mttstancling production man
for Ford. At one time it appears he was the chief production man. His greatest contributions were in production
planning, but his success posed too great a threat to
ro Charles Sorensen, who eventually persuaded Henry Ford to
fire Kanzler.
ECU“
Eon
Aan§__5£
2355
pX522
0%?“
d!>U5:
2;
Corl_mvwg_Em'
m mLama_%(
I‘lc/HmC:5052
»5wMUZ
_Z\€m%_:@_cUS_i_
2270 AMERIC/\N SYSTEM TO MASS PRUDUCTIO~
FROM THE AMERICAN PRODUCTION

g ,,.1,,. 4. ., ., . . .

FIGURE 7.2.
FIGURE 7.2. Henry Ford and His Chief Production Experts, 1933. During the 1920s, Charles
Sorensen (center) and the Rouge became predominant in Ford production while P. E. Martin (right)
and Highland Park lost power. The unidentified gentleman with his back turned to the camera may
be William Cameron, Henry Ford's
Ford’s spokesman. (Henry Ford Museum, The Edison Institute.
institute. Neg.
No. 189-10646.)

since 1919 by A. M. Wibel?“

Wibelt to procure the necessary machinery and to make arrange-
ments for the manufacture of an additional given number of units per day (a figure that
often reached a thousand by 1923). The engineering department commanded information
on all aspects of production. Operations sheets, a device whose origins were discussed in
Chapter 2, encapsulated much of the critical information. All of the machine tool opera-
tions for each part and the type and number of machines required for each operation, given

'I''l‘A.
A. M. Wibel had worked for Ford since May 2, 1912. Following graduation from the University of Indiana,
he was hired as an assistant to Oscar Bomholdt,
Bornholdt, whose role in the development of mass production was assessed
in Chapter 6. When Bornholdt retired, Wibel worked for his able successor, Charles Morgana, and when
Morgana was lured away from the company by C. Harold Wills in 1919, Wibel
WibeJ became head of the engineering
department. Wibel
Wibcl thus was in a position to witness much of the growth of the company and the development of
mass production.
 The Liinim
Limits of Fordism 271

a specific production quota, were recorded sequentially. Operations sheets were also
maintained for every subassembly and major assembly, listing step-by-step procedures,
tools required, and special problems encountered.24
encountered. 24 All of these operations sheets were
continually updated as changes in parts were made or as improved manufacturing opera-
tions suggested themselves.
When production quotas were raised, the engineering department's
department’s machine tool pro-
curers referred to the operations sheets and ordered machine tools accordingly. These men
always checked the department's master inventory of all Ford's
Ford’s machine tools to make
sure that idle machinery could not be used for the projected operations. Machine tool
procurers also pressed makers to increase the productivity of their machine tools, and of
course they pushed them to meet delivery dates.
dates.”
25 Expanded operations could be held up

by the absence of a single machine tool. Operations sheets also provided the engineering
department with the information necessary to order special Ford machine tools and special
cutting tools, jigs, fixtures, and gauges from the Ford tool department. These orders went
out at the same time as those to machine tool manufacturers.
Procurement of tools was only the first step. The engineering department also coordi-
nated its work with that of the layout department, which, according to Wibel, “planned
Wibcl, "planned
and integrated the overall picture of production and material handling.”
handling.'' The addition of a
single machine tool raised both space and power considerations, which the engineering
department and tool department together calculated on a square-foot and horsepower
basis. Ultimately both figures could be reduced to dollars and cents to add to the cost of
the tools. These space and horsepower requirements were then passed on to the layout
department along with specifications of the machine tools on order. The latter department
then made the necessary alterations to a given part's
part’s manufacturing department, including
rearrangement of existing machine tools, furnaces, and conveyors; providing for new
requirements; and construction of any specially needed bases or footings for
power requirements:
machinery. Thus, when a new machine tool arrived anived at the factory, the engineering
department received it by attaching a brass tag, bearing its inventory number, to the
machine and transporting it immediately to the prepared site. The department’s
department's inventory
control card would then be filled out, indicating that machine number so-and-so was
located in department such-and-such (machinery departments were numbered according
to the Model T part number), and was performing operation number so-and-so (which
sheets)?"
correlated with the operations sheets). 26

The engineering department, therefore, was critical to Ford's

Ford’s expansion. Its proper
functioning depended upon the control of information (about machine tool manufacturers,
Ford
F'ord production processes, and manufacturing operations in general) and the careful
coordination of procurement with Ford's
Ford’s layout men and millwrights. Wibel's depart-
ment, maintaining and improving the system established by his predecessors and mentors
Oscar Bornholdt and Charles Morgana, achieved this control and coordination through
what can only be described as bureaucratic recordkeeping.”
rccordkeeping. 27 Unfortunately, the folk
wisdom that surrounds Henry Ford's
Ford’s life and work has precluded any serious scholarship
on the day-to-day operations of the Ford Motor Company. But the fact is that the company
kept impressive records and controlled and manipulated information far more creatively
than any other company dealt with in this study.
Ford’s recordkeeping and use of information played an important part in the story of its
Ford's
problems with the changeover from the Model T to the Model A. As demonstrated above,
the engineering department's
department’s operations were conducted on the basis of "historical"
“historical”
information. That is, routine expansion of output was achieved by using information
mformation.
2722 l~'R()i’\/1 Tllli
HWM A1\~1I§Rl(f'Al\l SYS'l'l~l1\-'l
TilE ;\:\,II:RIC/I.N SYSTLivl TO l\1ASS PROl)UC'Tl()N
Mi'\SS PlWDl'CTION

about prior operations and performance in each machining department. The richness and
accuracy of this information, properly maintained and used, allowed the engineering
department to help the company increase its production in the period between 1915 and
1923 with few serious problems.
problemsxzs 2 ~ The changeover to the Model A would essentially cut

off the engineering department from the past and make its job of expanding production
highly problematical.
This reliance upon past information certainly could have mediated against innovation
in production technology, that is,
is. in increasing productivity. Yet by all appearances, the
engineering department stayed on top of developments in the machine tool industry. In
conjunction with Ford’s
Ford's tool department, headed by the extremely able William Pioch and
pushed by Sorensen, Martin.
Martin, and their lieutenants, the engineering department witnessed
achievements in economies of scale?"
scale. 20 Moreover, its role in the purchase of parts inan-
man-
ufactured outside the Ford plants made its members cost-conscious, especially when
comparing its cost data with that of in-house operations.
Throughout the accepted wisdom about Ford runs an explicitly stated theme that
neither Henry Ford nor anyone else in his company knew the cost of producing one of his
automobiles. Nothing could be further from the truth, despite what Ford may have told his
numerous interviewers. During the period under immediate consideration, the company
assembled cost data and made monthly cost estimates for all minor and major assemblies
and body types. These estimates were compared with those of previous years or, in the
case of final assembly, with est1mates
estimates from branch assembly plants.
plants?"
30 Trends in the cost

of materials, labor, and overhead, the three rnajor

major elements of Ford cost estimates, thus
were readily visible, especially when reduced to graphic form. Graphs in the Ford Ar-
chives, for example, show the unit cost of materials for particular Model T body types
plotted on the same page with curves for labor and overhead unit costs; total factory costs
were also plotted with retail sales prices.“
prices.l 1 Ford production men»-and,
men-and, one must believe,
Henry Ford himself--knew
l1imself—-knew the costs at the Ford Motor Company, on a monthly and
yearly basis, whether it was the cost of a completed automobile, of tool steel used at
Highland Park and River Rouge,
Rouge. or of repairs to machine tools.
tools.”
~n
The engineering department kept much of its own cost data, particularly on automobile
components the company purchased from outside manufacturers.
manufacturers, which technically-—if
technically--if
such was possible at Ford—-was
Ford---was the responsibility of the purchasing department. The
department often drew graphs consisting of two curves, one for Ford Motor Company'sCompany’s
manufacturing costs for a particular part or assembly (for example, the body), the other of
prices paid to outside suppliers
suppliers.“
..:u This exercise provided production men with valuable
information. The department constantly sought prices on components from outside sup-
pliers as a means of checking the company's
company’s own production costs. In the process, despite
despite
the increasing integration of the Rouge, Wibel and his lieutenants came to realize th<tt that
“going outside''
''going outside" could be profitable. This experience paid off when the changeover from
T to A took place.
Probably the most impressive aspect of the "bureaucratic"
“bureaucratic” way in which the company
dealt with day-to-day aspects of production was its use of mechanical drawings. These
were paramount in Ford’s
Ford's system of mass production. The company produced and main-
tained drawings of every part of the Model T, every special tool, jig, fixture, and gauge
used in its production, and every master gauge used used to
to check
check these
these special
special devices.
devices.
Drawings served as the ultimate authority in Ford production.
production, for they specified dimen-
sions. tolerances, gauging points, materials (including shear strength and other metal-
sions,
lurgical specifications), and finishes. Used by the design, tool, engineering, and inspec-
 limits of Fordism
The Limits Fora'ism 273

tion departments, superintendents (Martin, Sorensen, and their lieutenants), and foremen
1ion
in each of the parts production departments, these drawings served as the medium for
exchanging information and for maintaining common understanding. No changes could
be made without a change in the drawing.
drawing.“ 34

Yet a change in a part, its method of manufacture, or its placement in an assembly set
in motion a series of changes that went well beyond a simple change in the drawing.
Change acted like a pebble hitting the middle of a still pond; ripples moved out to the
various departments mentioned above. Obviously, a change in the design or construction
of a part necessitated altering or rewriting operations sheets for production and assembly
in addition to retooling. Maintenance questions also came into consideration. To convey
information about changes, whether large or small, to all concerned parties the company
“factory letters."
adopted as early as 1908 the use of "factory letters.” Issued weekly and sometimes even
more frequently, these letters listed pat1s
parts by number and name and then outlined the
nature of the changes. The letters often referred to previous issues (they were numbered
consecutively), and they always dated the revision. For the theoretically "unchanging"
“unchanging”
Model T. the number and bulk of these letters are overwhelming. When changes affected
the sales and service operations of Ford dealers, the company issued a general letter
documenting the changes in parts or assemblies. These letters also contained an abun-
dance of information not related to production.
production.” 35

Taken altogether, the Ford system of drawings, operations sheets, cost accounting,
engineering procurement, factory letters, and general letters provided a mechanism for the
smooth operation and monitoring of day-to-day events. Change was accommodated
through a bureaucratic routine that worked so well that, that. for the most part, change was not
noticed outside the company.
company?“ Nevertheless, changes were made in the Model T, as is
36

well known by collectors and restorers of this most famous automobile in American
history.
Clymer’s book, Henr_v's
Floyd Clymer's Wonderful Model T, 1908--1927,
Henry's Wondetful 19065-I927, contains a useful
essay by Leslie R. Henry, which outlines in detail what he calls the Model T paradox- paradox—
“change
"change in the changeless Model T." T.” Henry suggests the nature of the paradox and lists
most of the major changes in the Model T year by year. Similarly, Philip Van Doren
Stern’s Tin Lizzie: The 5'tory
Stern's Story of the Fabulous Model T Ford enumerates major changes in
“outward styling”
the "outward automobile.”
styling" of the Ford automobile. 37 Both lists work to dispel the legend of

the unchanging Model T. Obviously, many of these changes were made for the sake of
mechanical improvement or easier maintenance. But an enormous number had manufac-
turing objectives in mind, be it easier or more reliable acquisition of parts, cheaper
materials, fewer machining operations, or simpler assembly. Finally, styling played no
small role in bringing about change. Of course, even Clio would find it difficult to identify
a single motive for each of the changes made in the Model T over its life from 1908 to
1927.
It is not the intention of this chapter to rclist
relist changes made in jn the Model T or to
determine a motive for them. Yet it may be useful to identify a few significant changes
production. 38 Although generalizations must be highly suspect, it
and relate them to Ford production.”
appears that the majority of changes made in the Model T from its inception in 1908 until
1915 grew out of production considerations, the most famous example being the decision
19l4 to make only black cars. In 19
in 1914 1915,
J 5, Ford introduced a major styling change, moving
away from the "antique"
“antique” style of straight, flat fenders to "transitional
“transitional styling,"
styling,” which
featured curved or rounded fenders. Transitional styling was introduced on two new body
types, the sedan and the coupélet.
coupeJet. These additions brought to five the number of different
274 FROM THE
T1111“ AMERICAN SYSTEM TO lvi/\SS
MASS PRODUCTION -

bodies Ford mounted on the Model T chassis in 1915, the year acetylene headlights were
replaced with electric ones. Despite these significant changes and many minor ones, Ford
increased its output from three hundred thousand to five hundred thousand cars, from
1914 to 1915. Transitional styling was continued the following year, which also marked
the beginning of TT-Ford truck-production. Total annual output jumped to over seven
TT——Ford truck—production.
hundred thousand.
Model T collectors say that the 1917 models, introduced in September 1916, marked
the "new
“new look, "-"streamlining." A new radiator shell, a new hood, crowned fenders,
look,”—“streamlining.”
and nickel~plated
nickel-plated hub and radiator caps gave theTa
the T a snappy look. At the same time, the
compression of the engine was lowered, thus decreasing horsepower. Such other changes
as replacement of ball bearings by roller bearings on the front wheels and addition of an
electric horn also took place. In
ln 1917, probably because the company was occupied with
armament for war, Ford production dropped to just over six hundred thousand
automobiles.
Ford's postwar output in l919
Ford’s 1919 of more than eight hundred thousand cars and one
hundred thousand trucks almost doubled 1918 figures. Major changes were also made in
the engine, including the introduction of an optional electric starter, which necessitated
design changes in the cylinder block, the flywheel, the timing-gear cover, the timing
gears, and the transmission cover. And, of course, the starter as well as a generator had to
be produced and assembled. Although made initially only for cars carrying the starter
option, the new engine eventually went into every Model T. Body styles remained
constant. The changes made during this production year, when measured with the signifi-
cant increase in output and the work at the River Rouge site, suggest that the Ford
production organization could take change in stride, could, indeed, quicken the pace. The
sixteen—year history.
company also made its largest profit in its sixteen-year
Between the peak of 1919, the deep valley of 1920, and Ford'sFord’s Mount Everest of 1923,
the company anticipated another major change in body style, similar in scale to that of
1917. As early as 1920, designers introduced an oval gasoline tank, which led in 1923 to a
complete line of lowered and ''streamlined''
“streamlined” bodies. To this line was added the Tudor and
Fordor
Ford or sedans. The production peak of 1. 1.88 million cars and two hundred thousand trucks
in 1923 proves that the changes in body style posed no serious threats to output, though
cost data suggest an increase in the production cost of the new Model T. The very high
overhead of Rouge operations, especially the shifting of machining operations from
Highland Park to the new foundry, may have contributed more to this increase in cost than
a change in body styles.
The rapid fall from the heights of production and market share in 1923 to the end of
Model T production in mid-1927 was accompanied by changes in the model. The most
significant, overlooked by both Clymer and Stern, was the change to the "all-metal"
“all-metal"
body in 11925,
925, a year when Ford produced 11.6 . 6 million cars and two hundred sixty thousand
trucks. Since 1911, Ford had manufactured cars with a wooden-framed body covered with
sheet steel. Fenders and running boards, of course, were stamped out of sheet steel. The
initiation of body production at the Rouge precipitated the move to the all-metal body,
which took place over a three-year period. When the pressed steel department was moved
from Highland Park to the Rouge in 1925, the company took the final step and eliminated
wooden framing. Ernest A. Walters, a Ford pressed steel pioneer from the Keim Keirn mills in
Buffalo and superintendent of pressed steel operations, considered the change to the all- all~
“gradual.” He accepted change as routine: "Whenever
metal body "gradual." “Whenever a minor change took
place we .... . . would take care of it and would not look for the reason for change. Prints
 The Limnts‘
Limits of Fordism
ofFord1'.s'm 275

were always gradually coming in for changes in our body parts. The schedule was made
up so as to give us necessary time to make these minor changes without our being aware
why they were made.”39
made. "39
Yet the change to the all-metal body was not as painless or as inconsequential as
Walters implied. Ford's
Ford’s chief design engineer for the Model T and the Model A, Joseph
Galamb, remembered that "we “we found that a[n all] steel body needs a lot of tooling.
tooling, so we
stuck [for most of the Model T' T’ss history] to the wood job for framework.”
framework." Coming very
late in the life of the Model T, the all-metal body seems to have had two effects on Ford
operations and Henry Ford. First, it drove the cost of the car significantly upward.“ upward. 4 D
Second, the cost of the tooling and the innovation of the all-metal body probably made
Ford far more reluctant to scrap the Model T than had the company continued to make the
body in the old manner. As will be seen, Ford's Ford’s investment in new tooling for the T in
1925 should have been for the A.
Finally, to try to reverse continued and severe slippage in the market, Ford introduced
significant style and equipment changes in 1926. Designers lowered the chassis. chassis, nickel-
plated the radiator shell, put in lightweight pistons in an attempt to beef up the engine for
the heavier car, modified the engine-block casting to accommodate a new transmission
cover (necessitated by widening the transmission brake bands), enlarged the steering
wheel, and changed the steering ratio. The once-optional balloon tire was offered as
standard equipment, and the rear brake band was enlarged for better stopping. A dozen
other changes graced the new Model T, but the major styling innovation was the re-
introduction of color choices after twelve years of black. These changes kept the demand
for Model T's T’s from sagging below the 1.3 million mark. They might have severely
Ford’s ability to mass-produce the automobile, yet as 1926 drew on, the com-
hindered Ford's
pany accumulated the largest inventory of cars in its history. By mid-1927, the Model T
era would be over, ushered out with a T whose only innovation was wire wheels as
standard equipment.
The record of change at Ford indicates that the company accommodated day-to-day
minor changes and some significant style changes with ease. This level caused no break-
ing of stride, no delay in production, and only two apparent changes in the downward cost
“car for the masses."
trend of the "car masses.” The paradox of the changing, changeless lV1odel Model T
leads to another. Although the Ford Motor Company handled routine change with appar-
ent ease, Henry Ford resolutely resisted change. That was the viewpoint of the rest of the
automobile industry and is the consensus of modern historians.“ historians. 41 To understand this
paradox as well as the vagaries of the automobile industry in the I1920s 920s is to gain
additional insight into the story of the changeover to the Model A.
The Model T was as much an idea as it was an automobile. As discussed in Chapter 6,
Twas
the idea was an unchanging car for the masses. Ford adhered to changelessness for
ideological as well as productive or economic reasons.“
reasons. 42 Much of the public bought his
car for the same reasons. By 1920, the Model Twas T was expected to be constant. Therefore,
change created a peculiar marketing problem for Ford Motor Company. The company
could not use change or "improvement"
“improvement” as a selling point. That Ford feared the sales
consequences of changing the Model T is attested by the hush-hush atmosphere that
surrounded the changes made in 1923 and 1926. The earlier changes were hidden under
the ruse of the ''English
“English job,”
job,'' and those leading to the 1926 models came to be known as
the “Australian job,” both names suggesting changes for other markets, not America.
''Australian job," America.“43

Not until mid-1925 did the company use "pronounced

“pronounced changes"
changes” in styling and equipment
projected for 1926 as a promotional feature. Throughout the substantial coverage of the
2276 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS l'RODLICTJON
PRODUCTION

Ford Motor Company in the New York Times in the 1920s and as late as 1932, the
company's position on change, with the exception of the belated Model A announcement,
company’s
was to deny it-to
it-—-to fear it-for
it—-for reasons of the anticipated effects of announcements on
sales of present models.
models.“44

But despite the Ford Motor Company's

Company’s ability to accommodate a low level of change
in its automobile and Henry Ford's
Ford’s resistance to any change, automotive America was
swept by high winds of change in the 1920s.l920s.4545 They struck Ford with violence, reducing

company’s market share of more than 50 percent in the early 1920s to less than I1.55
the company's
percent in 1927. The automobile had changed.
By the standards of the mid-1920s, the Model Twas T was outmoded. The ignition, carbure-
tion, transmission, brake, and suspension systems, as well as the styling and appointments,
made the T appear antique. Genuine engineering improvements such as battery-powered
ignition, electric starters, and shock absorbers had been made by other manufacturers, yet
Ford clung firmly to the basic design of the Model T, which had served the company and the
public so well since 1908. Throughout the 1920s,
19205, automotive industry analysts continually
expressed expectations that Ford would incorporate new mechanical engineering develop-· develop-»
ments in the Model T. Until the Model A emerged, they were disappointed. As Ford's Ford’s
decline proceeded, two penetrating studies appeared during 1926 about the condition of the
Ford Motor Company in the rapidly changing automobile industry and market.
In an article published in the May 1926 issue of Motor, entitled "What“What Will Ford Do
Next?” James Dalton analyzed the changing automobile market. Dalton demonstrated the
Next?''
penetration of other manufacturers'
manufacturers’ cars into the price class that Ford once monopolized.
Clearly, no one competed heads-up with Ford in price, hut but during the first half of the
competitors—Chevrolet in 1926--brought
1920s, competitors-Chevrolet l926—brought the prices of their cars down within 30
percent of Ford's.
Ford’s. Dalton plotted price trends of Ford and his competitors on the same
graph with a curve of average per capita earnings in America. Between 1921 and 1926 per
capita income increased from $551 to $610. This increase contributed heavily to Ford's Ford’s
loss of the market, especially when coupled with information assembled from another
graph showing the potential pool of ''first-time''
“first-time” automobile purchases from the inception
of the Model T to 1930 (by extrapolation). The graph demonstrated that between 1926 and
1930 the pool of "probably
“probably first time buyers"
buyers” of cars would be only 1,940,000 families.
Increased per capita income suggested that a growing percentage of these buyers would
spend the additional money to buy an "up-to-date"
“up-to-date” automobile, even if Ford further
reduced the price of the Model T. But more important, Dalton suggested that greater
wealth and more attractive options in other automobiles surely meant that substantial
numbers of families buying an automobile for the second time or purchasing a second
automobile would not buy a Ford. Used automobiles made recently by other manufactur-
ers would also provide competition to the Model T.
James C. Young’s
Young's analysis, published as a feature article in the New York Times seven
months later, complemented Dalton's.
Dalton’s. Young agreed that "prosperity
“prosperity ...
. . . caused the
Ford decline.''
decline.” He had interviewed Henry Ford to probe the maker’s maker's own assessment of
that prosperity. Expounding a theme that was familiar to Times readers, Ford blasted the
rapid expansion of credit buying: "I “l sometimes wonder if we have not lost our buying
sense and fallen entirely under the spell of salesmanship. The American of a generation
ago was a shrewd buyer. He knew values in the terms of utility and dollars. But nowadays
the American people seem to listen and be sold; that is, they do not buy. They are sold;
things are pushed on them. We have dotted lines for this, that and the other thing-all
thing—-all of
them taking up income before it is earned.'
earned. ”45
' 6
4
 Lirm'ts of'
The Limits of Fordism 277

Ford correctly analyzed the changing character of business and consumption: "Credit,
“Credit,
you know, has become a fourth dimension in American business." But this response
merely begged the question of whether Ford would join the party.patty. Ford expressed his
belief that sales on credit hmt
hurt the consumer and that ''we
“we have no desire to sell cars at the
expense of public benefit.''
benefit.” Although the highly competitive Chevrolet could be pur-
chased through the General Motors Acceptance Corporation, Ford steadfastly refused
to consider credit as a legitimate instrument of consumption. Ford also defended the
Model T:

The Ford car is a tried and proved product that requires no tinkering. It has met all the
conditions of transportation the world over.
over . .. .. .. The Ford car will continue to be made in
the same way. We have no intention of offering a new car at the coming automobile
shows. Changes of style from time to time are merely evolution. Our colored bodies
seem to have found favor. But we do not intend to make a "six," “six,” an "eight"
“eight” or
anything else outside of our regular products. It lt is true that we have experimented with
such cars, as we experiment with many things. They keep our engineers busy-prevent
them tinkering too much with the Ford car.“
car. 47

Times had changed. But both Dalton and Young-indeed

Young——indeed all automotive
automoti vc America—
America-
wondered what Ford would do. Would Ford be satisfied with less than a third of the
market? Would he go out of business altogether? Dalton considered updating the Model T
with such "conventional"
“conventional” engineering features as a three- or four-speed transmission and
a nonmagneto ignition system. The cost would be enormous, he argued. "lt “lt might be
cheaper, therefore, to bring out an entirely new line.” line." Upon further thought, Dalton
reached a sobering conclusion: ''There
“There can be no junking of present Ford production
production.. .. .. ..
His entire organization has been built around the the quantity idea and he will have to
continue on that basis. Price, therefore, must be the main consideration, just as it always
has been."
been.” Young reached the same conclusion: "Just “Just two things can assure the old
ascendancy of the Ford car. One of them would be a radical cut in prices and the other a
period of depression whereby Ford owners would again buy Ford cars. cars.”“8
" 4S
Yet because Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Company knew what the Model T cost at
the factory and realized that Ford dealers had to make a profit, additional price cuts were
not a real possibility.”
possibility. 49 The all-metal
all~metal enclosed body had resulted in the slimmest profit
margin Ford experienced in the 1920s. A price reduction in line with the falling costs
effected by learning how to produce the all-metal body would prove to be only a stopgap
measure-—and an ineffective one at that.
measure-and
automobile~an en-
Within the company some advocated major change in the Ford automobile-an
tirely new model, not a prettified Model T. Ernest C. Kanzler was the only one to confront
Henry Ford directly with the necessity of immediate change. On January 26, 1926,
Kanzler wrote a memorandum to Henry Ford spelling out in five pages, a summary, and a
page of sales data why it was imperative that the Ford Motor Company immediately
introduce an up-to-date model. Kanzler had to summon a great deal of courage to deliver
the memo. Perhaps company president Edsel Ford, constantly cowed by his father, was a
party in its conception and a supporter in its delivery. Kanzler ended his memorandum,
“The writing of this has not been pleasing, Mr. Ford, but I have always tried to tell you
"The
what I see and feel. These thoughts have been uppermost in my mind the last year and I
cannot keep from expressing them any longer.”5°
longer. " 50
This famous memorandum, which led to Kanzler’s
Kanzler's firing within six months, gave the
official historians Allan Nevins and Frank Ernest Hill an opening to their chapter ''The “The
278 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

End of Model T.' 51 These historians chose the proper document and correctly interpreted
T. ’ '’51
its major points, but they disregarded the subtleties of changeover thinking within the
Ford Motor Company. Kanzler's Kanzler’s plea to Ford was the first of many overly optimistic
statements about the ease of achieving a changeover.
Nevins and Hill clearly recognized that during 1925 and 1926, the company's company’s design
engineers were busily at work, following Henry Ford’s Ford's directions, on an automobile that
was intended to be as revolutionary as the Model T had been in 1908. Because its eight
engine cylinders were arranged in an X-like pattern around the crankshaft, the project was
dubbed the X-car. Kanzler'sKanzler’s memorandum, as well as testimony of Ford's Ford’s engineers,
n}<lkes it clear that Henry Ford viewed the X-car as the automobile that would push back
m,akes
encroaching competition. But Nevins and Hill failed to see that it was not intended to be a
replacement for the Model T. Ford's Ford’s men and Ford himself regarded it as "an “an intermedi-
ate car” (Kanzler’s words), an important step above the Model T for which Kanzler
car" (Kanzler's
believed there would "always “always be a field for 4000 to 5000 ... day.” Coyly, with the
. . . per day."
Lincoln on the top and the Model T on the bottom, Ford was contemplating his own
version of General Motors with its strategy of "a “a car for every purse and purpose.
purpose.”52
" 52
Ford’s strategy failed to come to fruition because the X-car never panned out. Had it
Ford's
done so, the company might have suffered a far less severe setback than it did in 1927 and
1928. To be sure, as William Abernathy has ably demonstrated, major model changes
were overwhelmingly important in gaining (or, for Ford, losing) market share in the
automobile industry of the 1920s and 1930s. Because it was different, the X-car would
have been important. But it would not have been revolutionary. The Model Twas T was the only
revolutionary automobile of the twentieth century. Its design and mass production made
people want an automobile. The only other revolution of the American automobile indus-
try in this century was in marketing: OM's GM’s explicit, diversified sales strategy and its
evolutionary development of the annual model change. change.” 53

Kanzler sternly warned Ford against putting "all “all our eggs in one basket" with the X-
car. He may have realized subconsciously that the engine could not be developed.
Openly, he argued that "there production" of the car "within
“there is little chance for the production” “within
eighteen months which would not be before the summer of 1927." Kanzler's proposed
1927.” Kanzler’s
engine——explicitly, a
solution has been overlooked. He argued that a more conventional engine--explicitly,
one-- "be installed in the [apparently already developed X-car] chassis"
six-cylinder one—“be chassis” as a
''hold this market for us against competition until such time as we would sweep
means to “hold
all before us with your revolutionary ‘X’ 'X' power plant substituted when its perfection has
achieved.'' The memorandum also implies that more than a chassis was being
been achieved.”
Ford’s engineers, for he alluded to “all
developed by Ford's . . . new
''all of the difficulties of the ...
front axle, steering gear, rear axle, spring suspension, body design, and transmission of
the intermediate car.
car.”54 In hindsight, Kanzler's
" 54 In Kanzler’s proposal was perhaps the most workable
short-run solution to Ford's Ford’s slippage in the automobile market. Ford could have intro-
duced an intermediate car to entice consumers with increased purchasing power and then
updated his Model T. But even the production planner Kanzler misjudged the time needed
to initiate production of a new car, even when that car was not projected to be a replace-
ment for Model T.
When in August 1926 the X-engine seemed hopeless and when inventories began to
mount as never before, Ford ordered entirely new design work to begin on "a “a car for the
market, a four-cylinder one." factors-the precipitous decline of Ford sales;
one.” Various factors—the
bounding for a new car from dealers, journalists, and a Ford-supporting public; and,
hounding
 Limits ofF
The Linzits of Fordism
ordism 279

according to Sorensen, a fight with Edsel—led

Edsel-led Henry Ford to decide not only to build a
new car but to cease making the Model T. Ford made his decision sometime before May
25, 1927, the day the company issued its official announcement. If A. M. Wibel's Wibe1’s
memory was correct, the "official
“official end"
end” of Model T production was announced in the
company’s
company's executive offices much earlier. Ford’s
Ford's plan had been to stop assembling the
Model T and begin at once to make the A. But Wibel said they ''miscalculated,''
“miscalculated,” that, in
fact, the company had to make and procure the parts for an additional fifty thousand
T’s after suppliers had made what they considered final deliveries on their con-
Model T's
tracts.55 Such poor planning only multiplied as the Ford Motor Company tried overnight
tracts. 55

to design and mass-produce an entirely new automobile.

The official announcement that the Ford Motor Company intended to replace the
Model T with a new model, "superior
“superior in design and performance performance to any
low-priced, light car,”
car," underlined Ford’s
Ford's plan to move smoothly from the old to the new.
The company anticipated no ''total
“total shutdown.''
shutdown.” The New York Times quoted Henry Ford:
“I am glad that business even now is so brisk that it will not necessitate a complete
''I
shutdown. Only a comparatively few men will be out at a time while their departments are
being tooled up for the new product. At one time it looked as if 70,000 men might be laid
off temporarily, but we have now scaled that down to less than 25,000 at a time. The lay-
off will be brief, because we need the men and we have no time to waste.' waste/’56
' 56
The day following the official announcement, Henry and Edsel Ford and the eight
oldest employees of the company quietly observed the occasion of the assembly of the
fifteen millionth Model T. At the Rouge, John F. Wandersee, August Degener, Frank
Kulick, Fred L. Rockelman, C. B. Hartner, P. E. Martin, Charles Meida, and Charles
Sorensen each stamped a digit of the serial number into the engine's
engine’s cylinder block. At
Highland Park, before the watchful eyes of the Fords, the engine was put into the Model T
assembly. When the touring car was finished, with the words "The “The Fifteen Millionth
Ford” painted boldly on its side panels and rear, Edsel drove it off the line with his father
Ford''
beside him. (See Figure 7.3.) Sorensen and Martin joined the Fords by climbing in the
back seat. A procession of company people followed them to the Dearborn Laboratory,
where they witnessed Henry Ford drive his 1896 quadracycle and Model T # #1J ..57
57 The

riders in the fifteen millionth Model T offered a portent for the near future, for when all of
the wrenching of the changeover ceased, the six other men who had left their imprint on
the fifteen millionth engine block and on the company would be gone, fired along with
many others on the grounds that they were "Model“Model T sons-of-bitches."
sons-of-bitches.” The changeover
had begun.
Symbolically the last Model T, number 15,000,000, rolled off the famous Ford assem-
bly line nine months after Henry Ford had apparently instructed his designers to begin
work on a four-cylinder automobile ''for “for the market”
market'' and five months after the first
(surviving) sketch of the body layout, clearly identifiable as the Model A, was drawn. At
the outset, Ford must have believed that he and his engineers could design an up-to-date
automobile and tool up for its production before the public learned that it was coming.
That plan obviously failed, for when the announcement came, the Model A’s A's design was
nowhere nearly complete. Only a few general statements about the process of designing
the Model A are in order here.here.58
58 More careful planning could have circumvented the

delay in completing its design. Planning for change was to become as important to the
new mass production as planning for production. But his experience with the Model T led
Henry Ford to believe that the Model A would be just as easily designed. Also, no one
280 FROM THL
THE AMERICAN SYSTEM
SYS'I'E1\/l TO MASS PRODUC'l‘lOl\'
PRODUCTIOI\

7.3 Henry Ford and Edsel B. Ford in the Fifteen Millionth Model T, 1927. Moments after
FIGURE 7.3.
this photograph was taken, Charles Sorensen and P
P. E. Martin joined the Fords for a ride from
from the
Highland Park factory to Ford's
Ford’s Dearborn
Dcarborn Laboratory. (Henry Ford Museum, The Edison Institute.
Neg. No. 833-49148.)

knew better than Ford himself what James Dalton

Dalton had pointed out
out aa yearyear earlier-that
earlier—that aa
new Ford model "would
“would necessitate the most careful engineering.
engineering.”59 " 59 Ford could not
botch the job.
Under pressure to design a first-rate car essentially from scratch,
scratch,” 60 Henry Ford broke

away from a traditional Ford approach to design as it related to production. William William
Pioch, the company's
company’s chief tool engineer, summarized the objective: "Ford “Ford was vitally
interested in putting out a car that would stand up better than anything on the road. To
accomplish that, he wouldn’t
wouldn't allow any stampings in the chassis
chassis.. .. .. .. Everything had
had to
to
be a forging.”"‘
forging. " 61

Since Charles Sorensen had first established contact between Ford and and the John R.
the John R.
Keim stamping mill in Buffalo, New York, the entire trend in Ford production technology
Keirn technology
had been toward greater use of sheet-steel stampings. The all-metal, enclosed body had had
been merely another step in the long process of more and better stampings. A A number of
number of
Ford engineers have said that Henry Ford had "always “always objected to stampings"
stampings” andand
referred to them as "Hungarian
“Hungarian stimpings,"
stimpings,” aa play on
on designer
designer Joe
Joe Galamb's
Galamb’s pronuncia-
pronuncia-
“stampings.” Similarly, Ford often called Galamb "shit-iron Joe"
tion of "stampings." Joe” to remind him
possible.“
that he advocated using stamped sheet steel wherever possible. c, 2
 The Limits of Fordism 281

Although the Model A was to be marketed as a recast and updated Model T, Ford
wanted the A to be different mechanically and materially. Thus Ford insisted on more
castings and forgings, both of which required subsequent machining. Mechanical designer
Laurence Sheldrick argued that Ford arrived at this new approach through what might be
called a "thermal"
“thermal” argument. Ford knew the steps in the production of sheet steel: ore to
pig iron to steel to rolled steel. Because a number of separate heatings
hearings were involved here
and also in annealing stampings between certain forming operations, Ford thought the
process wasteful. "A “A casting can be made directly from the Blast Furnace,”
Furnace," he argued,
“which means one heating.”
"which heating." Moreover, he assumed that forgings could be made by
rough-casting steel and, while still hot but not molten, forging them to final shape
between dies. During the initial stages of the changeover, Ford experts worked in vain to
Ford’s idea of producing forgings.
perfect Henry Ford's forgings.“ 63

Ford’s autocratic decision to eliminate stampings caused delays in design but more
Ford's
important ones in the start-up of production. Although forgings had not been totally
abandoned in Model T production, their number had been reduced so significantly that the
company purchased rather than made forgings itself. Because facilities were lacking at the
Rouge, the company was forced to rely upon outside suppliers for Model A forgings.
Lateness of design of many of those forgings and Ford's Ford’s tendency to make last-minute
changes exacerbated the problem of obtaining them to begin machining and assembly
operations. And, as Ford himself was to learn painfully, insistence upon forgings drove up
the final cost of the Model A significantly enough that, once it realized the costs, the
company moved quickly and quietly back to stampings.stampings.“ Ford’s flourish
64 Ford's flourish with forgings
was a costly, short-lived exercise.
The nation anxiously awaited the completed design of the Model Model A A Ford.
Ford. Impressive
numbers of rumors, most of them wrong, circulated among automotive Americans. In
“close to Henry Ford”
June, sources "close Ford" said that official details of the new Ford would be
announced on July l. Denying published details of the car on June 22, Edsel Ford said,
“As a matter of actual fact, the specifications for the new models are not yet complete,
''As
and it would be impossible for any one, even in the Ford organization, to discuss them
authority.”65
with accuracy and with authority. " 65
Late. in July, the public still had no details, and automotive experts wrote that it would
Late
be surprising if production of the new model began before September 1. Reports also
circulated, including some on the front page of the New Ne·w York Times, that Henry Ford and
his engineers could not agree, that Ford clung tenaciously to T components while en-
gineers pressed for entirely new ones. Yet on his birthday, July 30, Ford promised to
reveal details of his new car "in“in a few weeks.”
weeks." "We “We have taken our time to design and
build this new Ford car,"
car,” he said, "so
“so that it will be just what a good automobile should
day. ” Unofficially, production of the still-mysterious car began August 4, when
be in this day."
the company started rehiring workers a rate of three thousand per day. Finally on August
10, Edsel Ford announced that the "new “new Ford automobile is now an accomplished fact."
fact.”
He offered an account of the car's
car’s performance with no details of its design but assured the
public that the company was almost ready to mass-produce the new model. "We “We know
also,”
also," he declared, "what
“what is needed as to personnel and factory equipment in order to
produce these new Ford cars in greater numbers than any manufacturer has ever attempted
before. The work of retooling our plants throughout the country to prepare for the heaviest
production schedule we have ever undertaken is now nearly complete.”°6
complete.' ' 66
Ford deceived either himself or the public. Not until the second week of October did
Henry Ford finish the design work on Model A to his satisfaction. A week later, the Fords
282 FROM THE AMEIZICAN
AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTfON
PRODUCTION

FiGURI5 7.4.
FJGURE 7.4. Model A Engine Number One on Test Block, I1927. event. Ford
927. Largely as a media event,
production men gathered to stamp the serial number in the first "production"
“production” Model
Model A engine
engine
block. Left to right: Charles Sorensen, Edsel B. Ford, Henry Ford, P. E. Martin, August Degener,
Degener.
Charles Hartner. (Henry Ford Museum, The Edison Institute. Neg. No. 833-50046.)

witnessed the first Model A come off the assembly line, and this was actually only a
media event because no more Model A's A’s were assembled until November. (See Figure
77.4.)
.4.) None was shown publicly until December I, 1 , exactly three months after Henry Ford
had promised and about six months after the last Model T had left left the assembly line.
line.
Henry Ford found fault with Model A # # 1, and ordered certain changes.
changes.“
67 As will be seen,

these and subsequent changes plagued Model A production.

From Edsel Ford's
Ford’s early August assurance that retooling was virtually completed until
the first public exhibition in New York City's
City’s Waldorf, the company announced on
several occasions that a new, more productive system of manufacture was in place,
Ford’s go-ahead. The New York Times gave anticipated production figures:
waiting Henry Ford's
“Through rearrangement of machinery and introduction of higher speed tools the com-·
"Through com--
pany will be able to turn out 11,000 cars or more daily, as against a maximum of 8,000
under the old scheme of production."
production.” Ford’s
Ford's house organ, Ford News,Ne~vs, described the
system more directly, saying that "production
“production machinery has been designed, built, built, in-
in-
 The Limits of
of' Fora'ism
Fordism 7
283

Wk Qfiw

FIGURE 7.5.
FIGURE 7.5. Henry Ford, Edsel B. Ford, and the new Model A Ford, Waldorf Hotel, December 11,,
I1927.
927. Henry Ford always showed his cars at the Waldorf at the same time other manufacturers
exhibited at the annual Madison Square Garden show of the Automobile Manufacturers Associa-
tion, which Ford refused to join. This was the first public showing of the Model A. (Henry Ford
Museum, The Edison Institute. Neg. No. 0-4083.)

stalled; assembly and parts conveyors have been constructed and placed in proper relation
to one another for the big test of what is in many respects a new production system.'
system.”@8
' 68
At the Waldorf showing, Henry Ford promised production of one thousand Model A's A’s
a.a day by January 1, 1928. (See Figure 7. 7.5.)
5.) This figure was achieved in late February.
Only during this month was the company able to supply all of its dealers with a demon-
strator but not all body types. Similarly, on March 26, 1928, Ford proposed five thousand
cars a day by July 1,l, but his factory turned out only about three thousand on the appointed
day. Early October saw the mass-production of some fifty-five hundred A's A’s per day.
day.
Although in February 1928, Henry Ford admitted finally that "you “you cannot get
get aa great
great
plant converted from one model to another in a day or a week," week,” one may ask the
legitimate questions, what caused the serious delay in Ford Model A production and what
was learned from this experience?
experience?” 69

Of course, design delays have already been identified as a major factor in the ultimate
delay of Model A production. Design decisions, notably the minimization of stampings
and their replacement by forgings, also caused delay. Ford's Ford’s insistence on forgings
resulted primarily in procurement and cost problems, not purely production or technical
284 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCT!Ol\i
PRODUCTION

ones. But Ford's

Ford’s decision to build the gasoline tank into the cowl of the Model A (that is,
to make the cowl serve as the gas tank) wrought a pure production problem. The technical
aspects of this chosen design plagued Ford engineers and contributed substantially to the
delay in production. Moreover, the gas tank was only a symptom of the production
problems associated with the new body, which entailed deeper drawings (that is, sharper
bends and deeper recesses in the sheet steel) than the Model T. Finally, some of the same
problems arose with the rear axle assembly as with the gas tank. These problems will be
discussed in turn.
When the Model Twas T was redesigned in 1926, Henry Ford chose to move the gasoline
tank in all bodies (except the Fordor) from under the driver's
driver’s seat (the front seat had to be
lifted to fill the tank) to the space between the firewall and the dashboard. Apparently, the
design grew on Ford. He not only retained it for the Model A but designed the tank to be
integral with the cowl. As with forgings, Ford'sFord’s design engineers winced at his scheme
but not for the same reasons. °
reasons.7‘l Forgings meant higher costs. A cowl tank meant the
7

continued risk, already evident in the Model T, of gasoline leaking into the automobile's
automobile’s
interior. Further, its proximity to the heat of the engine heightened their apprehensions.
But Ford had his way. He argued-and
argued~—and one cannot help but think of the more modern
Pinto—-that a tank in the rear presented greater dangers than one placed under the driver's
Pinto--that driver’s
seat or, second best, in the cowl. These locations offered the greatest protection for the
tank. Ford also looked upon his design as a way to save a component and therefore
weight; if the body was the tank, no separate tank would be necessary.
Ford’s design engineers and production men foreseen the problems of manufactur-
Had Ford's
ing cowl tanks, they might have raised louder objections and might even have convinced
Ford to find a different location. A separate tank under the cowl would have been an
acceptable compromise. It was easy enough to design a single automobile with aa gasoline gasoline
tank integral with the body; mass production of them was an altogether different story.
The master’s
master's design was a nightmare to Ford's
Ford’s production men. As with most parts and
subassemblies of the prototype Model A, the gas tank was drawn, complete with materials materials
and inspection specifications, by draftsmen in the tool department. In ln committee with the
super-intendcnt’s office, and appropriate parts department
engineering department, the superintendent's
heads, tool department chief William Pioch or his representative then wrote an initial draft
of an operations sheet, choosing suitable machinery. Obviously, the gasoline tank entailed
chiefly sheet steel operations, which seemed to be straightforward. Ford designed the tank
in two pieces, and the trick in this job turned out to be welding the top section tightly
down to the bottom half. Between Pioch'sPioch’s welding machine expert and Wibel'sWibel’s procure-
ment specialist, the company ordered Gibb seam welders—a welders-a resistance machine that
welded material together by passing it between two rollers-to carry out the major
assembly operation. But as Fay Leone Faurote explained, "When “When it came to actually
actuaily
making this Ford tank two troubles developed. The seam welder would not make a perfect
seam-weld.” At some points, the sheet steel (which had been coated
seam-weld." coated with
with anan alloy
alloy of
of lead
lead
and tin) was burned, but at others "it “it was not sufficiently heated to weld. The standard
seam welding machine,
machine. although expected to do the job, did not do it.”7‘ it. " 71
As A. M. Wibel always demanded with outside suppliers, the Gibb people sent
representatives to straighten out the problem. But these experts were stumped: Ernest
Ford’s chief of welding machinery kept his own men "working
Walters recalled that Ford's “working
steadily” on the seam welder "for
steadily" “for months. "”72 Between the manufacturer and Ford's
72 Fordfs tool
department, the welder was extensively redesigned, incorporating aa number of of "Ford
“Ford
 The Limits 0fForr1i.s'm
of' Fordism 2
285

special" components.
components.”73 Ultimately, the problem was solved. But as pressed steel superin-

tendent Walters remembered, virtually every one of the tanks made in the first five or six
rnonths of A production required hand soldering to seal leaks that were evident when the
months
tanks were tested underwater with thirty pounds of air pressure. Walters remarked that
“all of the superintendents visited us daily, worrying about the trouble in not getting
''all
production.” “Learning by doing"
production." "Learning doing” also worked to solve gas tank production delays.
initially, the seam welding operators could produce only 200 tanks in eight hours, but
fnitially,
some six months later, this figure stood at about 450. The welding machines, however,
posed only one of the major problems in gas tank production. Walters recalled that Joe
Galamb had blamed him initially for delays in body production. When called on the carpet
by Edsel Ford and Charles Sorensen, Walters showed them a set of blueprints "for “for
making gasoline tanks that had no dimensions on them.” them.'' Checking revealed that this
blunder had resulted from changes made by Joe Galamb even while tooling up was in
process. The rushed changeover atmosphere must have manifested itself in such mistakes
more than once.
once.”
74

Body production beyond the gasoline tank cowl posed equally serious problems. A. M.
Wibel, who was always present at the roundtable luncheon in Dcarborn
Dearborn at which Henry
and Edsel Ford, Charles Sorensen, P. E. Martin, and a few others met daily, pinpointed
the body as a delaying factor: ''I
“I think that changes in body styling in the dies and pressed
steel had an awful lot to do with the delay in the Model
<;teel Model A production.”75
production.' ' 75 The A design
required deep or heavy drawing, which was generally unproven at Ford. Not only were
heavier and more sophisticated dies necessary but the men responsible for starting up body
production faced a terrific guessing game of how much ''spring-back''
“spring-back” would occur when
a sheet of steel left the dies. Improper fits of body parts after spring-back made the game
expensive, which was no object to Ford, and time-consuming, which was all-important.
Months of work took place before the body dies were made so that the body parts were the
same as those designed by Ford and his engineers in Dearborn.
No diemaker wanted for a job while the Ford Motor Company tooled up for Model A.
Thousands of dies were needed. Even with good die prototypes, diemaking was an
important factor in delaying production. The company obtained its first Keller engraving
(or profiling) machine in early 1926. Although the Keller machine greatly diminished
diemaking
cliemaking time, the dies sunk by these machines still required hand finishing. Moreover,
Ford could not obtain enough Keller engravers to satisfy the tremendous demands of the
changeover. Sometime after the Model A got into production, the company adopted a new
technique for making many of its production dies. In crude outline, this process consisted
of stamping (rather than engraving) the desired impression into a hot steel die block
(engraving was done cold).' Ford claimed that dies so made would produce far greater
numbers of forgings or stampings before wearing out. out.7"
76

If the gas tank and the remainder of body production posed problems, so did manufac-
ture of the rear axle. Here again design proved to be critical in determining production
approaches. Henry Ford sought to make the rear axle assembly both strong and light.
Together, he and Laurence Sheldrick arrived at a design far more complex than the Model
T rear axle had been. The new axle required not only punch press work (as on the Model
T) but also the development of hot metal spinning machines (to form the bell part of the
axle housings, which bolted to the differential housing) and electric welders (to weld the
two-piece differential housing together and to weld the axle-shaft housing f1ange flange to the
axle housing).
housing).77
77 Hot metal spinning necessitated the design and construction of enormous
286 FROM THE
TIIE AMERICAN SYSTFM
SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

special machines operated by two men. Although the design and operation of these
machines appears to have posed no particular problems other than costs of time and
money, production of the differential housing haunted Ford production men.
Initially, welding the two pieces of this part must have seemed perfectly straightfor-
ward. But when production got under way, they learned that the hand-loaded, hand-
operated resistance welders they had designed failed to produce uniformly satisfactory
welds. Moreover, these machines achieved only about half of their expected per hour
production, an extremely low rate considering that three men operated each welder. To
improve the situation, during the early and trying stages of Model A production Ford
welding engineers developed an automatic welder operated by a single man. This ma-
chine’s
chine's output eventually satisfied demands for both uniformity and output.
output.”n Thus the
rear axle job and that of the gas tank retarded Model A production by making it a matter of
fits and starts in the early stages.
Procedural weaknesses also served to delay and stifle production. The company's
company’s long-
practiced method of using drawings as the medium for carrying design changes into
production realities broke down
clown largely because of the rush for design completion. We
have seen that the pressed steel department received dimensionless-and
dimensionless—and therefore use-
less—drawings. Laurence Sheldrick, Ford's
less--drawings. Ford’s chief design engineer, recalled that "a
“a great
components]1 were taken right from the drawing board to the tool room.
many [Model A components
They started making tools without any trial whatsoever. A lot of these items went right to
the tool room with the expectation that they would work out.'' out.” This procedure often
failed. Designers changed their minds, which often meant that toolmaking and operation
sheet writing had been clone
done in vain. More serious, because they lacked
Lacked a fully tested part,
the engineers who did the drawing, both in the design room and the toolroom, found it
difficult to specify without error appropriate materials and necessary or desirable toler-
ances. Even though the limit system of manufacture had become a fine art in American
“model,” used in the sense familiar to antebellum firearms makers,
manufacturing, a "model,"
remained important, as Ford designers learned.
learned.”
79

With the Model A, Ford was not only changing over to a new model, but it was
upgrading the precision of its machining work, which made the changeover even more
difficult. Designers and production men narrowed limits Of' on the Model A such that when it
first appeared, the car was considered one of the finest automobiles made in the United
States, especially in its price class. In fact, Ford’s
Ford's competitors believed it impossible to
manufacture the Model A below the retail price (which initially was true).8O
true). 80 Perhaps more
than any other aspect of the changeover, Ford had anticipated refinement in precision
manufacturing. Wishing to have the best toolroom gauges possible, Henry Ford purchased
the famous gaugemaking operation of the Swede C. E. Johansson in 1923 and soon
moved it into the laboratory facility in Dearborn. Between 1923i923 and 1927, the Johansson
division supplied "Jo-blocks"
“Jo-blocks” to the Ford toolroom and any manufacturer who could
afford them. It also made some of the Ford "go"“go” and "no-go"
“no-go” gauges used in production
as well as other precision production devices.
devices?“
81 (See Figure 7.6.) Thus even before the

end of the Model T, the Ford Motor Company had established the basis for an upward
shift in the precision of its production. Nevertheless, when the Model A emerged, its
precision production meant more frequent and finer gauging as well as the unprecedented
use of scales and balancing devices. All of these refinements meant greater demands on
production time and more expense.
Even if the design of the Model A had not required greater precision, it would have
demanded entirely new parts production dcpat1mcnts.
departments. Up-to-date design of the car die-dic-
 The Limits of F0 rdism
Fordism Z
287

FIGURE 7.6.
FIGURE 7.6. Johansson Gauge Blocks. (National Museum of American History. Smithsonian In-
In--
stitution Neg. No. P64389-A.)
P6438‘)-A.)

tated the establishment of entire new water pump, transmission, and shock absorber
departments, exacerbating the problems of what William Pioch called the ''complicated
“complicated
setup” of Model A.
setup'' A3282

Pioch identified another bottleneck in the process of changeover, which arose because
of what might be called the production theory of the Model T, discussed in Chapter 6. As
Pioch explained, "Mr.
“Mr. Ford's
Ford’s idea of a manufacturing plant was to get the machines as
close together as possible to save floor space. It was a good idea, but it didn't
didn’t work out too
{for changeovers] ...
good [for . . . because the machines were in so tight that sometimes if we
had to move a machine, we’dwe'd have to move four or five different machines to get that one
out.” For the changeover as Ford planned it, the close-packing of machine tools posed
out."
difficulties not only in initial tooling up and starting up but, perhaps more troublesome, in
the expansion phase of production. A. M. Wibel explained that because of Ford’s Ford's mono-
lithic approach to production, expansion took place unilaterally-—initial
unilaterally-initial production was to
be one thousand units per day, scaled up incrementally over a period to eight thousand or
ten thousand units per day. Departments had to be rearranged with each incremental
increase (say, one thousand units per day). Rather than building additional lines, with
additional superintendents and foremen, Wibel says, ''The “The poor layout man had to rip out
all that [department] figuratively and come back literally and rearrange
reanange that stuff so that he
had the capacity. He would get that all nicely working and along would come an order for
288 TilE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION
FROM THE

1500 a day; 2000, 3000, 5000, 8000."8000.” Consequently, "We “We moved that machinery around
so much that we had round corners on a lot of it.' ' Close-packing of machine tools
it.”83
83

heightened this problem.

The sum of all of these design, planning, and layout difficulties, however, hardly
compares to the fundamental problem posed by the single-purpose nature of Ford's Ford’s
production machinery in the Model T era. Even before they had fully occuned,occurred, the New
York Times called the changes in machinery at the Ford factories "sweeping" “sweeping” and
“probably the biggest replacement of plant in the history of American industry."
"probably industry.” Fay
Industrial Management that the changeover had brought "an
Leone Faurote said in Ina’usm'a[ “an
machinery.” As the insiders at Ford were only too well
unparalleled example of scrapping machinery.''
aware, Ford was "an“an organization whose every machine tool and fixture was fitted for the
production of a single product whose every part had been standardized to the minutest
detail.” Tool chief Pioch would later say that the changeover "was
detail." “was just like starting out
with a new machine shop.'
shop/’3“c
'8 4

The changeover in machine tools was of immense consequence. When Model T

production ceased, Ford owned forty-three thousand machine tools of which thirty-two
thousand were used for production. Model A production necessitated the refurbishing or
rebuilding of more than half of these. Half of the remaining machine tools were scrapped;
the others remained unchanged. Ford purchased forty-five hundred new machine tools to
begin Model A production; Wibel certainly was correct in saying that “we ''we had a tremen-
problem'' with machine tools for Model A. The total cost of the
dous procurement problem”
reconstruction and purchase of machine tools, along with the production of new jigs,
fixtures, and gauges, was about $18 million.“
million. 85
When Charles Sorensen said in 1927 that he intended ''to “to get away from the Model T
things, " 86 he may have had machine tools in mind. Production of
methods of doing things,”8"
Model A was marked reflected development in the
by new methods, but innovations reflected
machine tool industry far more than any internal event at Ford. Evidence is available to
provide a detailed history of the changes in the machine tools used for producing the
Model A, but such a study would be of little value. Some general observations are useful,
however. First and foremost, Ford continued to rely heavily upon special-purpose ma-
machines. 87
chines, as exemplified by the Ford welding machinery and the hot spinning machines.”
For more general-purpose machine tools that the company purchased, it designed and
built special heads, attachments, jigs, and fixtures, as it had for the T. By far, the most
radical change Ford made in machine tools appears to have been its abandonment of flat- flat··
bedded milling machines, which in the 1912-15 period the company had regarded as the
highest achievement in machine tool technology. It will be recalled from the last chapter
that these millers had been used for machining cylinder blocks and heads, among other
parts, and had required the construction of elaborate fixtures to hold large numbers of oi"
castings for the machining operations. These milling machines therefore worked on a
batch basis, requiring the loading and unloading of the fixtures at distinct intervals.
For the Model A, the company almost universally adopted continuous-drum milling milling;
machines made by both Ingersoll and Bullard.88
Bullard. 88 With these machines, the operator loaded
castings into a fixture located along the outside of a drum. Once loaded, the casting
rotated around and through milling cutters. The operator unloaded a finished casting from
another fixture, which had rotated into place, and reloaded it with an unmachined casting.
These continuous-drum milling machines allowed for continuous rather than batch opera·· opera--
tions. Therefore, they better fitted the Ford notion of How flow production. In this sense,
although the new millers marked a departure from Model T production methods, they
 The Limits ofF
of Fordism
ordism 289

stood as truer symbols of Ford production principles, which required that everything
moves.
In his desire to discard Model T methods, Sorensen probably was thinking more of
assembly operations than machining of parts. Radical changes occurred in assembly that
reflected political dynamics within the company as much as any departure in theory or
practice. These dynamics were simple: Highland Park versus the Rouge. Parts production
operations had been moved gradually to the Rouge from Highland Park during the years
before the end of the Model T. Assembly stood as the last holdout, as evidenced by the
procedure used to produce the fifteen millionth Model T. But even before the end of
Model T production, Sorensen had begun building an assembly line at the Rouge. Of
course, no Model T ever came off that line, and even as late as August of 1927 it remained
unclear whether the new model would be assembled at Highland Park or at the Rouge. Rouge.”89

But it was in this crucial period that the full effect of Sorensen's
Sorensen’s consolidation of power
made itself known. Sorensen decreed that the Rouge, not Highland Park, would assemble
the first Model A’s.A's. As will be seen, Sorensen's
Sorensen’s move resulted not only in a change of
location for the line but a change in technical and supervisory personnel and the very
arrangement
anangement of the line.
Ford News reported the details of the technical changes in the assembly line. (See
Figure 77.7.)
.7.) At Highland Park, the final assembly line for Model T construction had been
680 feet long. Sorensen shortened the new Rouge line to half that length; yet the company
predicted that the line would match the output of Highland Park. Moreover, Ford News
“Radical advances have been made in building a body or in transferring it to the
reported, "Radical
assembly line. From first to last the body will be handled by conveyors, hoists, elevators,
tables.” (See Figure 7.
and transfer tables." 7.8.)
8.) Rouge assembly operations differed significantly
from Model T assembly at Highland Park and at branch assembly plants in that it had been
designed to handle all body types and trucks as well .9° Evidently, Sorensen aimed for
well.9O
greater flexibility
flexibility in assembly rather than cost advantages through a single-purpose
approach.
It is unclear whether the 50
SO percent reduction in the length of the line was accompanied
by an equal reduction in the number of assemblers. What was certain, however, was that
the demise of the Highland Park line and its replacement at the Rouge provided the means
whereby Charles Sorensen could "get getrid of all the Model T sons-of-bitches"
sons-of-bitches” who had
been the principal architects of the moving assembly line, particularly Clarence W. AveryAvery
and William Klann.Klann.” When the construction of the Rouge line was complete, the men
91

who had been responsible for Model T assembly assumed that they would be in charge for
the Model A. But events proved the contrary. Klann later explained:
[Ernest] Pederson, Al
I took lErnest] AI Hussey, Jim Burns, and Ed Gartha out to the Rouge plant
with me to run the line. We were getting ready to assemble the first car.
“Who are these guys?”
Sorensen said, "Who guys?"
“Sorensen, you know Pederson. You brought him in the shop yourself twelve
I said, "Sorensen,
years ago. When he ilunked
flunked as a doctor at U. of M., you brought him here yourself. He
is a Swede the same as you are. You know who he is. He has had charge of the line for
thc
the last twelve years. You know who Gartha is." is.”
He said, “Fire
''Fire them.”
them.''
So I did. I fired them. He didn't
didn’t tell me why to fire them. He just said, "Fire
“Fire them."
them.”
“Get them out of here and you go and get me a man from [Harry] Bennett [the
He said, "Get
increasingly powerful Ford personnel officer].''
officer].”
“This is a fine how-do-you-do. You bring a brand new job up here and new
I said, "This
car and new chassis and all the work and now go and get a new boss for this job.”92
job. "92
290
_. rROtvl
FROM TilE AMERICAN SYSTEJ\1
TIIE .-\Ml>iRlCAN SYS'l'F.M TO MASS PRODUCTION
NIASS PROl)UC'l'1ON

FIGUR1-17.7.
FICiURI·: 7.7. Model A Final Assembly Line, River Rouge Factory, 1928.
I928. Note the comparative size
bulk of the assembly line hardware as compared to that at Highland Park for the Model T.
and hulk
(Henry Ford Museum, The Edison Institute. Neg. No. 833-51079.)

Shortly after Klann's

Klann’s implicit questioning of
or the wisdom of Sorensen's
Sorensen’s actions, he was
told to take a vacation. While he was driving to the upper peninsula of Michigan with his
family, a sheriff stopped him and asked if he were William Klann. Receiving a positive
response, the sheriff said he had a message from Detroit. The message: "You're
“You’rc fired."
fired.”
Only a few days earlier, Clarence A Avery
very had been fired in a roughly similar fashion.
Avery
A very was perhaps the person most responsible for the development of the assembly line
at Ford in 1913 and the entire work-in-motion principle. Henry Ford had then called upon
Avery
A very to accomplish new objectives in production technology. For example, when Ford
decided to produce safety glass, Avery designed. supervised construction of, and per-
A very designed, pei·-
fected
fcctcd what many claimed to be a pathbreaking
path breaking glass plant. Avery
A very also engineered
Ford’s production of head lamps
facilities for Ford's .9 3
lamps.“’3
In the stead of these seasoned production men who had made the assembly line the very
symbol of mass production, Sorensen, with Harry Bennett’s
Bennett's imposition, placed a man
named Hany
Harry Mack in charge of assembly. At the time he was hired, Mack was head ot of
the Ford box factory, a job in no way related to automobile assembly operations. Mack''s
Mack's
arrival
anival further demoralized assembly foremen who had seen their longtime supervisors
summarily dismissed. James O'Connor
O’Connor was one such foreman. He later recalled:
II knew what was going to happen. They were all going to be fired, not only me but all
the fellows from Highland Park.
 of Fordism
The Limits ofF ordism 291

I931. (Henry Ford

7.8. Body Drop, Model A, Final Assembly Line, River Rouge Factory, 1931.
FIGURE 7.8.
Museum, The Edison Institute. Neg. No. 833-55974.)

didn’t make any preparation from one day to the other. I didn't
We didn't didn’t make up any
special tools, which I would have done if everything had been peaceable. We knew what
didn't press us for speed in production. So
was going to happen. .. . .. Of course, they didn’t
they came to me one day and said, "Is“Is everything all set now if we want to speed this
line up?”
up?"
“Boy, Mr. Baker [a new supervisor of foremen], all you've
I said, "Boy, you’ve got to do is go to
that rheostat and open it up." couldn’t build five cars
up.” I knew I couldn't ears more a day.
you." 94
“Okay, Harry Mack wants to see you.”94
He said, "Okay,

O‘Connor said that he knew he was about to be fired, and indeed Mack fired him along
O'Connor
Hany Mack was fired. Amid this
with the other Highland Park foremen. Finally, even Harry
“awful turmoil," a former Highland Park assembly foreman was hired by Sorensen's
''awful turmoil,” Sorensen’s
deputy, Mead Bricker, to straighten out assembly. Immediately, this “Model T son-of-
"Model
a-bitch”
a-bitch" rehired as many of his former peers as he could persuade to return to Ford,
O’Connor. O’Connor
including O'Connor. “They really went to town.”
O'Connor relates, "They town." Even then, howev-
“Billie Klann"
er, the foremen said among themselves that they would rather work for "Billie Klann”
Sorensen’s man Bricker.
than for Sorensen's Bricker.95
95

Unfortunately, almost none of these signs of turmoil at the Rouge entered the manu-
script records of the Ford Motor Company. The oral history reminiscences of many of the
principal actors in this comedy of errors stand in universal agreement about the chaos of
292 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

the changeover once production supposedly got under way. The final assembly operations
must be seen as a principal culprit in production delays and extremely low output, for
“green men on the line"
which the "green line” were primarily responsible. Hints about the extent of
production problems at Ford do appear in telegrams sent to Charles Sorensen when he was
briefly away from the Rouge plant in early January 1928, a critical period in Model A
briefly
production. On January 10, for example, Sorensen learned that there had been a "low “low
frame production due to hand work.”
work.'' The following day, he received the story in far
grimmer detail. Rouge reported a total frame production of forty-six, which was passed
offwith
off with the following remark: "Considerable
“Considerable trouble this job. Hand riveting and frames
square.” Other news was equally bad: "Branch
out of square." “Branch brake requirements necessitated
necessita.ted
holding up final assembly line. Sent men home at noon with Mr. Martin’sMartin's approval.”""
approval. " 96
This particular delay had been caused by a change of a fixture on the brake bracket
forging. For a company that had regularly manufactured more than eight thousand cars
and trucks daily, such problems can only be regarded as unprecedented and indicative of
the profound challenge posed by the changeover. They explain why production stood at an
average of barely one hundred Model A's A’s per day in early January rather than Henry
Ford’s promised one thousand.
Ford's
Although the ultimate responsibility for such troubles lay with Henry and Edsel Ford,
Ford., it
is impossible not to place much of the blame for the delay in producing (as opposedopposed. to
designing) the Model A on Charles Sorensen. All of the evidence concurs that the
consciously executed plan to purge the Ford Motor Company of all the Model T ''sons-of-
“sons-oil
bitches"’ originated with and was carried out by Sorensen, thereby resulting in most of the
bitches‘
production problems with the Model A. Sorensen sacrificed Model A’s A's in order to get rid
“high-priced” production men who had made the Highland Park factory the
of the "high-priced"
birthplace of mass production. The great irony, which completely evaded Sorensen, was
that he was the biggest of all the Model T sons-of-bitchesY
sons-of~bitches.977 He had shaped the Rouge
with Model T principles. Indeed, despite Sorensen's
Sorensen’s utterances, Model A production
contained more vestiges of Model T production principles than entirely new approaches.
P. E. Martin’s
Martin's diary entry of October 21, 1927,
I927, the day of assembly for Model A #l, #1,
demonstrates the extent of Sorensen's
Sorensen’s "Model
“Model T-ness."
T-ness.” Martin recorded the personal
predictions of the old-time Ford personnel about how many Model A’s A's would be builL
built.
Henry Ford looked for ten million, Edsel twenty million, and Martin fifteen million, but
Sorensen expressed his belief that no less than fifty million Model
Mode! A’s
A's would be manufac-
manufac··
tured at the Rouge and Ford's
Ford’s branch plantsY
plants.98 (In fact, fewer than five million Model A’s
8 A's
were ever built.) Finally, the person who in 1925 sent Sorensen a post card portrait of
Mussolini, writing "Mfussolini]
“M[ussolini] is to Italy what you are to the Ford M[otor] Co.,”
Co.," could
not have anticipated how true these words would ring when the production of Model A got
under way.99
wayY 9
Despite the personnel changes (which left many more Ford executives and their depu· depu-
ties without work than have been identified here) and enormous production problems, the
Model A brought the Ford Motor Company almost up-to-date as an automobile manufac- manufac·-
turer. The Model A, with the exception of the brakes, won acclaim (and still does) as a
well-designed, well-made, well-priced, and "thoroughly
“thoroughly up-to-date”
up-to-date" automobile. Events
subsequent to the initial production of Model A brought the company up-to-date with
other manufacturers, particularly with General Motors. These events relate in differing
degrees to the changeover phenomenon. First, Ford spent money as never before on
advertising the new Model A. Previously, Ford had advertised the Model T nationally in
some years and not in others. Like all the other segments of American business, adver·· adver-
 LlI11tl'.S‘ of'
The Limits of Fordrflrm
Fordism 293

tisers could never understand Ford. They recognized, of course, that Ford received much
free advertising through jokes and cartoons. But Ford coupled the unveiling of the Model
A with a concerted national advertising campaign that in the first week was estimated to
cost $2 million. The c~mpaign
campaign and the Ford reputation soon resulted in more than eight
hundred thousand orders, which as we have seen, the factory could not hope to fill for a
100 Nevertheless, Ford had discovered what General Motors already knew: advertis-
year. 100
ing-—major advertising-was
ing-major advertising——was a fundamental part of the changeover strategy.
Second, Ford Motor Company soon moved into the arena of credit financing for its
customers. Achieved largely through the efforts of Edsel Ford and Ernest Kanzler, Uni-
versal Credit Corporation was perhaps the most revolutionary change (considering Henry
Ford’s detestation of credit buying) wrought by the changeover. To meet the needs of the
Ford's
new consumerism in America and to compete with General Motors Acceptance Corpora-
tion, the Fords established the new corporation to finance Ford automobile purchases by
dealers and retail consumers. Universal Credit Corporation allowed Ford dealers to stock
new cars by advancing only lO 10 percent of the retail price of the automobile. Consumers
received low-interest, one-year financing, with a down payment of a third of the selling
price. Chartered in Delaware in March 1928, Universal Credit Corporation obtained its
capital from Ford Motor Company and Guardian Trust of Detroit and New York. Kanz-
ler’s association with Edsel proved critical in the establishment of this new venture, for he
ler's
had become executive vice-president of Guardian Detroit Bank upon his "resignation"
“resignation”
from the Ford Motor Company.'°‘
Company. 10 I
Although extensive national advertising and establishment of a credit company stand
out as departures in the changeover from Model T to Model A, the lessons that Ford
production men learned were less distinct but nonetheless of major importance. Before
identifying these lessons, one other point is in order. The chaos of the changeover failed to
arouse Henry Ford to the point that he established any consistent and clearly understood
system of managerial hierarchy. The Ford Motor Company remained a dictatorship.
Henry Ford dictated broad policy of the company and details of the car. Charles Sorensen
dictated all aspects of production. While Ford held firmly to his place, Sorensen's
Sorensen’s grip
began to be loosened by the snowballing power of Harry Bennett, who would eventually
become a virtual dictator within the Ford Motor Company. 102 '02
Yet below the level of high policy, Ford production men learned important lessons
from the changeover. Those who survived this time of trial remained with the company
until the 1940s and 1950s, indicating that these lessons were fundamental to the manageri-
ally torn Ford company. The changeover to Model A drove home the point to all Ford
production men that any changeover could not be accomplished smoothly without ade-
quate advanced planning both of the design of the automobile and its production. When
the in-house order for a changeover was made in 1926, the production men probably
believed that they could handle its requirements. Tool department head William Pioch
“We were building Model T's
recalled: "We T’s when we were designing the tools for the [Model
lModel
A] engine. We had a good start before we shut down the Model T. I would say that we
were about six months in the process of this. By the time we shut down, we had about
donc.”‘°3
twenty-five percent of the retooling done.'' 103

As Pioch, Martin, Sorensen, Wibel,

Wibcl, and others learned, 25 percent of retooling was
not sufficient to remain long in business in the new era of the American automobile
industry. Although their recognition of the need for advanced planning could have re-
sulted in the establishment of bureaucratic procedures, this never occurred until the
reorganization of the company under Henry Ford ll. II. Nevertheless, when subsequent
294 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION
f·ROM

changes were made in the design of the Ford automobile, Ford engineers planned them far
more carefully than they had the Model T to Model A changeover.
Another important lesson Pioch learned with the Model A was the value of establishing
pilot lines for testing new approaches in machine work. A pilot line was created for
machining the Model A engine block, and as Pioch explained, ''We “We had a pilot line .... . .
so we knew exactly where we were going before we tore out the old equipment."
equipment. ’ ’ 104
104 Time
considerations precluded the establishment of other pilot lines for the Model A. But in
subsequent model changes, they were important in identifying and solving production
problems.
Deep drawing problems with the Model A body also taught Ford production men that
body die work required adequate time and room for error. Pioch noted, "Our “Our [Model A] Al
experience told us where our problems were. We'd We’d take a look at a certain shapedshaped.
stamping. If it looked like it was going to give us trouble, then those were the dies we
pushed through first quickly and got the bugs worked out of it before the rest of them carne
came
along. ” 105 Pioch and his peers also learned that he and other production experts should be
along." 105

called in to give their opinions on new designs, particularly regarding body styles for
which designers proposed curves that would have proved to be too deep for satisfactory
drawing.
Other problems, especially in machine tool acquisition, that arose with the changeover
to Model A had actually been identified during the last series of changes made on the
Model T for 1926. A. M. Wibel, who was responsible for Ford machine tool procure-- procure-
ment, emphasized the importance of the Model T changes on Ford procurement and how
the Model A changeover simply reinforced this trend. According to Wibel, until the last
important change in the Model T, the company purchased presses with die spaces big
enough to handle only specific tasks. When the Model T for 1926 was lowered and
lengthened slightly, the company realized that the presses would not handle the larger
work. Therefore, Wibel initiated a policy of purchasing machine tools and presses of
larger capacity, which could accommodate moderate change in the size of workpieces.
Similarly, Ford shifted from using completely specialized, multiple-spindle drill presses
to drill presses that simply required a new head to achieve a new arrangement of drills. As
Wibel recalled, ''This
“This realization struck us gradually, after we paid through the nose for
machines we couldn’t
couldn't use on the new models.”
models." Thus, over a period of about five years,
the Ford Motor Company moved toward what Henry Ford's Ford’s ghostwriter called "flexible
“flexible
production,” toward a machine tool system-if
mass production,'' system—if not a managerial system--that
system—that could
accommodate changes in design of the Ford automobile without totally tearing out ma-
chinery used to produce the old model.
model.“"‘°
106

Finally, the changeover to the Model A taught Henry Ford (or at least reminded him of
the days of 1908 and 1909) that a new model in the initial stages of production was a sure
target for hundreds of proposed changes. Design engineer Laurence Sheldrick recalled
this phenomenon:
Immediately after the Model A got into production Mr. Ford perhaps realized that there
was going to be a deluge of requests for engineering changes. He safeguarded himself
very carefully on that. He caused all engineering changes to be cleared through me,
whether they were body, axle, transmission, or whatnot. They all had to be channeled
through me. I had to present them to him for his signature for quite a period
period.....
. . . He
knew that on a new product like that [the Model A]Al a deluge of changes could just hog
bog
the whole thing down and he was absolutely right about it.l07
it.1°7
 The Limits of Fordism
Fordrsm 295

As described above in detail, despite Ford's

Ford’s supposed iron-handed control, Model A
changes greatly bogged down its quantity production. Better planning both in the design
stage and in tooling up, especially use of pilot lines, helped to deal with this problem,
which was, to a degree, inherent with the new mass production. 108 198
The Model A proved to be an immensely successful automobile. Gradually the Rouge
worked out its immediate technical problems with Model A production, and in 1929 it
achieved new daily and weekly production figures. On June 26, 1928, for example, the
company assembled 9,100 Fords, compared with the 8,710 Model T units of October
1925. In July, Ford produced 180,804 Model A's A’s in the United States, a figure larger than
any monthly output for Model T. As already noted, substitution of stamping and mallea-
ble iron castings for Henry Ford's
Ford’s forgings helped
bel ped the plant to drive down the production
costs of the Model A. By September 1929, the company had produced more than 1.4
million Model A’sA's since the first of the year compared with fewer than eight hundred
thousand in 1928. Yet at this very moment, the entire automobile industry witnessed car
inventories rising dramatically. By October, rumors began to circulate wildly that Ford
would shut down or perhaps change its model. model.1°9
109

Despite Ford’s
Ford's recovery in market share during 1929-from
l929—from slightly over 30 percent in
the period January to May to almost 45 percent in October-the
October—the automobile industry sank
swiftly into what has been called the lean years of the American economy. Black Tues-
day, October 29, 1929, closed the door to the fabulously profitable years of the industry.
With bullish strength in the first three quarters, 1929 was to be Ford's
Ford’s last good year for
profits. Although the company lost $30.5 million in 1927 and $70.6 million in 1928
because of the changeover, its profits in 1929 reached $91.5 million after taxes. This
figure would probably have topped the $100 million mark had sales held up during the last
quarter."O
quarter. 110 But they did not.

Ford responded to the sagging sales of the Model A by reducing prices in November
and by making what could be called an annual model change for 1930. On December 29, 29*,
1929, Edsel Ford announced that the Model A had been "re-designed."
“re-designed.” The body had
been lowered some and lengthened by six inches, and change was evident in radiator and
grill work and in fender design. Moreover, the new model would be offered in several
new colors. The New York Times reported that few “mechanical changes” had been
"mechanical changes"
made. In his announcement Edsel stressed that "since “since the Model A was first in introduced
traduced it
has constantly been made a better car. As soon as improvements have been developed and
tested, they have been built into cars in production and immediately passed on to the
public. That process goes on steadily in the Ford plants ... . . . [and] is now given expression
in the new bodies. ” 111
bodies.'' 1 '1 The price, Edsel noted, remained the same as for the 1929 models.
Ford’s changes for 1930 held much in common with those for 1926. The company
Ford's
responded to decreased demand and increased criticism that the Ford car was "out-of- “out-of-
date” by making cosmetic changes in its automobile. This strategy would have been far
date"
better suited for the automobile industry of the 1950s and early 1960s than of the late
1920s and early 1930s. William Abernathy has demonstrated the importance of major
changes, as compared to minor ones (the "annual“annual model change"),
change”), in gaining or losing
market share. As in 1926, the changes in the Model A’s A's body caused no overwhelming
production problems. Indeed, not even the slightest hint of problems appears in the
records of the company or in the reminiscences of former Ford employees. Ford pursued
its marketing strategy vigorously throughout 1930. In March it added a de Luxe sedan and
coupe to its line and in August a de Luxe roadster, with "sport “sport treatment throughout.”
throughout."
296 PRODUCTION
FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODL'CTlON

Later in the year, the company broke with its age-old tradition of lettered models and
introduced a car, with the Model A chassis, called the Victoria. Finally, this marketing
strategy was pushed with a substantial national advertising campaign costing $8.7 million
year.I' 12
for the year. 12
Yet in the midst of the deepening depression and with competitors selling six- and
eight-cylinder automobiles (Chevrolet had introduced the six in 1929), Ford's Ford’s strategy
proved to be less than satisfactory. With a production of 1.5 million units, profits for 1930
dropped sharply to $51 $5 I million, 45 percent below the 1929 figure. With no change in
Ford's sales fell to six hundred thousand units for 1931
strategy or in the Model A chassis, Ford’s
while production was more than seven hundred thousand units. Market share looked even
worse—26 percent-and profits turned to losses in excess of $50 million?”
worse-26 million. 113 Walter
Chrysler personally demonstrated an improved Plymouth to Henry and Edsel Ford in June
1931.114
of 1931. 114 Soon the automotive world would acclaim the all-new Plymouth, especially

its smooth-running engine, which reduced vibration with two-point engine mounts
cushioned with rubber. Seeing changes such as these throughout the depressed automobile
industry, hearing criticism of his "out-of-date"
“out-of-date” Model A, and watching his inventories
mount rapidly, Henry Ford took steps to right his foundering industrial ship.
On August 1, 1931, the Ford Motor Company sent its seventy-five thousand Rouge
employees home for an “indefinite”
"indefinite" vacation. The inner circle at Ford pondered changes
in the Model A while a "few thousand" men in Detroit, and eleven of the thirty-six
“few thousand”
schedules.” In early Septem-
“curtailed schedules.''
branch assembly plants continued production on ''curtailed
ber, the company rehired between fifteen and twenty thousand of its employees to com-
plete the fifty thousand orders on hand for Model A’s A's and expected to hire another fifty
thousand men by mid-September to continue manufacture of the Model A. 115 1 '5 This mas-
sive rehiring appears never to have occurred.
Change seemed imminent to those both within the company and outside in the automo-
tive world. Yet the details of this change are obscure. 116 It appears that Ford initially
obscure.‘1°
intended to introduce a redesigned Model A body mounted on a chassis with a longer
wheelbase, a larger bore four-cylinder engine, and a gasoline tank in the rear. Everyone
predicted that the new Ford would appear for the fall market, but it did not. The reasons
are less certain. Ford's
arc company’s leaders, father
Ford’s large inventory may have convinced the company's
and son, to delay the new model until the inventory was sold. Such a strategy was
reasonable given the worsening situation in the entire automobile industry. Delays in
retooling also may have been a determining factor. Certainly, Ford’s Ford's suppliers as well as
the public were well aware that Ford's Ford’s toolrooms were working around the clock in
August and the fall months.
months.‘ 17
117 But there is no indication in the reminiscences of the Ford
production engineers that retooling problems delayed the introduction of the V-8 V-8 Ford.
An equally viable and perhaps more probable reason for delay in introducing re ..
a re-
designed Model A lay with engine developments. With the appearance of Chevy's Chevy’s six-
cylinder automobile, Henry Ford apparently entertained the idea that his next new engine
would be an eight-cylinder job. Ford'sFord’s thinking in this direction resulted in more than
simple talk. Instructed by Ford, engineers designed some twenty or thirty eight-cylinder
engines, the first finished in May 1930. At‘ At the same time engineers sought to improve the
performance of the existing Model A engine, which according to Henry Ford, they did.
Delay, therefore, may have stemmed from indecision about what power plant to put in the
chassis of the lengthened and restyled Model A. In a February interview with a New York
Times reporter, Ford alluded to such indecision, saying, "We “We developed a corking good
*4’ and were all ready to let it go, but we found it was not the new effort the public is
'4'
 The Limits of F0m'z'sm
Fordism 2297

expecting. That’s
That's why we're
we’re bring out the '8' ‘8’ now."
now.”'18
118 Apparently, Ford delayed his

final decision about the introduction ofthe

of the V-8
V-8 until December 7, 1931.
1931 . 11 19
19 The V-8,
V -8, with
fourteen body types, first appeared in showrooms March 31, 1932. 1932.120 At the same time,
120

however, Ford decided not to scrap completely the "corking “corking good"
good” four-cylinder engine
that had been developed. The company made its fourteen body types available with either
power plant, the sixty-five horsepower V V-8
-8 or the fifty-horsepower four-cylinder engine.
Such options clearly indicate that Ford had made strides in achieving "flexible “flexible mass
production.”
production." (See Figure 7. 7.9.)
9.)
Design and production of the V-8V -8 engine constituted an engineering feat. Unlike other
eight-cylinder engines, the V V-8
-8 consisted of a unit or single-cast block, which posed
enormous problems in core design and molding to obtain usable castings. Such castings
could be obtained in small quantities, albeit with a high scrapping rate, but quantity
production was another matter. Tool department chief William Pioch helped solve the
problem by designing special-purpose fixtures used to place cores, cement them, and
allow them to set permanently. According to Pioch, core setting on the V-8 became just
“production line"
another "production line” operation.
Pioch also characterized the machining methods used for the V-8. V-8. Although the V-8 V -8
was a different type of engine, Ford’s
Ford's previous experience with the Model T and the
Model A allowed the factory to move "into “into high production machinery."
machinery.” Machines were
built to bore all eight of the cylinders in the block at once. "In “In fact,"
fact,” Pioch pointed out,
"our
“our machining time on the block wasn't wasn’t much more than it was on the four-cylinder
engine. We had a lot more machining but it didn’t didn't take much more time in labor."labor. ” He also
noted that the V V-8
-8 brought the widespread use of tungsten carbide tools along with
machine tools of higher speeds and feeds and of greater rigidity. 121 ‘21
Ford’s decision to produce the V
If Ford's V-8
-8 did not occur until December 7, 1931, the
changeover to production of the new engine was remarkably short and smooth. Pioch
believed that "we
“we made the change much more quickly than we did before. We had most
of our production equipment ordered and we had the engine developed. We had a pilot set
up for machining the block. We had quite a few blocks machined ahead of time. We had a
lot of castings made in the Foundry ahead of time. time.''” He estimated that ten thousand blocks
had been made before full-scale production got under way. ''This “This time we had planned
the changeover,”
changeover," he concluded. Purchasing chief A. M. Wibel agreed, arguing that
although the changeover from the Model A to the V-8 was a bigger job, raising bigger
problems in layout and machining, it was handled much better. "We “We did a lot of planning
for the V-8 changeover,”
changeover," Wibel recalled?”
recalled. 122 (See Figure 7.10.)
Despite Pioch’s
Pioch's and Wibel’s
Wibel's assessments, problems reminiscent of the Model T to
Model A changeover did occur. The late timing of the model change may, of course, be
identified as one cause of the problems.
problems.‘23123 Last-minute changes in design also played

havoc in getting the new V-8 automobiles off the assembly line. Ford's Ford’s official model
change announcement appeared in print on February 12, 1932, and indicated that dealer
deliveries would be made in the first week of March. But by mid-March, when no
deliveries had occurred, it had become evident that delays in production resulted from from
“important” changes being made as late as February 29. 124
major or ''important'' '24 (See Figure 7.1 7. I I.)
1.)
Even after V-8
V-8 Fords began rolling off the Rouge assembly line, problems persisted,
just as they had during the first year of Model A production. In 1932, Ford managed to
produce only 287,285 V-8's V-8’s and Model B's (the four-cylinder option).
option).‘25
125 The company

reported that not long after the V V-8

-8 was shown publicly, it received deposits on one
hundred thousand orders for the new model. 126 ‘Z6 With such an initial demand, the company
298 fROM
FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

M W4»:-is .

ma

' .
it Q
h‘wyt 2

J» .' I
em»
:,;l.;n*l~*“‘Y. 1
*
‘ll axis 1

4 7i
* I tit
+
4 5
‘Q "
. 4 . . Mg F
~,,$$,_».\
7”‘.
\‘®~,-
\a»‘I°

FIGURE 7.9.
7.9. Factory. 1932. This photograph suggests how far the
Conveyor Belt, River Rouge Factory,
Ford Motor Company had moved away from "single-purpose"
“single-purpose" manufacture in 1932. Both V V-8
-;)
engine blocks and other parts arc
are en route to the assembly area along with four-cylinder equipment.
(Henry Ford Museum, The Edison Institute. Neg. No. 833-57060-29.)

might have turned a loss into profit had it been able to produce more automobiles.
Unquestionably, the Great Depression made large-quantity production of V V-8’s
-8' s less
urgent than had been the case with the Model A. The clay
day had passed when any automobile
company would conceive of trying annually to produce two million cars of a single model.
In the depth of the Depression, the entire industry could not sell that many cars. ears.”-7
127

Nevertheless, Ford's
Ford’s slowness in bringing postchangeover production up to established
prechangeover levels seriously handicapped its competitive position in the market.
The bottom line——the cost—of the changeover to the V
line-the cost-of V-8
-8 suggests that it had not been
as great as that to the Model A. In the deep trough of the Depression, 1931 to 1933, Ford
lost about $125 million ($71 million for 1932 alone). The changeover to Model A,
including experimental and design work, tooling, and loss of profits, totaled about $250
million?”
million. 12 x Unfortunately, equivalent cost estimates of the VV-8
-8 changeover are unavail-
able, but even these crude figures suggest that the company had gained some control over
such costs.
 The Limits of F0rdz'srn
Fordism 299

FIGURE 7.10.
FIGURE 7. 10. Ford V
V-8
-8 Engine Assembly, River Rouge Factory, 1930s.
19305. (Henry
(I-Ienry Ford Museum, The
Edison Institute. Neg. No. 833-68057-105.)
30() FROM THE
TIIE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO l\IASS
MASS PRODUCTION

FIGURE 7.11.
FIGURE 7.11. Henry Ford and the V
V-8,
-8, March I10,
0, 1932. Ford stamped the serial number on the first
!'ir~;t
V-8 chassis. (Henry Ford Museum, The Edison Institute. Neg. No. 833-57031-2.)
833—5703l—2.)

Ford Motor Company achieved this control partly by consciously launching upon a
strategy that placed much of the initial capital burdens on outside suppliers. Despite
Sorensen’s compulsion to maintain the Rouge as an industrial colossus, in
Charles Sorensen's
mid-1928 he and A. M. Wibel moved toward a strategy-which
strategy—which departed significantly
from "high
“high Rouge” strategy-—whereby Ford came to depend increasingly upon outside
Rouge" strategy-whereby
suppliers as much as it had once done. 129‘Z91 General Motors and Chrysler, ofof course,
course, had
had
been consciously following such a strategy for a long time with obvious success. As
“This week we are working on stimulating the outside
Sorensen informed Edsel Ford: ''This
buying sources, so that we can make furtherjumps
further jumps in production by getting as much help
as we can from the outside and at the same time make the minimum expenditure for tools,
etc., in our own plants.”‘3°
plants." 130 Wibel subsequently pursued this strategy with great vigor,
and it became even more prevalent at Ford Motor Company when the Depression struck.
Ford went to outside suppliers more and more during the early years of the Depression.
This strategy may well have played a major role in reducing the time and the cost of the
changeover to the VV-8.
-8.
Although time and costs had been reduced in this second major changeover at Ford,
problems remained, stemming largely from the very system of mass production that Ford
had created. The writer of an incisive article on Henry Ford and his company, published in
Fortune in 1933, stated: "Say Ford]:I: Mr. Ford does not change his car
“Say competitors [of Ford
often enough and cannot make changes without disrupting his production schedule. Says
Mr. Ford: changing models every year is the curse of the industry. Many a rival agrees
 The Limz'l.s‘
Limits of Fordisnz 30 I

with him here, would like to follow suit but is afraid that skipping a yearly model would
cost too many sales.''
sales.”‘31
1 -' 1

In the years immediately previous to and during the wrenching changeover from the T
to the A, the American public worried greatly about its folk-hero Henry Ford. It lt cele-
brated Ford’s “return to genius"
Ford's "return genius” with the mass production of the Model A932 Ford’s loss
A. 1-' 2 Ford's
of millions of dollars once again in 1931 roused further public sentiment. The editor of the
New York Times exemplified this concern. He sought to explain Ford’s Ford's 1931 losses by
pointing out that during the year Ford had introduced the V-8.
Y-8. But this simply begged the
question, pointed out the editor: "Was“Was the genius of Henry Ford true to its highest self
when it failed to foresee and make provision for new car models, new factory set-ups and
new production tempos? Somehow one feels that in passing from Ford T to Ford A-and A—and
Eight—the process should have been as uninterrupted, as precise and as
from a Four to an Eight-the
effortless as the flow of the separate parts into the making of any Ford Car."Car.”'33 133

Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Company had thus, in terms of public criticism and
concern, become victims of their own creation, of mass production. It was during these
years between the decline of the Model T and the slow rise of the V V-8
-8 that the term mass
production gained currency in the United States. Although Ford and his company were
groping their way into the new era of mass production, the era initiated by General Motors
in which change had to be planned and carefully executed on a regular basis, the Ameri-
can public had come to expect more, to believe that change itself could be mass-produced
and that with mass production anything was possible. Thus in these years what might be
called the ethos of mass production was established.
MM
4"An g
MAg

Myi
CHAPTER 88

~fhe
The Ethos of
Mass Production
&
£1 Its
lts Critics
It is agreed by competent observers in this country and in Europe that America's
America’s increasing
general prosperity and high standards of living are due chiefly
chiefly to the rapidly increasing use of
scientific mass production and distribution.
—~-Edward A. Filene, "Mass
-·--Edward “Mass Production Makes a Better World," Atlantic ((1929)
1929)

Valley] Authority the solution of this statement [of high prices and low
To the [Tennessee Vafley]
consumption of electricity] seemed to be to apply to the electrical indusll)'
industry the principles of'
of
mass production and mass consumption which had proved successful in a number of great
private industries in America. The essential element in mass production is a progressive
decrease in unit cost-the
cost—the more items of any commodity a producer turns out, the less each item
is likely to cost him.
—--—Tennessee
--Tennessee Valley Authority, Annual Report (1936)

To what extent would the mass-production of. of . . .. houses be a solution of the housing problem,
and how far would this form of manufacture meet all the needs that are involved in the dwelling
house and its communal setting? Those who talk about the benefits of mass-production have
been a little misled, I think, by
hy the spectacular
,\pectacular success of this method in creating cheap
cheop motor
cars;
(·ars; and 11 believe they have not sufficiently
sujjficiently taken into account some of its correlative defects.
-~-Lewis
--—Lewis Mumford,
Mumford. Architectural Record (1930)

Few
.
llition
g tion
ew expressions have gained greater currency more quickly than did mass produc-
in the late 1920s and early 1930s. And few concepts behind such expressions
have been so hotly debated as the principles and results of mass production. Henry Ford
and the Ford Motor Company were largely responsible for bringing mass production into
American’s vocabulary and consciousness. Ford’s
the American's Ford's ghostwritten article by that title,
commissioned for the 1926 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and published as a
Sunday feature in the New York Times, defined and focused attention on the expression.‘
expression. 1
(See Figure 88.1.)
.l.) The unprecedented success of the Ford Motor Company and its stag- stag~
geringly large output of Model T'T’ss lent immediacy and verisimilitude to the article. Yet at
this late date in the Model T's
T’s history (1926), one could easily entertain fundamental
doubts about the benefits and costs of mass production. Americans seemed to be rapidly

303
304 FROM THF.
TilE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS I’RODUCl‘lON
PRODUCTION

8.1. Henry Ford and William J. Cameron in the Dearborn

FIGURE 8.1. Dcarborn Laboratory of the Ford Motor
Company, 1935. In 1926I926 Cameron wrote the Ford-attributed article, ·'Mass
“Mass Production,"
Production,” which
was published in the thirteenth edition of the Encyclopaedia
Ency-clopaedia Britannica. (Henry Ford Museum, The
Edison Institute. Neg. No. 0-3171.)

tiring of the standardization that had made it possible more than a decade and a half earlier
to achieve single-purpose manufacture—to
manufacture-to develop mass production. Were not the costs
“you can have any color you want so long as it's
of "you it’s black"
black” too great to bear?
bear‘?
Though Ford long resisted change and though the process of switching from Model T
to Model A proved to be tougher than any Ford employee could have imagined, once
introduced, the Model A served to reaffirm and to give an entirely new dimension to mass
production. To some, Ford's
Ford’s work proved dramatically that mass production was not the
antithesis of individuality and aesthetics. The Model A was singled out for its beauty, and
it was held up as the prime example of what could be achieved by combining mass
production methods with art?art. 2 As Jeffrey L. Meikle has pointed out, Ford's
Ford’s changeover
helped to infect American manufacturers with a fever for industrial design. The leaders of
the industrial design movement in the late 1920s
19205 and early 1930s shared ''a“a faith in the
social benefit of design for mass production''
production” and ''the
"the ideal of renewing America
through mass production/’3
production. '' 3
Industrial designers were not alone in their vision of the possibilities of the new mass
production. Businessmen and social thinkers also saw unprecedented opportunity in com- com-·
bining the productive efficiency of the assembly line with individuality and the aesthetics
of designers. Despite the implications of the annual model change, some observers
 The Ethos of Mass Production 305

continued to see mass production as, in the words of a contemporary, ''a “a panacea for the
industrial and business ills of all nations on both hemispheres.“
hemispheres. " 4 Mass production meth-
ods were tried for the first time in various industries, some more successfully than others.
America of the late 1920s and early 1930s was pervaded by an ethos of mass production.
While some proclaimed and celebrated this ethos, others severely criticized it and the
production system that lay behind it. Journalists, literary figures, filmmakers, labor
leaders, and artists identified mass production as a manifestation if not a cause of social
ills present in the United States in this period.
America’s production engineers had made a revolution in manufac-
Unquestionably, America's
turing. Whether that revolution could be extended, and whether society was now really
better or worse off, however, remained active questions.

When in 1922 I922 Henry Ford published My Life and Work, his first autobiographical book
written
\vritten by Samuel Crowther, the expression mass production did not appear in the text.
But a caption below one of the book’s book's few illustrations—a
illustrations-a photograph of a Ford engine
line—~stood out prominently: "The
line-stood “The Ford prosperity recipe is high wages, low prices, and
production.”5
mass production. " 5 The implication was that mass production was merely quantity pro-
duction. Yet by the time that Ford‘s Ford's ghostwritten article on mass production appeared in
1926, mass production had been equated with the “Ford ''Ford prosperity recipe.''
recipe.” The term
described a production system characterized by mechanization, high wages, low prices,
and large-volume output. As the Britannica article stated succinctly, "Mass “Mass production is
not merely quantity production.”
production.''
Between the publication
pubhcation dates of My L?feLife and Work and Britannica's
Britannica’s "Mass
“Mass Produc-
tion,” a prominent liberal businessman from Boston, Edward A. Filene, began to proph-
tion,"
esy the complete "Fordizing"
“Fordizing” of American business and industry as the solution to the
growing economic and social ills in the United States. In The Wa_v
growmg Way Out (1925), Filene
projected an era of intense competition dawning in the United States primarily because of
trade barriers erected by European nations. "This “This super-competition,"
super-competition,” wrote Filene,
“will ultimately drive us into mass production and mass distribution. It will compel us to
''will
Fordize American business and industry. And this application of the mass principle to
American industry will bring about the new industrial revolution I have suggested.” suggested.''
Filene looked forward to the establishment of ''a “a regime of mass production, [becauseJ
[because]
with the reduction in prices [that] it will make possible, the handling of the wage problem
will
\Nil! be easier than ever in our history.
history.“"6
“Fordized” America mean‘?
But what would a "Fordized" mean'~ Filene argued that "mass
“mass production
will force us into a war on waste and compel us to put industry upon a scientific
basis.
basis . .. .. .. Mass production will mean the increasing standardization of products, and an
increasing mechanization of the process of production. And the mass distribution which
will follow mass production as a matter of course will find the biggest total profit in
selling an enormous number of articles at the lowest possible profit per article.'' article.” Filene
fully acknowledged that "most “most of the theoretical students of modern industry think that a
Fordized America would be hell on earth.'' earth. ” But for a long list of reasons, he believed that
“a
'·a Fordized America built upon mass production and mass distribution will give us a finer
and fairer future than most of us have dared to dream.' dream.”7'7
In conclusion, Filene warned American businessmen to ''Fordize “Fordize orfail."
orfail.” He added,
“If this belief is sound-and
"If sound—and I am staking my personal business future and investments
soundness-—it is only a question of time until we shall be living in a Fordized
upon its soundness-it
America.”
1\merica. '' A pioneer of the chain department store and founder of the Twentieth Century
306 FR(')l\"l TilE
PROM THE AMERICAN SYSTJ:M
SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION
l’ROl)UCTlO.\'

Fund and the Consumer Union, Filene took pains to point out that by Fordizing America
he did not mean installing Henry Ford as "the
“the political, intellectual, and social arbiter of
life.” Filene said he disagreed with everything Ford had said and done save
American life."
“his principles of mass production, mass distribution, and his primary emphasis upon
"his
eonsumer.”88
service to the consumer.''
But Filene'
Filene’ss 1925 vision of a "Fordized"
“Fordized” America never came to pass because the
decline of the Model T and competition from General Motors and Chrysler forced Ford to
change his mass production system. Faced with reasonable alternatives, the consumer no
Ford's-and Filene’s~preeepts
longer accepted Ford’s—and Filene's-precepts of mass production. As a writer in the
New
Ne"v York Times reflected on this early period:
When mass production started, individuality stopped. In order to reduce manufacturing
costs and turn out automobiles in sufficient quantity to supply popular demand, producers
had to evolve factory methods that permitted economical, high~speed
high-speed operation. They had
to concentrate the forces of men and machinery on the production of standard, stock-
stamped motor cars. Instead of making different cars, each manufacturer simply made the
same car over and over again. Automobiles that came from the same plant had less
individuality among themselves than a nest full of eggs from the same hcnY
hen.9

This was precisely the result of mass production that Henry Ford celebrated and
described in detail in the Eiwyclopaedia
Encyclopaedia Brztanriica
Britannica article. When it appeared in the New
York Times, the paper’s
paper's editors chose to comment at length about one of the major
contentions of the article. Under the title, "The
“The Super-Factory System,"
System,” the editors
focused on the difference between the early factory system and mass production. William
J. Cameron, the true author of the Britannica article, had
hac\ contended:
The early factory system was uneconomical in all its aspects. Its beginning brought
loss of capital than had been known before, lower wages and more
greater risk and Joss
precarious outlook for the workers, and a decrease in quality with no compensating
increase in the general supply of goods. More hours, more workers, more machines did
not improve conditions; every increase did but enlarge the scale of fallacies built into
business. Mere massing of men and tools was not enough; the profit motive, which
dominated enterprise, was not enough.

“If by the 'early'

"lf ‘early’ factory system and the system in 'its
‘its beginnings'
beginnings’ Mr. Ford means the
very first phases of the industrial revolution, his generalization may be just,"
just,'' the Tirnes's
Timeifs
“But for the factory system at least seventy-five years before the advent
editors granted. "But
of mass production in Detroit, it certainly would not be true that it lowered the condition
of the producing masses without compensation to the consuming public.”
public.'· Quoting exten-
sively from "so
“so candid a critic of the industrial system as Mr. Sidney Webb ... . . . in 'The
‘The
Society,’ ''
Decay of Capitalist Society,' ” the editors argued that the results of the factory system
were positive and substantial. They concluded: "These
“These are the precise results claimed by
Mr. Ford for mass production. The advantages of mass production-increased
production-—increased consump-
tion, rising standards of living, increased leisure-were
leisure~were claimed for the factory system
after it had emerged from its dark ages. And the doubts concerning mass production which
Mr. Ford meets and explains away-excessive
away—— excessive routine, monotony, enslavement of man to
the machine-are
machine—-are the very same doubts which the older factory system faced and
answered. ’ ’ 10
answered.'' 1°
The editors of the New York Times thus identified an important question regarding
mass production: What separated mass production from the factory system? In one sense,
mass production was but an extension of the factory system with its characteristics of a
highly divided labor force working in a centralized and mechanized facility. But as
 The Ethos ofMass
oj'1l/lass Production 307

discussed in Chapter 6, the standardization, the scale of operations, the degree of special-
ization both of workers and machines, the required precision, the assembly line with its
concomitant conveyor systems and time study, and the need for high wages resulted in
productivity gains that far exceeded the imaginations of those familiar with the factory
Times’s editors clearly recognized, "the
system. Mass production was, as the Times's “the super
factory system."
system. ” As Edward Filene argued, mass production was to the "new"
“new” or second
industrial revolution what the factory system was to the first industrial revolution. And
mass production brought labor problems, which seemed to increase proportionately with
Ford’s five-dollar day temporarily relieved the symptoms of these
gains in productivity. Ford's
problems, for extraordinarily high wages did indeed ensure that workers would participate
in the consumption side of the mass production system. One could affirm Herbert Hoo-
ver’s statement that ''high
ver's “high wages [are the] .... . . very essence of great production.”‘1
production.'' 11
But during the late 1920s, consumers seemed to be far more concerned with the
Ford’s system of mass production on the automobile itself than
standardizing effects of Ford's
with its implications for labor. The changeover to Model A served to allay consumers'
consumers’
fears. The new mass production no longer meant absolute standardization. As Filene
wrote in Atlantic in .May
May 1929:
Ford, by insisting on standardizing for so long a style of car which many people thought
none too handsome, and by allowing no deviation even cven in color to suit the individual
taste, was no doubt largely to blame for the belief that mass production, involving as it
must standardization, meant that we should have uniform ugliness thrust down our
fight in his insistence during the days when he was
throats. But Ford was probably right
perfecting the methods of mass production and popularizing the automobile. To get the
automobile widely used a very low price was necessary. Now that the automobile has
become a necessity, and the principles of mass production have been brought to a higher
state of perfection, Ford has redesigned his car. It is a thing of beauty, and yet it is
standardized to the point of complete interchangeability and is produced under scientific
mass methods.”
methods. 12

Though Filene may have been aware of the enormous and costly stmgglestruggle made by the
Ford Motor Company to accommodate change, he sought to assure his readers that the
new or flexible mass production did not mean absolute standardization (as numerous
critics charged) and that it allowed for change, beauty, and aesthetic pleasure. Filene titled
his 1932 book Successful Living in This Machine Age. He saw mass production as the key
to achievement of this goal. To provide clarity, Filene offered on the first page of the book
a definition of mass production. His definition is a comprehensive statement about the
ideological
i.deological nature of the mass production ethos in the late 1920s and early 1930s:
19305:
Mass Production is not simply large-scale production. It lt is large-scale production based
upon a clear understanding that increased production demands increased buying, and that
the greatest total profits can be obtained only if the masses can and do enjoy a higher and
ever higher standard of living. For selfish business reasons, therefore, genuine mass
production industries must make prices lower and lower and wages higher and higher,
while constantly shortening the workday and bringing to the masses not only more money
but more time in which to use and enjoy the ever-increasing volume of industrial
products. Mass Production, therefore, is production for the masses. It changes the whole
social order. It necessitates the abandonment of all class thinking, and the substitution of
fact-finding for tradition, not only by business men but by all who wish to live
successfully in the Machine Age. But it is not standardizing human life. It is liberating
the masses, rather, from the struggle for mere existence and enabling them, for the first
time in human history, to give their attention to more distinctly human problems.t3
problems.”
308 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION
PR()DUC'I‘IOl\'

Mass production—“production
production-"production for the masses”—held
masses"-held out almost unlimited promises
for positive social change. As Filene argued in an earlier article, ·'Mass
“Mass Production makes
World,“ "Mass
a Better World," “Mass production holds no dangers to the common welfare, but on the
contrary holds possibilities of accomplishing for mankind all of the good that theoretical
reformers or irrational radicals hope to secure by revolutionary means." All that was
necessary was education: "Mass
“Mass production demands the education of the masses
masses.. .. .. ..
The masses must learn how to behave like human beings in a mass production world.''world.”14 14

Filene’s contemporary, college president Harvey N. Davis, agreed fully with these
Filene's
positive views of mass production and the need to educate the masses as well as the critics
of mass production. In a chapter titled ''Spirit
“Spirit and Culture under the Machine”
Machine'' in Charles
Beard’s edition of Toward
Beard's Toward’ Civilization, Davis sought to counter the "volumes
“volumes [that] have
been written on the deadening effect of the Ford assembly line on the souls of noble
Americans." In the same vein as Ford'sFord’s Britannica article, Davis argued that "mass“mass
production tremendously increases the quantity of useful things in the world, and de-
creases the cost of them.”
them." Moreover, mass production provided greater leisure and an
ever-higher standard of living. To counter the critics, Davis added a new wrinkle to the
usual argument. Having characterized mass production as "'essentially
“essentially a speeding up tip
process”
process" and "a “a thought-eliminating process,"
process,” which "is
“is intimately related to, if it does
not inevitably breed, modern advertising,"
advertising,” Davis argued that mass production was merely
reflection rather than the cause of twentieth-century American society. By no means
the reflection
affirming this society, Davis simply argued that the technology a society wants is the
technology it gets. He thereby "absolve[dl
“absolve[d] mass production of the charge of having
caused these unfortunate intellectual habits of our time.''
time.” Criticize American society, he be
argued, not its system of mass production. '5 15

The works of Edward Filcne

Filene and Harvey Davis are merely representative of, respec-
tively, the ideological expression of the ethos of mass production in the late 1920s and
early 1930s and the defense against its critics. Even in the depths of the Great Depression,
“masses of America have elected Henry Ford [as their
Filene could argue that the "masses
exemplarl.”
exemplar].'' That Filene articulated a popular view of mass production is suggested by an
early annual report of the New Deal'sDeal’s Tennessee Valley Authority. When the TVA
wanted to make its goals understandable to the American public, it chose to speak the
language of the ethos of mass production. TVA, its report stated, was merely "apply[ingj
“apply[ing]
to the electrical industry the principles of mass production and mass consumption which
had proved successful in a number of great private industries in America/"6
America." 16 The TV TVA A
report assumed that Americans knew and appreciated the great benefits of mass produc-
tion: greater production, greater consumption at less cost, greater leisure, and a rising
standard of living.
Industrial designers also capitalized on the ethos of mass production. During the late
1920s and early 1930s, art and architecture in the United States were infected with the rise
of "machine
“machine aesthetics."
aesthetics.” This vogue appeared in response to the Exposition Interna-
tionale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes held in Paris in 1925. I925. For some
Americans, the French exhibit heralded at last the happy marriage of "art “art and mecha-
nism.” Moreover, as Jeffrey Meikle has noted, because it emphasized the minor decora-
nism.''
tive arts orchestrated into modernist ensemble, the Paris show "contributed
“contributed to the vision
of the world harmoniously made over by a supreme generalist, the industrial designer.”
designer.''
Called into action by the American response to the Paris exhibition, artists, architects, and
designers adopted a peculiarly American rhetoric of modernique,
rnodernique, of machine aesthetics:
the rhetoric of mass production. The art of the new age was to be industrial art or art with a
machine aesthetic. Mass production of designer-created articles of everyday use would
 T/ie Ethos ofMass
The of Mass Production 309

serve to uplift the unwashed American masses. Mass production of these articles would
serve as a force “for
''for alleviating suffering and relieving the dullness of the artificial
environment. ’ ’ 17
environment.'' 17
Initially, as Meikle points out, a striking contrast existed between the rhetoric of
“social benefit of design for mass production"
"social production” and the "reality
“reality of fthej
[the] custom-made
goods” created by those who espoused this rhetoric. These objects were products
luxury goods"
of craftsmen who were engaged in an "elite “elite craft movement"
movement” and who displayed their
goods in department store shows and museum exhibits. Though they adopted the machine
aesthetic, these craftsmen ''cared
“cared little for and knew nothing about the processes and
materials of mass production.”
production.'' Soon, however, a group of designers emerged, who
resolved to eliminate the contradiction between the rhetoric and the reality of machine
aesthetic art. These were the industrial designers who were committed to the ideal, stated
by Frederick Kiesler, that ''THE
“THE NEW
NEW ART
ART IS
IS FOR
FOR THE
THE MASSES.''
MASSES. ” Industrial designers of the
19305, such as Walter Dorwin
1930s, Darwin Teague, Norman Bel Geddes, Henry Dreyfuss, and Ray-
mond Loewy, radically changed the appearance of mass-produced everyday objects in
machine aesthetics with the technical requirements of manufactur-
America by combining machine
ing. As creators of the Streamlined Decade, these industrial designers emerged from the
confluence of machine aesthetics (an international movement) and the ethos of mass
production (an American phenomenon). 18 '8
The ground swell of the ethos of mass production resulted in many attempts to bring
the supposed powers of mass production to bear on a variety of problems that were
exacerbated by the Great Depression. The efforts of the high priest of mass production,
Henry Ford, were among the most noteworthy.
Responding to the plight of the American farmer in the era of the dust bowl, Ford
offered mass production as the solution to the problem. "Machinery, chemistry, and
education of the farmer toward intensive production are the best agencies of relief,”
relief,'' Ford
argued. In a vein similar to the concluding arguments in the Britannica article, "Mass “Mass
Production,”
Production,'' Ford pooh-poohed the idea that mass production would create overproduc-
tion of agricultural commodities: ''Overproduction
“Overproduction of foodstuffs will automatically be
eliminated by development of by-products."
by-products.”1" 1"

Ford had only recently begun what his closest associates regarded as another idiosyn-
cratic if not idiotic pursuit of finding an agricultural commodity with substantial dietary
value and worth as an industrial feedstock. He settled on the soybean. As Nevins and Hill
point out, Ford encouraged the farmers of Michigan "to fsoyJbeans with the as-
“to plant [soyjbeans
surance that the Ford Motor Company would do everything possible to provide a mar-
ket.” Ford set a research team to work on finding industrial uses for the bean. When they
ket.''
developed an oil extraction process, the Rouge plant became both a producer and a
consumer of the oil. (See Figure 8.2.) The Rouge’s
Rouge's massive foundry developed uses for
soybean meaL
meal. Soybean-based fibers and plastics were developed but not used. Ford also
served a complete soybean meal at a dinner at his company’s
company's Century of Progress Exhibi-
tion in Chicago. The menu included "tomato“tomato juice with soybean sauce, celery stuffed
with soybean cheese, puree of soybean, soybean croquettes with green soybeans, soybean
bread and butter, apple pie with soybean sauce, soybean coffee, and soybean cookies and
candy.” Ford ordered soymilk served for his lunches at the famous executive roundtable
candy."
Dcarborn?“
in Dearborn. 20

Ford’s 1930
Thus Ford's I930 remarks were based on his experience with and expectations for the
soybean. He had other crops in mind, as well as the increasing mechanization of the farm.
He sought to demonstrate his view that mass production could solve agricultural problems
by supporting a research team to inereasc
increase yields on his Georgia plantation through mccha-
mecha-
310 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

FIGURE 8.2.
FIGURE 8.2. Ford Soybean Processing Plant, River Rouge, 1930s. The industrial deployment of
soybeans was only one of Henry Ford’s “mass production”
Ford's ideas about how "mass production" could be applied to
agriculture. (Henry Ford Museum, The Edison Institute. Neg. No.
No, 833-74603-A.)

selection—-mass production methods in agri-

nization, soil study, fertilization, and crop selection-mass
culture. When asked about the effect of mechanization on farm workers, he replied curtly,
“Who’s going to make the machines?"
"Who's machines?”2'21 Mass production in agriculture would lead to

expanded mass production of agricultural equipment. Henry Ford, who had helped to
spawn the ethos of mass production, continued to promote it. To him and to millions of
Americans who had "elected"
“elected” him as their exemplar, it hardly mattered that his solution
demanded enormous capital in a severely contracted economy and that it meant, in today's
today’s
parlance, agribusiness rather than agriculture. The editors of the New York Times took
Ford’s proposal severely to task. They pointed out the differences between the Ford
Ford's
factory and a field of arable land: "Under
“Under any circumstances, production in agriculture
must be conducted through a variety of processes, applied over an area large in proportion
to the anticipated output and always subject, as mass production in manufacture is not, to
the vicissitudes of the seasons."
seasons.”2222

Implicitly, the Times's

Tinies’s editors argued that mass production's
production’s rightful place was in
manufacturing, not in agriculture. In a spirit that would have delighted Samuel Colt, the
tbe
editors accepted the notion that Ford methods could be applied to any area of manufactur-
ing. Others followed suit. In the area of housing, Foster Gunnison's
Gunnison’s work provides an
excellent example of the pervasiveness of the ethos of mass production.
 The Ethos of Mass Production 311

During the 1930s and thereafter, Foster Gunnison liked to think of himself as the
“Henry Ford of housing”
"Henry housing" because he was the first to build houses on an assembly line
basis. At the same time, he sought to create a "General
“General Motors type of combine ... . . . with
a system of plants producing [prefabricated] houses at several income levels.' levels.”23
' 23 His
career as a mass production manufacturer began when the ethos of mass production-and
production—and
one should add mass consumption—reached
consumption-reached new heights in the 1930s.
I923 until 1932 Gunnison pursued a highly successful career as a salesman-
From 1923
designer of custom lighting fixtures with the New York firm of Cox, Nostrand &. & Gunni-
son, Inc. This company designed and built electric lighting fixtures for almost all of the
major Art Deco buildings in New York including the Empire State Building, the Waldorf-
Astoria Hotel, the Chrysler Building, and Rockefeller Center.“
Center. 24 Despite the assessment
by Architectural Forum that he was "the “the best ...
. . . in New York's
York’s building field,"
field,”
Gunnison chose to end his career in this area of business. As the author of a confidential
study of Gunnison noted, 'There
“There was no mass production or mass distribution involved in
this business at all.''
all.” The light fixtures designed and produced by his firm
finn were unique for
a particular building; architects always sought new designs for new buildings. "Looking
“Looking
back,” continues the study's
back," study’s author, "Gunnison
“Gunnison has remarked that this aspect of his work
always bothered him. He felt that the really important contributions, the ones that were
really rewarding, were those that involved mass production.'
production. ”Z5
' 25 Like the industrial de-
signers of the same period, Gunnison wished to create reality out of the rhetoric of mass
production——to bring the machine aesthetic to the masses.
production-to
Drawing inspiration and financial support from fellow St. Lawrence University alum-
nus, fraternity brother, and chairman of General Electric Company Owen D. Young,
Gunnison founded Houses, Inc., to stimulate research, construction, management, and
financing in prefabricated housing. Under Gunnison's
Gunnison’s leadership, Houses, Inc., became
an important promoter of the American Motohome, a steel-framed, asbestos cement-
paneled, prefabricated house. The Motohome was the result of a cooperative venture of
Houses, Inc., American Houses, Inc., General Electric, American Radiator & Standard
Sanitary Corporation, and the Pierce Foundation. Although christened at a gala media
event at John Wanamaker's
Wanamaker’s in New York City, at which President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt’s
Roosevelt's mother unwrapped the Cellophane-packaged Motohome, this prefabricated
house could hardly be called successful. Perhaps as many as 150 Motohomes were
manufactured. But because of an internal dispute caused by the rising stars of the Gerard
Swope faction at General Electric, Gunnison divested himself of Houses, Inc., in 1935 I935
and soon formed his own prefabricated house manufacturing company in New Albany,
Indiana?" “organize the General Motors of the
Indiana. 26 Here Gunnison fulfilled his desire to "organize
field,”27
homebuilding field,' ' while at the same time becoming ''the
27 “the Henry Ford of housing.”
housing.''
Adapting the waterproof, plywood, stressed-skin panel developed by the U.S. Forest
Products Laboratory, Gunnison Magic Homes, Inc., became one of the best-known
manufacturers in the nascent prefabrication industry, an industry spawned by-and
by——and bank-
on—-the ethos of mass production. Gunnison’s
ing on-the Gunnison's selection of the New Albany site was
not mere chance, it allowed him to rent the production facilities of Plywoods, Inc. Soon
he recruited production experts from the economically depressed automobile industry,
purchased the facilities, and renamed his firm Gunnison Housing Corporation. By 1937 I937
Gunnison and his engineers had designed a standardized wall panel used to fabricate
twelve different house models (twenty-four if mirror-image plans are included) and had
installed a conveyor system for manufacturing the Gunnison house. (See Figures
8.3-8.6.) As William Blitzer wrote in his case study of Gunnison as an entrepreneur,
312 TilE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTIO'-:
FROM THE PRODUCTION

wm Qjg
4 '£“-35-»§'$ WW
WI u
x1
‘T1
~ »x'~‘@
av-'

FIGURE
FTGURE 8.3. Assembly Line Factory Production of Gunnison Housing Corporation, New Albany,
Indiana, ca. 1937.
I937. (Comiesy
(Courtesy of
o1°Foster Jr‘)
Foster Gunnison, Jr.)

“#9

, C ._ 1* Ii

»»f\/W
‘at‘Y
‘;;i'»...__ 1-; - -. v ,4

4 ,. ~ =' 1;»

¢€g3% Q
4

FIGURE 8.4.
fiGURE 8.4. Automatic Paint Booths, Gunnison Housing Corporation, New Albany, Indiana, car
ca.
1937‘ (Courtesy of Foster Gunnison, Jr.)
1937.
 El/20s of Mass Production
The Ethos Prozluclimz 313

i¢$\*'$“Y

FIGURE 8.5.
FIGURE 3.5. “Ford” or "Chevrolet"
"Ford" “Chevrolet” Equivalent of Gunnison Prefabricated House,
House. ca. 1937.
(Courtesy of Foster Gunnison, Jr.)

._ rw»--,..,:.;.__ / , ‘—1 , _ x ‘"'"“"‘”‘”"“ " ' ' '

' / .‘ ~-id’ ' 1 "-~.»=1 - "~ I ' "’“ ,, _‘ _ :anu,b_u_
,0'§,;£mkw I .
-,..e,.W» Hy._.._
'7 l 1‘" r f K ' it aw.
_ _ __‘_ \X. _ ya,”
.,‘;>¢€,_ '- 1’
'"1";t.
.-¢..;» :/'3,V‘ .»1..__
A
e >@~~t- . . . »
... ‘he.-9»-.
A yt \ M _

I ' » M :':_'-"j""' __ 7 "MW.,i Wu; ..,-.¢*-

W K ,_: 1... Y 1 .‘V‘ , W
“ /.M ii ~ ~".~. < _. ,4
@ni»r.¢§a:=_%E
~» .e- 5 ~¢is<»;§,_

FIGURE 8.6. "Buick"

FIGURE 8.6. “Buick” or "Cadillac"
“Cadillac” Equivalent of Gunnison Prefabricated House, ca. 1937.
I937.
(Courtesy of Poster
Foster Gunnison, Jr.)
314 FROI'vl TilE
FROM AMERICA:-.! SYSTEM TO ~lASS
THE AMERIC/\.\l PROilUCTIO'-:
IVIASS I’R()DL'C'l‘IO\'

“This conveyor, probably the first

''This first: used in the manufacture of houses, was a symbol of
Gunnison’s achievement, and pictures of it were reproduced very widely. It was taken as a
Gunnison's
sign that prefabrication had become a mass production affair, that it was following in the
footsteps of the illustrious automobile industry and that, after many words had been
exchanged on the subject, industrialization methods were at last being applied to housing
production.” Architectural Forum also stressed the importance of Gunnison’s
production." Gunnison's contribu-
tions, noting that he had "perfected
“perfected prefabrication on a true mass-production, assembly
line basis.
basis . .. .. .. Gunnison was the first prefabricator to use a moving production line. " 2~
line.”28
Motivated by the ethos of mass production and seeking to capitalize on the popular
imagery of the assembly line-mass
line—mass production equation, Gunnison clearly demonstrated
that houses could be made in a factory using a moving conveyor system. But there were
problems. Mass consumption of Gunnison houses never followed from their mass produc-
tion. Despite Gunnison’s
Gunnison's attempt to pursue a General Motors strategy of a car for every
purse and purpose and to sell houses in the same way cars were sold, all of his houses
looked very much alike, and they did not satisfy the idiosyncratic, highly personalized
tastes of the American home buyer. Houses were not like the consumer durable products
made on the assembly line even when they were made the same way. Houses represented
lifetime or near-lifetime investments, and they were purchased on entirely different
grounds than automobiles. Americans "consumed" “consumed” automobiles but not houses. Even
when Gunnison managed to undersell "in “in a few instances"
instances” conventionally constructed
houses "by“by perhaps as much as 25%,'' 25%,“ there was no great rush to mass-consume the
Gunnison magic home. home, Gunnison claimed to have sold forty-five hundred houses in
thirty-eight states by 1941,
I941 , but this figure probably included units he had under contract as
part of the American war efforts. The most telling story about the scale of Gunnison's Gunnison’s
operation is that in 1948 his assembly line factory employed only three hundred work-
ers,” a figure that hardly conjures up images of Ford’s
ers,29 Ford's Highland Park and River Rouge
complexes.
Foster Gunnison was only one of many entrepreneurs who sought to "Fordize" “Eordize” hous-
ing in America. Although prefabrication of wooden and metal structures had been prac-
ticed in a limited way since the eighteenth century in North America and the British
Empire, the rise of the mass production ethos in the Depression era brought about a frenzy
of prefabrication activity.
activity?"
30 As the historians of prefabrication in America wrote, "The “The
prefabrication movement was the child of depression.''
depression.” Mass production of houses in the
“idle factories of our mass production industries"
"idle industries” was offered as the quick solution to the
serious national housing problem in the United States, just as Henry Ford had maintained
that mass production could solve the severe problems of American agriculture. Despite
intense promotion by individuals such as Gunnison and despite F0rtmze’s Fortune's assessment that
prefabrication was ''the “the greatest commercial opportunity of the age,'' age," Fordized,
Forclizecl, mass-
produced housing never caught on. on.31
31

As early as 1930 Lewis Mumford offered a closely reasoned analysis of why mass
production of houses would not succeed and would certainly not solve American housing
problems. Above all, he argued, mass production of houses was unlikely to result in
significant cost reductions. Mass production technology would be applied in the fabrica-
tion of the shell of a house, which did not represent the greatest cost. Even if one reduced
the cost of a shell by 50 percent, the ultimate savings would amount to only 10 percent of
the total cost. A significant element of cost was represented by fixtures and mechanical
items, in the making of which standardization-and
standardization—-and mass produetion~already
production-already obtained
in large measure. Moreover, "land, “land, manufactured utilities, site-improvements, and fi-
 The Ethos of Mass Production 3155

nance call for a greater share of the cost than the 'building'
‘building’ and labor.”
labor." Equally prob-
lematical was "the“the fact that mass-production brings with it the necessity for a continuous
turnover.”
turnover." Although mass production worked well for items that wore out rapidly, it was
inappropriate for more durable goods. ''When “When ...
. . . mass-methods are applied to rela-
tively durable goods like furniture or houses,"
houses,” wrote Mumford, "there “there is great danger
that once the original market is supplied, replacements will not have to be made with
sufficient frequency to keep the original plant running.''
running.” Both furniture manufacturers and
carmakers, he continued, "are “are driven desperately to invent new fashions in order to
hasten the moment of obsolesence; beyond a certain point, technical improvements take
second place and stylistic flourishes enter.
enter.”3'2
" 32
The other problem with the mass-produced house, Mumford noted, was what he called
the ''Model
“Model T dilemma,”
dilemma,'' by which he meant ''premature
“premature standardization.''
standardization.” Mass pro-
duction technology, because of its specialized machinery and "careful “careful interlinkage of
processes,” resulted in efforts "to
chain processes," “to prolong the life of designs which should be
refurbished. "’ ’ 33
33

Thus mass production posed a dilemma whose two horns were the ''continuance “continuance of
obsolete models”
models" and profligate "surface
“surface alterations of style."
style.” Beyond this dilemma,
there was a more basic reason to view mass-produced housing as a false panacea. The real
housing problem, Mumford argued, was ''housing “housing of the lower half of our income
groups, and particularly, of our unskilled workers. The manufactured house no more faces
this problem than the semi-manufactured house that we know today. "”34 34 Mass production

of houses offered no solution.

As Mumford noted, the furniture industry was subject to some of the same problems as
housing. Like housing, furniture was affected-one
affected—one could almost say, "infected"-by
“infected”-—by
the ethos of mass production. And, like housing, it was plagued by the same inappropriate
model.
As discussed in Chapter 3, the mechanical engineering community played a central,
missionary role in trying to introduce the principles of mass production, as practiced in
Detroit, into the furniture and other woodworking industries. These engineers sought to
bring about standardized and unchanging designs, to introduce automatic machinery in the
working and handling of wood, and to improve finishing processes. Engineers were not
the only ones. The great promoter of mass production, Edward Filene, specifically ad-
fumiture manufacturers and urged them to "Fordize"
dressed furniture “Fordize” their operations.
operations.”
35 In

language borrowed from his The Way Out, Our, Filene argued that the future-and
future—and therefore
the furniture industry's
industry’s survival-lay
survival—lay in mass production. From his position as creator of a
prominent chain of department stores, Filene assured furniture manufacturers that his
vision of the future was sound and that mass-produced furniture would lead to greater
wealth and improved life for all.
Despite the activities of the mechanical engineers, the rhetoric of Filene, and attempts
by some furniture manufacturers, the furniture industry remained un-Fordized. Yet other
woodworking industries, such as the manufacturers of radio cabinets, moved beyond the
rhetoric of mass production to introduce successful Detroit-style production methods and
to achieve comparable outputs. The very nature of furniture consumption as a deeply
personal statement of a consumer's
consumer’s taste and personality and the relatively lengthy posses-
sion of furniture by a consumer worked decisively against the introduction of mass
production in the furniture industry. Furniture factories remained relatively small in
numbers of employees, capital investments, and output. Although they were leading
centers, Grand Rapids and High Point never became Detro Detroits
its of the furniture industry.
316 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

The ethos of mass production remained largely at a rhetorical level in

m the furniture
industry.

While mechanical engineers worked to promote standardization in furniture design and

production, the critics of the ethos of mass production identified standardization as one of
their central concerns about mass production. Whereas Edward Filene proclaimed that
Americans had "elected"
“elected” Henry Ford as their exemplar, Upton Sinclair could call the
Flivver King "the “the most hated man” man" in Detroit?"
Detroit. 36 And while millions of Americans
marveled over the fast-paced efficiency of the assembly line and waxed eloquent about the
beauty and performance of the Ford Model A and the V -8, others thought that "Henry
V-8, “Henry
Ford’s process for ...
Ford's . . . mass production [should] be shown in Museums of Unnatural
History.
History.''’ ’37
37

Aldous Huxley wrote what is still a chilling view of the future in Brave New World
(I932). To shake his readers into realizing the ultimate result of a world pervaded by the
(1932).
ethos of mass production, Huxley set his novel in the world of A.F. 632. ln In the brave new
world,
world. all time was measured after the appearance of the Ford Model T, After Ford.
Henry Ford had become the lord of the brave new world; Ford was God. Rather than
crossing themselves, as Roman Catholics had done before Ford, Ford worshipers made
the sign of the T across their stomachs. They read the Fordian Science Monitor, and
Ford's
Ford’s My Life and Work had replaced the Holy Ho(v Bible. The new catechism held that
“Ford’s
''Ford's in his flivver .... . . all's
all’s well with the world.”
world." The inhabitants of this brave new
world had been standardized to serve single-purpose functions in an emotionless, loveless loveless;
society. Thus identical Alphas were bred and brought up in large quantities to be of
superior intelligence, while identical
identical. Epsilons were bred in quantities to be brutes of
subhuman intelligence. Betas, Gammas, and Deltas fell between these extremes. This was
“the principle of mass production at last applied to biology.”3*
"the biology. " 38
Huxley used Henry Ford, his Model T, and the production system they spawned as
symbols of all that was wrong with his contemporary world: standardization, specializa-· specializa-
tion, uniformity of thought, the tyranny of overemphasizing scientific objectivity, the
curse of bigness, and the authoritarian character of society dominated by mass
production. 39 39
Although less chilling, the films of Rene Clair and Charlie Chaplin made equally
pointed statements about mass production, particularly the assembly line. Completed in
I931, Clair’s
1931, Clair's A nous Laliberte
la Ziberté (Give us our freedom) was, as George Basalla has pointed
out, "the
“the first feature film to explore the social ramifications of mass production/’40
production. " 40 The
film’s
film's plot revolves around two characters, Louis and Emile, who had been close friends
as cellmates in prison. Louis, the cunning one, escapes and in the outside world manages
to create a massive phonograph manufacturing firm. In doing so, he becomes something
of a hero in his country. After serving out his sentence, Emile, who has lost touch with his
old friend Louis, by chance becomes a worker in Louis’s Louis's factory. There he discovers not
only the true identity of the factory’s
factory's owner but the secret behind his success. Louis has
simply applied the techniques and management practices used in the prison workshop,
where both Emile and Louis had worked on an assembly line ruthlessly bossed by prison
guards. In his phonograph factory, Louis has installed a similar assembly line, and in
place of prison guards he has put equally villainous foremen. The workers wear uniforms
similar to those in the prison. In both prison and factory the work screams of monotony
and regimentation. (See Figures 8.7 and 8.8.) Thus although Clair relied upon a device at
least as old as Dickens-the comparison of prisons and factories--he faetories—he focused more
 The Ethos Q/'Mcis.r
of Mass Production 317

Q . in. . r 54% '

M ,

FIGURE 8.7.
8.7. Shift Change at Louis’s no usIa
Louis's Phonograph Factory, A nous In liberré, of
liberte, 1931. (The Museum of
Modern Art, Film Stills Archive.)

El)
Xuutt
t-..,
_ J 'VVYV .

-ant.

.,_~¢~
/_,,..,.»~

FIGURE as
8.8. Line. A nous
Phonograph Manufacture on the Assembly Line, IWus la liberte, 1931.
la liberté, (The
I931. (The
Museum of Modern Art,
A1i, Film Stills Archive.)
318 FROM TIIE
THE AMERICAN
AlvlERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

W. ~ - ~-~/a-~,...,.,_M M

FIGURE s.9. Chaplin on the Assembly Line, Modern Times, 1936. (The Museum of Modern Art.
FIGURE 8.9.
Film Stills Archive.)

precisely on the evils of mass production by his treatment of the asse~bly

assembly line and its
trappings. i
Clair’s criticism of mass production civilization is weakened by his film’s
Clair's film's ending.
predicament-—exposure to the police by blackmailers—-by
Louis escapes his predicament-exposure blackmailers-by becoming a
tramp with his friend Emile. His workers enjoy a similar romantic relief. Louis's
Louis’s phono-
phono~
graph factory has been fully automated, and its machinery now serves the workers rather
than enslaving them. The workers enjoy their "labor"“labor” by fishing, dancing, singing, and
“Gloire au bonheur! Vive la
card-playing. "Gloire sciencel”‘*1
Ia sciencc!" 41

Although Charlie Chaplin’s produc~

Chaplin's Little Tramp, like Louis, escaped the evils of mass produc-
tion society by tramping down the road of endless horizons in Modern Times (1936),
insanity~ inducing assembly line as Rene Clair had done.
Chaplin offered no solution to the insanity-inducing
After juxtaposing sheep going down a ramp to the slaughterhouse and workers entering a
factory, Chaplin sets his character, the Little Tramp, down as a worker in a mass produc
produc--..
tion factory. Of prominence in the factory are the scale of machinery and the assembly
line. In one familiar scene, a still of which has become the poster image of Modern Times,
the Little Tramp becomes enmeshed in the gigantic machinery~in
machinery-in the cogs of the syrn-·
sym-
bolic Great Machine of modern civilization. Chaplin focused on the assembly line in
another factory scene. (See Figure 8.9.) The Little Tramp works on an assembly line
tightening bolts on a nondescript object. The pace of the line is increasingly quickened.
Efficiency experts seek to improve the effid.ency
efficiency of the line by installing automatic
feeding machines on the line so that workers no longer have to take a lunch break. When
speedups on the line continue to be made, the Little Tramp eventually goes berserk, and
his frame is seized by jerking motions identical to his nut-tightening operations on the
line. (See Figure 8.10.) A paddy wagon carries the Little Tramp away. Later he finds
 The Ethos 0fMcls.r
of' Mass Production 319

FIGURE 8.10.
8.10 Chaplin Driven Crazy on the Assembly Line, Modern Times, 1936. (The Museum of
Modern Art, Film Stills Archive.)

peace and comfort in a prison, a radical contrast to the regimentation and depersonaliza-
tion of the outside mass production culture.
The standard account of how Chaplin came to make Modern Times, which which he
he had
had
originally named The Masses, appeared in his autobiography. "I remembered an inter-
view I had had with a bright young reporter on the New York World,"Wor/a’,” wrote Chaplin in
“Hearing that I was visiting Detroit, he had told me of the factory-belt system
1964. ''Hearing
there—~a
there-a harrowing story of big industry luring healthy young men off the farms who,
after four or five years at the belt system, became nervous wrecks/’42
wrecks. " 42 But the factory
scenes in Modern Times were based on more than hearsay about Detroit's
Detroit’s “factory-belt”
''factory-belt''
systems, and, as argued by a recent biographer, the sight of a "miniature
“miniature version of the
restaurant."“3
factory-belt system in a Los Angeles restaurant.' ' 43 During the height of the Model T era,
Ford’s Highland Park factory and was given a VIP tour by Henry
Chaplin actually visited Ford's
and Edsel Ford. There, in addition to seeing manufacturing operations including the
assembly line, Chaplin saw the power plant, which was once as much a source of pride for
Ford as the line. (See Figure 88.11.)
.11.) The scale and impressions of that plant
plant would
would later
later
appear in the sets of Modern
Modem Times. Moreover, while in Detroit Chaplin also toured the
Cadillac factory, where, although he observed a different pace, he saw largely the same
assemblyfii
approach in final assembly. 44

In Detroit during this and perhaps later visits, Chaplin also learned about some of the
less than pleasant aspects of the assembly line, especially that of Henry Ford. Critics of
320 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTE!vt
SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCT!Ol"
PRODUCTION

FIGURE 8.1
3.11.J. Charles Chaplin with Edsel B. Ford and Henry Ford in the Power Plant, Highland
Park Factory, 1923. (Henry Ford Museum, The Edison Institute. Neg. No. 0-4144.)
O-4144.)

the Ford line thrived on the rumor, which had circulated since the assembly line was first
introduced, that Ford workers could not leave the fast pace of the line to relieve them-
selves in the restroom, that lunch breaks had been reduced to a minimum, and that
somebody was always watching the workman at Ford’s. Ford's. Such rumors had only intensified
during the Model A and early V V-8
-8 eras, when Charles Sorensen became known as the
ruthless big boss driver of River Rouge. When Chaplin’s
Chaplin's Little Tramp seeks relief in the
washroom, he finds to his horror that he is being watched by a television camera. The
factory’s big boss appears on a television screen on the lavatory's
factory's lavatory’s wall and tells the Tramp
to get back to work. Although without the futuristic television device-and
device—and feeding
machines—one encounters similar accounts in works such as Upton Sinclair's
machines-one SincIair’s The Flivver
King (1937).
Most contemporary critics of Modern Times dismissed the film as naive, trivial, or
poor social commentary, but the public liked it."5
it. 45 Modern Times was increasingly viewed
as a brilliant commentary on mass production society. As James Agee said in 1948, I948, every
motion picture produced since Modern Times had been "child's “child’s play."
play.” Most recently,
George Basalla has written that despite its obvious derivation from Clair-’s
Clair's A nous la
liberté,
liberte, Modern Times "remains
“remains the single best film ever made for a mass audience
treating technology within a social context.'
context.”’*°
' 46
Other critics of the ethos of mass production in the United States wmried
worried about its
spread beyond the United States. The prolific German psychologist, Richard Muller-· Mi'1IIer--
 The Ethos ofMas.s‘
of' Mass Production 2
321

Freienfels, in his 1929 work The Mysteries of the Soul, equated mass production, the
mechanization and standardization of humans, and Americanization. He feared the Amer-
“conformity to mass standardization r[and]
icanization of the soul, a process that bred "conformity andl to
convenience.” “Taylorism and Fordism are the systematic accomplishment of this mech-
convenience.'' ''Taylorism
anization of the human being,"
being,” Miiller-Freienfels
Muller-Freienfels argued, and he opposed this "tyranny
“tyranny
Beard's edition of Whither Mankind: A
technique.” Writing on business in Charles Beard’s
of technique."
Panorama o.lModern (I 930), Julius Klein expressed similar fears: "It
ofModern Civilization (1930), “It is ...
. . .
only with the greatest caution and reserve that one can contemplate the transfer of
American methods of efficiency, mass production, and rationalization to the industrial
communities of Europe. "’ ’47
47

In the same book, Stuart Chase wrote an article on play, which explored the impact of
mass production on American leisure. Echoing other critics, Chase related the rise of mass
sport in the United States to the rise of mass production. Mass sport and mass entertain-
ment provided a degenerate way for the masses to work off the tensions caused by mass
production. Chase noted that no better evidence of the negative effect of mass production
on leisure was to be found than by listening to the music coming out of Detroit: "Its “Its
pounding rhythm is as simple as tightening bolts [in a Ford factory]. lt It gives very little
scope for individual expression.”
expression." The marriage of mass production and play was prob-
lematic. In contrast to Henry Ford, Chase offered no solutions. The Flivver King had said
that what everybody needed was some good square dancing. But Chase closed by saying
“it will take more barn dances than Henry Ford can ever pay for, to throw off the
that "it
[mass production's]
yoke of that !mass production’s] brutality.
brutality.”48
" 48
Labor union critics of mass production often spoke of the brutality of the assembly
line. Among countless critiques of what has more recently become known as the blue-
collar trap, one in particular stands out. In 1932, the Rock Island, Illinois, Tri-City Labor
Review published these worker’s
worker's words:
lI ran into a fellow the other day who is waiting for one of the new Fords. "Nice car." car,”
he told me.
But II always think about a visit I once paid to one of Ford's
Ford"s assembling plants every
time any one mentions a Ford car to me. Every employee seemed to be restricted to a
well-defined jerk. twist, spasm, or quiver resulting in a 11ivcr
tliver /sic].
[sic]. JI never thought it
possible that human beings could be reduced to such perfect automats [sic 1.
[sic].
I looked constantly for the wire or belt concealed about their bodies which kept them
in motion with such marvelous clock-like precision. lI failed to discover how motive
power is transmitted to these people and as it don’t
don't seem reasonable that human beings
would willingly consent to being simplified into jerks, II assume that their wives wind
them up while asleep.
I shall never be able to look another Tin Lizzie in the face without shuddering at the
memory of Henry's
Henry’s manikins [sic].""'l
lsiclfilg

Sinclair’s The Flivver King represented Ford’s

Upton Sinclair's Ford's system of mass production as
being equally brutal. Yet in this historical novel, Sinclair expressed disgust that even
many of Ford’s
Ford's own employees believed in Henry Ford and in the benefits of mass
production and mass consumption as mythologized in M.r My Life and Work and other
writings even though they had experienced the brutality of the Ford factory and its bosses
and further dehumanization caused by massive unemployment for extended periods of
time. With one exception, all members of Sinclair's
Sinclair’s Abner Shutt family in The Flivver
King poured their Jives
lives into mass production at the Ford factory only to be robbed in the
end of their homes and their humanity.
322 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

Sinclair's
Sinclair’s Detroit had become known as early as 1932 as the "beleaguered “beleaguered capital of
mass production. "’ ’5° The Great Depression had demonstrated that mass production could
50

bring mass unemployment or, more properly, unemployment of the masses. While many
such as Filene continued to argue that now more than ever mass production was the
salvation of modern society, Paul Mazur noted that the Great Depression had demon-
strated that “mass ''mass production has not proved itself to be an unmixed blessing; in the
course of its onward march lie overproduction and the disastrous discontinuity of industry
that comes as a consequence."
consequence.” Mazur pleaded with his New York Times readers to see
mass production as "an “an alluring but false doctrine."
doctrine.” Moreover, Mazur argued, "It “It is
essential for business to realize that unquestioning devotion to mass production can [only]
disaster." 51
bring disaster.”5‘
Mazur’s critique of mass production appeared on the heels of a previous Times Maga-
Mazur's
zine article, ''Gandhi
“Gandhi Dissects the Ford Idea.’
Idea.''’ In his article, Harold Callender established
a radical dichotomy between Ford's Ford’s and Gandhi's
Gandhi’s respective views of happiness. While
Gandhi offered widespread handicrafts as the solution to global problems of unemploy-
ment and hunger, Ford offered his doctrine of mass production. The Times Magazine
juxtaposed a photograph of an assembly line with one of a group of Indian hand spinners.
Captions under the two photographs read: ''The “The Ford Formula for Happiness-A Happiness—A Mass-
Production Line" Line” and "The“The Gandhi Formula for Happiness-A
Happiness—A Group of Handcraft
Spinners.'
Spinners/’52 ' 52
Few Americans would have resorted to the Gandhi formula, but it seemed obvious to
most of them that developments in mass production had not been matched by the develop-
ment of mass consumption. As Mazur put it, "The “The power of production ... . . . has been so
great that its products have multiplied at geometric rates ... . . . at the same time the power
of consumption—even
consumption-even under the influence influence of stimuli damned as unsocial and tending
toward protligacy obsolescence]—has expanded
profligacy [for example, advertising and built-in obsolescencel-has
only at a comparatively slow arithmetic rate.”53 rate.' ' Curtailing production and allowing
53

consumption to match production was one solution-a solution—a sensible one in the minds of the
critics of mass production. But alongside what Mazur called the "industrial “industrial cult"
cult” of mass
production there arose a cult of mass consumption.
The problem, argued its high priests, was not mass production but mass consumption.
Depression times demanded a new breed of engineer: the ''consumption “consumption engineer. ""54 54 The

new consumption engineer would complement the production engineer through aggressive
marketing activities, especially advertising. He would manufacture customers. The 1930s l930s
witnessed the publication of a phenomenal amount of literature on the ''economics “economics of
consumption," much of which dealt in one form or another with marketing and advertis-
consumption,''
ing.55
ing. 55 Despite the fears of many, such as the banker Mazur, that consumption engineering

tended toward profligacy,

profligacy, advertising grew in its "slickness."
“slickness.”
As Stuart Ewen points out in his Captains of Consciousness, advertisers saw their role
as helping society to overcome a “puritanism consumption.”56
''puritanism in consumption.' ' 56 They did so by avoid-
ing what the leading advertising copy writer, Helen Woodward, called the "real, “real, inner
truth.” In a revealing piece, she shared the secret of her success: "If
truth." “If you are advertising
any product never see the factory in which it was made. made . .. .. .. Don't
Don’t watch the people at
work.. .. .. .. Because, you see, when you know the truth about anything, the real, inner
work
truth——it
truth-it is very hard to write the surface fluff which sells it. ’ ’ It was precisely this posture
it.''
that also led many critics of mass production to call into question the institution of
advertising, which the historian David Potter later called the "institution “institution of abun-
 The Ethos of Mass Production 23
323

dance.”57
dance. " 57 By its very own needs, mass production had created a profligacy
profligacy that was
“damned as unsocial,”
"damned unsocial," just as was mass production's
production’s transformation of workers into
automata.58
automata. 58

“real, inner truth"

Of the critics of the ethos of mass production who dared to see the "real, truth”
of a mass production factory, Diego Rivera was in many ways the most pointed and
dramatic. In 1932-33, Rivera painted an impressive series of frescoes in the Garden Court
of the Detroit Institute of Art portraying mass production at Ford's
Ford’s River Rouge complex
as well as the larger operations of the company.”
company. (See Figures 8.
59 8.12-8.14.)
12-8.14.) The frescoes,
which took eight months to complete, were the result of Rivera's
Rivera’s intense, month-long
study of the Rouge and its operations (supported by the documentary photography of Ford
Motor Company photographer W. JJ.. Stettler). And, of course, the context of Rivera’s Rivera's
work was Detroit in the Depression, Detroit the ''beleaguered
“beleaguered capital of mass production.''
production. ”
The men who commissioned Rivera's
Rivera’s murals, Edsel B. Ford, Albert Kahn, Charles T.
Fischer, and Julius H. Haas, had never imagined that the Mexican artist would focus on
mass production at the Rouge. In his initial letter of commission, the director of the
Detroit Institute of Arts informed Rivera that these arts commissioners had originally said
“would be pleased if you could find something out of the history of Detroit, or some
they ''would
motif suggesting the development of industry in the town; but at the end they decided to
leave it entirely to you.”6°
you. " 6 0
The Rouge captivated Rivera from the moment he arrived in Detroit in April 1932.
Edsel Ford had offered to open the doors of any firm or factory in Detroit, but Rivera
found this unnecessary. Although perhaps in extremes, the Rouge spoke of the times and
of the place-of
place— of an era in which, despite a severe economic depression, an ethos of mass
production prevailed and of the firm that had created mass production. The Rouge pro-
vided Rivera the means to comment on the era and to interpret mass production. He was
originally commissioned to produce frescoes for only two panels of the Garden Court.
When he first learned of the sum of the commission, before he arrived in Detroit, Rivera
said that he would do only parts of those panels. But the month he spent at the Rouge
compelled him to want to paint the entire Garden Court of twenty-seven panels for a
fraction over twice the figure of the original two-panel commission.
In two major panels on the north and south walls (each roughly 45 >< X 17.5
l7.5 feet), their
twelve predella panels, and two vertical panels on the west wall, Rivera captured the
motion and pace, the power and scale, the total environment of the mass production
factory. By his inclusion of a gallery of tourists and the very dynamism conveyed in these
paintings, he stated that mass production was a spectacle to be heard and felt as well as
seen.“
seen. ;\/Iarxist, chose to focus on workers whose pace and motions were
61 Rivera, a !viarxist,

controlled by the massive machinery surrounding them. A number of workers are placed
in the foreground, but they are dominated by the machines behind them, machines which,
as in the case of a fender stamping press, seem to be anthropomorphic.
anthropomorphic.” 62 Highly animated

and distorted by the machine while working, the weary laborers sit hunched over during
day’s
their lunch break and file sheepishly out of the factory after collecting their wages at day's
end.
Although providing more information about the product being made than Chaplin did
in Modern Times, Rivera, like the filmmaker, showed a far greater interest in the process
and pace of mass production than in the product. Just as Chaplin chose not to specify
objects being made on the line in Modern Times, Rivera elected not to paint completely
manufactured and assembled Ford automobiles. The "real, “real, inner truth”
truth" of mass produc-
\.;.)
N
..,.
Eémv
I6
‘BN;
Nmi
582
fiobug
zggq
U202:

FIGURE 8.12. North Wall, Detroit Industry. Diego Rivera, Detroit Institute of Arts, 1932. (Founders Society Purchase, Edsel B. Ford Fund & Gift of Edsel B
E9Qmmsci
fiosom
25%EE
mEém §Eé_5_m
r“o2“m0€<
:35wfi“:fiugm

Us
fig
Zgg
6'O35éN§_EQ

“2535
Ford. Courtesy of the Detroit Institute of Arts.)

BiQt ow
oaumtj_E£
 gnu
GEL
Emwm
“O
EEUQ

FIGURE
tfigom

s.n South Wall, Detroit Industry, Diego Rivera, Detroit Institute of Arts, 1932-33. (Founders Society Purchase, Edsel B. Ford Fund & Gift of Edsel
2QQEDOHC
gfimsom
gCwofi
:Jgwgs
Ecmqgim:r_o“mg_wmfim_Egg
m‘__m>>
Ngm2mhm:/x

A_mt
B
EEQQ
L6
gggws
B. Ford. Courtesy of the Detroit Institute of Arts.)

2: <:CU
HuémEEDav

>w®:Am_©5n__
VJ
('...)
U\
326 Mt\SS I'RODUCTION
AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS
FROM THE AMERICAN’ PRODUCTION

.§§I..';, ..

, ' . .. Q . .s:,_"_u-a mp. _ " . ' . .... ¢‘,T~'~\in_~~g>2;> .

FIGURE 8.14.
FrGURE 8.14. Detail, South Wall, Detroit Industry, Diego Rivera, Detroit Institute of Arts,
Detail, South
1932-33. Note the gallery of spectators. (Founders Society Purchase, Edsel B. Ford Fund & Gift of
1932--33.
Courtesy of the Detroit Institute of Arts.)
Edsel B. Ford. Com1esy
 The Ethos 0fMass Proalucriori
of Mass Production 327

tion was what took place in the factory, not its product. Thus Rivera stood Helen Wood-
ward, the advertiser who had admonished her peers never to go near their clients'
clients’ facto-
ries, on her head.
When the Rivera frescoes were opened for public viewing, they created an intense
outcry. Some people labeled them blatantly communistic; others simply said they should
be whitewashed (a portent of what would later happen to Rivera’s
Rivera's Rockefeller Center
mural). Rivera said in Art Digest that "I“I paint what I see. Some society ladies have told
me they found the murals cold and hard. I answer that their subject is steel, and steel is
both cold and hard.'
hard.”63
' 63 But as Rivera well knew, the subject of the frescoes went far
beyond steel; it went to the very heart of mass production-to
production—to the
the mechanized,
mechanized, conveyor-
conveyor-
laced, assembly-line-dominated factory and its human appendages.

Ford’s River Rouge plant, captured by Rivera as a major symbol of mass production,
Ford's
was the result of more than a century and a quarter of development since the United States
Ordnance Department first committed the nation's
nation’s resources to achieving uniformity in
muskets and other small arms. The road from the Springfield and Harpers Feny Ferry armories
to Detroit was neither short nor direct. Though the advantages of the ''uniformity
“uniformity princi-
pie” seemed obvious to the Enlightened, French-influenced officers of the Ordnance
ple"
Department, and though they could draw extensively upon the public treasury, the actual
attainment of uniform or interchangeable parts manufacture eluded almost two genera-
tions of the nation's
nation’s most talented mechanics.
The production of interchangeable parts entailed far more than its early proponents
visualized, and it demanded more of them than anyone first expected. Not only did the
armory mechanics have to figure out how their goal could be realized in theory but also in
practice. This achievement required developing a system of jigs, fixtures, and gauges that
were based on a "perfect"
“perfect” model and establishing procedures to maintain a constant vigil
over the accuracy of these special devices and the machine tools with which they were
used. Armory mechanics also pursued the development of machine tools. Their efforts
paralleled those of other American inventors and mechanics in that the focus of much of
their work was in the construction of special- or single-purpose machine tools.
For the noted English machine tool builder Joseph Whitworth, these special-purpose
machine tools distinguished what later became known as the ''American“American system”
system'' of
manufactures. As he noted in his special report on American manufacturing, Americans
“call in the aid of machinery in almost every department of industry. Wherever it can be
''call
introduced as a substitute for manual labour, it is universally and willingly resorted to."
to. ’ ’6“
64

Pinmaking, clockmaking, barrelmaking,

ban·elmaking, and other traditional handicrafts had been mech-
anized in the United States by the early 1850s.
18505.
Armory mechanics brought this stream of development of special-purpose machines
and tools together with their quest for interchangeability. In his small-scale Rifle Works at
Harper’s Fen·y,
Harper's Ferry, John H. Hall was perhaps the first mechanic to to succeed, but it was at the
Springfield Armory in the 1840s
l840s and early 1850s that small arms were manufactured with
interchangeable parts by special machines and tools on a "large"
“large” scale. It was to these
developments at Springfield that latter-day historians alluded when they wrote of the
American system of manufactures. But to the mechanics of the nineteenth century, the
developments at Springfield and other armories of special-purpose machines and tools;.tools; a
model-based jig, fixture, and gauging system; and even the system of shop management
“armory practice.”
were known simply as ''armory practice.'' The mechanic who had been schooled in
armory practice in the antebellum period became a fundamental agent in the diffusion of
328 FROM THE Ai\IER!CAN
AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS
rviASS PRODUCTION

this technology to other manufacturing industries. Wherever armory practice was

adopted, it was invariably the work of a mechanic or group of mechanics who had worked
itwas
in the federal or the prominent private armories.
The sewing machine industry was perhaps the first American industry to adopt in toto rota
the techniques used in small arms manufacture. Yet not every manufacturer of sewing
machines relied upon armory practice. Some sewing machine makers initially or quickly
employed armory mechanics and their techniques, but at least one did not do so. Singer
Manufacturing Company demonstrated that success in the sewing machine industry did
not necessarily depend on the adoption of this new manufacturing technology. Using what
contemporaries called the European approach to manufacture-skilled
manufacture—-skilled workers using
general-purpose machine tools and extensive hand labor-Singer
labor—Singer succeeded in the busi-
ness because its leaders built a finely tuned international marketing organization for the
Singer sewing machine.
Eventually, when Singer began to dominate the industry and when its sales had grown
to tens of thousands and soon hundreds of thousands of units, the company's company’s leaders
pushed for the gradual adoption of armory practice. When annual production reached. reached
almost half a million sewing machines in the early 1880s,
l880s, it seemed imperative to Singer
executives to achieve the manufacture of interchangeable parts for the Singer sewing
machine. But to the dismay of many, Singer's
Singer’s production experts found that such a goal
was not easy to achieve. Indeed, manuscript records end before there is clear evidence that
Singer realized its goal. The Ford Motor Company may have been the first manufacturer
to have produced as impressive a number of units as Singer with parts that interchanged.
Paradoxically, though the Singer Company demonstrated that an American manufac-
“universally resorted to”
turer did not have to adopt the "universally to" special machinery to succeed ini.n
the sewing machine industry, it showed that woodwork could be turned out in large
quantities with specialized machinery in comparatively large factories. The case or cabi-
net manufacturing operations of Singer's
Singer’s South Bend, Indiana, and Cairo, Illinois, facto-
ries offer a stark contrast to most woodworking factories of the late nineteenth century. lnIn
particular, the example of Singer demonstrates that it was at least technically possible to
“mass-produce“ furniture, something that many have thought difficult if not altogether
"mass-produce"
impossible. The case of Singer suggests that other factors-primarily
factors—primarily style changes and
taste——-have
matters of personal taste-have mediated against the rise of a Ford in the manufacture of
furniture.
The history of the McCormick reaper company closely parallels that of Singer in the
manufacture of the sewing machine. A careful examination of McCormick production
technology suggests that, like Singer, McCormick relied for a long time upon general
machines and skilled workers. And like Singer, McCormick succeeded in the reaper
business not because of its production technology but because of the company's
company’s emphasis
on marketing its product. Eventually, McCormick paid closer attention to its manufactur-
ing operations. Cyrus McCormick finally moved the company away from older manufac-
turing techniques toward armory practice in the early 1880s, when he hired an armory
mechanic well-versed in its methods. McCormick's
McCormick’s move occurred thirty years after he is
commonly believed to have adopted the American system of manufactures.
Whereas the cases of Singer and McCormick suggest the relative slowness of the
diffusion of techniques developed in antebellum armories, the history of the bicycle
industry clearly demonstrates that different manufacturing approaches were developed
that would later be of major importance in the development of mass production at the Ford
Motor Company. Bicycle makers located primarily in New England brought to perfection
 The Ethos of Mass Production 2
329

the techniques of armory practice. Indeed, contemporaries argued that with the bicycle
came the first widespread diffusion of armory practice. Abandoning time-honored metal-
working techniques, however, midwestern manufacturers pioneered in the production of
metal bicycle parts from sheet steel. Though viewed by armory mechanics as ''cheap “cheap and
sorry,” pressed steel parts would become an essential technique in the mass production of
smTy,''
the automobile.
less than a decade, the Ford Motor Company brought together the best of armory
In Jess
practice with the rapidly developing techniques of pressed steel work. To these ap-
proaches, Ford production men added fresh thinking about work sequences, tool design,
and controlling the pace of work in the Ford factory. When challenged to produce more of
the standardized Model T' T’ss at lower cost and when allowed virtually free rein to experi-
ment with new methods, the Ford team brought about a revolution in manufacture: mass
production. The development of the moving assembly line was a key element in this
revolution. But in addition, one must add Ford's Ford’s ability to manufacture tremendous
quantities of interchangeable parts, the installation of unprecedented numbers of highly
specialized machine tools, and conveyor systems that were applied everywhere. To ensure
that workers would continue to labor in the increasingly mechanized and faster driven
factory, Ford initiated the five-dollar day, an unprecedented incentive that proved to be
the final element in the development of mass production at Ford.
Thirteen years and fifteen million Model T’s Ford's system of mass
T's later, however, Ford’s
production reached a dead end. The single-purpose manufacture of a single car model
with single-purpose machinery resulted in saturation of the market for Model T' s. During
T’s.
I 920s Ford saw its share of the market drop
the 19205 from more than half to less than a sixth.
Such a decline can be comprehended only by understanding how entirely committed
Ford's company was
company's system of mass production. While Ford’s
Henry Ford was to his company’s
losing its share of the market, Henry Ford was enlarging and integrating the operations of
the Rouge with the implicit idea that the Highland Park factory, the birthplace of mass
production, was not a satisfactory home for mass production to be developed as fully as
possible.
Though Henry Ford continued to enlarge the Rouge, the precipitous decline of the
Model T led him finally to introduce a new car, the Model A. The extent of the overhaul
required to manufacture the Model A and the problems encountered make clear how far
the Ford Motor Company had traveled down the dead-end road of single-purpose or mass
production. With the Model A and its successor the V-8, Ford adopted ''flexible“flexible mass
production,” a development in which General Motors--especially
production," Motors—cspecially its Chevrolet Divi-
sion——had pioneered. The lessons of changing over hom
sion-had from one model to another were
painfully learned by Ford production experts, and industry analysts questioned as late as
I933 whether they had really mastered this fundamental part of the new mass production
1933
technology.
Ford's long-term success with the Model T
As pointed out above, however, Ford’s T and its
changeover to the Model A led many Americans to believe that a new era of style and
beauty, economy, and abundance was at hand. These were the Americans who in the late
l920s and early 1930s helped to create an ethos of mass production.
1920s

l930s wore on, many of those who had espoused the ethos of
As the decade of the 1930s
mass production clung tenaciously to its precepts. The critics of mass production also
continued to fire salvos at the machine, while industrial designers worked to reshape
era’s material culture, thus aiding the increasingly powerful new
almost every part of the era's
330 FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION

consumption engineers of Madison Avenue.“ Avenue. 65 But the Depression did not go away. In
spite of its benefits, even when coupled with the new emphasis on stylized consumption,
mass production failed to fulfill the vision of its prophets.
An external force finally brought an end to the Depression and renewed America's America’s
faith in its mass production system. That force was World War II. Lewis Mumford had
tied all the pieces together in his classic work of 1934,I934, Technics and Civilization, in which
he pointed to the military as the source, and indeed the salvation, of mass production.
Growing out of the standardization and quantity production of military weapons in the late
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, mass production was at once the means of
support for and an extension of the regimentation and quantity consumption of soldiers
outfitted in standardized uniforms consuming standardized goods. The army was, in
Mumford’s estimation, the perfect "pattern
Mumford's “pattern not only of production but of ideal consump-
consump-·
tion under the machine system.''
system.” Mumford concluded: ''Quantity
“Quantity production must rely
for its success upon quantity consumption; and nothing ensures replacement like orga-
nized destruction.
destruction . .. .. .. War ...
. . . is the health of the machine.
machine.”66 “organized de--
" 66 The "organized
struction” of World War II, made possible by the mass production of war materiel, served
struction''
not only to bring an end to the Great Depression but to solidify the position of mass
production in American society. Nevertheless, the war brought an end to the era domi- dorni-
nated by an ethos of mass production, and, of course, its critics. The specter of the atomic
bomb removed mass production from its central place in American consciousness and
forced the nation and the world into the nuclear age. Like the era dominated by the ethos
of mass production, the nuclear age held out unlimited promises to some Americans while
for others it heralded the ultimate destruction of humanity.
APPENDIX 1I

The Evolution of the

Expression The American
System of Manufactures

The
• •
ition • •
he 0Ojjficial
tion
J!icial Descriptive and Ill
included entries for
Illustrated
Colt,
Catalogue
us!rated C
McCormick,
of the
aialo g ue of the Crystal Palace Exhi
Singer, and Robbins &
& Lawrence
bi- 1851
Exhibi-

but noted only that the latter's

latter’s rifles were manufactured such that "the “the various parts
[were] made to interchange."
interchange.“1 Samuel Colt'sColt’s display of pistols interested Englishmen
enough to win for Colt an invitation to deliver an address before the Institution of Civil
Engineers. In his paper, "On
J:ngineers. “On the Application of Machinery to the Manufacture of Rotat-
ing Chambered-Breech Fire-Arms and the Peculiarities of Those Arms," Arms,” delivered
November 25, 1851,I851, Colt never referred to his method of manufacture as the American
system. During the discussion session that followed, however, a Mr. Hodge alluded to
“Colonel Colt's
"Colonel Colt’s system of manufacturing/’2
manufacturing. " 2 Subsequently, the Civil Engineer and Ar-
chitecfs Journal summarized Colt's
chitect's Colt’s paper. The editor who wrote the summary mentioned
“the
"the system [of manufacture] adopted in England and on the Continent, of making
firearms almost entirely by manual labor."
labor.” By contrast, one can infer either Colt's
Colt’s system
of manufacture or the American system of manufactures?
manufactures. 3

When Charles Tomlinson published the 1853 edition of his Rudimentary

Rr{(/imentary Treatise on 1853
the Construction of Locks, he contrasted the "handicraft"
“liana’icraft" system with the ·“factory
'factm)'
system.” A critical dimension of the factory system was the "mode
system." “mode of producing ... . . .
articles" by machinery. Tomlinson noted that the "system
“system of manufacturing on a large
scale [was] more nearly universal in the United States than in England.”
England." He implied,
however, that what was taking place in the United States was simply a part of the
development of the factory system.“
system. 4

Upon their return to England from their tour of duty as commissioners to the New York 1854
Crystal Palace Exhibition (1853), Joseph Whitworth and George Wallis wrote special
I854. Neither report contained the expression American
reports, which were published in 1854.
systeni of manufactures, yet both stressed that in the United States special-purpose ma-
system
chines and machine tools were very common. As Whitworth wrote, Americans "call “call in
the aid of machinery in almost every department of industry. Wherever it can be intro-
duced as a substitute for manual labor, it is universally and willingly resorted to.”5
to. " 5

331
332 APPENDIX
APPENDIX ll

Following the publication of these reports, Parliament's

Parliament’s Select Committee on Small
Arms conducted its investigation of the "existing
“existing system”
system" of arms procurement in En··
En»
gland and the ''advantages
“advantages of producing muskets by machinery.”
machinery.'' As stressed above in
Chapter l, throughout the proceedings and testimony of ofthis
this committee, the developments
in American small arms production were referred to variously as the ''American
“American plan,''
plan,"
“Springfield principle,”
the "Springfield principle," the "Springfield
“Springfield system," the "Russian
“Russian Plan,”
Plan," and the
“almost perfect system of Samuel Colt."
"almost Colt.” While on the witness stand, John Anderson was
asked how long it would take him and a committee of others ''to “to learn the whole of the
system” of arms production. Although this is without question the clearest
American system"
usc of the expression that historians later wrote about, it appears that neither the
early use
select committee nor Anderson’s
Anderson's committee endowed the term with any great
significancef’6
significance.

1855 The lack of significance in the select committee's

committee’s casual use of the term American
system is underlined by the fact when Anderson’s
Anderson's committee was formed, it was called the
Committee on the Machinery of the United States of America rather than the Committee
Manufacture. 7 Moreover, as noted in Chapter 1,
on the American System of Manufacture.7 l, the commit·
commit»
tee’s
tee's report of 1855
l855 referred to American manufacturing methods in a number of ways.
Only once did the principal author, Anderson, use the words "American “American system.
system.”
"8
Without question, Anderson was alluding to methods of small arms production used at the
Springfield Armory and other arms factories.
factories, but he employed the term casually, without
emphasis, and without any transcendent meaning.
Colt’s London armory closed, the Charles Dickens-run Household
Not long before Colt's
Words featured an article on it.it.99 The writer described the manufacture of the pistol in
identify these procedures as the American system of manufactures.
depth but did not Identify

1857 The author of a similar at1icle

article on Colt's
Colt’s Hartford armory, published in the United
States Magazine, also failed to label Colt's
Colt’s production methods with any special term.
This fact deserves emphasis because the article described Colt's
Colt’s display at the London
Crystal Palace, his lecture before the Institution of Civil Engineers, his testimony before
the select committee, and the visit of the Anderson committee to the Colt armory in
1854.10
1854. 10

When Anderson had completed the task of establishing the American-equipped Enfield
Arsenal, he gave a paper to the Royal Society of Arts, "On
“On the Application of Machinery
in the War Department.”" Anderson’s paper is filled with the word system, but in no
Department." Anderson's
11

instance did he employ the expression American system or American system of

manufactures.
rnanufactu res.

1859 In a subsequent paper, ''On

“On Some Applications of the Copying or Transfer Principle in
the Production of Wooden Articles,''
Articles,” Anderson described the Blanchard-type gunstocking
machinery at Enfield as well as the "American
“American system of turning long poles.”‘2
poles." 12 In his
writings at least, Anderson did not restrict his use of
of/imerican
American system to any particular set
of techniques or methods. Nor did the author of an article on the American Alfred C.
Hobbs’s “English system-or
Hobbs's English lock factory. The writer described the "English system—or rather, no
system—of lock-making”
system-of lock-making" and then contrasted this with "Mr.
“Mr. Hobbs’
Hobbs' system of manufac-
turing.” Hobbs, like Colt, employed a "system
turing." “system of working from standard gauges."
gauges/’3‘313

But the Engineer's

Engineer’s illustrated description of the Enfield Arsenal was more precise in
 Expression The American System of Manufactures
The Erpression 333

linking the techniques used at Enfield with American practice. "This “This arrangement,"
arrangement,”
reported the Engineer, "is
“is on the general system in use in the United States."
States. ’ ’ 14
14 American
system of manufactures still had not been used nor had it yet become a meaning-laden
phrase.

“On the Application of the Copying Principle 1862

When John Anderson delivered a paper, "On
in the Manufacture and Rifling of Guns,”
Guns," to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in
1862, he made no mention of the American system.
systern.l5
15

Charles Hutton Gregory devoted part of his 1868 l868 presidential address before the 1868
Institution of Civil Engineers to the first ten years of the Enfield Arsenal. Gregory noted
lnstitution
that the work of Samuel Colt, John Anderson, and others had led the parliamentary select
committee to recommend "a “a new system"
system” of military arms production in England. The
method adopted was ·'the
“the system of concentration and of copying-machinery.''
copying—machinery.”1616 No-

where did Gregory use the expression American system, although he pointed out that
Enfield had
bad been '·stocked
“stocked with improved machinery, founded on that already in use in
the United States Arsenals at Springfield and Harper's
Harper’s Ferry."
Ferry. " 17
'7

A decade later, in 1878, Sir Thomas Brassey delivered a series published as Lectures 1878
on the Labour Question in which he talked about the diffusion of interchangeable parts
arms production technology to other areas of manufacture. Brassey cited the case of the
Peabody Rifle Company of Providence, Rhode Island, which had initiated manufacture of
sewing machines.“
machines. 18 In no instance, however, did he employ the expression American
system of manufactures.
In the United States, Thomas Edison invented the phonograph and projected its wide-
spread manufacture. JnIn a letter to his agent GeorgeS.
George S. Nottage, he stressed that "this
“this
machine can only be built on the American principle of interchangeability of parts like a
gun or a sewing machine.”"’
machine." 19

With the publication of Charles H. Fitch’s

Fitch's Tenth U.S. Census "Report
“Report on the Manufac- 1881
tures of Interchangeable Mechanism''
Mechanism" the term American system began to take on a specific
and definite meaning. In his initial section on the manufacture of firearms, Fitch equated
the "development
“development of the interchangeable system"
system” with the "development
“development of the Ameri-
system.” He also traced the ··adoption
can system.'' “adoption of the American system in foreign countries.''
countries. ”
"The
“The interchangeable system,"
system,“ Fitch wrote, "with
“with its astonishing results and its inge-
nious plants of machinery, was distinctively American.' ' 20
American/’2°

Beckett’s article "Lock"

Sir Edmund Beckett's En-
“Lock” appeared in the ninth edition of the En» 1882
cyciopaedia Britannica in 1882.
cyclopaedia I882. It concluded with the following statement:
It should be added that Mr. Hobbs introduced into England in 1851\851 the American system
of manufacturing every part of a lock by machinery, so that all similar locks of a given
are exactly alike, except the keys, and the gating in the tumblers, which is cut when
size arc
they are lifted by the key; and even those are done by machinery adjustable to secure
what may be called an infinite
infimte number of variations. The same system has been adopted
in the Government rifle manufactorics,
manufactories, and for clocks and watches; and no hand-work can
it.3l
compete with it.2I
334 APPENDIX
APPENDIX lI

This is the first unambiguous, definitional statement published about the American system
of manufactures by an Englishman of which I am aware. Since the first volume of both the
English and the American editions of the ninth edition appeared in 1875,
l8"/'5, Beckett probably
wrote his article in the 1870s-some
l870s»—some twenty years after Englishmen are supposed to have
commonly used the expression American system of manufactures.

1883 The publication of the autobiography of James Nasmyth, edited by Samuel Smiles, in
New York in 1883 solidified the term American system, at least for latter-day historians.
Nasmyth recounted the select committee's
committee’s deliberations of 1854 l854 and the Board of Ord--
Ord-
nance’s plans to "introduce
nance's “introduce the American system, by which arms might be produced
much more perfectly, and at a great diminution of cost.'
cost."’22
' 22
Although it is fair to assume that Nasmyth was alluding to the manufacture of inter-- inter»
changeable parts “Cutlery at Sheffield,''
patis firearms, a contemporary article, ''Cutlery Sheffield,” stated that
“Sheffield is now alive to the American system,"
"Sheffield system,” implying only that English cutlery
manufacturers were adopting special-purpose machinery.”
machinery. 23
Writing under the pseudonym of Chordal, James W. Sec See touched on American man man-..
ufacturing methods in several of his letters to the American Machinist in 1883.
I883. In May he
“Our American systems of labor-saving machinery and devices are probably, in a
wrote, ''Our
general way, the most marvelous and perfect in the world.”24
world." 24 A month later he used the
“Scientific System of Production"
sewing machine industry as an example of the "Scientific Production” or
“Yankee manufacture."
"Yankee manufacture.” For Chordal, "the“the manufacturing system”
system" implied interchange-
interchange--
able parts manufacture.“
manufacture. 25

Chordal’s
Chordal's letters generated several "Personal
“Personal Recollections"
Recollections” of S. W. Goodyear, also
published in American Machinist. Goodyear recalled some interesting episodes in the
early sewing machine industry, but his major emphasis was in making the distinction
between building and manufacturing. He also discussed interchangeable manufacture and
the demands it placed on its creators. Even in this discussion, however, Goodyear did not
employ the magic words American system.
system.26
26

1884 Charles H. Fitch returned to the history of interchangeable manufacture in 1884,

I884, when
he published a clever article in the Magazine a/American
ofAmerican History entitled ''The
“The Rise of a
Mechanical Ideal.”
Ideal.'' Of course, that mechanical ideal was the ''interchangeable
“interchangeable system of
oi
manufacture,” which was pursued and achieved in America.
manufacture,'' America.” 27

1886 John Anderson’s

Anderson's death in 1886 occasioned his obituary writer to note, "In “In 1854,
I854,
[Anderson] with two artillery
artiilery officers, visited America and minutely examined the Ameri~
Ameri-
manufacture."28
can system of small-arms manufacture. " 28 The term had acquired a specific meaning.

1890 Writing in American Machinist in 1890, B. F. Spalding endowed the expression

American system of manufacture with its more modern meaning and its importance even
though he used the term variously: "The“The ‘American System’ of Manufacture,"
'American System' Manufacture,” "The
“The
‘American’ System of Manufacture,”
'American' Manufacture," "The“The 'American'
‘American’ system,” “the American
system," and "the
system.” Interchangeable manufacture and the American system were intimately linked,
system.''
Spalding argued. In detailing the gunmaking machinery that was exported all over the
world, Spalding wrote that "it
“it was for such doings as these that the term 'American'
‘American’ was
bestowed upon the system, and it was a title earned, won, and granted in the open field.''
field.”
Spalding also wrote that the “feature
''feature of interchangeability is not all there is to the
American system; this alone falls far short it.” Mechanized production—~use
shoti of it.'' production-use of special-
 Expres:>ion The American System of Manufactures
The Expression 335

machinery-—was essentiaL
purpose machinery-was essential. He made this point by contrasting the "European
“European and
American systems.'
systems/’29
'29

At the Columbian Exhibition, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers heard 1893
William F. Durfee deliver a paper, "The“The History and Modern Development of the Art of
Interchangeable Construction in Mechanism.”
Mechanism.'' Durfee argued strenuously that the idea of
interchangeability was not American. Yet because Americans had transformed this idea
.interchangeability
“American interchangeable system"
into a reality, he could speak of the "American system” or the "Ameri-
“Ameri-
can system of interchangeable construction.”3@
construction.'' 30

An Englishman, John Rigby, read a paper, "The Arms,” which

“The Manufacture of Small Arms,"
System,” Rigby
“Origin of the Interchangeable System,"
Engineering printed. In a section titled "Origin
“credit of originating the
argued that the ''credit interchangeable system, and of applying ma-
chine work in general to the production of military arms, belongs undoubtedly to the
United States.
States.”3‘ manufacturing" the Enfield rifle, therefore, was
“new system of manufacturing”
" 31 The "new
the American system.

“The Revolution in Machine-Shop Prac-

Writing a six-part series of detailed articles, "The 1894
tice,'' Henry Roland (a pseudonym of Horace L. Arnold) discussed the history of British
tice,”
and American machine tool making.
making.” 32 Roland also included details about the production

of sewing machines, small arms, bicycles, and watches, yet he did not employ the words
American system of manufactures. Arnold’s
Arnold's long experience in American manufacturing,
however, must have supplied him with plenty of knowledge of the Americanness of
interchangeable manufacture.

McKenzie's title The American Invaders referred to the invasion of

Frederick A. McKenzie’s 1901
American products into English markets, but he did not allude to an American system of
manufactures. The invading goods, he recognized, had been made in highly mechanized
American factories.
factories.”
33

For Joseph V. Woodworth, author of American Tool Making and Interchangeable 1905
Manufacturing, the “development
''development of the modern system of manufacturing”
manufacturing" was not only
that of interchangeable manufacturing; it was also American. Nevertheless, he did not
highlight the American system of manufactures.“
manufactures. 34

Joseph W. Roe, a Yale professor of mechanical engineering, provided modern histo- 1914
rians with their understanding of the meaning and origins of the American system when he
published “Development Manufacture” in American Machinist.
"Development of Interchangeable Manufacture"
Though of French origins, interchangeability was taken over by gunmakers in the United
States. Therefore, wrote Roe, the "system
“system of interchangeable manufacture is generally
considered to be of American origin. In fact, for many years it was known in Europe as
the 'American
‘American System'
System’ of manufacture."
manufacture.” In[n the same article, Roc
Roe repeated that the
“was known everywhere as ‘the
interchangeable system "was system.’ ""35
'the American system.' 35

Two years later, in 19 J 6, Roe reprinted his American Machinist article on interchange-
I916, 1916
able manufacture as a chapter in his book, English and American Machine Tool Builders.
But Roe made a minor addition to the original article by including a section from James
Nasmyth's autobiography, quoted above, to buttress his argument that interchangeable
Nasmyth’s
“was known everywhere as 'the
manufacture ''was ‘the 'American system.’ ''” Roe even put
‘American system.'
3366 APPENDIX
APPENDIX 1I

Nasmyth’s “introduce the American system,"

Nasmyth's words, "introduce system,” in italics.
italics.“
36 The term was now

complete with meaning, authority, and definition,

defimtion, as evidenced by subsequent citations of
and work by Roe.

1923 Hubbard’s series, "Development

Guy Hubbard's “Development of Machine Tools in New England,”
England," published
in the American Machinist, relied heavily upon Roe's
Roe’s work. As Hubbard concluded in his
initial article, "New
“New England ...
. . . gave to the world the interchangeable, or American
system of manufacture."
manufacture.” Eli Whitney’s
Whitney's work in particular "became
“became known as the Ameri-
system.”37
can system. " 37

1924 L. P. Alford also drew directly on Joseph Roe's

Roe’s book for his short history of the "so-
“so-
‘American’ System"
called 'American' System” of manufacture that he included in his article, "Duplicate
“Duplicate and
Interchangeable Manufacture.''
Manufacture.” Alford also laid out and extended the principles of the
American system of manufactures.
manufactures.” 38

1937 Joseph W. Roe laid the capstone to his earlier treatment of the American system when
he delivered a Newcomen Society of North America address on interchangeable manufac-
manufac-
ture, which was first published by Mechanical Engineering. Upon the recommendation of
the Board of Ordnance in 1854,
I854, Roe argued, “the
''the British government resolved to intro--
intro-·
duce ‘the
'the American System.'
System.’ "” (At this point, he cited the N as myth autobiography.) He
Nasmyth
“constitutes one of the greatest contri--
also concluded that interchangeable manufacture "constitutes
butions of the machine age, and we can be proud that when the British government
introduced it into England they called it 'the
‘the American System.'
System.’ "”39
39
APPENDIX 2

Singer Sewing Machine

Artifactual Analysis

hile I was a predoctoraJ

predoctoral fellow of the National Museum of History and
Technology (now the National Museum of American History), Smithso-
•••••-Technology
nian Institution, 1I took the opportunity to inspect visually a number of Singer New Family
sewing machines made as early as 1865 I865 and as late as 18
1884485.
84-8 5. Specifically, I studied
machines with the following serial numbers: 87104 (ca. 1865); I865); 106092 (ca. 1865);
I865);
I870); 1038977
459,834 (ca. 1870); IO38977 (ca. 1872-73);
l872—73); 1081835 (ca. 1872-73);
I872-73); and 5235877 (ca.
I884-85).*
1884-85).*
Simple, visual comparison of the two machines made about 1865 I865 revealed profound
and easily recognizable differences in their parts, suggesting that standardized manufac-
turing techniques had not yet been adopted at Singer. The parts of one machine are finely
finished, whereas those of the other are more coarsely made. Some of the individual
castings are different. These variations are clearly documented in Figures A.I A.l through
A.8.
One other major observation about these 1865 I865 machines is significant. Many of their
pans
parts were stamped with the serial number of the machine in which they were found,
suggesting that they had been custom-fitted into the machine. These numbers are evident
o:uggesting
in Figures A.I
A.1 through A.8.
Aided by William Henson of the Museum's
Museum’s Technical Laboratory, I attempted to swap
parts of the two machines made about 1872 I872 or 1873
I873 (I was given permission to do so
because these sewing machines had never been accessioned or cataloged). Generally, the
parts would not interchange. Neither the vertical nor the horizontal shafts would in-
terchange, nor would the beveled gears that run on these shafts. As with the 1865 Singer
machines, the 1872-73
l872—73 artifacts revealed how the gears and thrust bearings were original-
ly fitted into the machine. (See Figure A. A.9.)
9 .) The workman fitted the gear correctly on the
shaft, tightened down a set screw, drilled a tapered hole through the gear and shaft,
stamped the correct serial number on the gear so that after finishing it, it could be put back
in the machine to which it had been fitted, and finally took the gear off the shaft and
permanently removed the set screw. The head of the machine was then taken to the
japanning room for painting and ornamentation. After these processes had been com-
pleted, the head and the parts were reunited.
The shuttle carriers of the 1872-73
I872-73 sewing machines would not interchange. More-

*Dates for these machines are based on the estimates in Grace Rogers Cooper, The Sewing Machine,
Machine. p. 114.
II4.

337
338 APPEl\JDlX
APPEl\DlX 2

FIGURE A.A.1.
I. Machine, Serial Number 87104, ca. 1865.
Underside of Singer New Family Sewing Ylachine, I865.
The overall workmanship of this machine lacks uniformity and careful regulation. For example, the
slot in the head of one of the four screws which holds the arm and base of the sewing machine
together was cut both unstraight and off center. Timing marks on the counterbalanced crank arc
are also
visible.

/\.2. Detail of Figure A.

FIGURE A.2. I. The serial number has been stamped on an adjustment plate for
A.l.
four--motion feed mechanism. This is one of several places on the machine where
the four-motion where the
the number
number
appears.
 Singer Sewing
Sewmg Machine Artifmlucif Amilysfx
Artifactual Analysis 339

i-6»

i"52V~~‘AV;(;\ _» I '
/“"V""‘,"~ "“\)2‘€’§§."M“ 2» ,
'
7"-,/*~‘ =-:,.. '1 . ‘

A . 3 . Needle Bar and Presser

FIGURE A.J. L 87104, The
Foot Bar of New Family Machine Number 87104.
photograph shows the serial number stamped in the presser foot bar.

A.4. U
FIGURE A.4. n cl er side of Singer New Family Sewing Machine, Serial Number 106092, ca. 1865.
Underside
Compare the overall workmanship, especially on the counterbalanced crank, with that in Figure
A. 1. Also, compare the manner in
A.l. ' which
' the cloth feed mechanism
' 1S
' recessed into
is intot
' h e bbed
the e d with that
in Figure A.1.
A.l.
 40
340 APPENDIX
APPENDIX 2

;~ » 1*
¢;

»
r,,__ ¢ ,

K/L,.‘ '~$&3n

FIGURE A.5.
FruuRE A5. Detail of Figure A.4. Serial numbers are stamped on several of the parts.

FIGURE /\.6.
A.6. Detail of Needle Bar, Needle Bar Cam, Presser Foot Bar, and Faceplate, Machine
Number 106092. Note the evidence of rough machining on the cam and on the face plate. The serial
number on the needle bar is also evident.
 Gears, Machine Number 106092. This photograph illustrates that the
FIGURE A.7. Detail of Bevel Gears.
serial number of the machine was also stamped on the bevel gears of the New Family sewing
(See Figure A.9 for a detailed view of how these gears were fitted into the machine.) The
machine. (‘See
grooved cam on the right was not originally part of the machine; it was installed to drive an
attachment, whose function I am not sure of.

FIGURE A.8. Detail of Needle Bar,Bar. Needle Bar Cam, Presser Foot Bar, and Faceplate, Serial
360834. ca. 1870. (This is a sub-serial number of the main serial number 459834. See the
Number 360834,
Singer’s two-number system.) This photograph is included for the
reference in note 11 for details on Singer's
mecha11ism has
sake of comparison with the 1865 machine illustrated in Figure A.6. Although this mechanism
been altered slightly for some sort of attachment,
attachment. it still suggests the level of workmanship in 1870.
342 APPENDIX
APPENDIX 2

A.9. Detail of Horizontal Shaft and Bevel Gear

FIGURE A.9. Gear of
of New Family
Family Sewing
Sewing Machine
Machine Number
Number
103977, ca. 1872-73. This photograph illustrates the way the bevel gears and thrust bearings were
fitted into the sewing machine. Two holes are visible in the bevel gear. When the gear was was
originally fitted onto the shaft, only the top hole existed, which is threaded. This hole held a set
screw, which, after the shaft had been turned down to the correct size for the particular gear, waswas
tightened down to hold the gear (the slight indentation mark of the set screw on the shaft is visible).
When the gear was temporarily secured, the workman drilled a tapered hole through both both the
the gear
gear
and the shaft. The machine was then disassembled so that thethe head
head could
could be painted and decorated.
be painted and decorated.
When the machine was reassembled, the gear was secured on the shaft only by means of the tapered
pin.
pm.

FIGURE A.A.10.
10. Detail of Crank or Cam Mechanism, Which Which Operates
Operates the
the Grooved
Grooved Cam Cam of the
of the
Needle Bar, Machine Number 1038977.
1038977. This
This was
was one
one of
of the
the many
many parts
parts of
of the
the two Singer sewing
two Singer sewing
machines made about 1872 or 1873 which did not interchange. It was clear from from the
the attempt
attempt to
to
interchange these parts that originally they were custom-fitted to the
the shaft
shaft using
using aa lathe
lathe to turn down
to turn down
“snug fit"
the shaft to the "snug fit” size.
 Siizger S(.’t1’lIlg
Sinf?er Sewing Mac/title Ai'tif(l('{n(il Anti/_v.s'i.r
Machine ArtiFnctua! Analysis 343

W~~¢s >~ ~

FiGURE A.ll.
FIGURE A.11. Underside of Singer New Family SewingSewing Machine, Serial Number
Machine, Serial 5235877, ca.
Number 5235877, ca.
1884 or 1885. Compare the details
details of
of construction
construction and
and the
the general level of
general level of workmanship
workmanship with
with those
those
of Figures A.1
A. I and A.4. Adjustment of the four-motion cloth feed is
cloth feed is different.
different. Overall
Overall machine
machine
work is superior. No serial number is present on any parts.

A.l2.
FIGURE A.12. Detail of Bevel Gears of Machine 5235877. This photograph shows that that as
as late
late as
as
1884-85
l884—85 Singer was still fitting its bevel gears into its machine with the same methods used
used in the
in the
1860s.
344 APPENDIX
APPENDIX 2

over, the crank devices that operated the needle bar cams would not come close to
interchanging. (See Figure A.10.)
A.l 0.) And, finally, each of the needle bar faceplates, al- al—
though interchangeable, fitted onto the other machine only in the crudest manner. When
switched, the plates did not properly align with the arm of the machine. Each was off by
one~thirty-second of an inch, resulting in a visually incorrect fit. In
about one-thirty-second ln comparison with
the two 1865 machines, these early 1870s machines possessed greater visual uniformity in
overall appearance, suggesting that production techniques had become more standardized
at the Singer factory. Still, however, the critical fitting parts of each machine all bear the
same serial number.
The sewing machine made in 1884 or 1885 possessed no serial numbers except on the
designated plate located on the base of the machine. (See Figures A. ll and A. J12.)
A .11 2.) Gears,
linkages, shafts, the shuttle race, and the pitman all lack numbers, and their finish is
remarkably uniform. Filing marks and tool marks are not as apparent as with the earlier
machines. The lack of numbers suggests that the parts of the Singer New Family machines
were perhaps more fully interchangeable by 1884 or 1885, but certainly the manuscript
evidence discussed in Chapter 2 suggests otherwise. The critical test would be to try to
1884--85, but at the Smithso-
interchange parts of two New Family machines made during 1884·-85,
nian Institution this was not possible because the museum did not have a second sewing
machine of the same vintage.
Notes

Introduction S_\-‘stem of Manufactures;

Svstem Manitfactnrcs; Merritt Roe Smith. Harpers
Ferrv Armorv and the New Technologv;
Ferry Armory Tee!/Inolog_\',' and Otto
1. Henry Ford, "Mass
I. “Mass Production."
Production.“ Unfortu-
Robe1i C. Post, eds.,
Mayr and Robert eels., Yankee Enterprise.
nately, the letter to Ford requesting the article is not in
7. Battison, "Eli
“Eli Whitney and the Milling Ma-
Dcarborn, Michigan. Related cor-
the Ford Archives. Dearborn.
chine"; Ferguson, Bibiiography
Biblior;raphv of thf the Histon·
Hisr0r_\' oj
of
respondence survives, however. See especially C. A.
Technology.
Technolof!,y, p. 299.
Zahnow to W. 1.
toW. J. Cameron, October 29, 1925, Ace.
8. Merritt Roe Smith, "Eli “Eli Whitney and the
285, Henry Ford Office. Box 359; W. J. Cameron to
American System of Manufacturing."
Manufacturing.'' See also
L. J. Thompson, September 28, 1953, Ace. I. 1, Fair
Roben A. Howard. "Interchangeable
Robert “Interchangeable Parts Reex-
Lane Papers, Box 89. The latter file contains much of
the supporting contemporary documentation for this
amined,” and Chapter 11 below. As will be noted be-
amined,"
low, Colt’s work can be seen in much the
low. Samuel Colt's
article.
artie le.
same light as that of Eli Whitney.
2. Cameron to Thompson. September 28. 1953.
9. Harpers Ferry
Ferrv Armor_\-",'
Armory; esp. chaps. 7 and S. 8.
New York Times, September 19, 1926, sec. 10,
3. Nnv
1; editorial, ·'The
p. I: “The Super-Factory System," ibid., I0. See Men·itt
10. Merritt Roe Smith. ''Milltary
“Military Entre-
sec. 2, p. 1. preneurship," in Mayr and Post.
preneurship,·' eds.. Yunkee
Poo,t, eds., Yankee Enter-
l:.nttr-
4. II have found the term mass production in print prise,
prise. pp. 63-102.
before 1925 in W. E. Freeland, "Mass “Mass Production at 11. See Chapter Il below.
II
the Winchester Shops," Iron Age 101 ([918): (1918): ofthe
12. Report of' rhe Committee on the Machinery of
the United States of America. in Rosenberg, ed., ed..
616-21; "Mass“Mass Motor Car Works," Engineer Enxineer 128
Systeni of Mamgfactnres,
American Svstem Manuf'ac/1/res, pp. 121-22.
(1919): 627-28; and Henry Obermeyer and Anhur Arthur L.
13. Major James Dalliba, quoted in Smith, Har-
“Mass Production in British Motor Indus-
Greene, ·'Mass
Armor_v, p. !09.
pers Ferry Arrnory, 109. On the relative costs of
tries,”
tries," American Machinist 57 (1922): 524-26. In
small arms, see Felicia Johnson Deyrup, Arms Makers
1925 a British ‘journal
journal entitled Mass Production began
publication, but its
publication, its title was soon changed
changed to Fuel
f'uel of the Connecticut Valley, p. 132; Deyrup discusses
of'
costs, pp. 52, 118-19, and Table l, Appendix B, B. pp.
Economist. Carter Goodrich used the term in his 1925
229-32. The figures for Springfield Armory's Armory’s pro-
work, The Miner's
Miner’s Freedom, pp. 3, 12, 12. 105, 169, and
mentioned "mass “mass production as efficient as that at duction of muskets, rifles, and carbines, 1795-1870,
are given in ibid., p. 233. Anderson is quoted in
Ford’s.”
Ford's." In The Way Out Ont (1925), Edward A. Filene
equated "Fordism" or "Fordizing"
“Fordizing” with "mass
“mass pro
pro-.. Rosenberg, American System of Manufactures, pp.
duction”
duction" and argued that this was indeed "the “the way 65-66.
out," the way of the future. (Sec (See Chapter 8 below.) I 14. Rosenberg, ·'Technological
"Technological Change in the
suspect but cannot prove that Filene’s
Filene's book stimulated Machine Tool Industry, 1840-1910."
1840-1910.“
the Britannica’s
Britannica's editor to request Ford's Ford’s article on 15. Ottilie M. Leland, Master of Precision.
mass production. The only standard work on the En- 16. See Chapters 2 and 4 below. One notable ex-
glish and American language to deal with mass pro- ception to the prevailing interpretation of Singer's
Singer’s
duction, Raymond Williams, Keywords (pp. 161-62) success is Andrew B. lack,
Jack, “The
''The Channels of Dis-
identifies the term as from the United States in the tribution for an Innovation.”
Innovation.'' See also Elizabeth M.
19205, thus supporting
1920s, supponing the notion of the importance of Bacon, “Marketing Sewing Machines 1n
Bacon. "Marketing in the
the Ford article. lI am indebted to George Basalla for Post-Civil War Y Years.”
cars."
this reference. 17. I. M. Singer & & Co. [Edward Clark)
Clark] to
5. Roger Burlingame, ofDemocracy, pp.
Burlingame. Engines Q/‘Deinocrocy, William F. Proctor,
Proctor. July 16, 1S55,
1855, Papers of the Sing-
391, 395. For a more recent restatement of this thesis, thesis. er Manufacturing Company,
Conipany, Box 189.
see Edwin A. Battison,
Battison. From Muskets to to Aiass
Moss Pro- 18. On Singer's
Singer’s marketing strategy see Robert
duction, p. 3. Bruce Davies, Peacefully
Peace_,fu/ly Working to Conquer the
6. An introduction to the American system may World, and Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., Jr.. The Visible
be found in Nathan Rosenberg, ed., ed.. The American Hand, pp. 303-5, 402-5.

345
346 NOTES TO
NOTES TO PAGES
PAGES 6-16

“The 'American
19. Spalding, "The ‘American System'
System’ of Man- kins, "The
“The New Consumption Engineer and the Art- At1-
ufacture,”
ufacture," p. 11. ist”; Hairy
ist"; Harry Tippen, The New Challenge of Distribu-
20. Minutes of a meeting held at Elizabethport tion: The Paramount Industrial Problem (New York:
Factory, March 26, 1883, Singer Papers, Box 239. Harper & Brothers, 1932); John B. Cheadle,
Chead1e,etal.,No
ct a!., No
21. A. D. Pentz to G. R. McKenzie, August 17, More Unemployed (Norman, Okla.: Ok1a.: University of
1884, ibid., Box 198. Oklahoma Press, 1934); Lewis Corey, The Decline of
“Mass Production,”
22. "Mass Production," p. 822. American Capitalism (New York: Covici, 1934);
“Public Relations or
23. David A. Hounshell, "Public Maurice Leven eta!., America's Capacity to Consume
et al. , America’s
Understanding?” and Chapter 4 below.
Public Understanding')" (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1934);
24. Chandler, Visible Hand, pp. 406-8. William H. Lough, High Level Consumption: Its Be-
25. David A. Hounshell, "The
“The Bicycle and Tech- lts Consequences (New York: McGraw-Hill,
havior; Its
nology in Late Nineteenth Century America,”
America," and 1935); Carle C. Zimmerman, Consumption and Stan-
Chapter 5 below. dards of Living (New York: D. Van Nostrand Co.,
26. Joseph V. Woodworth, American Tool Mak- 1936); Charles S. Wyand, The Economics of Con-
ing and Interchangeable Manufacturing, p. 516. sumption (New York: Macmillan, 1937); Elizabeth
27. George Pope to David Post, January 12, Ellis Hoyt, Consumption in Our Society (New York:
1891, Papers of the [Pope] Hartford Cycle Company. H. Holt, 1938); Roland Snow Vai1e,lncome
Vaile, Income and Con-
28. See Henry Ford to the editor, Automobile 14 sumption (New York: H. Holt, 1938); and Alfred P.
ll, 1906): 107-9, quoted in John B. Rae,
(January 11, Sloan, Jr., The Creation of Abundance, pamphlet,
ed., Henry Ford, pp. 18-19. March 11, 1939, Eleutherian Mills Historical Library.
29. Oxford English Dictionary>.
Dictionary. 44. See Abernathy, Productivity Dilemma.
30. Drucker, Concept of the Corporation, pp.
219-20. See Chapter 6 below.
31. See Horace L. Arnold
Amold and Fay L. Faurote,
Ford Methods and the Ford Shops, for figures on Chapter 1]
productivity gains; Allan Nevins and Frank Ernest
Hill, Ford.‘
Ford: The Times, the Man, the Company, p.
447. 1. Arthur C. Cole, "American
I. “American System."
System.”
32. Reminiscences, Ford Archives. 2. Eugene S. Ferguson, Bibliography of the His-
33. This is the general interpretation of Eugene S. tory of o{ Technology, p. 298. Ferguson later gave a
l3—28.
Ferguson, Oliver Evans, pp. 13-28. much broader definition in his Dibner symposium pa-- pa-
34. Henry Ford with Samuel Crowther, My Life “History and Historiography,"
per, "History Historiography,” in Otto Mayr and
and Work, pp. 129-30. Robert C. Post, eds.,eds, Yankee Enterprise, pp. 1-231-23..,
35. Stephen Meyer III,Ill, The Five Dollar Day. esp. pp. 14-15.
36. See the article
m1icle on Gunnison in the Dictionary 3. Nathan Rosenberg, ed., ed. The American System
ofAmerican
of American Biography, 7th Suppl. (1981),
( 1981 ), and Chap- of Manufactures, p. 5, 5. Anderson’s
Anderson's wording in The
ter 8 below. For earlier efforts at prefabrication, see Report o{ of the Commiltee
Committee on the Machinery of the
Gilbert Herbert, Pioneers of Prefabrication. United States in ibid. is on p. 143 and as follows: p.
37. This mission may be followed in the pages of 89 (“system”
("system" the committee used in writing its re-1 re--
Mechanical Engineering between 1919 and 1925, the port); p. 100
10O ("new
(“new system of casting"
casting” metal); p. 104
104-
date when the Wood Industries Division was (“same system of special machinery");
("same ("sys-
machinery”); p. 113 (“sys-
established. tem” of testing quality of castings); p. J114
tem" (James’s
14 (James's
38. See, for example, New York Times, March 7, rifle hand-made "system"
rit1e “system” of production); p. 119
1930, p. 48. “the system, machinery, and apparatus by
(study of "the
39. See Chapter 33 below. which” small arms were made in the United State:;);
which" States);
40. A Crack in the Rear View Mirror: A View of p. 128 (“System,
("System, Machinery, and Apparatus by
Industrialized Building (New York: Van Nostrand, means of which Small Arms are produced”);
produced"); p. 128
1973), quoted in William J. Abernathy,
Abemathy, The Produc- (“an almost perfect system of manufacture");
("an manufacture”); p. 129
tivity Dilemma, p. 8. (“the thorough manufacturing system");
("the system”); p. 129
41. See Chapter 7 below.
41 . Sec (“system of forging gun barrels”);
("system (“clamp
barrels"); p. 135 ("clamp
42. Anne O'Hare
O’Hare McCormick, "The “The Future of milling system”);
system"); p. 136 (interchangeable methods
the Ford Idea,"
Idea,” p. l.
1. cannot be understood ''by “by those who have been en-
“economics of con-
43. Several dozen books on "economics gaged on a ruder system");
system”); p. 143 ("American
(“American sys-
sumption" were published in the 1930s, each suggest- tem”); p. 159 ("system
tem"); (“system of moulding and casting brass
ing in one way or another that getting the consumer guns”); p. 159 ("our
guns"); (“our system");
system”); p. 162 ("system
(“system of
straightened out would lead to the return of good levers”); p. 160 (“ordinary
levers"); ("ordinary system of boring");
boring”); p.
times. One can begin with the following: E.E. Cal- 169 (tub- and pail-making*“a
pail-making--" a very perfect sys-
 Notes to Pages 17-21
Notes‘ / 7- 2/ 347

tem“);
tern"); p. 170 ("A similar system"
system” used for furni- 9. The entire list of witnesses appears Ill in ibid., p.
(“system of combining a pendulum saw
ture); p. 172 ("system xxxvi.
with a planing machine”); (“system of
machine"); p. 172 ("system 0. Anderson's report on U.S. machinery clearly
I10. clear! y
smoothing and polishing wood”);
wood"); p. 172 ("system
(“system of illustrates his advocacy; see The Report of the Com-
bending timber”);
timber"); p. 173 (“system
("system of clamp mill- mittee on the Machinery of the United States o{ ofAmer-
Amer-
ing”);
ing"); p. 175 ('"Dahlgren's
(“Dah1gren’s book on “System
'System of Ar- ica, in Rosenberg,
ica. Rosenberg. ed. System of
ed.,, American Svstem Manufac-
ofManufac-
Boats’ ”); p. 175 ("whole
mament for Boats'"); (“whole system" of tures, pp. 87-197.
clock manufacture); p. 193 ("systematic
(“systematic arrangement II. Report on Small Arms, Q. 1010, p. 79; Q.
ll.
in the manufacture"); p. 193 ("admirable
(“admirable system 341, p. 27. In ln a different report
rep011 written for the Board
everywhere adopted");
adopted“); p. 194 (“system
("system of paying by Ordnance's Committee of Small Arms, a special
of Ordnance’s
the piece”);
piece"); p. 195 (labor “affecting
"affecting the system of the committee pointed out in January 1854: "The “The princi-
whole manufactory); p. 195 ("This (“This [piece-work)
[piece-work] sys- ple of substituting machinery for labour is established
tem”);
tem"); p. 195 ("system
(“system of contracting for machinery beyond a doubt, and its application to the manufacture
in ordinary use”);
use"); p. 196 (information in this report of small arms can no longer be disputed; hut zf any
but if
being '"arranged,
“arranged, systematized, and copied out proof' were wanting in this respect, it will befound by
proof
hurriedly”).
hurriedly"). a visit to Colonel Colt's
Colt’s manufacture of' the American
mamtf'acture of
4. Joseph W. Roe. Roe, English and American Tool pistol'' (testimony of Lieutenant-Colonel
revolving pistol”
Builders, pp. 129, 129. 140-41. There is little doubt that James S. Tulloh, Report of the Select Committee on
Roe obtained his views from Charles H. Fitch's Fitch’s un- Small Arms, Q.443, p. 42; italics added). Sir Thomas
SmallArms,
documented “Report
''Report on the Manufactures of Inter- Hastings, a member of the Board of Ordnance and 1ts its
Mechanism." Fitch equates the "Ameri-
changeable Mechanism.” “Ameri- comptroller
comptrollc:r of stores, testified before the Select Com-
Sekct Corn-
can system"
system” and the "interchangeable
“interchangeable system"
system” and govemment-
mittee that he had opposed the idea of a government-
implies that the term came into use around the time of owned, mechanized armory. Then he saw Colt's Colt’s Lon-
the 1851 London Crystal Palace Exhibition (pp. don armory and "became“became a convert" to this system
618-20). Cf. Roe's Roe’s later account, "Interchangeable
“lnterchangeablc Anderson’s testimony is in Q. 1266,
(Q. 205, p. 15). Anderson's
Manufacture,”
Manufacture," p. 7758. 58. p. 99, and Q. 1404-08, p. 110. Nasmyth’s
Nasmyth's testimony
5. John E. Sawyer, ''The “The Social Basis of the Whitworth's, pp. 138-52; Pros-
is on pp. 107-24; Whitworth‘s,
American Manufacturing"; H. J. Habak-
Amencan System of Manufacturing”; ser’s, pp. 172-84.
ser's,
Amaican and British Technologv
kuk, American Technology in the Nine- 12. Ibid., pp. 122-24; Nathan Rosenberg,
teenth Century, pp. 104, 120; Rosenberg, ed., Ameri- “Technological Change in the Machine Tool Indus-
"Technological
can System of Manufactures; and Paul Uselding, 1840-1910.”"
try, 1840-1910.
“Studies of Technology in Economic History,”
"Studies History," pp. 13. Report on Small Arms, Q. 927, p. 73. The
160-61, 168-78. In his prefatory discussion of the committee sought information on manufacturing costs
American system Use! Uselding “The story of
ding states: ''The at the Springfield and Harpers Ferry FelTY armories but
American prowess at the Crystal Palace, the displays found none conclusive. There was almost universal
of the Colt Revolver, the McCormick Reaper, the sentiment that labor was "more dear” in the United
“more dear"
Singer Sewing Machine—a1l
Machine-all embodying the principle England. although Colt testified that
States than in England,
interchangeabi1ity—is now a familiar tale”
of interchangeability-is tale" (pp. English labor was costing him almost as much as
160-61). This statement is indicative of the legendary American labor (ibid., Q. 1093, p. 85). See Russell I. 1.
character of the term. In this regard, it is significant “British Response to the American System."
Fries, "British System.”
that D. L. Burn,
Bum, whose 1931 article inspired Sawyer’s
Sawyer's 14. Report on Small Arms, Q. 932, p. 74; Q.
article, did not use the expression American
seminal m1icle, 7415, p. 420.
system of manufactures, nor did a 1900-1901 Times 15. Report on the Committee on Patents to ac-
(London) study of American engineering competition company H.R. 59, December 21, 1853, as quoted in
(Burn, "The
(Bum, “The Genesis of American Engineering Com- ibid., p. 419.
petition, 1850-1870";
l850-1870”; Times (London), American 16. Ibid., Q. 7418, p. 420.
Engineering Competition). Whitworth's testimony,
17. Nasmyth quoted in Wl1itworth’s
Reportfrom
6. Great Britain, Parliament, Report the Se-
from theSe- ibid., Q. 2205, p. 150. Colt testified that he made his
lect Committee on Small Arms, p. iii. See also the “entirely” by machinery with some minor ex-
pistol "entirely"
Introduction in Rosenberg, ed., American System of ceptions (ibid., Q. 1084, p. 85).
Manufactures, pp. 29-72. 18. Ibid., Q, Q. 2780, p. 178. The London gun-
7. The contrast is painted in Charles Tomlinson, maker Charles Clark argued with Prosser, saying that
ed., Rudimentary Treatise on the Construction of o{ at least 50 percent hand labor would be required and
Locks, pp. 154-63. See Rosenberg's
Rosenberg’s description of that labor would have to be first-rate (Q. 7173, p.
the British contract system in his introduction to 400). Board of Ordnance report quoted, Q. 443, p.
American System o{ of Manufactures,
Mam!{actures, p. 39. 42.
8. Report on Small Arms, p. iv. 19. Ibid., Q. 7432, Q. 7433, Q. 7439, and Q.
348 NOTES TO
NOTES TO PAGES
PAGES 2l—26
21 ~26

7440, p. 421; Q. 7511, pp. 424-25. On Stickney's

Stickney’s 2074-75, p. 145.
31. Ibid., Q. 1367, p. 108; Q. 2074—75,
qualifications, see Q. 7419-26,
74l9—26, p. 421. When ques- Whitworth’s testimony to his Special Report
Compare Whitworth's
tioned closely, Colt had said that his machines ..
“save
save in Rosenberg, ed.,
ed. , American System of Manufactures,
QfMa/mfacrures.
me more than one-half the entire cost of the arm. I p. 343.
would say that it enables me to produce almost three 32. Report on Small Arms, Q. 2646, p. 172; Q.
times as many arms for the same money" money” (Q. 2790, p. 179. The book Prosser showed the commit- commit--
1166467, p. 92). For the extent that the Board of
1166-67, tee was Joseph Gamel, Description of the Tufa Tu/a Weap·
Weap-
Ordnance planned to displace labor, see Anderson's
Anderson’s on Factory in Regard to Historical and Technical As· As-
testimony, Q. 933-37, p. 74. transJated for the Smithsonian
pects, which has been translated
20. Ibid., Q. 7723 and Q. 7724, p. 436. Charles Institution and the National Science Foundation by
lnstitution
Clark agreed with Richards (Q. 7168, p. 400).
400) Franklin Book Programs, Inc., 1975. Edwin A. Batti- Batti·
21. Ibid., Q. 2131, p. 147, Q. 2148, p. 148; Q. son has edited the translation, which will be published
published.
1570, p. 118. The Board of Ordnance's
Ordnance’s position, es- by the Smithsonian Institution. For more information,
sentially one of "good
“good enough,"
enough,” was expressed by see Edwin A. ilattison,
Battison, "Searches
“Searches for Better Man-
member Sir Thomas Hastings, Q. 1348~52, p. 149.
Q 1348-52, ufacturing Methods, Section Two.” Nasmytb
Two." James Nasmyth
22. Ibid., Q. 1089, p. 85; Q. 1114 and Q. 1115, had
l1ad earlier pointed out what he had done for the Rus-
p. 87. sian factory at Tula (Report on Small Arms, Q. 1377,
23. Colonel Boldero, ibid., Q. 1198, p. 94. 1404--8, pp. 109--10).
Q. 1404-8,
24. Ibid., Q. 1057 and Q. 1058, p. 82; Q Q. 1357 33. Report anon Small Arms, Q. 2853, p. 181. On
and Q. 1359, p. 107; Q. 1361, Q. 1362, and Q. 1365.
andQ.l359,p.l07;Q.l361,Q.1362,andQ.I365. the centrality of the Springfield stocking machinery,
machinery.
p. 108. see Anderson's
Anderson’s testimony in which he quotes his re- re
25. Ibid., Q. 1944 and Q. 1946, p. 138. In its port of December 23, 1853, to the Board of Ordnance
final report, the select committee included Whit- Committee on Small Arms, ibid., p. 27; Whitworth's
Whitworth’s
worth’s views on the impossibility of in-
worth's testimony, Q. 1969, p. 140; and Wallis's
Wallis’s testimony,
terchangeability (ibid., pp. v-vi). Q. 1777 and Q. 1778, pp. 127, 129.
26. Ibid., Q. 2036, p. 143. Richard Prosser 34. Ibid., p. X.
x.
agreed on precisely the same grounds (Q. 2788, and 35. Discussion of John Anderson, “On ''On the Ap-
Q2804,
Q. 2804, p. 179). Ibid., Q. 2037, p. 179; Q. 2095.2095, p. Department,“ p.
plication of Machinery in the War Department,"
146. See also, Q. 2096, p. 146. 164.
27. Ibid., Q. 2121. p. 147; Q. 2124, p. 147. See 36. For the economic approach see H. J. Habak·· Habak-
George Wallis's
Wallis‘s connicting
conflicting testimony on the issue of kuk, American and Britislz British Technology, which
Springfield muskets, Q.
the interchangeability of Springf1cld spawned an entire body of literature on the subject of ot
1700~1704, Q. 1727, pp. 125-26, 127.
1700-1704, American labor-saving technology. This literature i~; is
28. Ibid., Q. 1525, p. 116. See other of Studies of Technology."
reviewed in Uselding, “Studies
H Technology.” The
Nasmyth’s
Nasmyth's answers to questions about uniformity: Q. social approach may be found in Sawyer, “The ''The Social
1514427, Q. 1565-70,
1514-27, 1565~70, and Q. 1638, pp. 116, Basis of the American System of Manufacturing”;
Manufaclllring'': see
118~20, 122.
118-20, Ferguson, "The
also, Eugene S. ferguson, “The American-ness of or
o.
29. Q. 112o, o.
1120, p. 87; Q. 1121, p. 87; Q. 1116. r
1116, p. American Technology.''
Technology.”
87; Q. 1166, p. 92; Q. 7725, p. 436. Charles Clark 37. Merritt Roe “Military Entrepreneur·
Roc Smith, "Military Entrepreneur-
had also purchased the "highest “highest class”
class" of Colt’s
Colt's ship,”
ship," in Mayr and Post, eds., Yankee Enterprise, pp.
pistols and concluded that "they “they will not reverse or 66--67; Selma Thomas.
66-67; “The Greatest Economy and
Thomas, "The
interchange; you cannot get two to do so” so" (Q. 7175, the Most Exact Precision";
Precision”; sec
see also articles on Gri-
Gri ·
p. 400). beauval in La grande encyclopt>die
encyclopédie and Biof?raphie
Biographie
30. Ibid., Q. 7446, Q. 7453, Q. 7454, pp. imiverselle (Michaud) ancienne
universelle ancierme el er modern.
421—22.
421-22. Not long after the select committee finished 38. Smith, “Military
"Military Entrepreneurship," pp.
its investigation a writer for Charles Dickens's
Dickens’s weekly 6.3-102, is the outstanding example of recent
63-102, recent
joumal, Household
Househofd Words, wrote that Colt'sColt’s London- scholarship.
made revolvers were distinguished by their "unifor- “unifor- 39. August 30, 1785, Papers of' Jejfer-
of Thomas Jefj‘er-
mity”: "No
mity'': “No one part belongs, as a matter of course, son, ed. Julian P. Boyd, 8:455. Jefferson wrote vir-
S0/1, vir·
to any other part
pan of one pistol; but each piece may be tually the same
samc account in a letter to the governor of
taken at random from aa heap, and fixed to and with the Virginia, January 24.24, 1786, ibid.,
ibid , p. 214.
other pieces until a complete weapon is formed" formed” 40. Thomas, ·'The
“The Greatest Economy.''
Economy.”
(“Revolvers," Household
("Revolvers,'' H(JI4A‘€f1(Jfd Words 9 (1855), as re- 41. Jefferson to Knox, September 12, 1789, Pa-
printed in Charles T. Haven and Frank A. Belden, A
prmtcd pers QfTI10ma.r
of Thomas Jeflersori, l5:422; Jefferson to Knox.
Jefferson, 15:422; Knox,
History of the Colt
Coll Revolver, p. 348. The select com- coin- November 24, 1790, ibid., 18:69. ln France, sub:;c- subse-
mittee’s final report is inconclusive on the issue (ibid.,
mittee's Blanc’s Mhnoire.
quent to Blanc's Mémoire, the Academic Royale des
pp. iii—xi).
iii-xi). Sciences was requested by the minister of war to rc-
 Notes to Pages 26-34 349

view Blanc's work. A committee conducted the study

v1cw 57. Whitney delivered his contract weapons as
and issued a report to the academy March 19, 1 1791.
791 . follows: September J1801, 80 l, 500 muskets; June 1802, 1802.
This report has been translated and published in 500; March 1803. 500: 500; July-October 1803, I1,000; ,000;
William F. Durfee, "The
W!lliam “The First Systematic Attempt at 1,000; 1805, 1,000:
1804, 1,000: 1,000; 1806, 1,500:1807,
1,500; 1807, 2,000;
Interchangeability in Firearms.”
Firearms." SecSee also Durfee, February 1808-January 1809, 1809. 1,500. See Green, ~/i Eli
“The History and Modern Development of the Art of
"The Whitney. pp. 131-35.
Whitnev,
Mechanism.”
Interchangeable Construction in Mechanism." 58. Cesari, "American Arms-Making," pp.
“American Arms-Making,”
42. Other French military engineers who served 47-48; Woodbury. “Legend
36-37, 47-48: ''Legend of Eli
in the United States during the early national period Whitney,” pp. 241-42. Edwin Battison, who is
Whitney,"
are discussed in Norman B. Wilkinson, "The
arc “The Forgot- working on a full study of Whitney, agrees with this
‘Founder’ of West Point."
ten 'Founder' Point.” assessment (Report to the Department of Science and
43. Wilkinson. “The Forgotten 'Founder'
Wilkinson, "The ‘Founder’ of Technology, National Museum of History and Tech-
West Point.''
Point. A different view of West Point's
Point’s estab-
estab-- nology, Smithsonian Institution, Spring l1977). 977).
lishment (which also emphasizes the French influ- 59. Smith.
Smith, "Eli
“Eli Whitney and the American Sys-
ence) is presented in Peter M. Molloy, "Technical
“Technical tem.“
tem," p. 551; l: Jefferson quoted in Green, Eli Whirnev,
Whitney.
Education and the Young Republic."
Republic.” pp. 133-34.
44. Quoted from Smith,
Smith. "Military Entrepreneur- 60. Smith, "Eli“Eli Whitney and the American Sys-
ship,”
ship," pp. 66, 97. tern,” p. 58.
tem,"
45. Ibid. 61. See Green. 1/1/hitney, pp. 135-36.
Green, Eli Whitnev,
46. In my discussion of Simeon North, I have 62. On Blanc's
Blanc‘s methods, see Durfee, "First “First Sys-
drawn upon S.N.D. North and Ralph H. North, Nonh. Sim- tematic Attempt at Interchangeability.'' Whitney's
Interchangeability.” On Whitney’s
eon North. methods and the lack of interchangeability, see Batti-
47. Deyrup, Arms Makers of ofthe
the Connecticut Val- son. "Eli
son, “Eli Whitney and the Milling Machine." Ccsari, Cesari,
ley.
ley, p. 46; the quotation is in North and North, Simeon “American Arms-l\/laking,” p. 40.
''American Arms-Making,"
North, p. 64.
North. 63. Smith, Harpers Ferry Armorv, pp. 28-29.
Fern: Armory,
48. North and North, Simeon North, p. 81. 64. Output at Springfield.
Springfield, 1795 to 1802, was as
49. Ibid., p. 106. follows: 1795, 245; 1796, 838: 838; 1797, 1,028;
1.028; 1798,
50. Edwin Battison, recently retired curator at the 1799, 4,595: 1800, 4,862; 1801, 3,205; and
1,044; 1799.4,595:
Smithsonian Institution, who knows a good deal about 1802, 4,358 (Deyrup.
(Deyrup, Arms Makers of the Connecti-
North pistols, has told me that the parts of the first cut 1/al/ev,
Valley, p. 233).
hundred or so pistols that North made under this sys- 65. Springfield Armory’s
Armory's early history is treated
tem would indeecl
indeed interchange. “Comparative Study of British and Ameri-
in Fries, "Comparative
51. Merritt Roe Smith, "John
“John H. Hall, Simeon can Arms,“
Arms," pp. 31-34. Output during Morgan’s Morgan's ten-
North, and the Milling Machine."
Machine," pp. 577, 574. ure was as follows: 1803, 4,775; 1804, 3,566; and
North had also developed gun barrel turning machine- 1805, 3,535 (Deyrup, Arms Makers of the Connecti-
ry by 1816;18l6; see Smith, Harpers Ferrv
Ferry Armory, p. Valley, p. 233).
cut Vallev,
clll
I117.
17. “Comparative Study of Bntish
66. Fries, "Comparative British and
52. Whitney quoted in Robert S. Woodbury, American Arms,”
Arms," pp. 34-37. Springfield's
Springfieldls output
“The Legend of Eli Whitney and Interchangeable
"The statistics in Deyrup, Arms Makers
Makers uf of the Connecticut
Parts,”
Parts,'' p. 238, and in Constance M. Green, Eli Valley, give an indication of its checkered history,
Vallev,
Whitney and the Birth of American Technology, p.
Whitnev J1806-15.
806-15.
110; Smith, "E:i “Eli Whitney and the American Sys- 67. Charles Babbage, On the Economy of Ma-
tem.”
tem," p. 50. Although lacking footnotes, Smith'sSmith‘s es- Manufactures, pp. l119-21,
chinery and Manufactures, 19-21, 173-74.
say is the best source for the current perspective on 6S.
68. Smith points out that as early as 181 18133
Whitney. Wadsworth had espoused ideas about system and tini- uni-
53. Quoted in Edwin A. Battison, "Eli “Eli Whitney formity "in
“in language reminiscent of Tousard" ("Mil-
Tousard” (“Mil-
and the Milling Machine,"
Machine.” p. 20. itary Entrepreneurship,"
Entrepreneurship,” p. 68); Smith, Harpers Fer-
54. For only a small sampling ofthe
of the work of early ry Armory, p. 107. Information in this paragraph has
American mechanicians, see Ferguson, "The “The Ameri- 04-7, and from ''Military
been taken from ibid., pp. I104-7, “Military
can-ncss of American Technology.''
can-ness Technology.” Entrepreneurship,”
Entrepreneurship," pp. 68-76.
“First Systematic Attempt at
55. Durfee, "First 69. Smith, Harpers Ferry Armory, p. 107; see
Interchangeability.”
Interchangeability.'' also Charles H. Fitch, "The “The Rise of a Mechanical
56. Russell I. Fries, "A“A Comparative Study of Ideal,” pp. 518-19.
Ideal,"
the British and American Arms Industries, 70. The first and last quotes are in Edward Hart-
1790-1890,” p. 19. See also Gene S. Cesari,
1790-1890," well White, Jr., "The“The Development of Interchange-
"American
“American Arms-Making Tool Development, able Mass Manufacturing in Selected American Indus-
1789-1855,” p. 79.
1789-1855," tries from 1795 to 1825," 1825,” pp. 109, J111; I I: Lee's
Lee’s
350 NOTES
NOTES TO PAGES 34-47
TO PAGES

complaint quoted in Smith, Harpers Ferry Armory, p. Blanchard's rela··

82. Smith covers the history of Blanchard’s re1a--
108. tionship with the national armories in Hmpers
Harpers Ferry
71. For more on inspection of arms, sec see Smith, Armory, pp. 124-38.
I24-38. On inside contracting see John
“Military Entrepreneurship,"
"Military Entrepreneurship,” pp. 74-76. Dalliba Buttriek, “The
Buttrick, System.”
"The Inside Contract System."
quoted in Smith, Harpers Ferry Armory, pp. 109-10. 83. My discussion of Hall is based almost com- coin-
“Military Entrepreneurship," p. 75, Smith identi-
In "Military Smith’s book. See esp. pp. 184-251.
pletely on Smith's
fies master armorer Adonijah Foot as the innovator of 84. Ibid., pp. 190-92.
this gauging system. 85. Ibid., p. I192.
92.
72. Quoted in Smith, “Military
"Military Entrepreneur- 86. Ibid., p. 143.
ship," p. 75.
ship,” 87. Ibid., p. 144. The committee’s
committee's report is re-
Harpers Ferry Armory, p. 109.
73. Smith, Hmpers printed in Claud E. Fuller, The Breech-Loader in the
74. Formal orders to the master armorer at Service, pp. 29-32.
Springfield, March 24, 1818, quoted in White, "De- “De- 88. Quoted in Fitch, "Rise “Rise of a Mechanical Ide-
velopment of Interchangeable Mass Manufacturing,”
Manufacturing,'' al,” p. 520. The figure of sixty-three gauges appears
al,"
pp. 113, 115'
115. on p. 523.
Smith’s discussion of Thomas Blanchard is
75. Smith's 89. Hall quoted in Smith, Harpers Ferry Armory,
the best that exists, and I have drawn heavily from it. p. 227. Samuel Colt emphasized the use of bearing
Ferry Armory, pp. 124-38. Certainly the
See Harpers FerryArm0ry, points in his 1851 address before the Institution of
British in the 1850s believed that the Blanchard stock- Civil Engineers, “On''On the Application of Machinery to
ing machinery exemplified American manufacturing the Manufacture of Rotating Chambered-Breech Fire-
technology. See the testimony of John Anderson, Arms,
Arrns, and the Peculiarities of those Arms,”Arms," p. 45.
Thomas Hastings, Lieutenant-Colonel James S. 90. Smith, Harpers Ferry Armory, p. 208.
Tulloh, George Wallis, Joseph Whitworth, and Rich- 91. Ibid., pp. 210-11.
ard Prosser in the Report on Small Arms, the Special 92. Ibid., pp. 214-15.
Reports of Joseph Whitworth and George Wallis re- 93. Fuller, The Breech-Loader, p. 32.
printed in Rosenberg, ed., American System of 0fMari-
Man- 94. Report on Small Arms, Q. 413, p. 40.
iifactures, and Anderson, "On
ufactures, “On the Application of 95. Smith, Harpers Ferry Armory, p. 221.
Machinery.
Machinery.'' ” 96. Compare Hall's
Hall’s attitudes with those of Sam-
76. "Elegant"
“Elegant” in the sense that Eugene S. Fergu- uel Colt (and those of Colt as expressed through
son used the expression in "Elegant
“Elegant Inventions.”
Inventions." Tu11oh’s
Tulloh' s testimony) in his testimony before the Select
77. This system was described by Lieutenant- Committee on Small Arms (Report on Small Arms,
Coloncl Tulloh in his testimony before the Select
Colonel pp. 84-99 [Colt], pp. 39-52 [Tu!Ioh]).
[Tu11oh]).
Committee on Small Arms; “In ''In fact, it was something 97. Smith, Harpers Ferry Ferrv Armory, p. 249.
so different from anything I expected, and so beauti- 98. Ibid.,
Ibid.. pp. 241-51.
ful, that I, like everyone else who has seen it, was 99. These years are covered in Charles Fitch, Fitch.
highly gratified. The consecutive arrangements of the “Rise of a Mechanical Ideal,"
"Rise Ideal,” and Felicia Deyrup,
machinery were such as lI have never seen in any Arms Makers of' of the Connecticut Valley, pp. 98-159,
department before. There were, I think, about 150 see esp. p. 132.
machines at work, and those machines were all placed “Rise of a Mechanical Ideal," pp. 521,
100. "Rise
in a kind of consecutive arrangement to produce the 525.
pistol of which Colonel Colt is the manufacturer. It 101. Ibid., pp. 526-27. See also the Report of ofthe
the
seemed to be a kind of stream of work flowing tlowing Committee on the Machinery
Machiner.v of the United States in
through the manufactory in consecutive order" order” (Re- Rosenberg, ed., American System of Mczmtfactures,
Manufactures,
port on Small Arms, Q. 413, p. 40). pp. 102-3, 117.
78. Quoted in Smith, Harpers Ferry Armory, p. 102. Deyrup, Arms Makers of the Connecticut
l02.
I25.
!25. Valley, p. 119.
Vallev,
79. Ibid. 103. Ibid., pp. 117-21.
Ibid.,pp.
80. The Brunel
Brunei system is covered admirably in K.
inK. 104. Rosenberg, cd., ecl., American System oy"Mari-
of Man-
R. Gilbert,
Gilbeit, The Portsmouth Block-making
B/ock-making Machinerv.
Machinery. ufactures, p. 66. Colt's
Colt’s claim was corroborated by
Carolyn C. Cooper has given us a more comprehen- Anderson’s
Anderson's committee in 1854 (ibid., p. 195).
sive view of the systematic arrangement and operation 05. Colt tells the history of h1s
I105. his early work in
Brunel’s machinery in "The
of Brunei's 'The Production Line at “On
''On the Application of Machinery."
Machinery.'' See also Dey-
Mill.”
Portsmouth Block Mill." Connecticut Valley, pp.
rup, Arms Makers of the Coimecricut
81. The critical importance of Blanchard’s
Blanchard's in- 144-59; Fries, "Comparative Study of British and
vention is recognized in Smith, Harpers FerrvFerry Armo- Arms,” pp. 57-150; and Cesari, ''Ameri-
American Arms,'' “Ameri-
ry. p. 127, and Cesari, "American
ry, “American Arms-
Arms-Making.”
Making," Arms-l\/laking,“ pp. 165-229, 284-90.
can Arms-Making,"
p. 247. 106. Colt. “On the Application of Machinery,”
Colt, ''On Machinery,"
 Notes to Poges
Pages 47-54 351

p. 44. Howard argues that the Paterson arms made by 116. Testimony of Gage Stickney, Report on
Colt were of "high
“high quality workmanship"
workmanship” ("Inter-
(“Inter- Arms. Q. 7447-51, p. 442, and Cesari,
Small Arms,
Reexamined," p. 643).
changeable Parts Reexamined.“ “American Arms-Making," p. 204. For a recent
"American
107. B. F. Spalding, "The
“The 'American'
‘American' System of analysis of the entire concept of interchangeability
Manufacture,” p. 2.
Manufacture,'' with emphasis on Colt, sec see Howard, “Interchange-
"Interchange-
108. Jack Rohan, Yankee Arms Maker. Maker, p. 165; Reexamined,” pp. 633-47.
able Parts Reexamined,"
“American Arms-Making,"
Cesari, "American Arms-Making,” p. 184. Colt’s Colt's 117. Colt, "On
“On the Application of Machinery.”
Machinery,"
arrangement with Warner provides the primary docu- p. 45.
mentation for Gage Stickney's
Stickney’s claim in his testimony 118. Howard concludes: "Looking
“Looking at the total re-
before the Select Committee on Small Arms that cord of American arms production, it becomes evident
“Colonel Colt has copied his [machinery] from
"'Colonel that the use of machine tools was of paramount impor-
Springfield” (Report on Small Arms, Q. 7462, p.
Springfield" tance, but the interchangeable part was not achieved
422). to any great measure”
measure" (“Interchangeable
("Interchangeable Parts Reex-
Cesari. "American
109. Cesari, “American Arms-Making," pp. amined,“ p. 649).
amined,"
186-87, 192. 119. Roe, English and American Tool Builders.
See Howard L. Blaekmore,
110. Sec “Colt’s London
Blackmore, "Colt's p. 170.
I70. The inside contracting system has been touch-
Armoury.” pp. 171-95, and Rosenberg, ed.,
Armoury," eel., Ameri- ed on by many authors; the best account is Buttrick,
can System of Manufactures,
Manufactures, pp. 44-47. “Inside Contract System.''
''Inside System.” Other connections among
111. Rohan, Yankee Arms Maker,
Ill. Maker. p. 223, and these mechanics are represented graphically by Guy
“American Arms-Making," p. 197.
Cesari, "American Hubbard, "Development
“Development of Machine Tools in New
112. Paul Uselding, ·'Elisha
“Elisha K. Root, Forging England," pp. 2-3, who demonstrates that many of
‘American System'.''
and the 'American System’." John Anderson re- Colt's
Colt’s inside contractors had been apprentices and
garded the Colt/Root die-forging machinery as "the “the workmen of the Robbins & & Lawrence Co. Sec, See, for
most perfect thing that I have ever seen," seen,” and he example ibid., pp. 617-20.
“almost perfect system"
celebrated the "'almost system” of special- 120. Buttrick, "Inside
“Inside Contract System,"
System.” pp.
purpose machine tools used sequentially at Colt's Colt’s 205-7.
London armory (Report on Small Arms, pp. 32, 32. 27). 121. An expression used by Robert James Walker
“American Arms-Making,”
Cesari, "American Arms-Making," pp. 215-20. In in commenting upon Samuel Colt’sColt's 1851 address be-
1854, Tulloh estimated that Colt's
Colt’s London armory fore the Institution of Civil Engineers, "On“On the Ap-
had some 150 machines at work (Report on Small Machinery." p. 65.
plication of Machinery,”
Arms.
Arms, Q. 413, p. 40). 122. See Ferguson, "The “The Amencan-ness
American-ness of
113. On the Colt gauging system, see Cesari, Technology."
American Technology.''
“American Arms-Making,"
"American Arms-Making,” p. 217. James Nasmyth 123. This conclusion is based on a perusal of Sci-
was struck by the Colt gauging methods used at his Amcrican, 1844-50. See also Peter Haddon
entific American,
London armory: "[H]e “[H]e had a testing machine, to test "The Industrial Archeology of the Wood
Smith, “The
in every case, whether the part so produced by ma- America," pp. 54-57.
Wheel Industry in America,”
chinery was brought to the exact size that it ought to 124. Babbage, On the Economy of Machinery,
be; that was a remarkable part of the system, those pp. 176-90.
criticising machines: little instruments that were in 125. Chauncey Jerome, History of the American
every department, and the part, whatever it was, was Clock Business for the Past Sixty Years, p. 92. For the
Businessfor
placed in different directions, with parts that came early American clock industry, I have relied prin-
over it, and they could detect the one-thousandth of an cipally upon John Joseph Murphy, “Entrepreneurship
''Entrepreneurship
inch difference;
ditJerence: and in order to keep this machine in the Establishment of the American Clock Indus-
perfectly correct,
con·ect, he had a duplicate machine kept in try," and Murphy. “The Establishment of the Ameri-
Murphy, "The
store as a standard to refer to, in case the workman- can Clock Industry.'' ''Development of Inter-
Industry.” White, “Development
ship of the shop standard getting out of order''
order” (Report Manufacturing," also includes a
changeable Mass Manufacturing,”
on Small Arms, Q. 1527, pp. !16-17).
116-17). chapter on the American clock industry. See also the
I14. Throughout his ''Comparative
114. “Comparative Study of thorough study of Terry by Kenneth D. Roberts, Eli
British and American Arms,”
Arms," Russell Fries implies Terry and the Connecticut Shelf Clock, and Roberts,
that interchangeability lowered cost. Fries explicitly Some Observations Concerning Connecticut
argues that interchangeability reduced costs in the an- Clockmaking, 1790-1850.
C!ockmaking,
“British Response to
tebellum period in his article, "British “Establishment of the American
126. Murphy, "Establishment
the American System.”
System.'' Howard, “Interchangeable
''Interchangeable Clock Industry,”
Industry," pp. 32-42.
Reexamined,“ pp. 633-47, provides evidence
Parts Reexamined," “Report on the Manufactures of In-
127. Fitch, "Report
that absolute interchangeability raised costs, not terchangeable Mechanism,”
Mechanism," p. 684; Murphy, "Es- “Es-
lowered them. tablishment of the American Clock Industry,"
Industry,'' pp.
“Mass Production,”
115. "Mass Production," p. 822. 62-63, 60. Henry Terry
Teny noted in his American Clock
352 sores TO PAGES
NOTES TO PAGES 54-68

Making that Yankee clockmakers were "fitting

“fitting excelled those of the British (Eugene S. Ferguson,
wheels and different parts to their proper place in each Earlv Engineering Reminiscences (1815-40) of
ed., Early c~f

clock and putting one at a time in running order" order” George Escol Sellers [Washington, D.C.: Smithso-
(quoted in Murphy, "Establishment
“Establishment of the American nian Institution, 1965], pp. 109-12). The armsmaker
Clock Industry,”
Industry," p. 89). Joshua
1oshua Stevens argued that as late as 1849, however,
Murphy’s admirable chapter, "CaptLtr-
128. See Murphy's “Captur- “we were obliged to buy most of our machmery
''we machinery in
ing a Rural Market,·'
Market,” in ''Establishment
“Establishment of the Ameri- Am eri- England, as comparatively little progress had been
can Clock Industry,"
Industry,” pp. I114-74.
14-7 4. made in this country in the manufacture of fine tools
129. Ibid., pp. 96, 98, 104-6,
104~6, 112. of that character” (“Sixty Years a Mechanic," Ma-
character'· ("Sixty
relies primarily on Terry, American
130. Murphy relics chinery I1 [October 18941:
1894]: 4).
Clock Making, and Hiram Camp, Sketch ofthe of the Clock 143. Special Report of Joseph Whitworth, in
Making Business, !792-1892.
1792-1892. On gauges, see Mur- Rosenberg, ed., American System of Manufactures, p.
ofMana_factares,
phy’s quotation from Camp in "Establishment
phy's long quotatiOn “Establishment of 343.
34:1.
the American Clock Industry.”
Industry," pp. 89-90.89—90. 144. Ibid., p. 365. Whitwo1”th’s
Whitwot1h's report, with its
131 . David Pye, The Nature and
131. andArt
Art of Workman- extended discussion of special-purpose machine tools
ship, pp. 4-8. in America and scant attention to interchangeability.
interchangcabtlity,
132. W. G. Lathrop, "The “The Development of the led me to overstate that the so-called "American
“American sys-
sys-»
Brass Industry in Connecticut,"
Connecticut,'' p. 12; Murphy, ''Es “Es-.. tem of manufactures" referred to special-purpose ma-
tablishment of the American Clock Industry," pp. chinery rather than machine-made, interchangeable
I78-79.
ln\-79. On Ives, sec also KennethKennt:th D. Roberts.
Roberts, The parts manufacture. See David A. Hounshell, "The “The
Contributions‘
Contributions of Joseph lves Ives to Connecticut Clock System: Theory and Practice,''
Practice,” in Mayr and Post.
Post,
Technology, 1810-1862.
I810-1862. eds,
cd:,., Yankee Enterprise, "From the American
Entr:rprise, and “From
Special Report of Joseph Whit1vorth.
133. Speciai Whitworth. in I.
Production,'' chap. l.
System to Mass Production,"
Rosenberg, cd.,
ed. , American System of ofMannfactares,
Manuf'acwres, p p. 145. Special Report of' of Georf{e
George Wallis in Rosen-
341.
.341. berg, ed., American S_vstem System ofA1anufactures,
ofMannfactares, p. 261.
134. Eugene Ferguson has often noted that clocks 146. Report of the Committee on the Machinery Machine/3'
require only very rough uniformity compared to fire- of the United States, in Rosenberg, ed., American
arms. Perhaps it is this difference in the requirement Sy.s'teni
Svstem of Manztfactares,
Manufactures. pp. 121-22.
of uniformity or precision that determined the dif- 147. Report on Small Smail Arms, Q. 341, pp. 27-28.
ference of approaches to tu production between firearms 148. Report of the Committee on the lvlachinervv
14R. Machinerv
makers and clock producers. Robert Howard concurs, of the United States. States, in Rosenberg.
Rosenberg, cd ed.,.. American
arguing that "in “in the making of clocks .. . .. the re- System
Svstem of Manufactures, pp. 143, 187, 136.
ofManafactare.i',
quired level of precision was generally very low." 149. lbid.,
Ibid., p. 193
Reexamined,“ p. 633
(“Interchangeable Parts Reexamined,"
("Interchangeable ).
633). 150. Ibid.,
150. 1bid._pp. tort, 193-94.
pp. 104, 193~94.
135. Murphy, “Establishment
·'Establishment of the American l151.
5 I. John Anderson, General Statement of the
Clock Industry,"
Industry,” p. 197, 201-2,
201-2. 219. Past and Prr:sent
Present Condition of' of the Several
Sel'eral Branches of
ibid., p. 210.
136. Quoted in 1bid., the War Department (London: HMSO, 1857), quoted
137. Ibid., pp. lf\4-85.
184-85. in Rosenberg, ed., ed. , American S_\’.$‘I(’l7’l ofManzt/actures.
Svstem of'Manufactures,
138. Both Whitworth and the Anderson commit- pp. 65-66.
tee visited Connecticut clock factories, notably that of I152.
52. John Anderson, ''On “On the Application of Ma· Ma-
Jerome. See Special
Speciai Report of of' ./oseph
Joseph Whitworth, in chinery,"
chincry," p. 157.
Rosenberg, cd.,cd.. American S_\>ste/n
System of of' Manufactures, 153. Report of the Committee on the Machineri" Machinery
pp. 341-42, and Report of' of the Commiuee
Committee on 011 the Ma- of the United States, in Rosenberg, ed., American
o(
cliinery
chinerv of the United States, in ibid., pp. 104, 161.
104. Systern of Manufactures,
Svstem M unufacwres, p. 193.
175; testimony of John Anderson.
Anderson, Report on Smail Small 154. Ibid.,
154. Ibid., p. 107.
p. 107.
Arms, Q Q. 1064, p. 82. 155. The phrase "high “high price of labour" appears
139. Report of the Committee on 011 the Maclii/tery
Aiaclunery in ibid., p. 91. Throughout the reports of Whitworth,
of
oj" the United States, in Rosenberg,
Rosenberg. cd., ed., American Wallis, the Committee on the Machinery of the United
System
Svstem of'of Mannfactnres,
Manufactures, p. 92; sec see "Journal
“Journal of the States, and the Select Committee on Small Arms. Arms,
Committee” in ibid., pp. 98-118.
Committee" there is universal agreement that labor was ·'more "more
140. Rosenberg, ed., cd., American S\·stemSysteni of Man- dear·' in the United States than in England and that for
dear"
iifactures, pp. 1--86.
ufactures, 1-86. this reason mechanization had arisen in the United
141. Special
Speciul Report of Joseph .Joseph Whitworth, in States.
ibid., p. 387.
142. Report on Small Arms, Q. 2043, p. 144.
American opinions on the issue of American versus
Chapter 2
British machine tools differed. George Escol Sellers 1. The best history of this early period is Freder-
b~lieved that as early as 1832 American machine tools
believed “American Sewing-Machines."
ick G. Bourne, "American Sewing-Machines.” See
 Pages 69-HO
Notes to Pagn 69-80 353

also Grace Rogers Cooper, The Sewing Machine, pp. see also Howard Francis Brown.Brown, "The
“The Saga of Brown
3-42. (1833-1968)."
and Sharpe (1833-!968) ''
2. See production figures for the Singer and I18.
8. See J. R. Brown & & Sharpe to Friend [William
Wheeler and Wilson companies in Bourne, "Ameri- “Ameri- G.] Angeli,
Angell, March 11, ll, 1858, Historical Data Files
Sewing-Machines.” p. 530. General company
can Sewing-Machines," (Bound Volumes); J. A. Willcox to J. R. Brown & &
history of Wheeler and Wilson is based on Bourne, Sharpe, February 16. (Misc) Draw-
16, 1858, Historical (Misc.)
“American Sewing-Machines";
·'American Sewing-Machines": Cooper, The Sewing er. On Angeli,
Angell, see Dictionary of' of American Biogra-
Machine; [Wheeler and Wilson Manufacturing Com- phv. s.v. "Angell,
phy. “Angell. William Graham."
Graham.”
pany]. The Sewing Machine; Dictionary
pany], Dictionarv of American 19. Thc~c
These tools are listed by Sharpe, “Joseph
'·Joseph R.
Biography, s.v. "Wheeler,
Biographv, “Wheeler, Nathaniel"; National Brown.”
Brown.''
Cyclopaedia of American Biography,
Biographv, s.v.
s. v. “Wheeler,
''Wheeler, 20. J. R. Brown & & Sharpe (by Lucian Sharpe) to
Nathaniel” “Wilson, Allan Benjamin";
Nathaniel" and "Wilson, Benjamin”; and James Willcox, n.d. [June or July 1858], Historical
“Wheeler and Wilson Manufacturing Co.:
''Wheeler Co; Nathaniel Data Files (Bound Volumes).
Wheeler and A. B. Wilson," in J.D.J. D. Van Slyck, New 21. J. A. Willcox to J. R. Brown & & Sharpe,
Sharpe.
England Manufacturers and Mnnufaclories.
Manufactories, 2: March 19, 1858, ibid.
672-82. Il have found no manuscripts surviving from 22. J. R. Brown & Sharpe to J. A. Willcox, Willcox.
the Wheeler and Wilson Manufacturing Company. March 22, 1858, and n.d. [June or July 1858], ibid. ibtd
3. Cooper, The Sewing Machine, p. 29: “Wilson
29; "Wilson 23. Both parties had been considering increasing
Improved Patent Sewing Machine." the number of machines to one hundred since early
4. Of the capital, $100,000 was assigned to the March 1858. See J. R. Brown & Sharpe to Friend
Wilson patent and $60,000 to the factory (Van Slyck, [William G.] Angell.
Angell, March 15, 15. 1858, to J. A.
New England Manufacturers,
Manuflstctwers, 2: 678, 682). For Wood- Willcox, n.d. [June or July 1858], July 21, 1858.
ruff’s
ruff's later career, see Robert Bruce Davies, Peace- ibid.
fully Working to I0 Conquer the World, p. 39. 24. J. R. Brown & Sharpe to James Willcox, Au-
5. Van Slyck, New England Manufacturers,
Manufacturers,
gust 24, September 7, 7. 1858, ibid.
25. J. L A. Willcox to J. R. Brown & Sharpe,
2: 682.
March 19, 1858; 1858: J. R. Brown & & Sharpe to James
6. Ibid., p. 679.
7. Guy Hubbard, ''Development
"Development of Machine Willcox.
Willcox, September 21. 21, 1858, ibid.
Tools in New England,”
England," p. 877; and B. F. Spalding, 26. J. 1. R. Brown & Sharpe to James Willc()X,
Willcox, Scp-
Sep-
"The ‘American’ System of Manufacture," p. II.
“The 'American' 11. tember 25, n.d. [ca. October I,
tember25, 1, 1858], ibid.
27. J. R. Brown & Sharpe to James Willcox, Oc-
“Development of Machine Tools,"
8. Hubbard, ''Development
tober 30, 1858, ibid. I1 do not know the identity of the
p. 877.
Brown & & Sharpe workman who had been employed at
9. [Wheeler and Wilson], The Sewing Machine,
the Sharps rifle work>.
works.
pp. 10-16.
28. Ibid.
10. Ibid., p. 21.
29. Brown, "Saga“Saga of Brown and Sharpe," p. 26. 26,
ll. Ibid., p. 24.
11.
states that 1861 marks the first date of machine tool
12. Ibid., p. 14; "American
“American Industries-—No.
Industries-No.
sales, in this case, a turret 1lathe.
athe.
10."
30. For sales of Willcox & Gibbs sewing ma-
13. [Wheeler and Wilson], The Sewing Machine.
Machine,
chines, see Table 2.1. 2. I. An article in the Providence
pp. 15-16.
Daily Journal (December 19, 1863) states that "near- “near-
“American Industries-No. 10,"
14. "American 10.” p. 274. & Gibbs sewing ma-
ly twenty thousand ]Willcox
[Willcox &
15. Correspondence between Singer Manufactur- chines] have already been made, while the continued
ing Company's
Company’s production expert, E. H. Bennett, and supply of seven hundred per month scarcely suffices
Franklin Park, the works manager at Singer's
Singer’s Kil- to meet the regular demand for this valuable house-
bowie, Scotland, factory, May 20, July 8, 1909, vol. companion.”
hold companion.''
124, Papers of the Singer Manufacturing Company, 31. The company noted in its Catalogue and
State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison. Price List, October I, 1, 1885, that the tools advertised
16. Brown & & Sharpe Manufacturing Company's
Company’s “are manufactured with
"are w1th the intention of having com-
Historical Data Files, Patent Library, North Kingston, each. respectively, all those qualities best
bined in each,
12.1., list Willcox as a hardware merchant (all subse-
R.I., adapted to serve the uses for which they are designed.
quently cited Brown & & Sharpe correspondence is at They are mostly the outgrowth of our own wants in
this repository). Cooper, The Sewing
Sewinfi Machine, p. 46, the business of manufacturing, and therefore have
calls him a patent model builder. See also National been proved by experience, to be well adapted to their
Cyclopaedia ofofAmerican
American Biography. s.v. "Willcox,
“Willcox, several uses."
Charles Henry.”
Henry.'' 32. Biographical information on Howe can be
17. Henry Dexter Sharpe, "Joseph
“Joseph R. Brown.
Brown, Robert S. Woodbury, History of the Milling
found in RobertS.
Mechanic, and the Beginnings of Brown & Sharpe":
Sharpe”; Machine, pp. 29—76;29-76; Hubbard, “Development of
Huhbard, "Development ol
354 NOTES
NOTES TO moss 80-89
TO PAGL·:S

Tools,” pp. 437-41; and Lucian Sharpe to

Machine Tools," Emerson to I. Singer & Co., March 21, 1851, Box
1. M. Singer&
Wm. G. Angeli,
Angell, July 15, 1861, Brown & Sharpe, 189, all in Singer Papers. Singer purchased its upright
Historical
Htstorical Data Files (Bound Volumes). This letter drill from David Chamberlain of Boston for $95.
contains a five-page account of Howe’s Howe's prior work 46. J. M. Emerson to I. 1. M. Singer & Co., March
and his contact with Joseph R. Brown & Sharpe. 24, 1851, Box 189, ibid.
33. This interpretation, although contrary to 47. J. M. Emerson to I. l. M. Singer & Co., March
Woodbury’s,
Woodbury's, is conjectural, but the extended commu- 28, 1851, Box 189, ibid.
nication bctween
between Brown & & Sharpe and Howe, docu- 48. This conclusion is based on the hundreds of
Shatpe’s letter cited in
mented in Sharpe's n. 32,
inn. 32. strongly sug- bills found in Box 204 of the Singer Papers.
gests collaboration. 49. Sec
See Lyon, "Isaac
“lsaac Singer."
Singer.”
34. Luther D. Burlingame to Joseph W. Roe, 50. Contracts for the room and power are in Bm; Box
September 10, 1914, Brown & & Sharpe, Historical 155, Singer Papers. Sewing Machine Times, n.s., Hl 18
Data Files (Bound Volumes) (Burlingame was Brown (October 25, 1908) :8, notes that the size of the room
1908):8,
& Sharpe's
& Sharpe’s ex-officio historian); Henry M. Leland to was 30 X X 30 feet and that the company rented addi-
John R. Freeman, Feb February
mary 11, 1927, ibid. tional rooms of this size in the same building. A Sing-- Sing-
35. Biographical material on Leland may be Machine Co. publication, Mechanics of the
er Sewing Machme
found in the letter cited in n. 34; Henry M. Leland to Sewing Machine p. 45, claims that the room was 25 >< x
Brown & & Sharpe Manufacturing Company, April 15, 50 feet. For information leading to identification of
“Henry M. Leland Conference with L
1914, and "Henry L. D. Ezra Gould, I1 am indebted to Carlene Evans Stephens
Burlingame, August 24, 1929," 1929,” both in Brown & of the National Museum of American History,
Sharpe, Historical Data Files (Bound Volumes); and Smithsonian lnstitution.
Institution. For the purchases, see sec Bills,
Ottilie M. Leland.
Leland, Master 0fPrecision.
of Precision. Boxes 231 and 234, Singer Papers. I. 1. M. Singer &
"Henry M. Leland Conference with L
36. “Henry L. D. Clark’s handwriting] to William F. Proc-
Co. [Edward Clark's
Burlingame,”
Burlingame," pp. 6, 11. II. tor, July 16, 1855, Box 189, ibid.
37. Leland to Freeman, February II, 1 1, 1927, p. 3. 51. United States Magazine 11 (September 15,
“Henry M. Leland Conference with L.
38. "Henry 1... D. 1854), opposite p. 161. The Singer company claimed
Burlingame,”
Burlingame," p. II. ll. in 1914 that this illustration appeared in August 1853
39. According to Robert S. Woodbury, Brown & (Mechanics of the Sewing Machine, p. 45).
Sharpe had begun grinding experiments before 1860 52. Sewing Machine Times, n.s., 18 (0ctober25,
SewingMachineTirnes, (October 25,
(History of the Grinding Machine, p. 61). Leland to 1908): 8.
8, acknowledged the crude production technol-
Freeman, February ll, 1927, pp. 3-4. ogy of the Singer company. So did the Singer com-
40. Leland to Freeman, February 11, ll, 1927, p. 4. pany publication of 1914, Mechanics of the Sewiny, Sewing
For more information on the development of grinding Machine. which stated on p. 45: "It
Machine, “it is apparent that
techniques at Brown & & Sharpe, see Woodbury, Histo- the greater part of the sewing machine construction at
r_\'
n• of the Grinding Machine, pp. 58-71. that time was produced by hand at the bench, so that
41. ..“Reminiscences
Reminiscences of W. A. Viall," Brown & & no two machines or the parts composing them were
Sharpe, Sewing Machine and Small Tool Drawer. precisely alike, either m in shape or fitting.''
fitting.”
42. Gene Cesari
Ccsari makes the distinction
distmction between 53. Singer Sewing Machine Co., Co. Mechanics of
process and product orientation of manufacturerers
manufacturcrers Machine, p. 45; Singer & Co. [Clarki
the Sewing Machine. [Clark] to
and machine tool makers in the antebellum period in Proctor, July 16, 1855.
“American Arms-Making Machine Tool Develop-
''American 54. Even the most casual inspection of Singer Singe1
merit."
ment.'' sewing machines made from 1851 through the 1870s
43. Singer Manufacturing Company's
Company’s early histo- differences-—-
reveals differences among them. These differences--
ry is found in Bourne, "American “American Sewing-Ma-
Sewing-Ma even in machines of the same model and made in the
chines"; Cooper, The Serving
chmes"; Sewing Machine; and Davies, year~are products of the idiosyncrasies of indi-
same ycar—are
Peaceful/_v
Peace.ftillv Working. For biographical information on vidual workmen and are to be expected from the Euro-
Singer and Clark sec see Dictionary
Dictwnarv 0fAI'l’l£’l'iC'£I/'1
of American Biogra-
Biof;ra- pean approach to manufacture. See Appendix 2 for an
phy. “Singer, lsaac”;
phy, s.v. "Singer, Isaac"; National Cyclopaedia
C_vcl0paea’ia of account of variations in Singer machines.
American Biography, s.v. "Singer, “Singer, lsaac";
Isaac"; Peter See "Edward
55. Sec “Edward Clark.”
Clark."
Lyon, "Isaac
“lsaac Singer and His Wonderful Sewing Ma- 56. Singer & & Co. [Clark] to Proctor, July 16,
chine"; and "Edward
“Edward Clark."
Clark.” 1855.
44. Both the Boston Almanac, 1854-56, and the 57. Bourne, "American
“American Sewing-Machines,"
Sewing-Machines,” at-
Boston Directory, 1853, list Phelps as a maker of tributes this innovation to Clark, but. but, as Robert B.
“philosophical”
"philosophical" (scientific) instruments. Davies points out, Clark credited the Wheeler and
45. See Box 235; Cash Account Book, 1851-52, Wilson Company with this marketing device (Peace-
Box 233; "Bills“Bills Receivable, Bills Payable,"
Payable,“ Box fu/ly Working, p. 20).
.fiAIIv
184; other bills from 1851 and 1852, Box 234; J. M. Singer’s marketmg
58. Singer's marketing strategy is discussed in
 Notes to Pttges
Nores Po[ies 9()—93
90-93 355

Davies, Peacefnlly Working, and in Andrew B. Jack,

Dsvies, Peacefullv lack, Box 6, Singer Papers. Problems abroad are reflected
“The Channels of Distribution for sn
"The an lnnovation.“
Innovation." Singer’s British agent, W. E.
in correspondence from Singer's
Alfred D. Chandler draws upon and clarifies
clsrifies the work Broderick; see, for example, Broderick to I.
Broderick: 1. i\/1.
M. Sing-
of Davies and Jack
lack in The Visible Hand, pp. 303-8, er & Co., February 25, Z5, 1862, Box l, 1, ibid. Nee-
402-5. See also Elizabeth M. Bacon, Bacon. "Marketing
“Marketing dlemaking
dlcmaking problems and Caner’s
Carter's recruitment arc are doc-
Sewing Machines in the Post-Civil War Years.”Years." In an umented in George B. Woodruff to I. M. Singer & &
important article on American law and corporate mar- Co., March 3, 14 (two letters), May 13, 20, 1862,
keting strategy, Charles W. McCurdy suggests that Box 2; Jerome Carter to I. l. M. Singer & & Co., Septem-
Singer’s successful marketing strategy owed a great
Singer's ber 29, 1862, Box 5: 5; and power of attorney form,
company’s work in the courts breaking
deal to the company's Mrs Lydia M. Caner,
Mrs. Carter, Administratix of Jerome Carter
down legal trade barriers to the establishment of a to Singer Mfg. Co., Sept. 19, 1876, Box 190, ibid.
national market (“American
(''American Law and the Marketing 66. 44 (1922): 927-28.
927—28. The hiring of Miller may
Structure of the Large Corporation, 1875-1890").
1875—1890”). have been the occasion recalled by Isaaclsaac Singer, who
59. Cooper, The Sewing Machine, p. 35, claims still worked around the factory in 1863, that "his “his
that the first Singer family machine proved to be too foreman nearly ruined the business by his firstfirSt attempt
light for effective work. to produce parts on the interchangeable plan without
60. “Sewing Machines," pp. 421-23.
"Sewing Machines,” obtained”
the exactness of duplication that was later obtained"
61. Spalding, "The
6I. “The 'Amencan'
‘American’ System of Man- ("Looking Back: A Bird'Bird’ss Eye View of Our Trade."
Trade,"
ufacture,”
ufacture," p. II.
11. Il cannot precisely identify Spalding. Sewing Machine Times, n.s., 18 (October 25,
1I have identified a Frank Spalding, who about 1859 1908): 8.
learned the machinist’s
machinist's trade at the Cheney Bros. Silk 67. Waldo E. Nutter, Manhattan Firearms; Ar-
Mills at Manchester, Connecticut, and who worked nold's letter to Root is reprinted on p. 129.
nold’s
for various sewing machine manufacturers including 68. Arnold [Roland], "Six
68, Amold “Six Examples of Success-
Stedman of Meriden, Connecticut, the Finckle & ful Shop Management," p. 997.
Lyon Sewing Machine at Middletown, Connecticut, 69. Singer Manufacturing Co., "The Singer
and its successor the Victor Sewing Machine. In 1883 System." Catalogue of Singer Sewing Ma-
Gauge System,"
he went to work for Brown & Sharpe as a toolmaker. chines, Illustrating Their Construction, Their Variety,
Before he retired in I9!9 1919 he had received thirty pat- and Their Special Uses by Maniifactures.
Manufactures. p. 51. ln In
ents on tools. Frank Spalding published articles in the this and other advertising literature the Singer com-
technical press and could have written the series on pany stressed the assembly system in which "the
the American system. See Luther D. Burlingame, working parts
pa11s are ‘assembled’ . . . and each placed in
'assembled' ...
“Frank Spalding,"
"Frank Spalding,” Brown & & Sharpe, Historical Data its proper working position. Each of these parts has
Files (Bound Volumes). accurateiy made that all are perfectly inter-
been so accurately
62. Horace L. Arnold [Henry Roland], "Six “Six Ex- changeable and require no adjustment, each fitting
amples of Successful Shop Management—V,”
Management--V," p. properly to its intended position, and resulting in a
997. I1 am indebted to Daniel Nelson for this complete and harmonious whole”whole" (ibid., p. 41).
reference. “Sewing Machines," pp. 421-23.
70. "Sewing 421-23, The drop-
63. Ibid. forged parts probably included the thread tension
64. Copy of responses to questionnaire attached discs, tension spring, presser foot, presser foot lever,
to a letter from L. B. Miller (who supplied the infor- shuttle race slides, shuttle carrier, pitmans (or con-
mation) to the Singer Mfg. Co., August 3, 1885, Box necting rods) for the shuttle race carrier, two parts for
200, Singer Papers. See also the company's
company’s publica- the cloth feed, and several washers and pins. The
tion by John Scott, Genius Rewarded; or the Story of majority
maJority of the parts, however, were cast. J\1y My source
the Sewing Machine, pp. 29-32; and George R. for these statements is the sewing machines them-
McKenzie’s remarks at the groundbreaking ceremony
McKenzie's selves. I have inspected the following New Family
for the new Scotland factory in Singer ManuL1eturing
Manufacturing machines which were made in the years indicated in
Co., Report of the Proceedings on the Occasion of parenthesis: Serial Numbers 87104 (ca. 1865),
Groimdfor
Breaking Ground for the Singer Manufacturing Com- 106092 (ca. 1865), 360834 (ca. 1869), 459,834 (ca.
pany’s
pany's New FactO/)',
Factory, p. 18, Box 233, Singer Papers. 1870), 1038977 (ca. 1873), 1081835 (ca. 1873),
65. The many complaints are evident from a cur- 5235877 (ca. 1884/85). These machines are preserved
sory reading of the company's
company’s incoming correspon- by the Division of Textiles, National Museum of
dence, which is bound in several hundred letterbooks American History, Smithsonian Institution.
Institution, See Ap-
that form a part of the Singer Papers, Boxes I1 through pendix 2 for a report of inspection and analysis
53 and 1975 accession (unprocessed: twenty-two large procedures.
moving boxes full of letterbooks). See esp. M. B. 71. The published account of the Singer factory
Heine to I. M. Singer & Co., January 21, 1863; and describes the operation of these gear cutters: "One “One of
Edwin Dean to I. M. Singer & & Co., February
Febmary 2, 1863, these [beveled gear blanks] is placed upon a machine
356 NOTES 'ro PAGES 93~96
NOTES TO PAGES 93-96

about the size of a man's

man"s hat, when a circular saw, in letters of September 16, 1868, vol. 92, and November
circumference of uf the size of a silver dollar, ap- 28, 1868, vol. 96. Sec
See also the 1868 Glasgow factory
proaches and cuts a cog in solid metal with as much inventory, Box 189 of the papers accessioned
accessioncd earlier
apparent ease It then recedes. when
case as it in soft wood. lt and cataloged.
the cog wheel turning on its axis, presents a new front 78. The figure of seven hundred is not absolutely
which is instantly cut. The saw-dust falling into a little certain. The new factory at Glasgow had a weekly
tin gutter, is conducted to a box for preservation. In a output of six hundred machines, and I have assumed
few minutes all the cogs being cut, the machine stops that the original factory produced one hundred
hnndred ma-
itself, when the operator replaces the finishedfinis\Jcd wheel chines per week. Robert B. Davies, in "International
“International
by a fresh one, and the machine proceeds as before.tis Operations of the Singer Manufacturing Co Co.,
..
The wheel thu~ thus cut is however not perfect. The cogs 1854--1895.” p. 122, gives a figure of 792. The fig-
1854--1895,"
being rough and sqllare,
square. would not mesh with those of ure of six hundred is taken from the Smger
Singer company's
company’s
another wheel. It is therefore put in another machine Report of the Proceedings
Pmceedings of Breaking Ground.
Ground, p.
similar to the first, with the exception that instead of a 34--35,
34-35, m in which Alexander Anderson states that "we
circular saw. there revolves against the cogs a wheel
Circular saw, were receiving the parts from America, in a panlypartly
having on its which rounds off
it> circumference a groove wh1ch Sc1'enti)‘ic American 24 (I
state.” Scientific
finished state.'' R7 I): 406,
(1871):
polishes the cogs, stopping itself when it has coin-
and pohshes com- reprints a small article taken from Engineering. its Its
pleted its work" ("Sewing Machines,“
Machines," p. 423)_423). output figure of one thousand four hundred machines
72. “Inventory,
"Inventory, Glasgow Factory, 31st Dec. per week is suspect, although by 1879 the Glasgow
1868," p. 21,
IR68," 21. Box 189.
IR9, Singer Papers. See also the factory was turnmg
turning out 189,085 machines, or roughly
letter from John MacDonald to Singer Mfg. Co., May four thousand machines per week (Alex Anderson to
19, I1870,
19. R70. requesting one thousand pounds of "grind- “grind- George R. McKenzie,
McKenzie. December 26, 26. 1879, Box 191.
191,
ing stones for grinding gears''
gears" (Foreign Letter File 2. 2, Singer Papers).
1975 accession.
accession, ibid.). Peacejidly Working.
79. Davies, Peacefiilly Wor/(ing. p. 47, citing
73. That this system was in usc use 1s
is evident from minutes of August 30, 1869: the directors had been
later correspondence
eorresponclcnce and from the Time Book folio or unable to find an adequate site in New York City. The
Payroll Ledger, vol. 277, ibid. Since this ledger be- evidence on the two-thousand-machine limit is con-
gins inJn 1868, precise dating of the adoption of the flicting.
flictmg. Davies also wrote that "in “in January 1869.
inside contract system is impossible. Horace L L. Ar- McKenzie
i\kKenzie spoke in terms of a weekly production ot of
nold [Roland] says that inside insidc contracting ''became
"became 1,500
l ,500 family machines for United States domestic
general in 1866-1866-7" (“Six Examples of Successful
7' · (''Six sales. semi-finished parts of 300 machines weekly
sales, and scmdinished
Shop Management,"
Management." p. 997). for the Glasgow plant. To meet thtsthis goal[my
goal [my italics]
74. "Sewing
“Sewing Machines," p. 422; production fig- by
hy May 1. 1, he was authorized to buy $12,264.00 of
ures for 1863, however, indicate that the factory new and used tools to increase output" (("Interna-
"interna-
turned out more than four hundred machines. "Our “Our Operations.“ p. 120, citmg
tional Operations," citing Directors’
Directors' Minutes,
Manufacturing Industries, no. III," III,” New York Times,
Times. January I,1, 1869, and February 17, 1869).
July 9, 1865, p. 5. 80. Davies. "Intemational
"International Operations."
Operations," p. 48,
75. Quoted from the May 28, 1867, Minutes of citing minutes of December 15, 1869.
the Board of Directors Meetings of the Singer Man- 81. “Inventory, Glasgow Factory,
RI. "Inventory, Factory. 31 December
ufacturing Company by Davies, Peacefully Working, 1868,” Box 189, Singer Papers.
1868,"
p. 44. These minutes are arc held today by the Singer 82. The wage differential is based on average
company in New York, York. and I was dcmeddenied access to wage figures for factory employees in m the two coun-
them. Because of personal friendship with a former tries and an exchange rate of $5 per pound sterling.
board
hoard chairman of Singer, Davies, while a graduate The Americun
American factory built tools for the Glasgow fac-
student at the University of Wisconsin in 1960. was tory wcll
well into the I1880s,
SilOs, as evidenced by scores of
allowed to examine the minutes as well as other Sing- letters from John MacDonald to Singer Mfg. Mfg _ Co. and
er records. Upon the
thc chairman's retirement, however.
however, from L. B. Miller to George Ross McKenzie from
the company
company refused further
further access
access to
to Davies
Davies (ibid.,
(ibid.. 1868 to 1885,
1885. Singer Papers.
Acknowledgments).
Acknowledgments). 83._ Evidence for this outcry is contained in the
83
Ibid.,, pp. 44-45.
76. Ibid verbose letters from George B. Woodruff, who head-
77. The production figure is given in ihicl.,
ibid., p.
p, 46. cd Smger'
eel Singer’ss European sales 111in London, dating from
in a letter from John MacDonald
Mac Donald to John Anderson, 1867 and 1868. Letters from 1867 are in Boxes
December 14, 14. 1867, Box 36, Singer Papers, which I 30-36;
30- 36; from 1868.
1868, 1975 accession, vols. 92-96,92496.
evidently missed. The correspondence between Mac- Singer Papers. One year earlier, however, Woodruff
Donald and the New York offices in 1868 is contained “exceedingly bad work-
had complained about the "exceedingly
in letterbook volumes 92 through 96 of the 1975 Sing- manship in all the machines sent from New York [in
er Papers accession (uncatalogcd). Sec,
accesslOn (uncataloged). Sec. for example.
example, which] the cam rollers and crank pins arc are so badly
 Notes to Pr/gar
Nores ro Poges 96-/()7
96-107 357

fitted" (Woodruff to Singer Mfg. Co., Co.. April 12,

l2, 190. ibid. Anthonys
190, Anthony's letter published in Scll'ing
Sen-ing .Mo-
Mn-
I865, Box 16,
1865, I6. ibid.). Similar protests were recorded clrine i\dvancc
chine Advance suggests that the entire one hundred
I883, when the company established a factory in
in 18K3, thousand machines were delivered. But the Provi-
Montreal. Canada. This time the company sent circu-
Montreal, delivercd more than five
dence Tool Company never delivered
lars around to its branch agents to give them ··an "an thousand machines in one month. See Sec I873 corre-
1873 corTe-
opportunity of comparing them with those which we spondence between Providence Tool and Singer as
sponclencc
have been importing for some years. We should like “Settlement with and result of contracts with
well as "Settlement
to have your opinion regarding same. The machine is I873,“ Box
Domestic Sewing Machine Co., Oct. 28. 1873."
the same in every respect.
respect, nevertheless we would like I90, Singer Papers.
190,
to have your opimonopinion upon it as compared with the Draft, Articles of Agreement [creating the
91. Draft.
Glasgow machine”
machine" Box 196, l96, ibid.). Domestic Manufacturing Company], JuncJ
Company]. [May or June]
“Report” (1872)
84. "Report" (I872) in Archives Nationales.
Nationales, I873, p. 7, Box 228, Singer Papers.
1873,
F12-6907, ouvrages en matieres diverses;
f\2-6907, ouvragcs machines a
divcrscs; machine> a 92. John B. Anthony, Providence Tool Com-
coudre; admission en franchise, IS44-72. 1844-72. lI am in- pany, to I. A. Hopper.
Hopper, Singer Mfg. Co., November
debted to James Edmonson for pointing out the exis- I872, Box 190.
27, 1872, I90. ibid.
tence of this report. 93. See Appendix 2 for a technical description of
85. Davies, Peacrffu//_r" Work!/lg, p. 50, citing
Peacefullv Workinf{, inspection of Singer sewing machines, machines. ca. 1873.
I873.
Board Minutes of January 1, l. 1869:
I869; Singer Factory 94. Spalding, "The “The 'American·
‘American System of tvfan- Man-
Journal, 1868-73, p. 689, 1975 I975 accession,
accession. Singer ufacture,"
ufacturc I.
,'' p. 1ll.
Papers. 95. Eugene S. Ferguson. "History “History and Develop-
“International Operations.“
86. Davies, "lntemational Operations.·' p. 124.
I24. ment of Statistical Quality Control,·· Control.“ unpublished
citing Singer Board Minutes, February 18, I8, October manuscript, April 15. 1964; I964: Daniel J. Boorstin.
Boorstin, The
1l9. 3l, 1870,
9, 31, I870. and January 25, 1871 1871.. Davies does not Arnerz'<‘ans', pp. 193-200.
A.mrricans, l93—Z00.
indicate whether the expert was hired. See also his 96. L. B. Miller to G. R. McKenzie. April 12, I2.
Peacefu/l_v Wor/ting. p. 48.
Pracefullv Working, l88l, Box 193,
1881, I93. Singer Papers.
87. See Memorandum of the Providence Tool 97. Captain Charles Chapman, The Ocean Ocea/r
Company, December 19. I9, 1870, for details of the corr-
con- I/I/at-'e.s~, and Scott, Genius Rewarded.
Waves. Rewardr'd.
tract. Box 190;I90; see also John B. Anthony.
Anthony, Providence 98. Elizabeth Dari/_vDailv lou Journal.
mal, October 9, 1907,I907.
Tool Co..Co .. to Inslee
Ins lee A. Hopper, Singer Mfg. Co Co.... Box 231, Singer Papers; Davies. Davies, Peacrfful/_\‘ I/Vor/ting.
Peacefu/h· Work/nf!.,
December 28, Z8, 31,
3I, 1870,
I870. 1975
l975 accession, vol. 135, I35, p. 48; Chapman, Ocean Wa1·es. Waves, p. 143.I43. Because
Singer Papers. A letter written by Anthony, president Singer was so defensive about the sewing machine
of Providence Tool Co., Co.. toT.
to T. B. Terry
Tet-ry & Co., Octo- combination, particularly under the editorial fire of
ber 27, 27. I881,
1881, published in the Sewing Machme Machine Ad- JOUrnals
journals such as Scientific Sr‘ierzri;‘i'c American, it never pub-
vance 4 (January 1882): 3, confirms the terms of the lished articles about its factory in trade journals. joumals. a
contract. common practice in the nineteenth century.
88. Proposed agreement between Domestic Sew- 99. Chapman, Ocean Waves, Waves. pp. 143-51.
l43~5l. Re-
ing Machine Co. and Providence Tool Co., October garding the skill of Singer's Singers molders,
molders. L. B. Miller
I7, 1873, Box Jl90;
17, 90: see also notes of a meeting be- wrote in a Bureau of Labor inquiry about "those who
tween Singer Mfg. Co. and Providence Tool Co., Co.. make our castings. . . . Although they make molds. molds,
November 22, 1872, I872, Box 191; l9l; lnslee
Inslee A. Hopper to they cannot be called molders who understand the
Providence Tool Co.. Co .. December 21, 1872, I872, for the business throughout, and can make molds of any
new contract, Box 190, I90, Singer Papers; Anthony to kind“ (Miller to Singer Mfg. Co.,
kind" Co.. August 3, 3. 1885.
I885.
Terry & Co., October 27, 1881. Box 200, Singer Papers).
89. Articles of agreement between Domestic I00. E. H. Bennett to G. R. McKenzie, July 30.
100.
Sewing Machine Company and Singer Mfg. Co. I884, l3ox
1884, Box 198,
I98. Smger
Singer Papers. Bennett was wa'> complain-
(draft) [ca. May or June],June]. 1873,
I873, Box 228. Providence ing about castings made at Montreal.
Tool terminated the contract in a letter from Anthony I01.
101. Chapman, Ocean Wave.1, I/Vaves, pp. 158-60.
I58-60.
to Singer Mfg. Co., June 24, 1873, I873, Box 190.I90. Singer II02. See Appendix 2 for documentation.
02. Sec
took the initiative, as shown in Anthony to Singer 103.
I03. Chapman,
Chapman. Ocean Waves, Wares. pp. 158-59.
l58—59.
Mfg. Co., July 3, 1873, I873, Box 190, and D. Blake. Blake, I04. Ibid.
104.
Domestic Sewing Machine Co. to Singer Mfg. Co Co..
.. 1I05.
05 See Appendix 2.
I873, which refers to a termination notice of
June 25. 1873, II06.
06. On marketing.
marketing, sec see Bacon.
Bacon, "Marketing Sew-
June 23, 1873,
l873. Box 190, I90, ihid.
ibid. ing Machines.“
Machines."
90. D. Blake, Domestic Sewing Machine Com- Corn- I07. "The
107. “The “American Manufacture,"
'American' System of Manufacture,·'
pany, to lnslec
Inslee A. Hopper, Singer Mfg. Co., Jan. 27. p. 11. ll.
I873; John B. Anthony, Providence Tool Co., to Do-
1873; ! OR. L. B. Miller to Singer Mfg. Co., feb.
l08. Feb. ll,
ll.
mestic Sewing Machine Co., May 10, l0, 22,
22. 1873,
I873. Box I875, Letterbook 226.
1875, 226, l975 accession. Singer Papers.
1975 accessmn.
358 uoras TO
NOTES TO PAGES
PAGES 107-17
107-]7

109. Scott, Genius Rewarded, pp. 48, 50; Singer work with him at the Glasgow factory. Sec See G. R.
Manufacturing Co., Catalogue, and Singer Sewing McKenzie to Edward Clark, March 28, 1882, both
of the Sewing Machine; L.
Machine Co., Mechanics ofthe letters in Box 195, ibid.
B. Miller to Singer Mfg. Co., August 3, 1885, Box 134. McKenzie to Sydney A. Bennett, May 29. 29.,
200, Singer Papers. 1882, ibid. Earlier Pentz had flatly
flatly told McKenzie that
110. Scott, Genius Rewarded, p. 50. he was "an“an oponent [sic] of the principle of night
111.
l 11. Ibid., pp. 55-56. On John Scott as work. . .. .. Two men cannot, in my opinion, use th''
the
McKenzie’s attorney. sec
McKenzie's attorney, see S. A. Bennett to G. R. same tools intermittently with the greatest economy to
McKenzie, March 30, 30. 1881
1881,, Box 193, Singer Papers. either the tools or the work produced”
produced'' (Pentz to
112. Singer Sewing Machine Co., Mechanics of ol McKenzie, May 19, 1881, Box 193, ibid.).
the Sewing Machine, p. 50. 135. McKenzie to Sydney A. Bennett, June 6, 6.
113. Miller to McKenzie, March 30, 1881, Box May 29, 1882, Box 195, ibid. In September, Miller
193, Singer Papers. snapped back at the New York office for making what
114. A. D. Pentz to McKenzie, December 9, seemed to him impossible demands on the EJiz Eliz-~..
1881; Clark to McKenzie, April 13, 1881, ibid. abethpott factory. The central office had asked Miller
abethport
115. Pentz to McKenzie, April 2, 1881, ibid. to prepare eight automatic "gearing
“gearing machines”
machines" for
116. Miller to McKenzie, April 5, 1881, ibid. the factory in Scotland. He replied, "We “We have so
117. Clark to McKenzie, April 13, 1881, and much work that is legitimately called for, in the way
Sydney A. Bennett to McKenzie, April 15, 1881, of special tools to meet our necessary demand for
ibid. machines, that it would be impossible for us to fill an aJl
118. Miller to McKenzie, April 12, 1881; Pentz order for Glasgow for a long time to come; if we did,
to McKenzie, April 14, 1881, ibid. it would be at a serious loss to this factory" (Mtller
(Miller to
119. Sydney A. Bennett to McKenzie, April 21, 21 , Singer Mfg. Co., September 30, 1882, ibid.).ibid).
1881; Miller to McKenzie, April 20. 20, 1881. ibid. 136. Obituary of E. H. Bennett, Transactions of Q]
120. Miller
M!ller to McKenzie, April 27, 1881; Pentz the American Societv
Society of Mechanical
Mechaniral Engineers 19
to McKenzie, May 3, 3. 1881, ibid. (1897-98): 979-80.
121. Sydney A. Bennett to McKenzie, April 27, 137. Diehl’s
Diehl's presence at these meetings also indi-
May 12, 1881;WilliamF.
1881; William F. Proctor to McKenzie, June
ProctortoMcKenzie,June cates important changes. A German immigrant, he
2, 1881,
1881. ibid. had been associated with Singer off and on smce since
122. Pentz to McKenzie, May 19, 1881; Miller to 1868, when he worked at the B Blees
lees Factory, which
McKenzie, May 11, 24, 1881; Sydney A. Bennett to was making sewing machines for Singer. Between
McKenzie, May 20, 1881, ibid. 1868 and 1871 he worked for the Remington Com Corn~
123. Pentz to McKenzie, June 1, 188], 1881, ibid. pany in llion,
Ilion, perhaps making sewing machines. SingSing--..
124. Ibid. er hired Diehl again in 1874 to work as a designer and
125. Sydney A. Bennett to McKenzie, June 1, 1. inventor at the Elizabethport factory. Sometime-per·
Sometime—~per»
1881, ibid. haps in 1883, when changes began to take place at the
126. Pentz to McKenzie, June I, 1, May 19,
\9, I1881,
R81, factory—he set up a gauge department at Eliz·
Singer factory-he E1iz~
ibid. abethport. See his obituary in Sewing Machine Times,
127. Pentz to McKenzie, June 13, 29, 1881, ibid. n.s., 23 (April 25, 1913): I.1.
128. Miller to McKenzie, July 26. 26, I1881;
881; Pentz to 138. Minutes of a meeting held at Elizabethport
McKenzie, June 13, 1881, ibid. factory, March 26, 1883, Box 239, Singer Papers.
129. Miller to McKenzie, June 8, 8.28, 1881, ibid.
28, 1881. 139. Ibid.; minutes of March 27, 1883 meeting,
Total production that week was 8,379 machines: Box 239; Hugh Wallace to McKenzie, June 28, 1883, 1883.
7,000 New Family,
family, 205 Medium Manufacturing, 435 Box 197, ibid.; obituary of Philip Diehl. See also
Number 4 Manufacturing, 175 Improved Family, 550 Miller to McKenz1c,
McKenzie, March 29, 1884, Box 198, 198. Sing-
Portable Hand, and 14 Number 3 Standard Manufac·-
Pot1able Manufac~ er Papers, which discusses the progress of the gauge
turing, in addition to 3 3 Button Hole machines. department.
dcpat1ment.
130. Sydney A. Bennett to McKenzie, June 2, 140. Minutes of meetings held at Elizabethport
Elizabethporl
1881; Pentz to McKenzie, June 29, 1881, Miller to factory, March 26, 27, 1883, Box 239, Singer Papers.
McKenzie, August 10, 1881, ibid. 141. Pentz to McKenzie, April 19, 1883, Box
131. Sydney A. Bennett to McKenzie, June 15, 197; Miller to McKenzie, July 25, 1883, 1883. Box 196,
July l,1, 19, 1881; Pentz to McKenzie, July 8, 1881, ibid.
ibid.
ib!d. 142. Miller to McKenzie, May 21, 1884, Box
132. Edward Clark to McKenzie, September 9, 198, ibid.
1881, ibld.
19, 1881' ibid. 143. F F. Lander to McKenzie, May 17, 26, 1884. 1884,
133. Miller to McKenzie, May 3, 1882. McKen- Box 199; E. 1-I.
H. Bennett to McKenzie, May 24, July 7,
zie had "consider[ ed I it very important"
“consider[ed] important” to have Pentz 1884, Box 198, ibid.
 Pages I/ /I 77-29
Notes to Puf!,es -21.} 359

144. E. H. Bennett to McKenzie,

McKenzie. July 23, 23. 30, Peocefnlly Working, from the Kilbowie ground-break
Peacefully Workinfi. ground-break-
1884, Box 198, ibid. McKenzie had great confidence ing ceremony booklet, p. 22.
Bennett’s work. About the Montreal situation, he
in Bennett's
wrote to Sydney Bennett: "I “I have rec'd
rec’d Ed Bennett's
report & ...
repor1 . . . he eel.
ed. not have done better.
better . .. .. .. His
report lays bare a deplorable state of affairs & is just Chapter 3
what I suspected all along. I1 don't
don’t know anyone better
qualified to organize the factory out of chaos than Ed" Ed'' Britain, Parliament, House of Com-
1. Great Britain.
(June 7, 1884, Box 199, ibid.). mons. Report of the Select Committee on Small Arms.
Arms,
145. E. H. Bennett to McKenzie. June 24. 24, 1885.1885, Q. 2043, p. 144. For Whitworth’s
Whitworth's general views on
Box 200.
200, ibid. American woodworking, see Special
SpecialReport ofloseph
Report of.!oseph
146. Weekly production figures appear in letters Whitworth reprinted m in Nathan Rosenberg, ed., The
from Miller to McKenzie, 1883-85; 1883-85", for example, American System of Manufactures.
Manufactures, pp. 343-48.
May 21, 1884, 7,552; May 30, 1884, 1884. 7,656;
7,656: July 23, 2. Report of the Committee on the Machinery of
1884, 7,361; August 19, 1884, 7,111; July 24,
1884,7,361: 24,1885,1885, the United States of America in Rosenberg, ed., cd.,
7,238;
7 ,238; July 31, I1885, August21,
885, 6,567; August 2 I, 1885, 5,588; American Svstem
System ofMctnufacttires,
of Manufactures, pp. 89-197.
September 10, 1885, 6,432; September 18, 1885, 3. John Anderson. "On“On the Application of
uf Ma-
6.315.
6,3 15. chinery in the War Department,”
Department," p. 157. For a signif-
147. S. W. Goodyear, "Personal
“Personal Recollections," icantly different view of American woodworking ma-
American Machinist 7 (January 12, 1884): 7. chinery at Enfield, see Thomas Greenwood, "On “On
148. E. H. Bennett to McKenzie.
McKenzie, August 17. 17, Machinery for the Manufacture of Gunstocks.
Gunstocks/' '·
1884, Box 198, Singer Papers. 4. "The
“The Engineer and the Woodworking Indus-
149. Pentz to McKenzie,
McKenzie. December 12, 1884, try,"
try,'' p. 448.
ibid. 5. “Engineering
''Engineering in Furniture Factories,”
Factones,'' p. 85.
150. L. B. Miller to Singer Mfg. Co., August 3, 6. Thomas D. Perry, "The
“The Wood Industries,"
Industries,” p.
1885, responding to a questionnaire by the U.S. Bu- 434. Between 1919 and 1925, when the Wood Indus-
reau of Labor, Box 200, ibid. tries Division was created, the ASME published many
151. See Miller's
15l. Miller’s and Bennett's
Bennett’s obituaries in papers concerning woodworking under the name of
Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical the Forest Products Section.
Engineers 44 (1922): 927-28 and 19 (1897-98): “America’s Rise to Wood-
7. Nathan Rosenberg, "America's
979-80. working Leadership"; Polly Anne Earl, "Craftsmen
“Craftsmen
152. Arnold [Roland], "Six “Six Examples of Suc- and Machines"; Edward Duggan, "Machines,
“Machines, Mar-
Management." pp. 994-IOOO.
cessful Shop Management," 994-l 000. The date kets, and Labor.“
Labor."
of 1883 for this change from the inside contracting 8. Alfred D. Chandler, The Visible Hand, pp.
system to paid foremen is not absolutely sure. Arnold 247-49.
said he drew upon "precise “precise information.··
information.” In one 9. The recent study by Robert Bishop and Patricia
place. he said the date was 1883 but later wrote
place, Coblentz, The World 0fAntiques.
of Antiques, Art, and Architec-
“about 1883.”'' The establishment in 1883 of an Eliz-
''about 1883. ture in Victorian America, includes sewing machine
abethport Managing Committee supports Roland's Roland’s ar- cabinets as a part of Victorian furnishings, particularly
gument. In 1885, however, Miller and McKenzie en- for women. I am indebted to Maureen Quimby
Ouimby for this
tertained the idea of returning to the contract system. reference. Why sewing machine manufacturers decid-
See Miller to McKenzie, July 25, 31, 31. August II, 11,21,21, ed to encase their machines in cabinets is a subject
1885, Box 200, Singer Papers. beyond the scope of this study but is provocatively
153. Minutes of meeting held at Kilbowie,
Kilbowic, June addressed in Diane Douglas, "The “The Machine in the
26, 1886, Box 204, Singer Papers. Unfortunately, the Parlor.”
Parlor.''
blue book does not exist, but some details about it 10. P.p 199.
survive in the contextual information in these minutes. 11.
ll. J. A. Fay and C. B. Rogers. See the numer-
154. Report of the Proceedinfis
Proceedings of Breaking ous woodworking machines displayed at the Crystal
Ground, p. 4; E. H. Bennett to McKenzie, June 28, 28. C atalogue of the New York Exhi-
Palace in the Official Catalogue
1886, Box 204, Singer Papers. For more information bition of the Industry of all Nations, Classes 5 & 6, 6.
Singer’s Kilbowie factory, seeS.
on Singer's see S. B. Saul, "The “The “Machines for Direct Use; Machinery, Tools, etc.,"
"Machines
Market and the Development of the Mechanical En- pp. 32-44.
gineering Industries in Britain, 1860- 1860-1914,”
1914," pp. 12. Ettema, "Technological
“Technological Innovation and De-
160-61, and Davies, Peacefitlly Working. pp. 55-91.
Peacefully Working, sign Economics," and James Lindsey Hallock,
155. Minutes of meeting held at Kilbowie, June “Woodworking Machinery in Nineteenth Century
"Woodworking
26, 1886. America.” Hallock argues that "American
America." “American inventors
156. An expression, used by Robert B. Davies, were interested in general purpose machines, and
360 nores TO PAGES
NOTES TO PAGES 129-33

these they developed in western

westem isolation until Ameri- anapolis was started about 1867, IS67, by the Wheeler & &
can woodworking machinery became the most ad- Wilson Sewing Machine Company, to make plywood
vanced in the world" (p. 10). parts for various sewing-machine cabinets. At first
Oflicial Catalogue of the New York Exhibi-
13. Official they are reported
repotted to have used only sliced veneer, but
tion, pp. 32-44. after acquiring a veneer lathe about 1870, they com- com--
14. Special Report of Joseph Whitworth, in menced to use rotary-cut crossbands or crossings"
crossings” (p.
Rosenberg, ed.,ed. , American System oj'Manuj'actures,
o_fManufactures, p. 29). See also the article on the Sewing Machine Cabi-
343. net Company in Asher & & Adams'
Adams’ Pictorial Album of
15. For example, Anderson described at length American Industry, p. 10. I 0.
the equipment and processes used to make wooden 21. Before it made fancy cases and cabinets,
tubs and pails, rocking chairs, chairs, and bedsteads. Singer sold large, stout boxes to hold the first heavy,
For each, manufacturers had designed and constructed cast-iron machines, which weighed over one hundred
special tools for the various operations which signifi- pounds. These boxes were used both for shipping and
cantly cut down on labor input. Anderson’s
Anderson's committee as stands for sewing machines.
repot1 concluded that carriage wheels were made en-
report 22. Singer Manufacturing Co., Catalogue of
tirely by special machines, yet these special machines Singer Sewing Machines, Illustrating Their Construc-
“common all over the country"
were ·'common country” (Report of the tion, Their Variety, and Their Special Uses by Man-
Committee of the Machinery of the United States of' of ufactures, preface.
America, p. 168). Singer’s Russian factory, see Robert 13.
23. On Singer's B.
l6. A cursory reading of recent secondary litera-
16. Davies, Peacefully Working to Conquer the World,
ture on American woodworking technology in the pp. 275-305.
nineteenth century demonstrates that little material on 2.4. These figures are
24. arc from "Co.binet
“Cabinet Factory and
this subject exists beyond Richards's work. Conse- Foundry—South Bend, Ind.,''
Western Foundry-South Ind. ," a brief Singer
quently, the strong views and the abundance of infor- company manuscript history, compiled in 1920 by
inclucled in Richards's
mation included Richards’s Treatise on the Con- David Pollock, manager of Singer's
Singer’s South Bend cabi-
struction and Opcrarion
Operation of Wood-
Wooa’- Workins
Working Machines net works, and now located in the Northern Indiana
(and his later books) have shaped both perceptions and Historical Society, South Bend, Indiana.
assumptions about woodworking technology. For the 25. The following newspaper articles, maintained
purpose of this chapter, the most serious distortion by the South Bend Public Library, contain informa-
resulting from surviving literature on woodworking tion about Pine and the early days of the South Bend
technology is the view, stated impJicitly
implicitly in Richards, Fassctt, "Leighton
case factory: C. N. Fassett, “Leighton Pine: A
that only woodworking machinery companies made Human Dynamo" (date and source not identified);
woodworking machines. The major innovators in the “Obituary” (date and source not identified);
"Obituary"
development of mass production of metal goods from “Leighton Pine-Sudden
''Le1ghton Pine—Sudden Death,''
Death,” November 5, 1905
rifles to sewing machines to bicycles to automobiles, (source not identified); Mary Roberts, "City's“City’s Claim
however, often built their own highly specialized ma- to World Fame Rests in Part on Work of Leighton
chine tools, which the machine tool industry did not Pine," News Times (South Bend), November 23,
market. Sometimes these companies designed ma- 192.8;
1928; E. Fred Grether, "How
“How the Singer Works Came
chine tools and then relied upon the machine tool in- Bend,“ Sun News, October 16, 1900;
to South Bend," I900;
dustry to build them. There is little reason to doubt “Mammoth New Plant of Singer Manufacturing
"Mammoth
that the same was tinetrue with woodworking, particularly Company,” Sun News, October 15, l1901;
Company," 90 l; “Carloads
''Carloads
in firms that also worked metal. of Sewing Machines Shipped Daily to all Parts of
17. David Bigelow, History of Prominent Mer- Singer’s Great Plant; Has 30 Acres of
World from Singer's
Man!!facturing Firms, p. 250.
chants and Manufacturing Space,” News Times, February 23, 1919. See
Floor Space,"
I8. [Wheeler and Wilson Manufacturing Com-
18. “Singer Manufacturing Company-South
also "Singer Company—South Bend,
pany].
panyJ, The Sewing Machine, p. 18. ind. Works” (1957), pamphlet at South Bend Public
Ind. Works"
l9. Chauncey Jerome, Historv
19. r~f the American
History of Library.
Clock Business for the Past Sixty Years,l/ears, p. 92. See Fred Grether, "How
26. E. Freel “How the Singer Works
also John Joseph Murphy, "The “The Establishment of the Came to South Bend,”
Bend," Sun News, October 16, 1900.
American Clock Industry," pp. 65-66, 185-86. 27. "Singer
“Singer Manufacturing Company—South
Company-South
20. The evidence on the precise nature of this Bend, lnd. Works,” p. 2.
Ind. Works,"
factory is conflicting. A Scientific American article
mticle on 28. John A. Liebert to Inslee A. Hopper, October
Wheeler and Wilson (40 [ll\7()]:
[1879]: 271, 274-75) stateu
stated I869; J. C. Derr
27, 1869: Den to John A. Liebert, February 27,
that "the
“the raw material is cut to dimension at the coni-
com- 1870; and for the friction between the three cabinet-
1870:
pany’s
pany's mill in Indianapolis, and transported here makers, see also Leighton Pine to Inslee lnslee A. Hopper,
[Bridgeport] to be worked up into the desired forms."
forms.” 1869; James Bolton to Inslee A. Hop-
September 16, 1869:
Yet Thomas D. Perry wrote in Modern Plywood that per, October 19, 1869:
1869; "Your
“Your Servant" to the Singer
the ''Sewing
“Sewing Machine Cabinet Company of lndi- Indi- Mfg. Co., April 19, I9, 1870:
1870', and an undated [1870]
[I870]
 Puge.1 I 33-39
Notes to Pages"
Notes" 33 -3 9 361

Pine’s handwriting] outlining policy

memorandum [in Pine's consciousness and the products of competitors played
and managerial changes and rules made at South Singer’s adoption of veneer and built-
a crucial role in Singer's
Bend, all in Box 155, Papers of the Singer Manufac- up work. The letter from Leighton Pine to G. R.
turing Company.
Company, State Historical Society of Wiscon- McKenzie, July 19, 11882, 882, suggests, however, that
sin, Madison. “when I was put in chge. at So. Bd., Nov.
"when Nov ..1879, and
29. Leighton Pine to Singer Mfg. Co., November our Wal[nut] for tables was about exhausted, . . .. we
20, 1869, vol. 112 (1975 accession), p. 306; Leighton had to find an immediate substitute."
11ad substitute.” Yet timber in-
Pine to G. R. McKenzie, July 13, 1870, vol. 126 ventories of the period which survive from the South
(1975
(l975 accession), p. !39;139; Leighton Pine to Singer Bend factory do not suggest the exhaustion of walnut
Mfg. Co., December 8, 1869, vol. 113 (1975 acces- supplies. See, for example, Pine to McKenzie, July
sion), Singer Papers. For information on the various 26, 1884, Box 198, ibid.
styles of woodwork, see "Cabinet
“Cabinet Work, June I. 1, 41. Perry, Modern Plywood, p. 29. A built-up
1870.” Box 155,
1870," I55, ibid. cabinet, made by Van Dyke & & Downs of New York
30. Pine to Hopper, September 16, 1869. was illustrated in 1876 in Asher & Adams’ Adams' Pictorial
31.. George R. McKenzie wrote to S. A. Bennett
31 Album of of/lmerican
American Industry, p. 124. The Van Dyke
in 1882 that "I“I anticipate there will be clashing be- could have been James Van Dyke, who later helped
tween Mr. Pine & Mr. Russell, in the management of Singer established its veneer mill in Cairo, Illinois.
the business but I am doing my very best to keep it The sewing machine industry's
industry’s move toward veneer
down & things may go on smoothly--[
smoothly—I hope so·'so” products fits in nicely with Charles Lock Eastlake's
Eastlake’s
(June 6, 1882, ibid.). Hints
Hillis on Household Taste. See Mary Jean Smith
32. Leighton Pine to Singer Mfg. Co., December “Influence of Charles Lock Eastlake on
Madigan, "Influence
24, 1870, Box 37, ibid. South Bends
Bend's use of veneers Fumllurc Manufacture, 1870-1890,"
American Fumiture 18'/0~1890,” pp.
supports the view about Wheeler and Wilson's
Wilson’s Indi- 4-5.
anapolis works expressed by Perry and quoted in n. 20 42. Pine to McKenzie, March 5, 1881; see also
above. Pine to McKenzie, January 6, I1881. 881. Box 193, Singer
33. The following letters suppmt
support this statement: Papers.
Leighton Pine to Singer Mfg. Co., August 13, Ul70, 1870, 43. Pine to McKenzie, March I, 1, May 28, 1881,
1881.
January 20, February
Febmary 2, 10, 1871, Box 37, Singer ibid.
arc dozens of letters dated in the 1880s
Papers. There are 44. On plate drying see Pine to McKenzie, March
which make clear that Singer's machine factory built S, I881; James Van Dyke to McKenzie, May 14,
5. 1881;
South Bend's
Bend’s and Cairo's
Cairo’s woodworking machinery. 1881, ibid. On box covers see Pine to McKenzie. McKenzie,
34. Leighton Pine to Singer Mfg,Mfg., Co., January March 5, 1881.
28, 1871, Box 37, ibid. 45. See Pme Pine to McKenzie, Febmary 2, 1881,
35. See biographical material on Pine, cited in n. ibid.: "I
“I am acquainted with a party
pm1y who has the mn
25. of the Domestic Cabinet shops, and can get us any
36. Indianapolis Cabinet Co. to Singer Mfg. Co.,
Co.. information we require as to their built up work and
March 5, 1881, Box 193; Indianapolis Cabinet Co. to apparatus. Will have a sketch of their gluing machine
Singer Mfg. Co., April
April6,6, 1881, Box 194; S. A. Ben- in a short time.”
time.''
nett to G. R. McKenzie, April 21, June 1, l, 24, August 46. See the following letters concerning the Indi-
3. 1881, Box 193; Jacob Fox to G. R. McKenzie, anapolis operation;
operation: Indianapolis Cabinet Co. to Singer
December 20, 1881, Box 193; numerous letters from Mfg. Co., March 5, April 6, 1881; James Fox to
Indiana Mfg. Co., Peru,
Indtana Pefll, Indiana, to Singer Mfg. Co. McKenzie, March 11, ll, 1881; James Van Dyke to
Box 194; numerous letters from Mr. Kelsall, Cincin- McKenzie, May 14, 1881; Pine to McKenzie, June
nati, to Singer Mfg. Co., Box 194; Leighton Pine to 27, 1881'
27' 1881, ibid.
G. R. McKenzie, June 17, 1881, Box 193, Singer 47. Van Dyke to McKenzie, May 14, 1881.
Papers. 48. Van Dyke to McKenzie, June 25, 1881, ibid.
37. Sligh Furniture Co. to Singer Mfg. Co., 49. Ibid.
March 2, 1881; W. R. Clark to Singer Mfg. Co.. Co., 50. Van Dyke to McKenzie, May 14, 1881.
March 3, 1881, Box 193, ibid. 51. Pine to McKenzie, May 28, 1881; Van Dyke
38. Numerous letters in Box 194 of the Singer to McKenzie, May 14, 1881, ibtd. ibid.
Papers testify to these complaints. See also Leighton 52. See, for example, William Noyes, Wood and
Pine to G. R. McKenzie, July 19, 19. 1882, Box 195.
195, Forest, pp. 180-81, and C. S. Sargent, Woods of the
ibid. 50-5 I. But compare the views of
United States, pp. 50-51.
39. Pine to McKenzie, Febmary
February 7, 1881, Box E. Vernon Knight and Meinrad Wulpi, eds., Veneers
193. But compare G. R. McKenzie to S. A. Bennett, and Plywood, pp. 168-70.
June 6, 1882, Box 195, ibid. 53. Pine to McKenzie, May 28, 1881.
40. A broad reading of South Bend correspon- 54. Van Dyke to McKenzie, May 14, 1881; Pine
dence to Singer executive offices suggests that style- to McKenzie, May 28, 1881. Pine’s Pine's enthusiasm for
362 NOTES ro
NOTES TO PAGES
PAGES 139-47

built-up work is revealed in McKenzie to S. A. Ben- 75. Frank Edward Ransom, The City Built on
nett, June 6, 1882: "You
“You arearc perfectly correct about Wood, p. 13.
Pine. I have attempted to guide him myself but of late 76. ''Mammoth
“Mammoth New Plant of ofSinger
Smgcr Manufactur-
I cannot do it. I cannot tell what he && the others have ing Company," Sun News (South Bend), October 15,
done at Cairo, but I trust they have not made prepara- 1901.
190 I.
tions to do a great deal of made up work, because, by 77. Ransom, City Built on Wood, pp. 56, 13.
this time, you know the agents on this side demand 78. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Manufactures
solid gum wood cabinetwork & & that will facilitate & 1905,
I905, Part 1, by Industries, p. 9.
I, United States hy
simplify the whole affair in time"
time” (Box 195, ibid.). 79. See Richards, Treatise, pp. 32~39,32-39, for his
55. McKenzie to S. A. Bennett, June 2, 1881, discussion of these general themes.
Box 194; Pine to McKenzie, June 17, 17. July L 1, 18, 80. Veneered woodworking, especially that of
1881; Van Dyke to McKenzie, June 25, July 12, peeled veneer, necessarily made the woodworking in-
I881, Box 193, ibid.
1881, dustry a heat-using industry. With this method of con-
56. Pine to McKenzie, July 1, 1881. struction, logs must be boiled for long periods to in-
57. Van Dyke to McKenzie, July 12, 1881. troduce water into the wood, the veneer must be dried
58. Pine to McKenzie, July 26, 1881, ibid. with heat to precise moisture content, and when the
59. Production figures in Pine to McKenzie, Feb- veneer is laid on a large scale, heat must be used to
ruary 7, 1883, Box I196,96, ibid. Blow-by-blow details expedite the glue-drying process. Bentwood des1gn design
on the problems may be found in correspondence in further increased heat inputs as did dtd the increasingly
Box 195, ibid. important adoption of kilns for controlling moisture
60. Pine to McKenzie, January 16, 1882, Box content in all woods used in construction of products.
195, ibid. Potentially, at least, woodworking could be in-
See, e.g., Pine to McKenzie, July 19, 1882,
61. Sec, I882, terpreted within Chandler's
Chandler’s general framework (see
ibid. The Visible Hana’)
Hand) rather than being cast as an industry
62. Edward Skillman to McKenzie, June 20, in which all change occurred in the antebellum period.
1882; W. B. Russell to McKenzie, March 9, 1882, I882, 81.
Rl. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Manufactures
and Pine to McKenzie. July 2, 1882 (see also n. 31); clx-clxi, 9.
1905, pp. clx~clxi,
Pine to McKenzie, October 7, 1882. 1882, ibid. 82. B. A. Parks, "Engineering
“Engineering in Furniture Fac-
63. Pine to McKenzie, December 5, 1882, ibid. tories,“ Transactions of the American Society of
tories,'' Transacrions ofMe-
Me-
64. Knight and Wulpi, eels., eds, Veneen
Veneers and chanieal Engineers
chanical Jingineers 42 (1920): 881 ~82; italics added.
881-82;
Plywood, p. 169.
Plvwood, 83. Eneyelopaedia
Rncyclopaedia Britannica, 15th eel., ed., s.v.
65. Pine to McKenzie,
McKenzie. February 7, 1883. “Furniture Industry."
''Furniture Industry.”
66. Box 196, ibid., contains several dozen letters 84. Archer W. Richards. "Mass “Mass Production of
concerning
conceming these matters. Radio Cabinets,”
Cabinets," p. 65.
67. Pine to McKenzie, May 9, 1883 (sec (see also 362~63.
“Carriage and Coaches," pp. 362-63.
85. "Carriage
Pine to McKenzie, March 16, 1883); Pine to 86. A brief history of this early period can be
McKenzie, January 15, 15. 1884, Box 198 (see also Pine Albcn Russel Erskine, History of the Stu-
found in Albert
to McKenzie, December 14, 1883, Box 196), ibid. debaker Corporation. See also Kathleen A. Small-
Boxes 197
68. Boxes 197 and
and 198, ibid.,
ibid., contain letters
letters from
from zried and Dorothy JJ.. Roberts, More Than You Prom-
zriecl
1884. ise. The expression derives from an unidentified
69. S. A. Bennett to Pine, June 3, 1884; Pine to article, probably from a Utah newspaper in 1880, en-
Singer Mfg. Co., June 6, 1884 (see also S. A. Bennett titled “Studcbakcrs,"
t!llecl ''Stude bakers," which I found in a clipping
to McKenzie, June 7, 1884); Pine to McKenzie, June book of the McCormick Reaper Company. This book
26, July 24, August 18, 1884, Box 198, ibid. is now in the McCormick Collection, Accession 2C,
70. Pine to McKenzie, August 25, 1885, Box vol. 28, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madi-
200; see also Pine to Singer MfgMfg. Co., February 15, son, Wisconsin. The article contains a lengthy history
1886, and Pine to Henry Calver,
Calver. March 15, 1886, of the Studebaker company taken from thtl the Louisville
Box 203, ibid. Courier-Journal.
Courier-] ournal.
71. See, for example, Pine to Singer Mfg. Co., “Studebakers."
87. "Studebakers."
December 23, 1892, Box 114, ibid. 88. In the 1850s, both Joseph Whitworth and
72. Pine to Singer Mfg. Co., May 5, 1888, I888, Box John Anderson had mentioned wheelmaking
209.
209, ibid. machinery in the United States (see note 15 for Ander-
73. Pine to McKenzie, January 17, 1887, Box son’s remarks). These observations are well docu-
son's
203, sec
see also Pine to Singer Mfg. Cu., Co., January 1, I, mented for the nineteenth century in Peter Haddon
1887, Box 205, ibid. Smith, "The“The Industrial Archeology of the Wood
74. U.S. Census Office, Tenth Census, 1880, Wheel Industry in America,"
America,” pp. 21~66.
21-66.
Census Reports (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Govern- 89. Erskine, History
Historjv of the Studebaker Corpora-
C orpora-
ment Printing Office, 1883), 2: xvii. tion, p. I19.
9.
 Notes to Pages I 4 7-60
Pa!{es 147-60 363

Robens, More than You

90. Smallzried and Roberts, McCormick. Seedtime, p. 198:
4. Hutchinson, McCormick: 198;
Promise, p. 66, and Studebaker Corporation, /00
100 see
sec Hutchinson’s "Advertising the Reaper
Hutchinson's chapter “Advertising
Years on the Road, p. 5. Mower," pp. 327~49.
and Mower,”
91. Studebaker Corporation, 100 I00 Years, p. 8. 5. C. H. McCormick to Wm. Maguire, December
Much of this history also appears in "Studebakers."
“Studebakers,” 24, 1842, 1A, Box 2; C. H. McCormick to Wm. S.
2C. Collection.
2C, vol. 28, McCormick Collection, McCormick, August 6, 1845, l1A, A, Box 3.
“Studebakers.”
92. "Studebakers." 6. C. H. McCormick to Wm. S. McCormick, De-
93. Smith, "Industrial 51 ~54.
Archeology.” pp. 51~54.
''Industrial Archeology," cember II, ll, 1846, 1A. Box 3.
1846. !A,
94. “Studebakers.”
"Studebakers." 7. C. H. McCormick to Leander McCormick,
95. Ibid. 1847; C. H. McCormick to Seymour,
January 8, 1847:
96. Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Com- Chappell & Co., March 19, 1847, I847, ibid.; Hutchinson,
Illustratea'
pany, !/lustra ted Catalogue of Studebaker Brothers McCormick: Seedtime,
McCormicl<: Seetltinte, p. 307.
Manufacturing Company Wagons, Buggies, and Car- 8. Hutchinson, McCormick: Seedtime, pp.
riages, pp. 4, 15, and Studebaker Brothers Manufac- 259~62. The very complicated story of the dispute is
259-62.
turing Company,
Company. Illustrated Souvenir of the Stu-
l/lustrated Souvemr 256~66.
detailed in ibid., pp. 256-66.
debaker Brothers Manufacturing Company. Company, South 265~68.
9. Ibid., pp. 265-68.
Bend, Ittd.,
Ind., U.S.A. The latter is a photographic study 10. January 18, 1849, quoted rn in ibid., pp.
of the Studebaker factory; it contains almost no text. 268~69.
268-69.
97. For the history of resistance welding, see John II.
11. Ibid., p. 269.
B. Schmitt, ''The
“The Invention of Electric Resistance 12. Chicago Weekly Democrat, March 29, 1851,
Welding.” Additional titles in William B. Gamble,
Welding." quoted in Hutchinson, McCormick: Seedtime, p. 270.
"List of Works in the New York Public Library Relat-
“List 13. Wm. S. McCormick to Jas. D. Davidson,
ing to Electric Welding.“
Welding." March 24, 1851, JA, 1A, Box 4; Hutchinson, McCor-
“Electric Welding."
98. "Electric Welding.” mick." Seedtime, p.
mick: p, 271.
“Practical Aspects of
99. Frederic A. C. Perrine, "Practical 14. These contracts are in lA, 1A, Box 3.
Welding."
Electric Welding,” 15. Contract with Magnus Norbo and Tobias
100. Studebaker Brothers, Illustrated
llfustrated Catalogue, Jackson, January 20. l85L, IA, Box 4; Hutchinson,
1851, lA,
p. 15. McCormick: Seedrime,
Seedtime, p. 325.
101. These photographs appeared in Studebaker 16. Hutchinson.
Hutchinson, McCormick.‘
McCormick: Seedtime, p. 317.
I00 Years, p. 6.
Corporation, 100 17. Hutchinson cites an article from the Chicago
Studebaker’s lllustrared
102. Studebaker's Illustrated Souvenir of 1893, Tribune of 1859 which describes this process (ibid.,
however, showed some automatic hub mortising ma- 308),
p. 308).
chinery in the South Bend factory. 18. L. J. to C. H. McCormick, July 8, 1859, lA, 1A,
103. Erskine, History of the Studebaker Corpora- Box 15; for a request for a wooden part, patt, see C. H.
tion, pp. 25~27,
25-27, 14, 23. McCormick (by Hanna) to H. H. Tarbell, May 16. 16,
1856, 1A, Box 8.
19. McCormick’s
McCormick's dependence on skilled workers
Chapter 4 in all of the factory departments is reflected not only
in contemporary accounts of the factory but in the
1.
l. This story has been told many times. The best solid unionization of the shops during and after the
works to consult on the long history of the reaper are Civil War. James Campbell carried on an extensive
Robert L. Ardrey, American Agricultural Implements, correspondence with Leander about the acquisition of
pp. 40~52,
40-52, and William T. Hutchinson, CyrusC_v;-‘us Hall machine tools-lathes, p1aners—--for the
too1s—lathes, presses, and planers--for
McCormick: Seedtime, 1809~1856,
1809-1856, chaps. 3, 4, 5, 7,
'7, McCorn1ick works. All tools mentioned are general
McCormick
8. machine tools. See L. J. McCormick folder, lA, 1A,
2. Hutchinson, McCormick: Seedtime, p. 182. I Box 6.
have relied on Hutchinson, particularly chapters 8 and 20. The duties of the brothers emerge from an
13, for the history of McCormick’s
McCormick's early reaper extensive survey of their correspondence with each
production. other. For an agents
agent's complaint, see Misc. Ms. lA, IA,
3. C. H. McCormick to Wm. S. McCormick, Box 4.
November 15, 1846, Series M/I, Box 18, McCormick 21. C. H. McCormick (by Wilson) to Alfred
Collection, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Johnson, May 2, 1856, IX, 1X, val.
vol. 1, p. 259; Wm. S. to
Madison. All manuscripts, unless otherwise noted, Cyrus McCormick, May 16, 21, 23, 1856, lA,
M/I identifies
will be cited like this one. The series M/1 Box 9.
the C. H. McCormick Estate Papers. Other series cit- 22. W. J. Hanna to Wm. S. McCormick, July 17,
ed below are lA 1A (C. H. McCormick), 2A (C. H. 1856, lA, 1A, Box 8.
McCormick), X (McCormick Harvesting Machine 23. C. H. to Wm. S. McCormick, September 2,
Company), and 4C (C. H. McCormick, Jr.). Jr.), 1856, ibid.
364 mores
NOTES TO
TO PAGES 160-70
PAGES [60-70

24. C. H. to L. J. [or Wm. S.] S.J McCormick, Au- March or April I1863),863), ibid. I1 have been unable to
gust 13, 1856, ibid. determine the nature of this new machinery and of the
25. Ibid.; C. H. to Wm. S. McCormick, Septem- fixtures.
ber 6, 1856, ibid.; Wm. S. McCormick to James 39. L. J. to C. H. McCormick, April 7, 1863: 18631
Campbell, November 12, 1856, IA, 1A, Box 9; see also Wm. S. to C. H. McCormick, AprilS, April 8, 15, 1863, ibid.
Wm. S. to C. H. McCormick, September 12, 1856, (see also Wm. S. to Cyrus McCormick, April 11,
ibid. 1863, ibid.); Wm. S. to C. H. McCormick, June 7.
26. L. J. to C. H. McCormick, March 14, 1857. 1863, ibid.
Wm. S. to C. H. McCormick, May 30, 1857, I857, lA, 1A, 40. Wm. S. to C. H. McCormick, July 12, 1863.
11; C. H. to Wm. S. & L. J. McCormick, De-
Box II; ibid.; the clerk is quoted by Hutchinson, Mt-Cormick."
McCormick:
cember 10, 1857, IA, 1A, Box 10; C. H. to Wm. S. Harvest, p. 89;89: Wm. S. to C. H. McCormick, August
McCormick, October 30, 1858, IA, 1A, Box 14. 19. 1863, 1A,
19, lA, Box 17.
27. C. H. to Wm. S. McCormick, May 2, 21. 41. L. J. to C. H. McCormick, August 20, 1863: 1863;
1857, 1A,
lA, Box 10; arrangements with Campbell dis- Wm.
W m. S. to C. H. McCormick, September 27, 1863.
cussed in C. H. to Wm. S. McCormick, May 30, 1A, Box 17.
!A,
1857, ibid.; "Statement
“Statement 1849-1857," November 6. 42. Cyrus had unjustly accused Leander of ''cruel “cruel
1858, 1A,
lA, BOX
Box 13. treatment”
treatment'' in not finishing an adequate number of
28. Wm. S. to C. H. McCormick, February I, 1, machines for his European sales.sales, This criticism great
great-
1A, Box 15.
1859, lA, ly angered Leander. Sec See L. J. to C. H. McCormick.
29. William T, T. Hutchinson, Cvrus
C_vrtt.r Hall McCor- August 8, !863,
1863, ibid.
mick: Harvest, 11\56-1884,
mick." 1856-1884, pp. 109-10, gives the 43. Wm. S. to C. H. McCormick, October 4. 4,
complete details of this partnership. 1863, ibid.
30. Ibid.,
Ibid, pp. 127, 130-33. McCormick, November 22,
44. L. J. to C. H. McCormick. 22.
(Mfg), 1860-79, 3X 11
31. Stock Bond (Mfg.), [Jallings
allings December 9, 1863. ibid.
“Memorandum of
no. 55]. This volume contains a ''Memorandum 45. L. J. to C. H. McCormick, January 15, 1864;
Machinery in Reaper Factory when put in hands of Wm. S. to C. H. McCormick, January 24, February
McCormick & Bros. Nov. 1, 1859 o,rill still being property 7, 21, December 21, 1864, !A, 1A, Box 18.
of Cyrus H. McCormick,”
McCormick." pp. 381-83, and an "In- “In- 46. LL. J. to C. H. McCormick, October 7 7..
ventory of Tools, etc. in Reaper Factory Nov. 1, November 29, 1865, lA, 1A, Box 19.
1859. charged up to C. H. McCormick & Bros.
1859, Bros.,'' pp. “New Machinery, in a/c with C. H. McCor-
47. "New McCor ..
374-80. The enumeration
enumeration of tools below is derived mick,”
mick," 2A, Box 45.
from this stock book. 48. C. H. McCormtck
McCormick & & Bro. to Crosby Bros., Bros ..
32, For an enumeration of the machinery ordered
32. June 5. 1866, IX, 1X, vol. 90, p. 617.
by the Anderson Committee see Report of the Com- 49. C. A. Spring to C. H. McCormick, August
MachinerY of
mittee on the Machinery the United
ofthe States oj"Amer-
Utt1'teclState.s' of/~1mei= 21, 1886, 1A,lA, Box 20.
ica, in Nathan Rosenberg,
Rosenberg. ed., The American System Svstem 50. L. J. to C. H. McCormick, October 7, 7. 1867,
1867.
of Manufactures, pp. 180-
ofManufactures, 92.
180-92. l/\,Box24.
1A, Box 24.
McCormick: Harvest, is sym-
33. Hutchinson, McCormicl<.' I. In its sales catalog for 1868. the McCormick
S51. McCormicl<;
McCormicks' problems during the
pathetic to the McCormicks’ company described its ito factory and falsely alleged the
Civil War. uniformity of its reaper parts: "[Our
“[Our factory)
factory} is filled
34. There is a remarkable contrast between Lean- with
w1th the newest and most approved machinery, di-- dJ··
der’s nonresponse
der's nonrcsponse to strikers during the Civil War and rected
reeled by skillful mechanics, under our own personal
Cyrus McCormick, Jr.'s. Jr.’s, actions taken after a long care and control, and our manufacturing facilities
facilities are
strike by foundrymen in 18S5.1885. As soon as the molders such that we produce during the season at the rate of ol
struck in lSSS,
1885, McCormick investigated and soon one complete machine every ten minutes. The re~ult result
adopted pneumatic molding machinery, eliminating is, that if one machine works well.
well, all must do so, for
the need for skilled molders. This chapter attempts to
the all the different parts arc
are so accurately made by ma-· ma-
explain the differences in attitude between Cyrus Mc- l\1c- chinery, that one piece will fill its allotted place in any
chinery.
Cormick’s
Cormick's brother and his son. one of ten thousand machines, one machine being an
35. Wm. S. to C. H. and L. J. McCormick, Sep- exact counterpart of all of the same style in one year" year'·
tember 27, 1862,
1862. 1A,
lA, Box 17. (McCormicl<'s Prize Han•ester
(McCormick's 1868), p. 5, 2A,
. . [[1868],
Harvester .. ..
36. Ibid.; L. J. to C. H. McCormick, April 7, 7. Box 15).
1863. ibid.
1863, 52. L. J. to C. H. McCormick.
McCormick, August 8, 1869, 1869.
37. L. J. to C. H. McCormick, undated (probably 1A,
lA, Box 33.
1863); Wm. S. to C. H. McCormick,
January-March 1863): 53. L. J. to C. H. McCormick, September 10,! 10, 11.
L
March l, 1, 1863, ibid. October 12, 1869, ibid.
38. L. I.J, to C. H. McCormick,
McCormick. undated (probably 54. L. J. to C
C. H. McCormick, October 12, 1869.
 Notes to Pctgwt l 70—78'
Pages 170-78 365

55. L. J. to C. H. McCormick,
McCormick. August 30, Sep- 67. L. J. to C. H. McCormick. May I7. I5,
17. July 15,
tember L
I, 1870,
I870, lA.
IA, Box 36. I873, lA.
1873, IA, Box 50; italics added.
l. to C. H. McCormick, September 13,
56. L. J. I3, 68. C. H. to L. J. McCormick, August 1I,, 1873. I873,
Unfortunately. I have been unable to se-
1870. ibid. Unfortunately,
I870. ibid.
cure any more information about these McCormick- 69. C. H. to L. J. l McCormick, November 17, I7,
built lathes. Leander reported two months later that 1873, ibid.
they worked "well" “well” (L (L. J. to C. H. McCormick, “McCormicks‘ New Reaper Works," Janu-
70. "McCormicks'
November II. ll, 1870,
I870, ibid.). I873. 2A, Box 15.
IO, 1873.
ary 10, I5. This flyer described the
57. L. J. to C. H. McCormick, August 3, 1870. I870, “great works": “The
"great high, oc-
"The buildings, five stories high.
ibid.; LL. J. to C. H. McCormick, March 2. 1871, lA,
2, 1871. IA, cupy three
thrce sides of a square, each side 360 feet long,
Box 39. with the engine room and a three-story middle miclclle build-
58. C. H. to L. L J. McCormick, March 13. I3, 1871,
I871, ing between the two wings. The floor surface of the
4A, Box 2, vol. I, l, 2d ser., pp. 433-35.
433»3S. works would cover an area of six acres.'' acres.”
59. L. J. to C. H. McCormick,
McCormick. July 12, August 7l.. See C. H. McCormick to L. J. McCormick,
71 McCormick.
10.1871.
10, 1871, IA, lA, Box 39. March 19, I9, 1877,
I877, IA,
lA, Box 68.
60. L L. J. to C. H. McCormick, August 10, I0, 1871. 72. Chas. Colahan
Calahan to C. H. McCormick, June 14, I4.
61. L L. J. to C. H. McCormick, August 22, 1871, I871, I877, lIA,
1877. A. Box 67. The self-binder was not a McCor-
ibid. mick invention. Its history is treated in Ardrey, Amer-
62. The actual number of machines burned was ican Agricultural Implements, pp. 64-77. The Mc-
1,969 ("Machs
1.969 (“Machs Sold, Burnt & on hand," February Cormick version of this invention is well illustrated in
24, I872,
1872, 1A,IA, Box 45). McCormick Harvesting
Harvestmg Machine Co.. Co., Triumph
63. “Estimate
"Estimate of Loss by Fire Oct. 9, 1871," I871,” Throughout All Nations, pp. 10-13. lO—l3.
ibid. 73. Chas. Colahan to C. H. McCormick,
McCormick. June 30.
64. C. H. McCormick & Bro. to L L. W. Pond, I877, lA,
1877. IA, Box 67.
March
March5, 5, 1871,
I871, IX.L.P.C.B.l32,p.524;PondtoC.
IX. L.P.C.B. I32, p. 524; Pond to C. “Estimate of machines Solei
74. "Estimate Sold & Hanel in
& on Hand
H. McCormick & Bro., March 9, 1872, I872, 2X. Box 154:I54; I877,” lA,
1877," IA, Box 68, and "Est1matc
“Estimate of machines Sold
C. H.H McCormick & & Bro. to William Sellers, Decem·
Decem-- & on Hand 1878," I878," IA,lA, Box 72.
ber 21,2I, 1871,
I87l, IX.
IX, L.P.C.B. 131,I31, p. 273; C. H. Mc- 75. Chas. Colahan to C. H. McCormick, June 15, I5.
Cormick & & Bro. to Stiles & & Parker, April 18,I8, I872.
1872, I878, 2A, Box SI.
1878, 51 . Colahan would later write
wnte from
IX, L.P.C.B. 133, I33, pp. 401-2; N.C.N. C. Stiles.
Stiles, Stiles && Brockport, New York, that, unlike the McCormick
Parker, to C. H. McCormick & & Bro., April 29, 1872,
Bro .. April29, I872, reaper works, "the “the Manufacturers here are progres-
2X, Box 156. I56. Argument about the price was waged sive" (Chas. Colahan to C. H. McCormick, July 8,
sive'' 8.
between the two firms until the end of August 1872. I872, I879, 2A, Box 52).
1879,
when Stiles offered to accept $400 for them so that he 76. See C. H. to L. J. McCormick, June 17. I7,
could be done with the matter (Stiles to C. H. McCor- I878.
1878, lA,IA, Box 72.
mick & Bro., August 29, I872, ibid.).
29. 1872. 77. See, for example, L. J. to C. H. McCormick,
McCormick.
65. Nowhere in the records of the McCormick August 5, 1878,I878, 2A, Box 51; McCormick: Seedtime,
company in this period are arc there references to turret
tunet “The McCormick Reaper Controversy,··
chap. 5, ''The Controversy,” and
lathes, milling machines, or grinding machines. In his McCormick: Harvest, passim.
efforts to reequip the factory, Leander carried on cor- 78. Geo. B. Averill [a foreman at the McCormick
respondence with the following machine tool com- works] to C. H. McCormick, July 17, I7, I879,
1879, 2A.
2A,
panies: L. W. Pond, New York Tool Company, Box 52.
Brown & Sharpe, Corliss, Sellers, Plumb & & Burclict
Burdict 79. Articles of association, August 11, ll, 1879,
I879, 1A,
IA.
(Buffalo Bolt & Nut Works), Putnam Machine Co., Box 74.
RS & J Gear & Co., Simonds Manufacturing Co Co.... 80. SecSee Charles Spring’s
Spring's account of this meeting
Lane & Bodley, Providence Bolt & Screw Co., Co.. to Cyrus McCormick (who was absent) in a letter of
Rollstone Machine Works, Lowell Machine Works, September 9, 1879, I879, 2A, Box 52.
Fitchburg Machine Co., New York Steam Engine 8l.. C. A. Spring to C. H. McCormick, October
81
Co., Ball & & Co., and Stiles & & Parker. All the tools 2, 5, 18,
I8, 1879,
I879, ibid.
Leander sought were general-purpose machine tools. 82. J. I. P. Whedon to C. H. McCormick, Jr., Oc-
These inquiries and purchases may be found in IX, I879, 2A, Box 31.
tober 20, 1879,
I30—40.
L.P.C.B. 130-40. 83. C. A. SpringSpnng to C. H. McCormick, Septem-
66. C. A. Spring to C. H. McCormick, July 10, I0, ber 17,
I7, 1879;
I879; Chas. Colahan to C. H. McCormick,
I872, lA,
1872, IA, Box 47; see letters from L. J. to Cyrus October I, November 10, I879; C. A. Spring to C. H.
I0, 1879;
McCormick, July 18, I8, 21, 25, 1872,
I872, lA,
IA, Box 45, and McCormick, November 15, I5, 1879; Colahan to
I879; Chas. Calahan
from C. A. Spring to L. J. McCormick, July 26. 26, C. H. McCormick, November 30, 1879, I879. 2A, Box 52.
I872, lA,
1872. IA, Box 47. 84. I have not seen this statement, statement. although
366 NOTES TO
NOTES ro PAGES
PAGES I78-90
178-90

William Hutchinson notes it in McCormick:

McCormick." Harvest, ber I881; C. A. Spring to C. H. McCormick, Jr.,
bcr 26, 1881;
p. 638. November 14,I4, 1881,
I881, 2A, Box 53.
85. On April 6, 1880, I880, Hall and Leander submit- 97. C. H. McCormick to Henry Day, February
ted a printed pamphlet to the board calling Cyrus's Cyrus’s I3, May 5, 1882,
13, I882, lA,
IA, Box 85; C. H. McCormick, Jr.,
“paltry” and “of
statement "paltry" nature.” The
"of a personal nature." to C. H. McCormick, August I, 1882,I882, 2A, Box 53;
same day, Hall submitted his letter of resignation and C. A. Spring to C. H. McCormick, March 30, 1883,
I883,
Leander his letter to advise the board of his six-month 2A, Box 54.
trip to Europe. These communications are noted in the 98. June 6, 1883,
I883, 4C, vol. 15, Box 1. I.
Original Minute Book of Board of Directors of the 99. June 30, 1884,
I884, 4C, val.
vol. 18,
18. Box 18;I8; C. H.
McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, Septem- McCormick & Bro. to Crosby Bros., June 5, 1866. I866.
ber 9, 1879-April
I879-April 6, I886,1886, M/I,
Mil, vol. 35, Box 24. I00. See R. L. Ardrey, "The
100. “The Harvesting Ma-
Leander’s
Leander's letter is in M/l,Mil, Box 3. Cyrus submitted to lndustry.“ Cyrus McCormick, Jr.’s,
chine Industry." Jr.'s, diaries re-
the board a lengthy statement to preface his proposal veal his continued interest in the factory's
factory’s operations.
to fire Leander, which appears in the above-cited min- April 3, 1899,
See, for example, his entry of April3, I899, when he
ute book. In this document, Cyrus included statements “at works: taking up with the foremen the
noted, "at
signed by various foremen al at the factory and office output” (4C, val.
question of output" vol. 41, Box 3).
personnel which documented Leander's Leander’s and Hall'sHall’s “Prelude to Haymarket,"
101. Robert Ozanne, "Prelude Haymarket,”
“want of interest in the business at the Works”
"want Works" and chap. lI of/I ofLabor-Management
of A Century of Labor-Management Relations
lack of attendance. SeeSec pp. 4]-43
4 I -43 of the minute book. atMcCormick
at McCormick and International Harvester,
Harvester, pp. 3-28.
3-21\.
86. Production figures from 1880 I880 to 1902I902 may be For a brilliant discussion of mechanization and con-
corr-
found in M/I,
M/1, Box 18. trol, see Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Cap-
87. See C. H. McCormick, Jr.'s, Jr.‘s, pocket diary ital; also see David Montgomery, "Whose
ira/; “Whose Stan-
Starr-
accounts about the hiring of Wilkinson, April 30, May dards? Workers and the Reorganization of Production
I, 6, 1880,
1, I880, 4C, vol. 8, Box 1, I, and his main diary I900—20,” in Workers'
in the United States, 1900-20," Workers’ Control
entry, May 6, 1880, 4C, vol. 7, Box I. l. in America, pp. 113-38.
88. C. H. McCormick, Jr., diary entry, May 13, I3, William J. Abernathy, The Productivity
102. Wililam
I880, 4C, val.
1880, vol. 7, Box I. Dilemma.
89. Draft of letter, C. H. McCormick to Henry
Day, December 27, 27. 1880, lA, IA, Box 76;76', italics added.
90. See Cyrus McCormick, Jr. ‘s, pocket diary for
Jr.'s,
I881, 4C, vol.
1881, I3, Box 1.
val. 13, I. Chapter 5
91. C. A. Spring to C. H. McCormick, Novem-
9!.
ber 2, 1880,
I880, 2A, Box 53. I. John Higham, ·'The“The Reorientation of Ameri-
92. See Cyrus McCormick, Jr. ’s, pocket diary for
Jr.'s, can Culture in the 1890s," offers a profound in- iri-
I881, 4C, val.
1881, vol. 13,
I3, Box 1. I. terprctation
terpretation of this period.
“American Industries-No.
93. ''American Industries—-No. 73, Harvesting 2. Reprinted in A. Hunter Dupree, ed., Science
Machines," p. 307. See Cyrus McCormick, Jr.'s, Jr.’s, aria’ the Emergence of Modern
and Modem America (Chicago:
pocket diary of II881 88 I for the background of the Scien- Rand McNally & & Co., 1963),
I963), pp. 52-56; quotation on
tific
ttfic American article. The outline of the article at1icle and its p. 54. On McGee see Dictionary of of/lmerican
Amencan Biogra-
manuscript appear in 4A, vol. 5, Box 2, pp. 408-26. phy, “McGee, William John";
phv, s.v. "McGee, John”; Gifford Pinchot,
In his outline (dated April 12, I2, 1881),
I881), under a section Breaking New Ground (New York: Harcourt Brace,
on the ironworking department, the young young McCor-
McCor- I947), pp. 358-60; and Curtis M. Hinsley, Jr., Sav-
1947),
mick planned a subsection on "special “special machines & ages and Scientists (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian
jigs.”
jigs." For more information on this article, see David I981), pp. 231-61.
Institution Press, 1981),
A. Hounshell, "Public“Public Relations or Public Under- 3. For elaboration on the role of the bicycle as a
standing?”
standing?'' precursor of the automobile see David A. Hounshell,
94. See the McCormick exposition booklet, La “The
'The Bicycle and and Technology
Technology in in Late
Late Nineteenth
Nineteenth
MacC0rmicl< de Chicago a /'Exposition
Compagnie MacConnick l'Expo.riti0n America“; Martha Moore Trescott, ·The
Century America''; “The Bi-
de 1900, pp. 60-63, a copy of which may be found in cycle”; John B. Rae, American Automobile Manufac-
cycle'';
6X, Box 2. turers, pp. 8-23; and Allan Nevins and Frank Ernest
95. See Cyrus McCormick, Jr.'s, Jr.‘s, diary entry of Hill, Forcl.‘
Ford: The Times, the Man.Man, the Company, pp.
September 7, 188 I881,
I, 4C, vol. 12, I2, Box I, l, which de- I86-90.
186-90.
scribes the way he announced his superintendency and 4. The best introduction to the bicycle in the
his hopes for the factory’s
factory's operation. See also his United States is Norman Leslie Dunham, "The “The Bicy-
letter to his father, September 8, I881, 1881, 1IA, A, Box 80. cle Era in America.''
America.” Robert A. Smith, A Social His-
96. C. A. Spring to C. H. McCormick, Septem- tory of the Bicycle, is also helpful but less adequately
u,{the
 Notes to Puf!.CS
Noles Pages 1'90-20
/90-201/ ’>6
367

documented. Albert A. Pope's Pope’s own analysis, "The“The educate the people to the advantage of ofthis
this invigorating
Bicycle Industry,"
Industry." is reliable and useful. bicycling], and,
sport [of bicycling!, and. with this end in view,
view. the best
5. Biographical information on Pope may be literature that was to be had on the subject was gra-
found in Dictionan
Dictionary of" Biograp!n·, s.
of American Biographv. v.
s.v. tuitously distributed“ (“Bicycle Industry."
distributed" ("Bicycle Industry.” p. 551).
“Pope, Albert A.";
"Pope, A.”; and “Colonel
"Colonel Albert A. Pope.”
Pope." 21
21.. Philip Parker Mason, ''The “The League of Ameri-
A1neri-
6. Complete production figures are arc hard to come can Wheelmen and the Good-Roads Movement.
by. The best source is Dunham, "Bicycle
“Bicycle Era," pp. 1880-1905.”
1880-1905."
466-68. See also Trescott,
Trescott. "The
“The Bicycle'·
Bicycle.“ 22. "A“A Great American Manufacture.''
Manufacture." p. 326.
7. ArthurS.
Arthur S. Dewing,
Dewing. Cmporate
Corporate Promotions and 23. Smith, Social History of the Bicycle, pp.
Reorganizations, p. 268. 31-33.
8. This tradition was begun by Henry P. Wood- 24. These prices appear in inpthe
the annual catalogs of
“Manufactures in Hartford," p. 178.
ward, "Manufactures the Pope Manufacturing Company.
“The Manufacture of Sewing Machines," p.
9. "The 25. The clearest and most detailed account of
“Bicycle Manufacturing,”
181; "Bicycle Manufacturing," p. 204. Pope· s patent strategy appears in Pope Manufacturing
Pope's
10. Nathan Rosenberg. “Technological Change
Rosenberg, 'Teclmolog1cal Company, An Industrial Achievement,
Achievement. pp. II- 11-14.
14.
in the Machine Tool Industry, 1840-1910."
1840-l9lO,” p. 423. “Bicycle_Industry,”
26. Pope, "Bicycle Industry," p. 551.
11.. Pope stressed the interchangeability of parts
11 27. Dunham. "Bicycle“Bicycle Era,"
Era,” p. 196.
in all his promotional literature. See, See. for example,
example. 28. Ibid., p. 195.
Manufacturing Company, Columbia Bicycle.
Pope Manufacturing Bicycle, 29. See Overman’s
Overman's catalog of Victor bicycles for
Catalogue for January, 188], 1881, p. 4. The Pope com- 1895 (Eleutherian
(E1euthcrian Mills Historical Library) and Vera
pany history notes that ''an
“an order was placed with the Shlakman. t:conomic
Shlakman, Economic Historv
History of'
of a Factory Town. pp.
Factorv Town,
Weed Sewing Machine Company, of Hartford, Hartford. Con- 165-66, 199-200.
199-ZOO. Horace L. Arnold !Hugh |Hugh Dolnar]
necticut, a concem well equipped for the work and wrote in his American Machinist series on bicycle
able to take it on to advantage as a supplement to their tools that the Overman company operated strictly
sewing machine business which was just then begin- along the armory line of manufacture ("Bicycle (“Bicycle
Industria! Achievement, p. II).
ning to lag" (An Industrial ll). Tools—XII,”
Tools-XII." 19 [1896]: 52) 52).
12. Guy Hubbard,
Hubbard. ·'Development
"Development of .\1achine
Machine 30. National Cyclopaedia of of" American Biogra-
Tools in New England,"
England,” 60 (1924): 171-73. phy,
phv, s.v. "Johnson.
“Johnson. lver,"
Iver," 33:301.
13. Pope Manufacturing Company.
Company, An Industrial 31. For the history of resistance welding see John
Achievement, pp. 29-46. Schmitt. "The
B. Schmitt, “The Invention of Electric Resistance
14. Joseph W. Roc, Roe, English and American Tool Welding.”
Welding.''
Builders, pp. 173-76. 32. "Making
“Making a Bicycle";
Bicycle”; Frederick A. C. Per-
“Manufacture of Sewing Machines,”
15. "Manufacture Machines," p. 181.181, rinc. "Practical
rine, “Practical Aspects of Electric Welding":
Welding”; and
and "A “A Great American Manufacture
Manufacture.” " In addition.
addition, “Electric Welding."
Elihu Thomson. "Electric
the trade catalogs of the Pope Manufacturing
Manufactunng Com- Coin- 33. Fred H. Colvin, 60 Years wirh with Men and Ma·
Ma-
pany contain information on the production of Colum- chines, pp. 85-86. A qualification is needed here. A
bias. For the names and locations of these catalogs, few bicycle manufacturers and partsmakers developed
see Lawrence B. Romaine, Guide to American Americun Trade the technique of electrically welding frames. Two
Catalogs, 1744-I900
1744-1900 (New York: R. R. Bowker, were the George L. Thomson Mfg. Co. and the Inde-
1960), p. 61.61' pendent Electric Company.
Company, both of Chicago. See
16. For a brief survey of these machine tools, see "Decidedly
“Decidedly the Greatest."
Greatest.”
L.T.C. Rolt, A Short History of' of Machine Tools, pp. 34. Dunham, "Bicycle“Bicycle Era,"
Era,” p. 404. The fol- foJ ..
154-77. lowing works also alsu deal with the safety bicycle craze:
17. "A“A Great American Manufacture,"
Manufacture.” p. 329. Richard Harmond. “Progress and Flight";
Harmond, "Progress Flight”: Gary Al-
Robert S. Woodbury, History ofthe
18. RobertS. of the Grinding lan Tobin, "The “The Bicycle Boom of the 1890s"; 18903"; and
Machine, pp. 109-12. For a contemporary account of James C. Whorton.
Whorton, ''The“The Hygiene of the Wheel.”Wheel''
manufacturing ball bearings. “Making Balls for
bearings, see "Making 35. Dunham, "Bicycle
“Bicycle Era."
Era.” p. 468. Production
Bearings."
Bearings'· figures for the bicycle
btcyclc vary greatly. For instance, Lit-
report Whitworth
19. In his rep01t Whttworth wrote: "The “The com- Digest 13 (June 13, 11896):
erary DiRest 896): 196 and Scientific
plete musket is made (by putting together the separate American 62 (1896): 69 stated that four million bicy-
parts) in 3 minutes”
minutes" (Special Report of Joseph Whit- cles would be produced in 1896. The bicycling trade
worth,
lvorth, in Nathan Rosenberg, ed., The American Sys- journals gave even higher estimates. I have relied on
tein 0fManitfactures,
tem of Manufactures, p. 365). Compare this with "A “A Dunham's careful research on these figures and on
Great American Manufacture.”
Manufacture. ·• Pope, "Bicycle
Pope. “Bicycle Industry,"
Industry,” p. 551.
20. Dunham, "Bicycle
“Bicycle Era,"
Era,” p. 179. Pope wrote 36. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Eleventh Census
in 1895: "It“It became necessary also, at the outset to of the United States ( 1890),
l 890J, Report on Manitfactitt‘i'ttg,
Manufacturing,
368 NOTES TO
NOTES TO PAGES
PAGES 202-6

Part l, p. 126. For the remaining years of the 1890s,

Patt I 890s, Roads Magazine (p. 184). Pope wrote that "we
“we spent
Era,” p. 468, gives annual pro-
“Bicycle Era,"
Dunham, "Bicycle over $8,000 in the Central Park case alone"
alone” and suc-
duction figures. ceeded in getting the bicycle classed as a vehicle
37. These firms have been culled out of the cycle ("Bicycle Industry”
Industry" p. 551).
trade literature, including the Wheel and the Bicycle 46. Amold Tools—XII,” 19
“Bicycle Tools-XII,"
Arnold [Dolnar], "Bicycle
World; Romaine, Guide to American Trade Catalogs, (1896): 52.
pp. 57-63; American Machinist,"
Machinist; and Iron Age. “Influence of the Bicycle upon Machine
47. "Influence
38. Pope Manufacturing Company, An Industrial Tools,” and Colvin, 60 Years, pp. 84-88. As these
Tools,"
Achievement, p. lll; J; Pope Manufacturing Company,
Company. works emphasize, by 1895-96 the machine tool in-
iri-
Columbia Bicycles, 1895, p. 31; Leonard Waldo, dustry was marketing a complete line of b1cyc1e-mak-
bicycle-mak-
“The American B1cyclc,"
"The Bicycle," p. 50. ing machine tools. A manufacturer could go to a com-
coni-
39. Cleveland Moffett, "A “A Visit to the Works of such as Pratt &
pany sucl1 & Whitney and purchase what was
the Pope Tube Company,”
Company," Part IV of Marvels ofBi- “turnkey” factory.
in effect a "turnkey"
cycle Making, pamphlet in Warshaw Collection of 48. The company still prided itself on using "sol-
“sol-
Business Americana, Smithsonian Institution, unpagi- steel” ball bearing races for its hubs: "We
id steel" “We are not
natcd; reprinted from McClure's Magazine, 1897. See willing under any circumstances to resort to the use
usc in
“The Manufacture of Bicycle Tubing.”
also "The Tubing." For in- Columbias of the pressed sheet steel cases now com-
formation on the rubber works sec Moffett, "A “A Visit ing into common use on account of their cheapness”
cheapness''
Works,” Part III
to the Hartford Rubber Works," [ll of Marvels of 1895, p. 25).
(Columbia Bicycles, I895,
Bicycle Making, unpaginated, and Pope Manufactur- 49. Arnold [Dolnar], "Bicycle Too1s—XX,” 19
“Bicycle Tools--XX,"
ing Company, An Industrial Achievement. (1896): 276.
40. National Cyclopaedia of American Biogra- Bio[!,ra- 50. Moffett, "A “A Visit to the Works of the Pope
phy, s.v.
s. v. "Pope, George," 18:227. The secrecy be-
“Pope, George,” Company,” in Marvels of Bicycle
Manufacturing Company," Bicvcle
hind the ownership of the Hartford company is re- Making. Horace L. Amold Arnold [Hugh Dolnar], "Cycle
“Cycle
vealed in a letter from Albert Pope to David J. Post, Stampings,“
Starn pings,'' notes the movement away from drop-
secretary of the Hartford company, July 24, 1880. forging on the pat1
part of armory-tradition
armory~tradition manufacturers.
This letter is part of a small manuscript collection of Arnold covered the entire industry's
industry’s techniques of
Hartford Cycle Company papers at the Connecticut hubmaking in his "Bicycle Tools” series, 19
“Bicycle Tools" l9 (1896):
State Library, Hartford, Connecticut. 252-55, 275-76, 348-50, and 474-76. Sometime in
41. This practice seems to have been common 1895, Pope apparently abandoned its recently devel-
among bicycle manufacturers. See Arnold [Dolnar], oped bar stock manufacturing techniques and adopted
“Bicycle Tools-XVJII,"
"Bicycle Tools—XVIlI,” 19 (1896): 231. press techniques for making what was dubbed the
42. Later Pope Manufacturing Company sales lit~ lit- “barrel hub”
"barrel hub" (see Pope Manufacturing Company, Company.
erature and "A “A Visit to the Works of the Hartford Bicycles, 1896, pp. 13, 35). Press tech-
Columbia Bicycles.
Cycle Company,"
Company,” one of a series of articles on the niques were also adopted for the crank hanger at the
Pope Manufacturing Company in Moffett, Marvels of same time.
Bicycle Making,
Makint;, claimed independent status. Virtually 551. Amold [Dolnarl
l. Arnold [Dolnar] makes this argument in his
none of the existing letters, however, almost all of article on hubmaking in the articles cited in note 50.
which are from George Pope to David J. Post, fails to 52. Moffett, "A “A Visit to the Works of the Pope
mention what action A. A. Pope and George Day had Company,” Marvels of'
Manufacturing Company," of Bicycle Mak-
Malt-
taken on that day (Hartford Cycle Company Papers). ing. This work forms the basis of subsequent discus-
Cleveland Moffett described George Day as A. A. sions of Pope production technology and will not be
Pope’s "right-hand
Pope's “right-hand man" (''Visit
(“Visit to the Works of the specifically cited hereafter.
Pope Manufacturing Company").
Company”). 53. "The
“The Story of a Success."
Success.”
43. The small collecton of letters in the Hartford 54. Arnold [Dolnar], "Bicycle
“Bicycle Tools-XXXI,"
Too1s—XXXI,”
Cycle Company Papers suggest the agent arrange- 19 (1896): 896.
ment. Arnold [Dolnar], "Bicycle
55. Amold “Bicycle Tools-XX-
Tools—XX-
44. For example, in 1895 Pope staged an impres- VIII," 19 ((1896):
1896): 677. In an earlier article the author
sive exhibition of posters in Washington, D. D.C.,
C., which noted that "the
“the work was very easy on the man,
included Maxfield Parrish’s
Parrish's award-winning artwork. which is a prime requirement of New England tools.
A copy of the exhibit catalog is in the bicycle files of The true Yankee rebels against the first quarter ounce
the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. of needless muscular effort"
effort” (18 [18951:
[1895]: I1022).
022).
45. Pope, "Bicycle
“Bicycle Industry,"
Industry,” pp. 552-53; Pope 56. Arnold [Dolnar], "Bicycle
“Bicycle Tools-XXIX,"
Too1s—XXIX,”
Manufacturing Company, An Industrial Achievement, 19 (1896): 738.
pp.
pp, 14-15; Mason, “League''League of American Wheel- 57. Horace L. Arnold [Hugh Dolnar], "Bicycle“Bicycle
men,”
men," particularly chaps. 3-5. Mason suggests that Brazing,” p. 1080.
Brazing," I 080. Most of my account of brazing is
Pope provided $6,000 to the LAW to begin its Good based upon this article.
 Nores to Pagans"
Not!'s Pof,c:s 206-9 369

58. According to the letters from George Pope to ing at the correct shape for this lighter spoke, Pope
David J. Post, the Hartford Cycle Company often fell mechanics built a special machine to manufacture it.
behind on its frame filing. See letters of April 10, They called it a swaging machine, and it operated
1891, February 4, 4., 8, 1892, Papers of the Hartford through a combination of pulling wire through a set of
Cycle Company. trimming dies and hammering it with a set of rapidly
59. Arnold [Dolnar].
[Dolnar], "Bicycle Tools~ XXIX,"
“Bicycle Tools—XXlX,” striking hammers. About the same time, New England
19 (1896): 739. sewing machine needle manufacturers were develop-
60. George Pope to David 1'. J. Post, April 6, 1891, ing swaging machines to reduce needle shanks. For-
Papers of the Hartford Cycle Company. merly. they had used grinding techniques.
61. For example.
example, George Pope to David J. Post, 65. George Pope to David J. Post, January 24,
April 10, 1891, ibid. I1893,
893, Papers of the Har1ford
Hartford Cycle Company.
62. The Gormully and Jeffery shops, organized 66. A. E. Harrison, "The “The Competitiveness of the
along Yankee armory lines, developed automatic rim- l890~l9l4,” p. 298.
British Cycle Industry, 1890-1914,"
polishing machines. They built six of these machines “Bicycle Era,"
67. Dunham, "Bicycle Era,” p. 466.
and. surprisingly, the entire bank of machines could
and, Durant-Dort
68. The Durant-Dart Carriage Co., for instance,
polish only fifty rims per ten-hour day. This figure also made bicycles; see Lawrence R. Gustin, Billy
gives meaning to my argument that rim polishing and Amold [Dolnar], "Bicycle
Durant, p. 41; Arnold “Bicycle Tools--1,"
Too1s~—l,”
other processes were time-consuming and laborious. (1895); 781; see also,
18 (1895): also. Trescott, ''The
“The Bicycle."
Bicycle.”
“Bicycle Tools~
See Arnold [Dolnar], "Bicycle VI!l," 18
Tools—\/Ill,” 69. This would be an exciting aspect of the Amer-
(1895); 963-64.
(1895): 963~64. I do not know if Pope designed any ican system of manufactures to take up, particularly
such machinery. with the bicycle, but little solid information on preci-
63. George Pope to David J. Post, January 1, sion and prices exists in the published record. The
1892, Papers of the Hartford Cycle Company. new demand for precision on the toymakers is noted
64. Discussing the new line of bicycles shown at Amold [DolnarL
by Arnold [Dolnar], "Bicycle Tools~ll," 18 (1895):
“Bicycle Tools»-ll,”
the 1896 Chicago Cycle Show, Show. editors of the Wheel 801.
“Nearly all of the innovations mentioned were
noted: "Nearly 70. Ibid.
introduced last year by the Pope Co. There are those 71. Arnold [DolnarL
[Dolnar], "Cycle
“Cycle Stampings,"
Stampings,” p.
who dispute Pope's
Pope’s leadership, but prejudice astde,
aside, it 1 163. The Germanic character of the Western product
1163.
was never more apparent than now that he should have is suggested by the names of high-wheel bicycles
year‘s changes twelve months ago.
inaugurated this year's ago, made in 1887 by the Western Toy Company: the Otto
and that his alteration of such petty detail as a name- and the Otto Special (Price Listfor Spring 1887, The
plate should cause alterations all along the line are 1/v'estern Toy Companv).
Western Company). Compare the Western Wheel
facts that will not down. The Columbias, and indeed, Works’ history with that of Crosby &
Works' & Mayer Co. of
nearly all of the old wheels seem to have approached Buffalo, New York. The Thee latter claimed to be "one
“one of
that finality of pattem
pattern and construction so long ex- the earliest and most persistent advocates of sheet
pected" (“ ‘I'I Will’:
pected"(" Will': Chicago True to Her Motto in the steel frame connections.
connections, and produced from sheet
Carrying out of Her Cycle Show Show.. .. .. .Y‘) A. H. Over-
")A. steel metal the first crank hanger”;
hanger": (Catalogue and
man, Pope’s
Pope's chief competitor in New England, also Price List of Sheet Steel Parts Made by Crosby & &
prided himself on his company's
company’s rigorous system of Mayer‘ Co., p. l1).
Mayer ). Unfortunately, the history of stamp-
“scientific testing." See '·Scientific
''scientific testing.'' “Scientific Methods Ap- ing or presswork is obscure. As Oberlin Smith, the
plied to Bicycle-making.”
Bicycle-making." For more information on creator of one of the major punch press manufacturing
“Testing the Parts of a
Pope testing methods see ''Testing companies, wrote in his 1896 treatise Pres.s'~l/Vork."ng
Press-Working
Modern Bicycle,"
Modem Bicycle,” and Rae, American Automobile 0fMera/s." "As far as the writer knows.
of'Metall·: knows, the literature
Manufacturers, pp. 9-10. ofthis
of this subject, outside of press-makers’
press-makers' catalogues, is
The development of spoke swagingswagmg was of im- extremely limited. It is, however, to be hoped that in
mense importance. Until 1891, l89l, bicycle spokes were the not too far off future somebody will give the world
made merely by cutting off wire to spoke length and a comprehensive biography of a family of machines
threading the ends. In their efforts to lighten the bicy- which arc are far too useful to remain much longer in the
cle, Pope mechanics came up with the idea of cutting realms of literary oblivion"
ofliterary oblivion” (p. 42). So far, no one has
off all unnecessary metal from the spokes. Testing the taken up Smith's
Smith’s plea. A brief and incomplete survey
strength of wheels assembled with various thicknesses is Carter C. Higgins, "The “The Pressed Steel Industry."
Industry.”
of spokes, Pope mechanics found that small-diameter As early as 1851 the American Joseph Francis was
spokes would support a wheel adequately but could stamping out metal lifeboats on a hydraulic press. Sec See
not be properly secured to the hub and rim. They M0m‘hl_\> Magazine 3 (June
Hmper'.1· New Monthly
Harper’s (lune 1851): 165
decided that they could make a spoke with ends large “Francis’s Corrugated Metallic
and ''Francis's Metal! ic Boats."
Boats.'' Other in-
enough to secure them properly and then trim off formation on stamping may be obtained in Edward H.
some of the steel from the middle of the spoke. Arriv- Knight, Knighfs
Knight's American Mechanical Dictionary, 3:
370 NOTES TO PAGES
NOTES TO PAGES 209-22

2302-4; Park Benjamin,

BenJamin, Appleton’s Cyclopaeclia of
Appleton's Cyclopaedia 4. See, for example, Nevins and Hill, Ford, pp.
Applied Mechanics, 2: 566-70; 80 Years Ferracute; 323-53.
Bliss (E. W.) Company, Catalogue and Price List of 5. For more information on the design work be· be--
Presses, 1886; and Bliss (E. W.) Company, Cata- hind the Model T, see ibid., pp. 387-93, and Charles
logue and Price List ofPresses, 1900, esp. p. 452. As F. Sorensen, My Forty Ford, pp. 96-112.
Fortv Years with Ford. 96-1 12.
Amold
Arnold [Dolnar] pointed out in ''Cycle Stampings.“ it
“Cycle Stampings,'' 6. Nation 88 (January 7, 1909): 7-8, quoted in
appears that pressing or stamping sheet steel in pa~tic­
partic- Nevins and Hill. Harper's Weekly,
HilL Ford, pp. 385-86; Harper’s
ular was a technique transferred to the United States January I, 1, 1910, quoted in ibid., p. 449.
by German emigrants. Although American press man- 7. Nevins and Hill, Ford, pp. 387-88.
ufacturers such as Ferracute and Bliss had been in 8. Ibid., pp. 262, 265-67, 279.
companie;, had sold
business for some years, these companies 9. Ibid., p. 281; Sorensen, My Forty Years with
equipment primarily to tinware manufacturers and Flanders’s obituary in the New York
Ford, p. 283. See Flanders's
Arnold was
Certainly, if Amold
food canning companies. Ceitainly, Times, June 25, 1923, and Automobile Topics 70
correct, they had not developed presswork to the de- (1923): 517, 525.
gree it had been in Germany. We desperately need a 10. Nevins and Hill, Ford, p. 281. Onthcimpor·
NevinsandHill,Ford, On the impor--
history of this important technology. tance of the Landis grinding methods, see Robert S.
72. Western Wheel Company, CrescentBic__vcle.r,
Crescent Bicycles, Woodbury, History of !he Machine, p. 123.
the Grinding Machine.
pp. 18-19. A brief description of the Western Wheel
Westem 11. Reminiscences of Max F. Wollering, Fore! Ford
Works appeared in “The Trade,” Wheel 6
"The Chicago Trade," Archives, Edison Institute, Dearborn,
Dearbom, Michigan. The
(1890): 472-74. importance of considering interchangeability-even
interchangeability—even
73. The following account is based on ibid.; Ar- at this late date-cannot be overemphasized. As late
nold [Dolnar], "Cycle
“Cycle Stampings," pp. 1163-67; as 1915 the general manager of 8a major machine tool
“Press
"Press and Die Work on Bicycles,”
Bicycles," American Ma- company raised “How many are there
mised the question, "How
chinist 19 (1896): 1097-1100; and the followmg following engaged in manufacturing enterprises today who can
pieces in Arnold’s “Bicycle Tools":
Arnold's [Dolnar] series "Bicycle Tools”: truthfully apply the word interchangeable to their
18 (1895): 781-82, 19 (1896): 50-52, 252-55, product?" (J. P. Brophy, "Interchangeability").
product?” “lnterchangeability").
736--39, 871-73, and 894-97.
474-76, 736-39, ournaf 10 (Jan-·
Cycle and Automobile Trade 1Journal
12. Cycfe (Jan-
74. George Pope to David Post, January 12, uary 1,l , 1906),
1906). quoted in Nevins and Hill, Ford. p.
1891, Papers of the Hartford Cycle Company. 282.
75. For more description of these machines, sec see 13. Nevins and Hill, Ford, pp. 282, 324.
Amold {Dolnar}, "Bicycle
Arnold [Dolnar], Tools—XVl” and "Bicy-
“Bicycle Tools-XVI" “Bicy- 14. Apparently, many of the shops in the Detroit
Tools-XXXI," 19 (1896): 183, 894-97.
cle Too1s—XXXI," area had arranged their machine tools according to
76. Arnold [Dolnar], Tools-XU," 19
“Bicycle Tools—XIl,”
rDolnar], "Bicycle class. But for a long time the best Yankee shops had
(1896): 52; “Bicycle Tools—XXVII,” 19 (1896):
"Bicycle Tools-XXVII," (1896). “jobs,” such as
placed their equipment according to ''jobs,''
657. the crank job or the hub job at the Pope bicycle works.
77. Pope, ''Bicycle
"Bicycle Industry,"
Industry,” p. 553. Ford employees found Flanders's
Flanders’s arrangement of
78. Hiram Percy Maxim, Horseless Carriage tools novel. Seen against a proper background, how·· how--
Days, pp. 1-2. ever, his work simply followed the best New England
79. Ibid., pp. 4-5. typescript,
practice. Writing in an autobiographical typescript.
80. Joseph V. Woodworth, American Tool Mak- said of a visit to the Ford Piquette A
Fred Colvin smd venue
Avenue
Mam~f'acturing, p. 516.
ing and Interchangeable Manufacturing, “Here I saw the beginnings of a new idea in
plant: "Here
automobile construction, for the shop was arranged
for continuous line production, the first I had ever
Chapter 6 seen. Instead of being departmentalized by operations
the departments were laid out to handle the operations
1. Siegfried Giedion, Mechanization Takes
l. of every part in sequence to produce them with a
Command. (“Automobiles," Box 3, Fred
minimum of handling ("Automobiles,"
2. Allan Nevins and Frank Emest
Ernest Hill, Ford: The H. Colvin Papers, Freiberger Library, Case Western
Times, the Man, the Company, maintains that the
Times, Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio). For a more
changes made in 1913 and 1914 provided "a“a lever to Flanders’s ideas on sequen-
frilly developed version of Flanders's
fully
move the world”
world" (p. 447). On Fordism, see Charles Ford’s chief
tial arrangement of tools, see the paper by Ford's
S. Maier, "Between
“Between Taylorism and Technocracy";
Technocracy”; tool designer, Oscar C. Bomholdt,Bornholdt, "Continuow,
“Continuous
Emma Rothschild, Paradise Lost, pp. 26-53; and Manufacturing by Placing Machines in Accordance
Carl Rauschenbush, Fordism. with Sequence of Operations.”
Operations.''
3. Henry Ford to the editor, Automobile 14 15. Nevins and Hill, Ford, pp. 325, 335-36.
(1906): 107-19, quoted in John B. Rae, cd.,
ed., Henry 16. Sorensen, My Forty Years with Ford, pp. 93,
Ford, pp. 18-19. 45.
 Notes‘
Notes to Pages‘
P({ges Z23’-3/
223-3 I 371

17. Nevins and Hill, Ford.

Ford, p. 364. There is great claims~probably incorrectly-that
Sorensen claims-probably incorrectly~that these
confusion in Ford history (written primarily from rem- layouts determined the floor plans of the Highland
iniscences of old employees who gave their thoughts Park factory, that is, they provided a guide for Kahn.
to interviewers in the 1950s) about the use of gravity Most likely the layouts were made after the Highland
slides and conveyor systems at the Ford factories. Ne- Park factory had been builLbuilt. The practice of tagging
vins and Hill vacillate on this matter but are firm that machine tools was carried over into machine tool ac-
gravity slides were in place at Piquette before Flanders quisition practices, on which see the Reminiscences of
left in 1908 (ibid., pp. 370, 469). The visual evidence A. M. Wibel, Ford Archives.
A.M.
suggests otherwise, however. 30. This work originally appeared as a series of
Ibid., p. 365.
18. lbid., articles in Engineering Magazine in 1914 and 1915,
19. An expression used by Sorensen, My Forty Fortv stimulated by the five-dollar day. Engineering Maga-
Years with Ford, p. 45. zine‘s thought and concept for a treatment of the Ford
zine's
20. Information for this paragraph has been Motor Company appear in Charles B. Going, editor,
gleaned from Nevins and Hill, Hill. Ford. and from Soren- Engineering Magazine, to Horace L. Amold, Arnold, which
sen, M_vMy Fort)‘
Forty Years with Ford.
Fora’. II have tried to find
fmd wound up in Henry Ford'sFord’s hands (Ace. 2, Henry Ford
published material by or about these men in the tech- Office, Misc. Correspondence, Box 38, Ford
nical literature, but to the technical community, these Archives).
important figures at Ford remained virtually anony- 31.
3 J. Sixteen articles, May 8-November
8—November 27, 1913.
1913,
mous. vols. 38 and 39.
21. Nevins and Hill.
Hill, Ford,
Ford. pp. 336, 338, 397. 32. An autobiographical account of C0lvin’s
Colvin's visit
22. Ibid., p. 396. For a glimpse of how these to the Highland Park factory appears in a two-page
operations sheets worked and how they were revised, typescript, "Automobiles,"
“Automobiles,” in Box 3 of the Colvin
see Accession 166 (seven boxes), Ford Archives. Papers. Colvin notes here that he visited Highland
23. Nevins and Hill, Ford, p. 396. Park "in“in the spring of 1913."
1913.” In his published auto-
24. Sorensen, My Forty Years with Ford. Ford, pp. biography, however, Colvin said that he was invited
46-47, 106-7; Nevins and Hill, Ford, pp. 458-61; to the factory in January of 1913 and "lost “lost no time"
and Reminiscences of E. A. Walters, Ford Archives. in getting there (60 Years with Men and Machines, p.
Walters’s Reminiscences provide an excellent history
Walters's 13(1). For additional material on Colvin, see National
130).
Keim plant and its personnel from 1899 through
of the Keirn Cyclopaedia
Cyciopaedia of American Biography, s.v. "Colvin,
0fAmerican “Colvin,
its absorption by the Ford Motor Company. For a Fred Herbert.''
Herbert.” iron
Iron Age ran a four-part series written
contemporary article on the Keim Keirn company, sec by Oliver J. Abell, "Making
“Making the Ford Motor Car.·'
Car.”
“Pressed Steel Automobile Parts.''
''Pressed Parts.” “Building an Automobile Every 40 Sec-
33. "Building
25. Walter Flanders, ''Large
“Large Capital Now Needed onds,” pp. 757, 759.
onds,"
to Embark in Automobile Business,''
Business, ” Detroit Saturday‘
Saturday 34. Ibid., p. 761.
Night, January 22, 1910, quoted in James J. Flink, 35. Ibid.
America Adopts the Automobile, 1895-1910,
]895—/910, p. 300. 36. Ibid. Colvin and later joumalists
journalists emphasized
26. Nevins and Hill,
HilL Ford.
Ford, pp. 340, 452. the close grouping of machine tools because Henry
27. Ibid., pp. 451--56.
451—56. For an additional descrip- Ford and his production engineers did so. Sec See the
tion of the Highland Park factory, see Horace Lucien Reminiscences of William Pioch, Logan Miller, and
Arnold and Fay Leone Faurote, Ford Methods and the A.
A.M. M. Wibel, Ford Archives. These men later claimed
Ford Shops, pp. 22-30. that close grouping of machines proved to be a bad
Nevins and Hill, Ford, p. 452. Writing in
28. :"'evins idea because of expansion and model changes.
1912, O. 0. J. Abell explained the reasons for Ford’s Ford's 37. Quoted in Nevins and Hill, Ford, Ford. p. 461.
decision: "The“The restriction of the company’s
company's product “Building an Automobile," p. 759.
38. Colvin, "Building
to a single model chassis was a matter of development “Continuous Manufacturing," p.
39. Bornholdt, "Continuous
to which at least three influences
int1uences contributed: First, 1672.
the study of alloy steels together with their proper heat 40. Colvin.
Colvin, "BLtilding
“Building an Automobile."
Automobile," p. 761.
treatment from which the design adopted has been The planning, layout, and scheduling of Ford produc-
made possible. Second, a remarkably far-sighted rec- tion during this era is marvelously detailed in the
ognition of the magnitude of the market for a low- Rerniniscences of A. M. Wibel, who joined the com-
Reminiscences
priced ear.car. Third, the advantage and the necessity, pany in May 1912 19 I 2 as assistant to Oscar Bornholdt.
from a manufacturing standpoint, of adhering to a Wibel maintained that the development of these pro-
single product if the quantity demanded by the market cedures “was
''was the beginning of mass car''
car” production.
was to be produced at a minimum selling price with a 41. "Machining Cylinders-f." Col-
“Machining the Ford Cylinders—~l.”
profit” (''Making
satisfactory profit'' (“Making the Ford Motor Car,'' Car," vin‘s statement that the Ford engines required no
vin's
89 [1912]:
[l9l2]: 1383). scraping appears on p. 843.
29. Sorensen, My Forty Years with Ford, p. 125. Sorensen. My Forty Years with Ford, p. 54.
42. Sorensen,
372 NOTES to PAGES
NOTES TO PAGES 232-38

Rcminiscenccs. Wibel worked in what

43. Wibel, Reminiscences. Colvin. "Building
50. Colvin, “Building an Automobile,”
Automobile," p. 762.
was later called the engineering procurement depart- 51. Fred H. Colvin, "Methods
“Methods Employed in
ment. of which he eventually served as head for many Magneto.”
Making the Ford Magneto."
years. When he started at Ford in 1912,
I912, he worked as 52. Fred H. Colvin,
Colvin. "Machining
“Machining the Ford Cylin-
Bomholdt and then to Bornholdt's
assistant to Bornholdt Bornholdt’s suc- ders—II.” In his Reminiscences, William Klann, the
ders-II."
cessor,
cessor. Charles Morgana. Allan Nevins and Frank Er- superintendent of the engine department, described
nest Hill cite other Ford employees'
employees’ reminiscences these stands: “The
"The assembly benches were made two
that deal with this matter. Carl Emde Emcle apparently de- feet wide by five feet long and we had twenty of these
signed the notable drilling machine that put forty-five benches wllh
with two men at each,
each. or forty men, fitting
holes in the engine block in one operation. but it was the crankshaft to the cylinder block. At this time the
Morgana’ss responsibility to convince a tool-
Charles Morgana· tops of the cylinder bearings were cast iron, and the
builder to constrnct
construct such a machine. One Ford pioneer bottom crankshaft bearing had one-fourth inch of bab-
remembered that Morgana went from machine tool bitt in the bearing caps. We had twenty benches with
company to machine tool company in search of ideas forty men to fit crankshaft bearings. They would get
for his new processes. Morgana then told Emde about the cylinder block and bore them out on lathes in this
these ideas, and Emde used them to design Ford pro- Machine Shop and we'd we’d get the bearing cap separate
duction machines (Nevms
(Nevins and Hall. Ford. p. 465). In and fit the cap on and scrape them in. Each man had a
addition, the Reminiscences of tool designers William set of wrenches for the bearings and each man had a
Pioch and Logan Miller are perhaps the most reliable rod for the crankshafts and each man had a bench to
on the question of Ford versus outside design of ma- put that motor on. He had a separate bench to scrape
chine tools. his bearings in. Each man had two vises to look after
44. An important starting point in this history is time."
all the time.''
the American Society of Mechanical Engineers· Engineers‘ Re- 53. Fred H. Colvin. "Ford“Ford Crank Cases and
port of the Sub-Committee on Machine Shop Practice, Covers," p. 53.
Transmission Covers,·· 53
“Developments in Machine Shop Practice during the
''Developments Colvin. “Making
54. Colvin, Axles,” p. 148.
"Making Rear Axles," I48.
Last Decade.”
L~st Dec ade.'' 55. Fred H. Colvin, "Ford
“Ford Radiators and Gas-
45. As the ASME Sub-Committee on Machine Tanks.”
oline Tanks."
Shop Practice stressed in its 1912 report on the pre- 56. Fred H. Colvin, "Special
“Special Machmes
Machines for Auto
vious ten years of development in machine shop prac- Small Parts," p. 442; italics added. ‘Contrast Ford’s
Contrast Ford's
tice: “The
''The development ofjigs of jigs and fixtures for inter- final assembly methods with those described in
changeable manufacturing has been remarkable. The Harold W. Slauson.
Slauson, "Efficient
“Efficient System for the Rapid
expansion of automobile manufacture has been enor- Assembly of Motor Cars.''
Cars.”
mous and most of the leading concerns employ jigs 57. See Colvin's
Colvin‘s section, "Assembling
“Assembling 800 Cars
and fixtures exclusively, thus insuring interchangea- “Building an Automobile,"
Per Day," in "Building Automobile,” pp.
bility, low production cost and systematic production. 761-62, for a description of static assembly with
Many improvements have been made in the way of moving gangs of assemblers.
clamping devices, standardization of bushings, han- 58. See the chapter, "A “A Lever to Move the
dles, levers, frames, etc. too numerous to mention
dles. World,”
World," in Ford, pp. 447-80; quotation on p. 469.
specifically. Toolmaking has been developed on man- inan- Although Nevins and Hill relied on the oral history
ufacturing lines''
lines" (ibid
(ibid.... p. 858). This report also sin- accounts of many former Ford employees, it appears
gled out the importance of greater weight and rigidity that they accepted in broad outlines the account by
in machine tools,
tools. resulting "not “not only in increased William Klann. Yet there are some discrepancies in
production but in accuracy of product" (ibid., p. K1ann’s account, which in general is self-serving. The
Klann's
848). As late as 1909, however, Henry Leland's Leland’s Cad- uncertainty about what actually happened in 1913 is
illac plant was still hand-scraping crankshaft bearings reflected in the Reminiscences in the Ford Ar-
best reflected
(Nevins and Hill, Ford,Ford. p. 468). O’Connor, who worked in Ford's
chives of James O'Connor, Ford’s
46. Nevins and Hill.Hill, Ford, p. p, 464. assembly department from 1909 until his retirement in
“Machining the
47. Colvin, "Machining the Ford
Ford Cylindcrs--I,"
Cylinders-I.” 1952. O’Connor
llJ52. O'Connor was a foreman of assembly in 1913.
p. 845. For a general discussion of Ford’s Ford's special- 59. On the question of exactly when Colvin vis-
purpose machine tools see the Reminiscences of ited the Ford factory, see note 32. From this evidence,
William Pioch, A. M. Wibel, William Klann, and it may be concluded that Colvin toured Highland Park
Logan Miller, Ford Archives. no more than three months and possibly only days
48. Fred “Making Rear Axles for the
Freel H. Colvin, "Making before the first experiments were conducted on a mag-
Auto.”
Ford Auto.'' neto assembly line.
49. Fred H. Colvin, "Special
“Special Machines for Mak- “Building an Automobile," p. 759.
60. Colvin, "Building
Pistons,” p. 352. For a reasonably complete view
ing Pistons," Prints of many of the photographs published in Col-
of the Keim operations and men at Highland Park, see vin"s
vin's American Machinist series survive in the Ford
the Reminiscences of E. A. Walters. Archives. They were taken by the commercial pho-
 Norc*.s' to PaKes
Notes Pages" 231)-4(5
239-48 373

tographers Spooner & Wells. It

tographcrs lt is unclear whether 70. “Norton’s
''Norton's Automatic Can Making Machine-
they were commissioned by Colvin or Henry Ford. On ry." This can litre
line was the result of efforts by Edwin
the uniqueness of these slides and conveyor systems, Norton, who was instrumental in the formation in
see Amold
Arnold and Faurote,
Faurote. Ford Methods,
Me/hods, pp. 162-63. 1901 of the American Can Company, a consolidation
This work supports the contention that work slides and of ninety-five eanmaking
canmaking firms. lnIn I1904
SJ04 Norton orga-
conveyors were added after the assembly line innova- nized the Continental Can Company. See Sec Earl Chapin
tion. Well after magneto, motor, transmission, and May. The Canning
May, Carzrzirtg Clan (New York:
York; Macmillan,
chassis assembly lines had been installed, Amolcl
Arnold 1937).
wrote, "Besides
“Besides these almost unbelievable reductions 71 . Sorensen, My Forty
71. For tv Y
Years
cars with Ford, p. 128,
I 28,
in assembly time, time. the Ford shops are now making and Nevins and Hill, Ford, p. 470. The Reminis-
equally surprising gains by the installation of compo- cences of Richard Kroll, James O'Connor,
O‘Connor, William
nent-carrying slides. or ways, on which components
nent-canying Pioch, and A. M. Wibel support>upport Sorensen's claims.
in process of finishing slide by gravity from the hand 72. Colvin,
Colvin. '·ford
“Ford Radiators and Gasoline
of one operation-performing workman to the hand of Tanks."
Tanks.”
the next operator" (p. l103). 03). ln
In October of 1914.
1914, Ar- 73. Nevins and Hill, Fora’,
Ford, p. 475.
nold noted that ''it"it was not until the beginning of 1914 74. Ibid.,
lbid.. pp. 471-7'2.
471-72. The photograph appears
that it was found that.that, in some special
spec1al instances, the opposite p. 544. Other accounts of the development of
convenience of the workmen could be served by the the assembly line which rely on Arnold and Faurote
installation of gravity work-slides” 272). Sec
work-slides" (p. 272) See also and on Nevins and Hill include Jack lack Russell, "The
other specific dates on materials handling installations Coming of the Line,''
Line,” and David Gartman, ·'Origins
“Origins
in ibid..
ibid., pp. 271-86. of the Assembly Line and Capitalist Control of Work
Sorensen. My .r-·ortv
61. Sorensen, Forty Years 11·ith
with Ford,
Ford. pp. at Ford."
117-19. On Sorensen's account, see the Reminis- 75, Arnold and Faurote, Ford Methods, p. 109.
75.
cences of Richard Kroll and William Pioch. Ford Ar- Arnold’s
Arnold's analysis of Ford’s
Ford's assembly processes was
chives. Pioch Sorensen’s account was
P10ch remarked that Sorensen's first published in July 1914 as an article, ''Ford
“Ford Meth-
“quite
'·quite a picturesque story, but Il never heard about it ods and the Ford Shops- IV,'' Engittewirig
Shops—lV." Engineering Magazine
until now [early 1950s]."
1950s].” 47 (1914): 507-32. See also Fred Colvin'sColvin’s article,
62. This view differs from Klann's,Klann’s, as expressed “Assembling Magnetos, Motors and Transmis-
"Assembling
in his Reminiscences. sions.”
sions. H
63. For details of the Ford foundry, see Fred H. 76. Reminiscences of William Klann.
“Continuous Pouring in the Ford Foundry,"
Colvin, "Continuous 77. Horace L. Arnold.
Amold. "Ford
“Ford Methods and the
and Arnold and Faurote, Ford Methods. Methods, pp. 327-59. Shops." Erzgt'neerihg Magazine
Ford Shops," Eng1neering Magctzirre 47 ((1914):
1914 ):
If have relied upon Arnold and Faurote for precise l-26.
dating of installations. It ft is noteworthy that Arnold 78. Arnold and Faurote,
Faurotc, Ford Methods,
Methods. pp.
actually makes the connection between the Westing- 112-15. But as A. M. Wibel
Wibcl noted in his Reminis-
house foundry and Ford's Ford’s assembly line (see pp. cences, '·we
cences. “We have no real way of pinning down what
130-31). On the Westinghouse foundry, sec "The first."
came first.''
Westinghouse Foundry, Near Pittsburg, Pa." The 79. As Nevins pointed out, there is no contempo-
idea of continuous-process parts production and as- of the assem-
rary documentation of the development oi?
sembly, as suggested by the Ford foundry, is dis- bly line in the Ford Archives. This fact is underlined
cussed in the Reminiscences of William Klann: ·'We "We by close examination of Henry Ford's
Ford’s Mv
My Life
Lif'e and
saw these conveyors in the Foundry and we thought. thought, Work. lnIn his discussion of the assembly line.
line, Ford's
‘Well, why can't
'Well, can’t it work on our job?‘
job'~' That is where ghostwriter, Samuel Crowther, drew exclusively from
we got the idea from, from the conveyor in the Horace Arnold's
Arnold’s account in Ford Methods and the
Foundry.“
Foundry.'' Lile and Work,
Ford Shops. See Ford. My Life Xl-f\3.
Worlt. pp. 81-83.
Hcnry Ford. in collaboration with Samuel
64. Henry 80. As Arnold noted, ·'The
“The desirability of general
Crowther,
Crowther. My Life and Work, p. 81.
Mv Lif'e application of the moving assembly line . . .. was not
65. Klann, Reminiscences. at once fully conceded by all the Ford engineers"
engineers“
66. lbid.
Ibid. Il have examined a number of catalogs oi’ of (Arnold and Faurote.
Faurotc, Ford Methods,
A1ethods, p. 112):
1 12); sec also
foundry milling and brewing equipment manufactur- ibid.,
ibid .. pp. 114-15.
ers in the Eleutherian Mills Historical Library, and 81. Reminiscences
Rcminiscences of William Klann; Arnold
Amold and
almost all dating from the period 1900- 1900-1910
1910 include Faurote.
Faurotc, Ford Methods, pp. 115-16.
conveyor systems of one kind or another. 82. Colvin's
Colvin’s article, cited in note 75, describes
67. On Oliver Evans, see Eugene S. f'erguson, Ferguson. the operations illustrated in a photograph: ·'The "The
Evans.
Oliver !:'vans. planetary transmissions arcare being assembled as the
68. John Storck and Walter Dorwin Teague, flywheel and transmission units arc are moved along a
Flourfor
Flour for Man's Bread, pp. 196-222. track made of channel iron and supported by pip-
69. Klann. Reminiscences.
Reminiscenccs. ing. .. . . The flywheels
flywheels are
arc then turned so that the
374 NOTES TO PAGES
NOTES TO PAGES 248-55

transmission portions go down between the rails

rails.... . . Work."
Work," Philadelphia Ledger, January II, ll, 1914, see.
sec.
They are moved along this track by the continuously 5, p. 4. Ilthank
thank John Rumm for this reference.
reference, Perhaps
moving chain shown in the framework beneath it. Ford’s views were expressed earlier when Fred H.
Ford's
While the parts are moving slowly, the magnets are arc Colvin visited the Ford factory in early 1913. Cer-
assembled, fastened into place and tested~all
tested—a1l without tainly some discussion with Ford or his employees is
stopping the procession for one moment”
moment" (p. 557) 557). reflected in Colvin's
Co1vin’s statement, quoted above, that
83. Reminiscences of William Klann. Data on as- rear axle assembly at Highland Park "show[s]
“show[s] that
sembly times are from Arnold and Faurote, Ford motion study has been carefully looked into, whether
Methods, p. 115. itrt is called by that name or not.”
not." Henry Ford's
Ford’s stale-
state-
84. Reminiscences of William Klann. ment was supported by James O’Connor,
O'Connor, a foreman of
85. Arnold and Faurote, Ford Methods,
Methods. p. 116. assembly at Ford from 1913 to 1951. He said in the
86. lbid.,
Ibid., p. 135; Sorensen, My Forty Years with early 1950s that "there“there was no stop-watching then
Ford, p. 130; Nevins and Hill, Ford,Ford. pp. 474-75. didn’t see much of that until around '26"
[1913]. We didn't ‘26"
Also see A very's dinner address for thirty-five-year
Avery’s O’Connor). Ford tool expert
(Reminiscences of James O'Connor).
employees of the Ford Motor Company, December William Pioch also argued that there was no time
19, 1944, Ace. 1, Fair Lane Papers, IV, Ford Motor study at Ford during this period (Pioch, Reminis-
Company, Box 117, Ford Archives. The Avery quote cences). On the other hand, Max Wollering claimed in
appears in "How “How Mass Production Came into the early 1950s that he used a stopwatch at Ford’s Ford's
Being,” which was taken from his introductory rc-
Being," re- Piquette Avenue plant as early as 1907 (Wollering,
marks in a paper on safety glass manufacture. AveryA very Reminiscences). For a brief survey of Taylorism and
Reminiscences),
spoke at an ASME meeting in Detroit on the applica- the efficiency craze of the period 1910-20, see Sarn-Sam-
tion of motor car manufacturing methods in other uel. Haber, Efficiency and Uplift.
uel
industries. 93. Frank 8.B. Copley, Frederick W. Taylor, 2:
87. Such instructions were common. Logan Mil- 445; Nevins and Hill, Ford, p. 468.
ler, a thirty-eight-year employee of Ford Motor Com- 94. Henry Ford, "Mass
“Mass Production,''
Production," p. 821.
pany, recalled that while he was working in the tool- According to this article, Taylor and his disciples
room in 11914,
roam “Mr. Martin came up to the tool room
914, "Mr. “did not see that another and better method might be
"did
one day and asked me what a particular die was for devised which would make it unnecessary for a work-
and where the part went on the car, and I didn't
didn’t know. ing man to carry I106,40006,400 lb. of pig-iron to earn
‘Well, before you can do the job, I think you
He said, 'Well, $1.85.”
$1.85." For details on Schmidt, see Taylor, Princi-
had better spend some time going through the various ples of Scientific Management, pp. 57-62.
departments and finding out where these various parts 95. The seedbed of Taylor’s
Taylor's system of manage-
are made, and maybe you can improve on them.‘ them.' ''” ment was the large industrial machine shop, which
Miller took two weeks to tour the factory and ''filled
“filled was heavily dependent upon skilled machinists. Tay-
notebooks"
notebooks'' with ideas for improving production (Mil- l0r‘s work and the early work of his disciples took
lor's
ler, Reminiscences). place in manufacturing establishments that differed
“Building an Automobile,”
88. Colvin, "Building Automobile," pp. significantly from the light-metal, consumer durable
761-62. Stationary chassis assembly in 1913 required goods factories in which the American system of man-
the routing of six hundred men—five
men-five hundred as- ufactures arose. As has been stressed throughout this
semblers and one hundred parts carriers. study, emphasis in American system shops was placed
89. Stephen Meyer III,
Ill, The Five Dollar Day, pp. on the development of special-purpose machine tools
ll, 20; Nevins and Hill, Ford, pp. 468, 474. Daniel
II, and fixtures, jigs, and gauges that removed the need
Nelson discusses developments at Ford in the context for the worker to exercise judgment on his workpiece.
of scientific and systematic management in Managers Taylor revised the motions and procedures of workers
and Workers. Harry Braverman, on the other hand, to improve efficiency; those steeped in the American
does not explicitly link Taylorism and Fordism in system developed new hardware to increase produc-
terms of their development but only as manifestations tivity or precision.
“capitalist mode of production”
of the "capitalist production" (Labor and 96. Sorensen, My Forty Years with Ford, p. 131.
Monopoly Capital, pp. 139-51). Speaking to a group of mechanical engineers in De-
90. Reminiscences of Anthony Harff and A. M. troit in 1929, Clarence A Avery
very explained why the chain
Wibel,
Wibel. Ford Archives. system was resorted to in moving chassis assembly
91. This was the fourth of Frederick W. Taylor's
Taylor’s operations: “The
''The first continuous assembly line had
four principles of scientific management as elaborated no mechanical means of movement. The wheels of the
in The Principles of Scientific Management, p. 36. car were assembled at a very early stage and channel
92. Arnold and Faurote, Ford Methods, p. 20. iron tracks provided for them. At intervals, giving
Ford had argued the same thing on January 11, 1914, sufficient time for the operations to be performed, the
in an interview with a reporter from the Philadelphia foreman blew a whistle and all hands pushed the cars
Ledger. See "Henry
“Henry Ford to give Millions to Em- forward to the next position, and then returned to their
ployes [sic] Because He Watched Gasoline Engine at original locations to perform their next opera-
 Pages 255-63
Notes to Pages"
Notes" 375

tions.. .. .. .. In the next stage we provided rigid spacers

tions l383—9l, 1454-60; 92 (1913): 1-7;
1383-91, l-7; and 93 (1914):
between the cars, and introduced a pusher chain about 902-4. See also Harold Whiting Slauson, "A “A Ten-
three cars long at the beginning of the line. This Plan,” and two additional
Million Dollar Efficiency Plan,"
worked well for a few weeks. The cumulative re- "Assembling Magnetos,
articles by Fred H. Colvin, “Assembling
sistance, however, was too close to the safety factor. Transmissions" and "Continuous
Motors, and Transmissions“ “Continuous As-
One day the complete line buckled and pushed a sec- Modern Automobile Shops."
sembling in Modem
tion from the side wall of the building. It was then that 107. By August 26, 1915, Fred Colvin was able
(“How Mass
introduced" ("How
the continuous chain was introduced” to report that the Studebaker Company had adopted
Production Came into Being"). continuous line assembly techniques for its four-cylin-
97. This account of chassis assembly lines is "Continuous Assem-
der automobiles. In his article “Continuous
based primarily on Arnold and Faurote, Ford Meth- Modem Automobile Shops,"
bling in Modern Shops,” Colvin sug-
ods, pp. 135-42; quotation on p. 139. gested that any automobile manufacturer that had not
98. Figures from ibid., p. 193; see also pp. adopted the assembly line had failed "to “to grasp the
ll4-l5, 136.
114-15, l36. Other subassemblies included body as- extent” (p. 370). The
modern tendency to its fullest extent"
sembly, upholstery work, piston assembly, and other Hudson Company also adopted the assembly line. line, as
components. did Packard. See "Continuous
“Continuous Assembling Frame,'·
Frame,”
99. Horace L. Arnold, ''Ford “Ford Methods and the “Assembling Motor Cars in the Packard Plant,"
"Assembling Plant." and
Shops—-IV,” p. 513. Details of the Ford con-
Ford Shops---IV," Allan Nevins and Frank Ernest HilL Hill, For
Ford:d.· Expansion
veyors, work slides, and rollwaysrailways are inm Arnold and and Challenge, 1915-1933.
I915-1933, pp. 391-92. Horace L.
Faurote, Ford Methods, pp. 271-86. Henry Ford (or Arnold had suggested as early as July 1914 that Ford’s Ford's
Samuel Crowther) wrote in 1922: "Every piece of assembly and conveyor methods could be "applied “applied to
work in the shops moves; it may move on hooks on any and all small-machine manufacturing, with very
overhead chains gomg going to assembly in the exact order large reductions of labor-cost" (“Ford Methods and
labor-cost” (''Ford
in which the parts are required; it may travel on a the Ford Shops-IV,"
Sh0ps—IV,” p. 513).
moving platform, or it may go by gravity, but the 108. As Warren Ordway suggested, ''This “This new
point is that there is no lifting or trucking of anything''
anything” assernbly oper-
system is applicable to practically any assembly
(My Life and Work, p. 83). ation as well as to filling containers with hquids, liquids, in-
100. Keith Sward, ofHenn· Ford, p.
Sward. The Legend 0fHenr_\' specting, packing and boxing, and a hundred other
49. Sward based these figures on information pro- uses. One advantage of the system ... . . . is that it can
vided in Ford, M_vL1feMv Life and Work. pp. 129-30.
und Work, l29-30. be installed in an old plant as well as in a new one"
0 I . These paragraphs on the five-dollar day are
Il0l. (“Assembling by Conveyor," p. 103).
("Assembling l03). This article
based on Nevins and Hill, Ford, pp. 5512-41; 12-41; Sward, illustrates automobile component assembly lines as
Legend, pp. 49-63; David L. Lewis, The Pnbli'c1m- Public Im- well as lines for radio component assembly. The
age ofllenry
of Henry Ford, pp. 69--77;
69-77; and Meyer, Five Dol- Hoover Suction Sweeper Company used conveyors
lar Day. Meyer argues that the five-dollar day was not for inspection as early as 1923. See Fred Colvin,
simply aa wage but a profit-sharing plan. "Methods
“Methods Used in Assembling Sweepers.Sweepers,'' The Ger-
02. Ace.
lI02. Acc. 1,l, Fair Lane Papers, IV, Ford Motor man electrical manufacturing company, AEG, as-
Complaints,“ Box 120,
“Personnel Complaints,"
Company, "Personnel l20, Ford sembled its Vampyr vacuum sweeper on a moving
Archives. (Fiie[3band) as early as 1926.
line (Flie[3band) l926. See Ulrich Troitsch
03. Although the work of the Ford sociological
l103. Wolfhard Weber, eds.,
and Wolibard Te£'l'mll<, p. 405; also
eds.. Die Technik,
department is treated in Nevins and Hill, Ford, and the recommendations of Albert A. Dowd and Frank
Sward, Legend.Legend, the best recent analysis is Stephen W. Curtis, ·'Saving
“Saving Time in Assembling.''
Assembling."
Meyer III, "Mass “Mass Production and Human Efficien- I09. Reginald Mclntosh
109. Mcintosh Cleveland. "How Many
cy," and his resulting book, Five Dollar I)a_v. Day. Automobiles Can America Buy'?,” Buy''," pp. 679-80, 682;
Meyer’s work
Meyer's also provides an excellent discussion of Edward A. Rumely, "The “The Manufacturer of Tomor-
the attempts to lower worker turnover before the an- row”;
row"; and Harry Frankl!n
Franklin Porter, ''Four
"Four Big Lessons
nouncement of the five-dollar day. clay. from Ford’s
Ford's Factory."
l04. In an autobiographical note, Fred
104. Freel H. Colvin llO. Charles F. Kettering and Allen Orth, The
110.
wrote that he had followed Ford developments at the New Necessity.
Necessil_w'.
Piquette Avenue
A venue plant and during the early days of the
Highland Park plant. Since he was a journalist, he
wanted to write about Ford Motor Company opera-
tions, "but“but I was not permitted to write a !me line about Chapter 7
the new shop until Ford was ready for it to be de-
detail.” Ford's
scribed in detail." Ford’s permission did not come l. Daniel J. Boorstin, The Americans, pp.
1.
“Automobiles,” Colvin
until early in 1913 (Colvin, "Automobiles," 546-55.
Papers). 2. General Motors'
Motors’ leadership in the innovation
105. Faurotc, Ford Methods,
l05. Arnold and Faurote, Methods. p. 8. of the annual model change is generally recognized in
106. Sec See the Iron Age series in 89 (l9l2): (1912): both the contemporary literature and current scholar-
376 rvort-;s
NOTES TO TO PAGES
PAGCS 263-71
263-7]

ship. A penetrating analysis of GM’s “lead in the

GM's ''lead 511-59, and Stuart W. Leslie.Leslie, “Charles
"Charles F. Kettering
habit-forming campaign that has made the annual and the Copper-cooled Engine.''
Engine.”
model a practical necessity”
necessity" appeared in "General
“General “General Motors II,"
10. "General II,” p. 39, and Beasley,
Motors 11:ll: Chevrolet,"
Chevrolet,” pp. 39-40, 46, 103-4, which Knudsen. p. 149.
was partially
parttally reprinted in Alfred D. Chandler, ed., ed. 11. William S. S, Knudsen, "'For “ ‘For Economical
Giant Enterprise, pp. 153-70. Boors tin's The Ameri-
Boorstin‘s Transportation.’ ""
Transportation.'
cans provides an excellent social analysis of the an- 12. Ibid., pp. 65-66; Beasley, Knudsen, p. 124.
nual model change and Ford’s Ford's paradoxical contribu- 13. Knudsen, "'For “ ‘For Economical Transporta-
tion to it. Robert Paul Thomas.
Thomas, “Style
"Style Change and tion,‘
tion,'''” p. 66.
the Automobile Industry during the Roaring Twen- 14. Ibid., pp. 67-68.
ties,”
ties," attributes the coming of the annual model 15. Beasley,
Beasley. Knudsen, pp. 139-40;139-40‘; New York
change to the development of the closed body auto- Times, November 17, 17. 1928, February 3', 3, August 8,
mobile, an innovation of the Hudson Brothers. “Chevrolet Begins Production of New Six";
1929; "Chevrolet Six”;
3. Contemporaries adopted the expression Ford- “Chevrolet Production Change Over to 6-Cylinder
"Chevrolet
ism to describe these simultaneous developments be- Car Held Industrial Feat."
fore mass production gained currency. See, See. for in- 6. Sloan quoted in Boorstin, The Americans, p.
I16.
stance, Paul M. Mazur, "The “The Doctrine of Mass 552; Charles F. Kettering, “Keep "Keep the Consumer
Production Faces a Challenge,"
Challenge,'' New York Times, Dissatisfied. "
Dissatisfied.''
November 29. 1931. sec. 9, p. 3, and Anne O’Hare O'Hare Detroitlonrnal,
17. Detroit lune 19,
Journal, June 19. 1915,
1915. quoted in Ne-
McCormick, “The ''The Future of the Ford Idea.“Idea." More vins and Hill, Ford: E.tpansion, p. 201. On the "in-
Ford.· Expansion, “in-
recently, Emma Rothschild has contrasted Ford Fordism
ism dustrial colossus,“ .. pp. 279-99. and pp.
ibid.,
colossus,'' see ibid
with "Sloanism"
“Sloanism” in Paradise Lost, pp. 26-53. 200-216;
200- 216; these chapters provide the best history of
4. Peter F. Drucker,
Dmckcr, Concept of Corporation,
of' the Corporation. the development of the River Rouge complex.
pp. 219-20.
pp. 219»-20. 18. This interpretation is that of Nevins and Hill
5. An excellent study of this decline in market M_v Fortv Years with Ford,
and of Sorensen himself in M_vFor1y
share is James Dalton, “What Will Ford Do Next?,”
Dalton. "What Next?," pp. 150-79.
Motor 45 (May 1926), pp. 30-31, 84, l02ff., 102ft, re- “Topsy” expression was used by R. T.
19. The "Topsy"
printed in Chandler, ed., cd., Giant Enterprise, pp. Walker in his Reminiscences and quoted by Nevins
104-ll.
l04-ll. The standard, authoritative source is Allan and Hill, Ford: Expansion, p. 207; foundry.
207: on the foundry,
Nevins and Frank Ernest Hill, Ford: Ford." Expansion and see p. 212.
1915-1932, pp. 379-436.
Challenge, 19!5-1932, 20. The Reminiscences of Logan Miller in the
6. Sloan quoted in Boorstin, The Americans, p. Ford Archives indicate that direct pouring created im-
554. General Motors'
Motors’ explicitly stated marketing pol- mense problems of quality control and that eventually
icy was "of “of building a car for every purse and pur- the company went back to charging cupolas with pig
pose," which allowed the American to "dimb
pose,” “climb the iron that had been sorted according to analysis
consumption” (Annual Report of General
ladder of consumption" characteristics.
Motors Corporation
Corporationfor for 1925,
I925, p. 7, reprinted in Chan- 21. Sorensen claims that he thought of having
Emerprise, p. 151). Emma Roth-
dler, ed., Giant Enterprise, founding and machining operations on one tloor floor under
schild called this phenomenon "Sloanism"
“Sloanism” in Para- the same roof (My Forty Years with Ford, pp.
dise Lost, pp. 26-53. Planning for change is a theme 163-64); Nevins and Hill, Ford: Expansion. p. 216.
163-M):
that runs throughout the essays reprinted in Alfred D. significantly from
22. Production figures vary sigmficantly
Chandler, ed., Managerial Innovation at General source to source, even within the company’s
company's own re-
overriding objective at GM, unlike Ford
Motors. The oven-iding cords, usually because some figures cover fiscal
“business is operated only to
(it seems), was that "business years, others, calendar years. Those used in this chap-
profit,'' as elaborated in Thomas B. Fordham
make a profit," ter are derived from Appendix I of Allan Nevins and
and Edward H. Tingly, "Control
“Control through Organiza- Frank EmestErnest Hill, Ford: Decline and Rebirth,
tion and Budgets," reprinted in ibid. I933-1962.
1933-1962. p. 478.
“General Motors II,''
7. ''General II,” p. 103. Production fig- 23. The following information is derived chiefly ch1ef1y
ures arc
are dispersed in Nevins and Hill, Ford: Expan- from correspondence, notes, reports, and memoran-
sion, pp. 379-596. dums in the records maintained by A.M. A. M. Wibel, who
8. For Knudsen’s
Knudsen's contributions to both Ford and headed the engineering department during this era
General Motors, see Nevins and Hill, Ford: Expan- (Accession 390, Ford Archives; see esp. Boxes 9, 45,
sion, and Norman Beasley, Knudsen. 52, 66, and 75). The unedited Reminiscences of
9. Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., My Years with General Wibel, also in the Ford Archives, nicely complement
Motors, p. 83; Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., and Stephen these manuscripts and arc are drawn upon here. They also
Salsbury, Pierre S. duPont and the Making of the Wibel'ss penchant for details and excellent
reveal Wibel'
Modern
Modem Corporation, p. 529. The history of GM's GM’s memory.
copper-cooled engine fiasco is detailed in ibid
ibid.,.. pp. 24. These operations sheets were prepared by an
 Nores to Pages 2271-73
Notes 7/-73 377

informal committee consisting of the superintendents fully complete, would be required to determine the
Martin, and Kanzler), the heads of the tool
(Sorensen, Martm, precise reasons for the general trend of cost reductions
department, the engineering department, and the fore- of the Model T. Records suggest this decline, al-
men of the various parts departments (each part was though increases took place in 1923 and 1925,l925, when
manufactured in a department, e.g.,
e. g. , T-400, the engine style changes were made. General price trends in the
block department). Samples of these sheets and the American economy may have operated. Within the
engineering department's use of them may be seen in company, materials handling improvements, the
Sorensen’s papers, Ace.
Sorensen's Acc. 38, Box 50, and in seven Rouge developments, machine tool changes, and
boxes (for the Model T) of Ace. 166, Ford Archives. stretching out contributed to the price trends. The
Assembly and subassembly operations sheets are also Reminiscences of Pioch, Miller, and Wibel and Soren-
in Ace. 166. sen’s My Forty Years with Ford suggest that tooling
sen's
25. On ordering machine tools, sec, see, for example, innovations were made.
“Ford Motor Company, Rouge Plant, T 400—6()OO
"Ford 40~6000 30. Documentation on cost accounting at the Ford
per 16 hrs.,"
hrs.,"’ [1923?],
H9237], Ace. 38, Box 50, and the large Motor Company is found in the following collections
number of manuscripts cited in note 23. An excellent in the Ford Archives: Ace. 1, l, Fair Lane Papers, Box
example of the engineering department's
department’s control over 122; Acc.
Ace. 38, Charles Sorensen files, Box 63; Ace.
the machine tool inventory and activities in the plant is 125, Ford Motor Company finances, 1913-24, 45
seen in aa departmental communication of May 21, Acc. 157, Mm1indale
boxes; Ace. Maitindale papers, Box 157; Ace.
Acc.
l925, listing machine tools for roller bearing produc-
1925, 390, Wibel files, Box 52; Ace. 488, Frank Hodas
tion freed up by a change in the rear axle design (Ace. papers, Box 1; l; Ace. 542, Cost accounting-general
accounting-general
390, Box 45, Ford Archives). See also "List “List of Cen- files, Boxes 1-34, 128-33; Ace. 572, Nevins project,
tcrless Grinders at Rouge and Highland Park Plants,''
terless Plants," Boxes 22-23; Ace. 680, Plant Engineering, Box 5;
May 7, 1925, Ace. 390, Box 45; cf. Wibel’s
Wibel's Reminis- Ace. 735, Cost estimates, 1927-36, eight transfer
cences. For evidence of pressure on machine tool cases; Ace. 736, Car costs, four transfer cases. See
makers, see the Reminiscences of Wibel and Miller Harff, Logan Mil-
also the Reminiscences of Anthony Hart'f,
and Sorensen, My M.~· Forty Years with Ford, pp. ler, and especially Herman L. Moekle, who describes
177-78. the work of the manufacturing cost department.
26. Wibel, Reminiscences. Since the Ford Motor 31. Ace. 157, Martindale papers, Box 273, Ford
Company had no rigidly established departments and Archives.
certainly no men who maintained titles, the pro- 32. Moekle says, "Costs
“Costs were computed and
cedures for preparing for new tools are arc open to some those costs were made available to Mr. Edsel Ford and
question, although they are suggested in the manu- Mr. Sorensen and perhaps Mr. Knudsen [branch man-
scripts in Ace. 390- 390-“Wibel
"Wibel desk files”-and
files" -and ager] and maybe even Mr. Mayo [plant engineering].
Wibel’s
Wibel Miller’s Reminis-
's Reminiscences. Logan Miller's Mr. Henry Ford, so far as I knew, was made aware of
cences suggest slightly different arrangements, as do what the book costs showed”
showed" (Reminiscences).
the manuscripts in Ace. 680, "Plant“Plant Engineering,”
Engineering," 33. Wibel, Reminiscences. The accounting de-
Box 5, Ford Archives, which suggest that horsepower partment, at the hands of W. E. Carnegie, also issued
and space requirements were calculated by the tool comparative cost studies. See, for example, "Com-“Com-
department and passed on to layout, which was under parative Costs of Parts
Par1s Made Herc
Here and Bought Out-
the direction of the tool department head. side," March 1930, Ace. 38, Box 63, Ford Archives.
27. Sorensen, who directed all of these depart- Examples of graphs are in Acc.
Ace. 390, Wibel files, Box
ments and who probably coordinated more informa- 52, ibid.
Wibel"s engineenng
tion than Wibel's engineering department,
department. put all of 34. Documentation on the use of mechanical
this under the general rubric of "planning"
“planning” (My Forty drawings is spread thinly throughout much of the
Years with Fora’,
Ford, p. 178). An excellent example of manuscript material in the Ford Archives. See es-
Wibel’s recordkeeping
Wibel's rccordkeeping appears in a memorandum he pecially the specifications records in Ace. 166, Box 1,l,
wrote to Martin and Sorensen,
Sorensen. October 29, 1924, on which continually note, "as “as per drawing";
drawing”; also the
how many machine tools had been moved in the Ford “factory letters"
"factory l-15. The Rem-
letters” in Ace. 575, Boxes 1-15.
enterprise since January I, l, 1924,
l924, including new ma- iniscences of Pioch, Richard Kroll, John F. Wan-
chine tools, scrapped ones, and ones
onesjust
just moved with- dersee, William Klann, and Laurence S. Sheldrick
in the Highland Park plant (Ace. 572, Box 23, File provide a much clearer view. Almost no drawings
ll.22.2.2, Ford Archives).
11.22.2.2, survive in the Ford Archives because of a fire in the
28. Logan Miller, one of Sorensen’s
Sorensen's deputies, ac- Rotunda, which once housed the drawings. A couple
knowledged this point in his Reminiscences. This sys- of blueprints of gauges are in Sorensen's Ace.
Sorensen’s papers, Acc.
tem of planning production increases and estimating 38, Box 49. Ford's
Ford’s open-door policy to technical jour-
costs worked exceptionally well when the change in nalists resulted in the publication of many of those
the product was not radical. drawings. For the best examples see the Fay Leone
29. YYears
cars of study of Ford records.
records, which are not Faurote series on Ford Model A production published
378 NOTES TO PAGES
NOTES TO PAGES 273-80

in the American Machinist in 1928. Good examples that Dodge Brothers pursued the same marketing ap-
appear in 68 (May 10, 1928):
1928'): 761 and 69 (July 12, proach after splitting with Ford but was forced to
1928): 64. Faurote also described the company's
company’s use make changes in 1924.I 924.
of drawings in his 1928 series in Factory and Indus- 43. Reminiscences of Pioch and Klann; Nevins
trial Management. See especially, "Planning
“Planning Produc- Ford.· Expansion, p. 406.
and Hill, Ford."
tion through Obstacles, Not around Them,"
Them,” p. 302:
302', 44. This observation is based on a close reading
“Make Time and Space Earn Their Keep,”
"Make 544;
Keep," p. 544: of the Times, 1920-32.
and "Planning
“Planning and Mass Production Coordinated," 45. See Thomas, "Style “Style Change,"
Change,” and Nevins
p. 985. Pioch’s
Pioch's Reminiscences, pp. 107-10.
107-10, contain a and Hill, Fora’:
Ford.· Expansion, pp. 379-408.
lengthy account of the Ford system of numbering its “Ford to Fight It out with His Old
46. Young, "Ford
drawings, which suggests the nature and use of the Car.''
Car.” On the extent of buying on credit in 1926,
I 926, see
drawings. The policy of no changes was underlined by “Installment Selling to the Front.”
"Installment Front."
Richard Kroll, the chief inspector at the Rouge Plant, 47. “Ford to Fight 1t
47. Young, "Ford It out with His Old
in his Reminiscences. Car."
Car.”
35. Almost all of the factory letters issued be- 48. Dalton, "What
“What Will Ford Do Next?"Next?” p. 111;
I II;
tween 1908 and 1921 survive in Ace. 575 of the Ford “Ford to Fight It out with His Old Car."
Young, "Ford Car.”
Archives. Some were pulled by Nevins'sNevins’s research 49. Ford's
Ford’s profit margin in 1926 was believed to
team and are now in Ace. 572 (Box 14). Letters for be as low as $29, down from $40 the previous year
the last stx
six years ofT production are in Ace. 572, Box ("Ford
(“Ford Made $29 on Each Car,” Car," New York Times,
14, but 1I know of no other run of letters such as those April 28, 1926). By the time Dalton raised his ques- ques·
in Ace. 575. See, for example, "Instructions
“Instructions && As- tion, Ford had already made two price cuts in 1926
sembly Letter #75,”
#75," October 18, 1926. Some letters (Nevins and Hill, Ford: Ford. Expansion, pp. 414-15).
414-!5).
are in the Martindale papers,
papers. Acc.
Ace. 157 (e.g., Box Dalton, "What
“What Will Ford Do Next?" eogently cogently dis-
260). General letters are in Ford Motor Company-
Company— cusses the effect of Ford's price cuts on his market
General letters file, 1915-46, Ace.Aec. 78, 81 boxes. share and the unlikelihood of Ford’sFord's ability to offer
36. There were exceptions, of course, such as substantial additional cuts.
was recounted in Harry Franklin Porter, "Four“Four Big [Ernest C. Kanzler] to [Henry Ford], January
50. [Emest
Lessons from Ford's
Ford’s Factory,”
Factory," p. 640. 26, 1926, Ace. I, 1, Fair Lane Papers, Box 116, Ford
37. Leslie R. Henry, "The “The Ubiquitous Model Archives.
T,”
T," Philip Van Doren Stern, Tin Lizzie, pp. I166-67.
66-67. 51. Nevins and Hill, Ford: Expansion, pp.
38. This section is based primarily on Henry,Henry. 409-ll.
“Ubiquitous Model T,"
"Ubiquitous T,” and Stern, Tin Lizzie. The 52. Annual Report of General Motors Corpora· Corpora-
New York Times picked up many of these changes. tion for 1925 (February 24, 1926), p. 7.
39. "All
“All metal"
metal” is a slight misnomer. William J. Abemathy, Productivity
53. Abernathy, Productivit)J Dilemma, p. 43.
Abernathy’s statement in his ease
Abemathy's case study of the closed These changes are treated excellently in Chandler,
steel body that "Ford
“Ford introduces all-steel closed ed., Giant Enterprise.
bodies for the Model T"T” in 1925 is not fully accurate 54. [Kanzlerl to [Ford], January 26, 1926.
(The Productivity Dilemma, p. 184). Some wood was 55. The first quote in the paragraph is from Eu-
flooring and the top, but pressed sheet steel
used for flooring gene J. Farkas, Reminiscences, Ford Archives; see
predominated. For an illustration of this body, sec
see the also Nevins and Hill, Ford: Expansion.
Expansion, p. 442.
lower photograph in Floyd Clymer, Henry's Wonder- Sorensen’s account of the pressures and deci-
Charles Sorensen's
ful Model T, 1908-1927, p. 95; see also the Reminis- sion is in My Forty Years with Ford, Fora’, pp. 217-31.
cences of Logan Miller and Ernest A. Walters. Nevins and Hill discuss the intense pressure on Henry
40. Joseph Galamb, Reminiscences, Ford Ar- Ford to change models in Ford: Expansion, pp.
chives; Thomas, ''Style
chives: “Style Change,''
Change," notes that initially 409-36. Wibel, Reminiscences, gives the view of the
the enclosed all-metal body drove prices upward, but head of procurement for the production engineering
by mid-decade companies that had had a few years to department.
work on the problems reduced costs significantly and 56. New York Times, May 26, 1927, p. 4.
brought prices down close to those for open bodies 57. The day's
day’s events are recounted in Nevins and
(pp. 118-38). For Ford cost data between 1920 and Hill, Ford: Expansion, p. 431.
1926, presented graphically, see Ace. 157, Martin- 58. Details about the design of Model A appear in
dale Papers, Box 273, Ford Archives. Nevins and Hill, Ford.‘
Ford. Expansion, pp. 437-58.
41.. Two substantial contemporary views are
41 59. Dalton, "What
“What Will Ford Do Next?," p.
James C. Young, "Ford “Ford to Fight It out with His Old 110.
Car,” New York Times, December 26, 1926, sec. 8,
Car," 60. Apparently Ford did not use any of the design
p. 1, and Dalton, "What
“What Will Ford Do Next?”
Next?" work completed for the X-car.X-ear.
42. Thomas, "Style
“Style Change,”
Change," p. 130, points out 61. Pioch, Reminiscences.
 Notes to Pages
Puges 280-88 379

62. lbid.
Ibid. See also the Reminiscences of Galamb, Model,"
Model,” pp. 64-65; and Ford News II 11 (March 15,
Sheldrick, J. L. McCloud, and Wibel. 1929): 69. See also New York Times, December 2,
63. Sheldrick, Reminiscences. 1927, p. 2; December 4, 1927, sec. 11, ll, p. 13; and
64. Reminiscences of Wibel, Sheldrick, and February 26, 1928, sec. 9, p. 14. Precision is dis-
Klann. cussed more rigorously by Fay Leone Faurote, ''Split-
“Split-
65. New York Times, June 12, 1927, sec. 8, p. ting an Inch a Million Ways.”
Ways. " Finally, a penetrating
17, and ibid., June 22, 1927, p. 12. article, "Mr.
“Mr. Ford Doesn't
Doesn‘t Care,"
Care,” in Fortune points
66. James C. Young, “Ford’s"Ford's New Car Keeps out that parts sales for the Model A decreased signifi-
Motor World Guessing," ibid., June 26, 1927, sec. 9, cantly as compared to the Model T because of in-
p. 2; ibid., July 25, 1927, p. 1; July 31, 1927, p. I; 1; creased precision of manufacture (p. 67).
August 5, 1927, p. 36; August 11, 1927, p. 23. 81. In addition to sources cited in note 80, see the
67. Ibid., October 15, 1927, p. 6; October 23, following manuscript material relating to Ford and
1927, p. 1; December 2, 1927, p. 3; October 25, Johansson: Ace. 1, Fair Lane Papers, Box 82; Ace.
1927, p. 6. 23, Henry Ford Office Files, Box 5; Ace. 38, Sor-
68. lbid.,
Ibid., October 23, 1927, p. I;
1; ''Fords
“Fordsonon Plant ensen Papers, Box 49; Ace. 44, W. J. Cameron Files,
Program,” Ford News 7
Undergoes Huge Expansion Program," Box 16; Ace. 157, Martindale Papers, Box 188; Ace.
(October 15, 1927): 1, I, reprinted in the New York 285, Henry Ford Office Correspondence, Boxes 154
Times. November 1,
Times, I, 1927, p. 2. and 238, Ford Archives. For more information on
69. New York Times, December 2, 1927, p. 3; Johansson and his gauges, see Torsten K. W. Althin,
February 19, 1928, p. 11 (production on this date aver- C. E. Johansson, 1864-1943. See also the Reminis-
aged eight hundred cars per day); March 27, 1928, p. cences of Richard Kroll, chief of inspection at Ford.
30; August 29, 1928, p. 29; October 9, 1928, p. 37;
30: 82. Pioch, Reminiscences.
February 12, 1928, sec. 2, p. 5. 83. Ibid.;
lbid.; Wibel, Reminiscences. The expense of
Ford’s gas tank design and its production
70. On Ford's the frequent machinery moves is clear in a memoran-
problem, see the Reminiscences of Galamb, Klann, dum from A. M. Wibel to P. E. Martin and Charles
Miller, Pioch, Sheldrick, Wibel, and Walters. Sorensen, October 24, 1924. In ten months of 1924,
71. Fay Leone Faurote, ''A “A Gasoline Tank That some three thousand machine tools were moved in the
Serves Also as Cowl and Dashboard,”
Dashboard,'' American Ma- Highland Park factory alone, costing an average of
chinist 68 (1928): 807. This article is part of a large $50 for each move-a
move—a total of $150,000 (Ace. 572,
series on production of the Model A written by Nevins and Hill File, Box 23, Ford Archives).
Faurote and published in the American Machinist be- 84. New York Times, July 25, 1927, p. 1; Fay
tween April 19 and August 16, 1928. Faurote also “Henry Ford Still on the Job with
Leone Faurote, "Henry
published a different series of articles in Factory and Renewed Vigor,”
Vigor," pp. 193-94; Pioch, Remini-
Industrial Management between October 27 and Au- scences.
gust 1928, which lI have drawn from. “Preparing for Ford Production,''
85. Faurote, ''Preparing Production,” p.
72. Reminiscences, of Wibel and Walters. 636; Wibel, Reminiscences. The cost figure could be
73. Faurote, "Gasoline
“Gasoline Tank,”
Tank," p. 807. See also anywhere between $15 million, as reported in Ford
“Planning and Mass Production Coordi-
Faurote, "Planning News 7 (September 1, 1927): I, l, and $25 million, as
nated,” p. 986. For a detailed account of Ford weld-
nated," reported by Faurote, "Preparing for Ford Produc-
repotted
ing problems, see Miller, Reminiscences. final cost of the changeover, in-
tion," p. 635. The final
74. Walters, Reminiscences. Richard Kroll re- cluding design and tooling costs and lost profits, to-
called that sometimes machining was begun before taled about $250 million (Nevins and Hill, Ford: Ford.-
proper gauges for inspection had been completed Expansion, p. 458).
(Reminiscences). 86. Philip E. Haglund, Reminiscences, Ford
75. Wibel, Reminiscences. Archives.
76. Miller, Reminiscences; Henry Ford with 87. For a more extensive treatment, see Faurote,
Samuel Crowther, Moving Forward, pp. 189-90. “Single-Purpose Manufacturing.''
''Single-Purpose Manufacturing.
“Machining and Weld-
77. Fay Leone Faurote, "Machining 88. See illustrations and discussions of these ma-
Housings.”
ing Operations on the Rear Axle Housings." chines in the following articles by Fay Leone Faurote:
78. lbid.
Ibid. “Cylinder Block and Head Operations,"
"Cylinder Operations,” American
79. Sheldrick, Reminiscences; Fay Leone Fau- (1928): 679-84; "Operat10ns
Machinist 68 (!928): “Operations on the
rote, “Single-Purpose Manufacturing," p. 771. See
rotc, "Single-Purpose Transmission Case .. .. .. ,,”'' American Machinist 6H 68
also the departmental communication, March 11, II , (1928): 874-79; "Machining
“Machining Operations on the
1930, Ace. 38, Sorensen Papers, Box 62, Ford Flywheel," American Machinist 68 (1928): 917-21;
Flywheel,”
Archives. and "Machining
“Machining and Welding Operations on the Rear
80. Fay Leone Faurote, "Preparing
“Preparing for Ford Pro- Housings." See also A. M. Wibel’s
Axle Housings.” Wibel's discussion
duction,”
duction," p. 637; Faurote, "Producing
“Producing the New Ford of these machines in his Reminiscences.
380 NOTES TO
NOTES TO PAGES
PAGES 289-97

O’Connor, Reminiscences, Ford

89. James O'Connor. Common Automotive Jobs Are Being Developed to
Archives. Reduce Use Tools.”
Usc of Special Tools."
“Final Assembly Line Ready .. , , " p.
90. "Final p_ 8: 107._ Sheldrick,
107 Sheldnck, Reminiscences.
Fay Leone Faurote, "Final
“Final Assembly," p. 273. 108. For other diagnoses of the problems with the
91.
91 . Haglund, Reminiscences. Model T to Model A changeover, see the Reminis-
92. Klann, Reminiscences; see sec also O'Connor,
O’Connor. cences of Wibel, Pioch, Walters, Kroll, Sheldrick.
Reminiscences. Klann, and Miller.
93. Klann, Reminiscences. See Avery’s Avery's address Ne11• York Times, June 30, 1929.
109. New 2. p.
1929, sec. 2,
at the Ford Motor Company dinner for thirty-five year 7; August 18, 18. 1929, sec. 9, p. 14; September 19. 19,
employees, December 19, 1944, Ace. 1, Fair Lane mmors of a shutdown, see New York
1929, p. 40. For rumors
Papers, Box 117, Ford Archives. Contemporary evi- Times, October 3, 1929, p. 43.
dence includes memorandums, Pioch to Avery, Dc- De- 110. These figures come from Nevins and Hill,
cember 6, 1922, and Crittenden to Avery, April 27, Ford: Expansion, p. 57 l. Cf. Fortune's in "Mr.
571. “Mr. Ford
1923, Ace. 680, Plant Engineering, Box 5, 5. ibid. Doesn‘t Care,” p. 68.
Doesn't Care,"
94. O’Connor,
O'Connor, Reminiscences.
Reminiscences_ 111. New York Times, December 29, 29. 1929, p. 3.
95. lbid.
Ibid. On price cutbacks in November, see ibid., November
96. Linn Bryson to Charles Sorensen, January 10, 19. 1929, p. 41.
11, 1928, Ace. 572, Nevins and Hill papers, Box 22,
ll, Ibid., January 5, 1930, sec. 10, p. 2; Febm-
112. lbid.. Febru-
Ford Archives. ary 9, 1930, sec. 9, p. 14; March 30, 1930, sec. 9, p.
97. See Sorensen's
Sorensen’s account of the Rouge in My Mv ll; April 27, 1930, sec
11; sec. 10, p. 10; August 31, 1930,
1930.
Forty Years with Ford, pp. 170--79. 9. p. 6; December 14, 1930, sec. 10, p. 10; and
sec. 9,
98. P. E. Martin
Martm notebook entry, October 21, Expansion, pp. 575, 583.
Nevins and Hill, Ford: E.rpansion,
1927, Ace. 823, P. E. Martin Papers, Ford Archives. 113._ Production figures are in Appendix T,
113 1, Ne-
Ford’s public prediction of fifteen million
Cf. Henry Ford's vins and Hill, Ford: Decline, p. 478. Sales and profit
in New York Times, July 31, 1927, p. I. 1. figures are in Nevins and Hill, Ford: Expansion, pp. pp<
99. Jas. Guinon
Guinan to Charles Sorensen, March 8, 571. 577, and "Mr.
571,577, “Mr. Ford Doesn’t Care,” p. 68.
Doesn't Care,"
1925, Acc.
Ace. 572, Nevins and Hill Papers, Box 20, 114. Nevins and Hill, Ford:Ford. Expansion,
Expanswn, p. 577.
Ford Archives. For other aspects of Ford production 115. New York Times, July 30, 30. 1931,
1931. p. 2:
2; Au-
delays, see L. C. Dibble, "Slow “Slow Progress in Plant gust 30, 1931, p. 1.
gust30, 193l,p. I.
Changes Delays New Ford Model.” For a more tri-
Model." Sec. for example, Nevins and Hill, Ford:
116. See, Ford.
umphant view, see Waldemar Kaempffert, "The “The Dra- Expansion, pp. 578-96.
matic Story Behind Ford'sFord’s New Car," New York 117. New York
York Times, July 30, 1931, p. 2, and
Times, December 18, 1927, sec. 10, 10. p. 5. August 30, 1931, p. 1.
100. New York Times, December 21, 1927, p. 30, 118. Nevins and Hill, Fordx
1\8_ Ford: Expansion,
Expansion. pp.
February 19, 1928, p. l. 1. 594--95; New York Times, February 12, 1932, 1932. p. 15.
101. On Universal Credit Corporation, see Ne- 119. Nevins and Hill, Ford: Expansion, p. 595.
vins and Hill, Ford: Expansion, pp. 465-66 and New Nevins and Hill‘s
Hill's account of the V-8V -8 drew heavily
York Times, September 19, 1928, p. 33._ from James Sweinhart's “authoritative” story in the
Sweinhart’s "authoritative"
102. Bennett’s
Bennett's rise and Sorensen’s
Sorensen's slippage are Detroit News, February 11, ll, 1932, reprinted in Ford
admirably treated in Allan Nevins and Frank Ernest News
.'Yews 12 (March 1932): 3, 17.
Hill, Ford: Decline. 120. New York Times, March 31, 1932, p. 44.
Pioch, Reminiscences.
103. Pioch. 121. Pioch, Reminiscences.
104. lbid.
\04. Ibid. lbid.; Wibel, Reminiscences<
122. Ibid.; Reminiscences.
lbid. and Walters, Reminiscences.
105. Ibid. 123. From July 1931 to April 1932 Rouge assem-
106. Wibel,
Wibcl, Reminiscences; Henry Ford with bly operations were virtually nonexistent, and branch
Samuel Crowther, Moving Forward, pp. 170-86. assembly plants wound down their production from
Ford’s
Ford's machine tool acquisitions followed a general three to four thousand cars per week to zero. See the
trend in the American automobile industry in the peri- weekly assembly records for 1931 and 1932 in Ace.
od 1927-30, which is indicative
indi<.:ative of the increasing im- 622, Ford Archives.
portance of the annual model change and the produc- 124. New York Times, March 13, 1932, p. 6.
tion problems it engendered. See Frederick B. Philip E. Haglund's
Hag1und’s diagnosis of the T to A change-
Heitkamp, "Using
“Using More Semi-Special
Serni-Special Tools”;
Tools": and over may obtain for the changeover to the V-8: "I “l
the anonymous articles “Flexibility
''Flexibility in Making Auto- assume it was the lack of engineering ability that re-
mobile Frames"; “Many "Many Highly Specialized Jobs sulted in such a long period of time to make the
Now Being Performed with Standard Machine changeover in 1927. . .. ._ When we employees com-
Tools”; “Short Cuts on Standard Machines for
Tools"; and "Sh011 pared our Engineering Department with other auto-
 297--3111
Notes to Pages 297-3/ 381

mobile plants, we came to the belief didn”t have an

we didn't
beliefwe viduality,” New
viduality," Nnv York Times, March 31, 1929, sec. 9,
Engineering Department in the same sense as other p. 16.
plants. We had no depth. Our engineering was done 10. New York Times, September 19, 1926, sec.
by a few who had experience. It was apparently inade- 10, p. 1;I; Henry Ford. “Mass Production."
Ford, "Mass Production.”
quate”
quate'' (Reminiscences). 11. On Filene, sec see note 6. Hoover quoted in
“1932 Production,"
125. "1932 Production,” Acc.Ace. 622, Ford Ewen, Captains of
Stuart Ewcn, ofConsrio1,isnes.r.
Consciousness, p. 28.
Archives. 12. Edward A. Filene. "Mass “Mass Production Makes
126. New York Times, March 11, II, 1932, p. 27. World,” p. 629. Not everyone agreed that,
a Better World,"
127. "Mr.
“Mr. Ford Doesn’t Care,” p. 66.
Doesn't Care," with the Model A, Ford had been able to preserve
128. Nevins and Hill, Ford: Expansion, pp. 596, mass production and to respond to changing consumer
458. tastes. In 1928 Paul M. Mazur went as far as to call
129. Wibel, Reminiscences; see also New Nnv York mass production--and Ford- Ford—dead: “The King is
dead: "The
Times, March 24, 1930, p. 2. King! Mass production as an auto-
dead! Long live the King'
dead'
130. Sorensen to Edsel Ford, August 10. 10, 1928, cratic ruler of the destinies of American industry has
quoted in Nevins and Hill, Ford: Expansion,
E.>:pansion, p. 466. beyond" (American Prosperity, p. 130).
passed beyond”
“Mr. Ford Doesn’t
131. "Mr. Care,” p. 67.
Doesn't Care," Mazur saw the future not in mass production but in
132. See, for example, Kaempffert, ''The
“The Dra- "mechanized production" (ibid., pp. 125-60). In a
“mechanized production”
matic Story Behind Ford’s
Ford's New Car";
Car”; and aaNew
New York O’Hare McCormick, "The
similar vein, see Anne O'Hare “The Fu-
Times editorial comment, "Ford
“Ford the Extraordinary," ture of the Ford ldea."
Idea.''
December 18, 1927, sec, 3, p. 4. Filene with Charles W. Wood,
13, Edward A. Filcne
13.
133. “Where
"Where the Ford Method Halted,"
Halted,” New Sncces.g‘iiZ Living in This Machine Age, p. 1.
Successful I.
T1mes, May 30, 1932, p. 12. Earlier, Reinhold
York Times, 14. Filene,
Filcne, “Mass
"Mass Production," p. 631; Filene,
Niebuhr, who was then pastor of Detroit’s
Detroit's Bethel Successful Living, p. 144.
Successfzil
Church. had sharply criticized Ford for
Evangelical Church, I15.
5. Harvey N. Davis, “Spirit
'·Spirit and Culture under
failing to plan adequately for change, thereby laying Machine,”
the Machine," pp. 283, 286, 288-90. Davis was a
off tens of thousands of employees during the highly respected engineer, educator, and president of
changeover with no unemployment compensation Stevens Institute of Technology. See his biographical
from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic, pp.
(Leaves .fi-om sketch in the National Cyclopaedia
Cyciopaedia offlimerican
ofAmerican Biog-
154-55). I am indebted to Alan Neely for this raphy, 40:132-33.
raphv, 401132-33.
reference. 16. Filene, Successful Living, p. 98; Tennessee
Valley Authority, Annual Report, 1936 (Washington,
D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1937), p.
Chapter 8 26.
Twelllieth Century Limited, pp. 21,
17. Meikle, Tweiitieth
1. Henry Ford, “Mass
I. "Mass Production"; New York 24. 26. The words quoted at the beginning of the
24,
Times, September 19, 1926, sec. 10, 10. p. 1. On the paragraph came from a contemporary review.
circumstances leading to Ford's
Ford’s article. sec the Intro- Ibid., pp. 25-27; Kiesler quoted in ibid., p.
18. lbid.,
duction, above. 38. Meikle’s
Meikle's Twentieth Century Limited is primarily a
"Love of Nice Things,"
2. See, for example, “Love Things,” treatment of these industrial designers. See especially
New York Times, December 3, 1927, p. 14; "Says “Says his chapter, "The“The New Industrial Designers," pp.
Ford Needed Beauty," ibid., February 23, 1928, p. 39-67.
12', and "Says
12; “Says Beauty Aids Trade,”
Trade," ibid., April 17, 19. “Ford
''Ford Urges for Farms New Mass Produc-
1928, p. 48. tion,” New York Times, March 7, 1930, p. 48.
tion,"
3. Jeffrey L. Meikle, Twentieth Centur\'
Century Limited, 20. Allan Nevins and Frank Ernest Hill, Ford: Ford.
pp. 26, 27. Meikle called the changeover to Model A /\ Expansion and Challenge, 1915-1933, pp. 490-91.
“the history" (p. 10; sec
"the most expensive art lesson in history“ see 21. "Ford
“Ford Urges for Farms New Mass Produc-
also pp. 110-14).
0-14). tion.”
tion." While in Ft. Myers, Florida, a year later, Ford
4. Paul M. Mazur, American PI'0.§‘[J£’I'il_\‘,
Prosperitv. p. 125. reiterated these notions. “Ford Says
notions, as reported in ''Ford
5. Henry Ford with Samuel Crowther,
Crowther. Mv My Life
Lif'e Machine Can Never Oust Man," ibid., J\.'larch March 17,
and Work, opposite p. 130. I931, p. 31.
1931,
6. Edward A. Filene, The Wav Way Out, pp. 93, 93. 96. 22. "'Mass
“‘ ‘Mass Production' Agriculture,” ibid.,
Production’ in Agriculture,"
7. lbid.,
Ibid., pp. 99, 180. June 2, 1930, p. 22.
bJO-
extensi vc bio-
8. Ibid., pp. 176-77, 179. An extensive 23. Trip Report of William Blitzer, March 28,
graphical sketch of Filene appears in National 1947, Papers of the Albert Farwell Bemis Foundation,
C_\-ciopaedia of
Cyclopaedia ofAn/zerican
American Biography, 45: 45:17-19.
17- 19. MIT Institute Archives and Special Collections,
“At the Wheel: Mass Production and Indi-
9. "At Cambridge, Massachusetts.
382 NOTES TO
NOTES PAGES
TO PAGES 31 1-22
311-22

24. The bulk of ofthis

this section on Gunnison is based modern manufacturing”
manufacturing" (October 20, 1929, p. 14).
on my article in Dictionary of American Biography, The final quote is from Tri-City Labor Review, Rock
7th Suppl., s. s.v. “Gunnison, Foster."
v. "Gunnison, Island, Illinois, 1932, as quoted in Ewen, Captains of
25. Architectural Forum quoted in William Consciousness, p. 12.
“Case Study of an Entrepreneur: Foster Gun-
Blitzer, "Case 38. Aldous Huxley, Brave New World; the quota- quota--
nison,” p. 3, Bemis Foundation Papers, MIT.
nison," tions are from pp. 29, 4. For more information on the
26. Ibid., pp. 7-8. background to Huxley's
Hux1ey‘s satire of Ford and Fordism,
27. Alfred Bruce and Harold Sandbank, A Histo- see Jerome Meckier, "Debunking
“Debunking Our Ford,"Ford, " an arii-
arti-
ry of Prefabrication, p. l10. 0. cle I learned about only after completing this chapter.
28. Blitzer, "Case
“Case Study of an Entrepreneur," p. 39. Other authors also used fiction to comment
15; quotation from Architectural Forum appears in critically on the ethos of mass production. See es-
Bruce and Sandbank, History of Prefabrication, pecially John Dos Passos, The Big Money (1936), ( 1936), and
p. 64. Anderson's Marching Men (1917), Wines-
Sherwood Anderson’s
29. Blitzer, "Case
“Case Study of an Entrepreneur,"
Entrepreneur,” burg. Ohio (1918), Poor White (1920), and Perhaps
pp. 20, 34. Blitzer also points out that when in 1939 Women (1930).
Gunnison introduced the ''Miracle
“Miracle Home,''
Home,“ a house 40. George Basalla, "Science,
“Science, Technology, and
comparable to the Model Tin T in its price, he found that it Popular Culture,"
Culture,” pp. 49-50. The full script appears
failed: “Through
''Through the years Gunnison ... . . . seems to in Rene Clair, A nous la liberte
no us Ia liberté and entraacts.
entra' acts.
have become more and more convinced that cutting 41. Clair, A nous la Ia liberte
liberté and entra'acts,
entra’acts, pp.
corners to sell a 'minimum'
comers ‘minimum’ house did not pay" 96-97.
(p. 19). Autobiographv, p. 383.
42. Charles Chaplin, My Autobiography,
30. See Gilbert Herbert, Pioneers o_fPre_fabrica-
of Prefabrica- On the film's
film’s original title, see "Chaplin
“Chaplin Tells Theme
tion, and Charles E. Peterson, "Early “Early American Pre- Picture,” Los Angeles Times,
of His New Picture," Times. March 17,
fabrication.”
fabrication." Lewis Mumford later said the ethos of 1935.
“enthusiastic and often
mass production had created "enthusiastic 43. John McCabe, Charlie Chaplin, p. 182.
fanatical minds that regarded prefabrication as a cure- 44. Detroit News, October 16, 1923, and Detroit
all” (City Development, p. 61).
all" Free Press, October 16, 1923. I am indebted to David
31. Bruce and Sandbank, Historv History of Prefabrica- R. Crippen, reference archivist of the Ford Archives,
tion, p. 7. See also some of the newspaper clippings for help on Chaplin's
Chaplin’s visit to Highland Park. Between
“typical examples of the widespread pub-
offering "typical the time he toured the Ford plant and his production of
licity and enthusiasm which greeted the idea of pre- Modern Times, Chaplin's
Chaplin‘s views on mass production
fabrication in the market-hungry thirties,"thirties,'' in ibid. may have been influenced by his meeting in 1931 of
32. Mumford, City Development, pp. 63-83. Mahatma Gandhi. Sec John H. Van Devcnter, Deventer, "'Dat
“ ‘Dat
33. lbid.,
Ibid., p. 72. Ole Debil,’
Debil,' Machinery.”
Machinery." I thank John K. Smith for
34. Ibid., p. 73. this reference.
35
35.. Edward A. Filene, "Foresees
“Foresees Ford Prosperity 45. Extensive citations for reviews of Modern
Fumiture Industry." Filene stated: "If
for Furniture “If the furni-
fumi- Times appear in Timothy James Lyons, Charles
ture business will adopt the Ford and Chevrolet meth- Chaplin, pp. 121-27.
ods of production and similarly improved methods of 46. James Agee, Agee on Film, 1:288; George
distribution—that
distribution-that is, if it will adopt scientific mass “Keaton and Chaplin,"
Basalla, "Keaton Chaplin,” p. 199.
production and mass distribution-it
distribution—it can and will at- 47.
47. Richard Muller-Freienfels,
Miiller-Freienfels, The Mysteries 0/ of
tain a prosperity far beyond the rational hopes of the the Soul, pp. 235-92; Julius Klein, "Business,"
“Business,” p.
present.”
present.'' For the most part, furniture
fumiture manufacturers 100.
and dealers reacted negatively to Filene'sFilene‘s rhetoric of “Play,” pp. 347, 353. A pro-
48. Stuart Chase, "Play,"
mass production. In two successive issues, Furniture lific writer, Chase vacillated on the ethos of mass
Record and Journal published the fumiture industry’s
furniture industry's production, sometimes prophesying its benefits,
“Fumiture Men Flay Filene’s
response: "Furniture Filene's Proposal of critical. Compare his article "Play"
sometimes criticaL “Play” with
“Dealer-Opinion on Filene's
Mass Production" and "Dealer-Opinion Filene’s his review of Henry Ford’s Ford's Today and Tomorrow.·
Tomorrow:
Forecast.” Almost all of the furni-
Mass-Production Forecast." “Henry Ford's
"Henry Ford’s Utopia.”
Utopia." See also his Men and Ma-~ Ma-
ture industry’s
industry's representatives argued that Filene over- chines (1929) and The Nemesis of 0fAmerican
American Business
looked stylistic and taste considerations and over- (1931). On Chase as a writer and thinker sec see Robert
emphasized mass production methods. I am indebted B. Westbrook, "Tribune
“Tribune of the Technostructure."
Technostructure.“
to Michael Ettema for these references. 49. Quoted in Ewen, Captains of Consciousness,
36. Upton Sinclair, The Flivver King, p. 174. pp. ll-12.
37. For instance, the New York Times reported 50. McCormick, “The ''The Future of the Ford Idea,''
Idea,”
that five hundred thousand people annually visited p. 1.
Ford’s
Ford's River Rouge factory "to “to see the wonders of 51. Paul Mazur, "The “The Doctrine of Mass Produc-
 Nates
Notes to
ro Pages 322 -33
322-33 383

Challenge,” New York Times, November

tion Faces a Challenge," Nathan Rosenberg, ed., The American System of
29, 1931, sec. 9, p. 3. Mazur had earlier published an Manufacrures, p. 307.
Manufactures,
“Mass Production, Has It Committed Sui-
article, "Mass 65. On the industrial designers, see Meikle,
cide?”
cide?" much of which appeared in his American Limired. Both the proponents and
Twentieth Century Limited.
Pro~perity.
Prosperity. critics of mass production worked in virtually every
“Gandhi Dissects the Ford
52. Harold Callender, ''Gandhi medium of communication. There is a clear need for a
Idea."
Idea.'' major study of technology and its critics in the Great
53. Mazur, "Doctrine
“Doctrine of Mass Production." Depression which would pay attention to journalistic,
54. E. E. Calkins, ''The
“The New Consumption En- literary, radio, film, and exhibition material.
gineer and the Artist.”
Al1ist.'' See also Roy Sheldon and 66. Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization,
Egmont Arens, Consumer Engineering. pp. 93-94.
55. Some of this literature includes Harry Tippen,
The New Challenge of Distribution: The Paramount
Industrial Problem (New York: Harper & & Brothers,
1932); John B. Cheadle ct et al., No More Unemployed Appendix 1
I
(Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press,
1934); Lewis Corey. The Decline of
1934): ofAmerican
American Cap- I.
1. Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of
italism (New York: Covici, 1934); Maurice Leven et Ofiicial Description and Illus-
All Nations, 1851, Official
al., America’s
America's Capacity to Consume (Washington, trated Catalogue, 3: 1455.
D.C.: Brookings
Brookmgs Institution, 1934); William H. 2. Samuel Colt, "On “On the Application of Ma-
Lough, High Level Consumption:
Consumption." Its Behavior; Its chinery to the Manufacture of Rotating Chambered-
Consequences (New York: McGraw-Hili.McGraw-Hill, 1935); Breech Fire-Arms, and the Peculiarities of Those
Frederick Purdy, Mass Consumption (New York: Tal- Arms,”
Arms," p. 61.
isman Press, 1936); Carle C. Zimmerman,
Zimmerman. Consump- “Institution of Civil Engineers," p. 611.
3. "Institution
tion and Standards of Living (New York: D. Van 4. Charles Tomlinson, ed., Rudimentary Treatise
Nostrand Co., 1936); Charles S. Wyand, The Eco- on the Construction of Locks, pp. 154-63.
ofLocks,
nomics of Consumption (New York: Macmillan, 5. Special Report of Joseph Whitworth, in Nathan
1937); Elizabeth Ellis Hoyt, Consumption in Our So- Rosenberg, ed., The American System of Manufac-
ciery (New York: H. Holt, 1938); Roland Snow Vaile,
ciety George Wallis
tures, p. 387. The Special Report of Georr;e
Income and Consumption (New York: H. Holt, 1938); also appears in this volume.
and Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., The Creation ofAbundance,
of Abundance. 6. See Chapter I. 1.
pamphlet. March 11, 1939, Eleutherian Mills Histor- 7. The full report is reprinted in Rosenberg, ed.,
ical Library. The American System of Manufactures, pp. 87-197.
56. Ewen, Captains of Consciousness, p. 57, 8. Ibid,
Ibid., p. 143.
“Advertising,“ The En-
quoting Leverett S. Lyon. "Advertising," "Revolvers," Household Words 9 (1855),
9. “Revo1vers," (1855). re-
Sciences, 1I (1922)
cyclopedia of the Social Sciences".
cvclopedia (1922): 475. printed in Charles T. Haven and Frank A. Belden, A
57. Helen Woodward, Through Manv Many Windows History of the Colt Revolver, pp. 345-49.
(New York: Harper & & Brothers, 1926),
1926). as quoted by “Repeating Pistols,”
10. "Repeating Pistols," reprinted in ibid., pp.
Ewcn, Captains of Consciousness, p. 80; David M.
Ewen, 350-67.
Potter, People of Plenty, pp. 166-88. ll. John Anderson, "On
11. “On the Application of Ma-
58. Ewen, Captains of Consciousness, offers aa chinery in the War Department."
profound study of advetiising
advertising in the eru
era of the ethos of 12. Iohn
John Anderson, "On “On the Application of the
mass production. Copying or Transfer Principle in the Production of
59. This section on Rivera is based on Linda Wooden AJ1iclcs."
Articles."
“The Rouge in 1932,"
Downs, "The 1932,” pp. 47-91. “Hobbs’ Lock Manufactory."
13. "Hobbs' Manufactory.“
60. Quoted in ibid., p. 48. "The Royal Small-Arm Manufactory, En-
14. ''The
61. The Rouge was attracting more than five hun- field," p. 204.
dred thousand visitors annually (New York Times, Oc- 15. John
Iohn Anderson, "On “On the Application of the
ZO, 1929, p. 14)
tober 20, 14). Copying Principle in the Manufacture and Rifling of
62. Compare Rivera's treatment of the fender Guns."
Guns.”
press in his initial sketch of the south wall panel with 16. Charles Hutton Gregory, "Address
“Address of the
his later sketch of the same panel and the actual panel. President," p. 188.
President,”
See Downs, "The 1932.” pp. 80, 83.
“The Rouge in 1932," 17. lbid.,
Ibid., p. H\6.
186.
“Will Detroit, Like Mohammed II,
63. "Will II. White- 18. Thomas Brassey, Lectures on the rhe Labour
wash Its Rivera Murals')"
Murals?” Art Digest 7, no. S5 (1933):
ArtDigesr7, Question, pp. 46-4 7.
46-47.
6. quoted in ibid
6, ibid.,, p. 52. 19. Thomas A. Edison to George S. Nottagc, Nottage,
64. Special Report of' of Joseph Whitwonh
Whitworth in March 23, 1878, Letterbook 750806, pp. 463, 465,
384 NOTES TO
NOTES TO PAGES
PAGES 333-36

Papers of Thomas A. Edison, Edison National Histor- 28. "Obituary Anderson," p. 350.
“Obituary of John Anderson,”
ic Site, West Orange, New Jersey. 29. B. F. Spalding, "The “The 'American
‘American System'
System’ of
20. Charles H. Fitch, "Report
“Report on the Manufac- Manufacture,” pp. 2-4; "The
Manufacture," ‘American’ System of
“The 'American'
tures of Interchangeable Mechanism,”
Mechanism," pp. 618-20. Manufacture," pp. 2-3, 11-12.
21. Sir Edmund Beckett, “Lock,” En-
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“The History and Modem
Modern De-
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& Co., 1882) 14: 758. Beckett, first baron Grim- in Mechanism," esp. pp. 1255-56.
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watchmaking, 31. John Rigby, "The “The Manufacture of Small
though he had invented locks and published some on Arms."
Arms.''
them as well. Beckett also contributed the article on 32. Horace L. I... Arnold [Henry Roland], "The “The
clocks in the ninth edition of the Britannica, but he Revolution in Machine-Shop Practice.”
Practice.''
did not discuss the manufacture of American clocks. ltIt 33. Frederick A. McKenzie, The American
is instructive to compare this edition’s
edition's article on the Invaders.
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Manufacture.''
23. "Cutlery
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“Extracts from Chordal’s Letters,“ 6 (May
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L P. Alford, "Duplicate
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“Interchangeable Manufac-
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 Index
NOTE: Page numbers in bold face
indicate illustrations.

Abernathy,
Abema thy, William, !86,
I86, 278, 295 17-25, 61 -62, 64; at Brown &
61-62, & changeable Manufacturing (Wood-
Adams, John, 31
Adams. Sharp, 82; contrasted with McCor- worth), I89, 335
worth). 8, 189,
Advertising. See Marketing strategy
Adve1tising. mick practice, 164,I64, 165;
I65; defined, Ames, David, 32
Agee, James, 320 I5; demands of 34, 78; and de-
15; Ames Manufacturing Company, 45,
Agricultural implement industry, velopment of operations sheets, 200
I53
153 82: diffusion of to nonfirearms in-
82; Anderson, John: and American
Agriculture, 12,
I2, 309
309-I0
-I 0 dustries.
dustries, 4, II07;
07; and dilemma of clockmaking. 51;
clockmaking, 51: and American
Alford, LL. P., 336 imperfectibility. 99; distinguished
imperfectibility, small arms production, 4, 64; on
“All-metal” car body, 274-75
"All-metal" from Henry Clay's
Clay’s "American
“American American system of manufactures,
Alvord, Joseph Dana, 70-71, 73 system,” 15;
system," I5; distinguished from 16,24,
4, 16, 24, 61, 64, 332; on Amer-
Artillerist's Companion
American Artillerist’s mass production, 3; 3: Fitch's
Fitch’s con- ican wagon industry, 146;I46; on
(Tousard), 27 cept of, 347 n. 4; 4: French origins American woodworking methods,
American
Arnencan Bicycler, The (Pratt), 19R 198 of, 25-26;
25 -26; and furniture manufac- 125,332,360
125, 332, 360 n. 15;I5; as author of
American Houses, Inc., 3II 311 l5l; history of, in antebellllm
ture, 151; antebellum the Report of the Committee on the
American Invaders, The (McKen- America, 1- I-65;
65; intellectual and Machinery of the United SratesStates of
zie), 335 institutional basis of, 27; and labor America, 16;I6; on Colt’s
Colt's production
American Machinist: on bicycle inputs, 20-21; limits of. of, at Singer, methods, 19,I9, 49,
49. 62-63, 351 n.
manufacture, 200, 206, 212; on 122; McCormick’s
!22; McCormick's and Singer's
Singer’s 112; as expert witness before
demands of armory practice, 119; I19; experience with, compared, 182, Select Committee on Small Arms,
on Ford Motor Company, 228-29, 228 -29, I85; and marketing strategy, 60;
185; I9; and expression '·American
19; “American
232, 238, 249'
249, 260 methods of. contrasted with system,” 50; on interchangeability
system,''
“American method,"
"American method,” 16. See also Taylorism, 374 n. 95; and milling of parts, 4, 21, 23, 62; on mecha-
American system of manufactures; machine in, 29; nonadoption of, at nization of production, 19, I9, 20:
20; and
Armory practice Singer, 86, 91:
Smger, 91; origin and evolu- “On the Application of Machinery
"On
American Motohome, 31 311l tion of term, I, l, 15-17, 331-36; Department," 332; and
in the War Department.”
“American plan,"
"American plan,“ 4. See also preoccupation with machine build-
preoccupatiOn “On the Application of the
"On
American system of manufactures:
manufactures; ing in, 43:
43; and question of quality,
quality. Copying Principle .. .. . , " 333; use
usc
Armory practice 21, 23, 99,
99. 119-20,
I19-20, 212; recent of word "system"
“system” by, 346 n. 33
“American principle,"
"American principle,” 4, 16. See scholarship on, 3-4, 17; I7; and se-
sc- Angell, William G., 75
Angell.
also American system of manufac- quentially operated special-purpose A now
nous Ia Iibert!; (Clair),
la liberte (Clair). 316, 317
tures; Armory practice machinery, 15,
machinery., I5, 35, 38, 64, 350 n. Anthony, John, 97-98
American Radiator & & Standard 77, 352 n. 144; and Sheffield cut- Architectural Forum, 314
Sanitary Corporation, 311 lery.
lery, 334; study of, by Select Armory practice: adopted by Brown
American Sewing Machine Com- Committee on Small Arms, 17-25; &
& Sharpe, 75-78; adopted by
pany, 202 universality of, 64; Uselding’s
Uselding's Ford, 10; Colt's armory as
I0; Colt’s
American Society of Mechanical concept of, 347 n. 5; ancl and Wheeler archetype of, 49-50; Colt's
Colt’s expo-
Engineers, Wood Industries Divi- Wilson. 73, 75. See also
and Wilson, defined, 5, 43, 50;
sure to, 47; defmcd,
sion of, 12, 126,
I26, 145
I45 Armory practice;
practice: Brown & & Sharpe diffusion of,
of. 4-5, 45, 206; and
American system (Henry Clay's),
Clay’s), 15 I5 Manufacturing Company:
Company; Colt.
Colt, McCormick company, 7, 164- I64-65,
65,
American system of manufactures: Samuel:
Samuel; (]auges
Gauges and gauging I78, 182;
178, I82; maturation of, 46; na-
adoptiOn
adoption of at McCormick, 7, 178: 178; systems; Interchangeable parts:pans: ture of, 35, 50,77-78,
50, 77-78, 118,I18, 119:
I19;
adoption of at Singer, 6, 106: 106; Jig. fixture, and gauging system;
Jig, and Pope Manufacturing Com-
adoption of at Studebaker, 14 7;
I47; McCormick reaper:
reaper; McCormick pany, 9. 190. 193-94,
9, 190, I93-94, 203-4;
alternative terms for, 4, 16, I6, 21, reaper works; Mechanization of and Singer company, 85-87, 91,
331-36; ambiguities of in
24, 331-36: production; Pope Manufacturing 92, 99; techniques of, contrasted
antebellum period, 24-25:
24-25; assem- Manufacturing
Company; Singer Manufactunng with stamping, 209-12;
209-I2; and
bly and finishing processes as part Company; Special-purpose Wheeler and Wilson, 5, 69-74.
of, 206; and bicycle industry, machinery: Uniformity system:
machinery; system; Amencan system of
See also American
Blanchard’s gun-
8-9, 214; and Blanchard's Wheeler and Wilson Manufactur- manufactures; Colt, Samuel;
stocking machinery, 35; BntishBritish ing Company Gauges and gauging systems; In-
of, 24; British study of, 4,
origins of. Americon Tool i'v!aking
American Ma/<ing and litter-
Inter- terchangeable parts; Jig, fixture,

399
400 INDEX
INDEX

Armory practice (continued) Ford, 249, 290;

tions of, at l:;ord, 290: experi- machinery, 227; as key member of oi
and gauging system; McCormick ments of, on chassis assembly, Ford production team. 223; likens
reaper works; Pope Manufacturing 254; firing of, 289
289-90;
-90; on history I~ord
Ford methods to tin can factory,
Company; Singer Manufacturing of assembly line at Ford, 374 n. 229, 241; and Model T produc-
Company; Uniformity system; 96; and ideas of Taylor, 250 tion, 224
Wheeler and Wilson Manufactur- Brass, sheet, 57, 59
ing Company Babbage, Charles, 33, 51
Babbagc, Brass clocks, 58, 59
“Armory system.” See Armory
"Armory system." Babcock & Wilcox, 116 Brassey, Sir Thomas, 333
practice Works, 237
Baldwin Locomotive Works. Brave New World (Huxley), 316
Arms manufacturers and the bicy- Ball, William,
BaiL William. 47 Braverman, Harry. 374 n. 89
cle, 202 Basalla,
Basal! a, George, 316, 320 Breechloader,
Breechloader. Hall’s,
Hall's, 39, 40
Arnold, Andrew R., 92 Battison, Edwin A.,
A .. 3 Brewing mdustry,
industry, 241
Arnold,
Arnold. Horace L.: on Ford assem- Beard, Charles, 308 Mead, 291
Bricker, Mead.
bly line, 244-47, 247, 249, 255, Bearing point: Colt's
Colt’s use of.
of, Brown, A. C., 155-56
375 n. 107; on Ford and the Ford 49-50, 350 n. 89; Hall's
Hall’s concept Brown, Joseph R R.,.. 79, 1198
98
shops, 228, n, 60; on
228. 260, 373 n. of, 42; used at Singer, I10505 Brown & & Sharpe Manufacturing
German origins of stamping, Beckett. Sir Edmund, 333, 334
Beckett, Company: and bicycle industry,
370 n. 71; on history of machine Bender, Richard, 12 202; contributions to, by Henry
tools, 335; on Overman Bicycle Bennett, Edwin Howard, 116, M. Leland.
Leland, 5, 81; entry of.oL into
Company, 367 n. 29; on Western 118-21, 139, 359 !1. n, 144 machine tool industry, 79; factory
Wheel Works, 212 Bennett, Harry, 290, 293 of, Providence, Rhode Island,
Assembly: of bicycles at Pope, 197, 197. Bennett, Sydney, 112-14, 116 18605, 79; as a job shop, 76; and
1860s,
205-6;
198, 205- 6; in clockmaking, 60; Bentham, Sir Samuel, 24 manufacture of the Willcox & &
and delays in Ford Model A pro- Bentwood cabinets, 134, 142, 143 Gibbs sewing machine,
machmc, 75- 75-82;
82;
duction, 292; at Ford Piquette Bicycle: Columbia, 190. 191, 192: 192; by, in
problems encountered by.
Avenue factory,
factory. 220, 222; and in- Crescent, 209;
20(j: history of, in manufacture of sewing machines,
terchangeable parts at Ford, 221; America, 190; as a progressive 77-78; production methods of,
77-78:
of McCormick machinery, 157, technology, 190, 214; safety, 192,
214: safety. contrasted with Wheeler and Wil-
158, 181, 185, 186; of muskets at 200-202 121-22; and sale
son and Singer, 121-22:
Armory, 62, 63, 198;
Springfield Armory. Bicycle craze, 189, 192.
192, 200-201 of grinding machines, 198:
198; shop
of Singer sewing machines, 86, Bicycle hubs, 203, 204, 210-12, of, for making Willcox && Gibbs
91,93-94,103,107,113,116,
91,93-94, 103, 107, 113, 116, 2ll
211 sewing machines,
machines. 80
335 n. 69; static methods of, for Bicycle industry: and development
Bicyck Brunel, Marc Isambard,
Brunei, lsambard, 24, 35, 37,
37
Ford Model N, 222; static methods of sheet steel stamping, 209-!209-13;
3; 38
31\
of, for Ford Model T, T. 234, entrance into, by armsmakers and Buckland, Cyrus, 44-45,
44-45. 126
236-37. 234-37, 372 n.
236-37, n, 52,
52. sewing machine manufacturers,
manufacturers. Burlingame.
Burlingame, Roger, 2, 10
374 n. 88; of
of~Whee1cr
Wheeler and Wilson 202; history of.
202: of, in America,
America. 8-9, Burn. D.
D, L., 347 n. 5
sewing machines, 71, 72: 72; of Will- 189 -90, 192:
189-90, 192; impact of safety Daniel, 51
Burnap, Daniel.
cox & Gibbs sewing machines.
machines, bicycle on, 200-201,
200-201; and market-
78, 80. See also
afso Assembly line; ing strategy,
strategy. 8, 198, 199; output Cadillac Motor Car Company, 5,
Ford Motor Company, assembly of, 201, 3n7
367 n. 35:35; and refinement 372 n. 45
techniques of of armory practice,
practice. !190:
90: as tran- Callendcr,
Callender. Harold, 322
Assembly line: ambiguous history sitional industry, 8, 190, 214: Cameron. William J., I,
Cameron, 1, 304, 306
244-47; criticism of.
of 244-47: of, 259. 316, variation in production methods Camp, Hiram, 6D-6l
60-61
317, 318-20, 318-19, 321; de-
317,318-20,318-19, of, 204; western manufacturers,
of. Campbell,
Campbell. 1 James, 162
ames, !62
velopment of, at Ford Motor Com- 208-9. Sac tlfS() Pope Manufactur-
See also Can manufacture, 229, 241,
241. 243
pany, 10-11, 237-56, 372 n. 58, ing Company; Western Wheel Carriage industry, 146-50
374 n. 96; diffusion of, II.11, 261. Works Carter, Jerome,
Jerome. 92
375 nn. 107, 1 108; of, 111,
08; effects of. I, Bicycle posters, 198, 203 31. 48, 354 n. 42
Cesari, Gene, 3!,
256-58; house manufacture on. Bic_vc/mg
Bicycling World, 198 Chandler, Alfred D..
Chandler. D., 127, 140
11, 312, 314; importance of, in Billings, Charles E,, E., 49-50, 194 C. H. && LL. J.
J, McCormick & Co.
mass production, 10; Tay1orism’s
Taylorisrn's Billings and Spencer.
Spencer, 50 See McCormick & Co., C. H. & &
role in innovation of, at Ford, Blanc, Honoré,
Honore, 25-26, 41, 348 n. L. J.
LJ.
249 -53; universality
249-53; universality of,
of, 375
375 nn. 41 Changeover: and advertising, 293;
l107,
07, 108. See also Ford Motor Blanchard, Thomas, 35, 36. 36, 38, 41, cost of,
of. for ford
Ford Model A and
Company, assembly techniques of 126 V-8, 298; at Ford
ford and Chevrolet
Automobile industry: changes in, in Blitzcr, William, 311
Blitzer. contrasted, 266-
266-67;
n7; from Ford
1920s, 276; as a model of mass Board of Ordnance (British).
(British), Model A to V-8, 296-300;
296-300: from
12, 145,311,314;
production, 12.145, 31!, 314; 17-18, 25, 347 11.
17-18. n. ll
11 Ford Model T to Model A, 12, 12.
and Studebaker Brothers, 149. See Sec Bomford, George, 33-34, 40, 42
Bamford. 279 -95; Henry Ford's
279-95; Ford’s views on
also
cilso Ford
ford Motor Company; Gener- Boorstin, Daniel,
Daniel. 99.
99, 263 difficulty of, 283;
283: as part of mass
al Motors Bornholdt, Oscar. 271; and
Oscar, 270, 271: production, 264; problems of spe-
Averill, George, 180 design of fixtures and gauges, 230; cial-purpose machinery in making,
Avery, Clarence W., 245; contribu-
contribu- and design of special purpose 288; techniques of, at Chevrolet,
 1'rzdex
Index 401

264-66;
264- 66; thinking about in Ford 46-47;
46-47: and Manhattan Firearms Cottonwood, 139
Motor Company, 278; use usc of pilot Company, 92; as showplace of Couzens, James: and five-dollar
lines in, 266, 294, 297 American manufacturing technolo- 256-59: plans Highland Park
day, 256-59;
Chaplin, Charlie, 323; as a critic of gy, 49; and Wheeler and Wilson factory, 225 -26; inspects engine
mass production, 218-19, 316, factory, 70, 72 assembly line, 248; role of, in
318-20; meeting of, with Gandhi, -London armory of: article on, in Ford Motor Company, 219 -20
219-20
382 n. 44; on origin of Modern Household Words, 332; contrasted Credit buying: at General Motors,
Ford’s
Times, 319; visit of, to Ford's Singer’s Paris factory, 88; as
with Singer's 277; Henry Ford's
Ford’s views on,
Highland Park factory, 319, 320 described by John Anderson, 276-77; institution of by Ford
Chapman, Charles, 104-6 62- 63; in 1854, 18; as described
62-63; Motor Company, 293; origin of, in
Chase, Stuart, 321, 382 n. 48 by James S. Tulloh, 350 n. 77; as sewing machine industry, 6, 89,
Cheney, Timothy, 51 exemplar of the American system 354 n. 57
Chevrolet, 264-66,
264- 66, 276, 277, 296 of manufactures, 18-19, 49, 333, Crescent bicycle. See Western
Chordal, 334 347 n. 11;
ll; operations of, attacked Wheel Works
Chrysler, Walter, 296 by Charles Clark, 20; product of, Crowther, Samuel, 241
Chrysler Motor Company, 300, 306 22; and question of interchange- (London,
Crystal Palace Exhibition {London,
Civil Engineer and Architect's
Architect s Jour- able parts, 23-24, 348 n. 30; 1851), 16, 24
nal, 331 Stickney‘s estimation of
Gage Stickney's Crystal Palace Exhibition (New
Clair, Rene, 316-18 labor inputs at, 21 York, 1853), 129, 130
Clark, Charles, 20, 347 n. 18, —manufacturing system of, 46-50
-manufacturing “Cutlery at Sheffield," 334
"Cutlery
348 n. 29 —paper of, before Institution of
-paper
Clark, Edward: background of, 87:87; Civil Engineers, 331 Dalliba, James, 34
on delays at Singer factory, 115; —Patent Pirearms
-Patent Firearms Manufacturing Dalton, James, 276-77, 280
early legal work of, for Singer Co. of, 4 Davis, Harvey N., 308
company, 86; emphasis of, on —recruitment of first class me-
-recruitment Day, George, 203
marketing strategy, 5, 87, 89; on chanic by, 48 Decentralization of production, 266
introduction of Improved Family -revolver patent of, 47 Degener, August, 223, 279.
279, 282
machine, 110; and patent pool, 68; --seen as copier, 351 n. I10808 Derringer’s
Derringer's pistol factory, 64
purchases interest in Singer —-testimony of: on interchangeabil-
-testimony Design, new, and production prob-
machine, 83; views of, on produc- ity of revolver parts, 23; on labor lems stemming from, 112,
tion techniques, 85-88
85 -88 inputs, 20-21, 347 n. 13,
inputs. 13,348
348 n. 283-86
Clark, Hyde, 25 19; on mechanization of arms pro- Detroit, Toledo &
& Ironton Railroad,
Clay, Henry, 15 duction, 19, 347 n. 17; on quality 268
Mclntosh, 261
Cleveland, Reginald Mcintosh, of arms manufacture, 21 Detroit Institute of Art, 323
323-27
-27
Clockmaking: brass, 57-
57-61;
61; con- -use of bearing points by, 49-50,
-usc “Development of Interchangeable
"Development
trasted with armsmaking, 51:
51; 350 n. 89 l\/lanufacture” (Roe),
Manufacture" (Roc), 335
wooden,
wooden. 51-57 Columbia bicycle. See Pope Manu- “Development of Machine Tools in
"Development
Clymer, Floyd, 273
273-74
-74 facturing Company New England" (Hubbard), 336
Colahan, Charles, 176, 178 Colvin, Fred H., 228-29;
228 -29; articles Dewing, Arthur S., 192
Collins Company, 48 of, as evidence of Ford assembly Deyrup, Felicia, 28, 44-45
“Colonel Colt's
"Colonel Colt’s system of manufac- line, 238; describes Model T Diderot, Denis.
Denis, Sec
See Encyclopedie
Encyclopédie
turing,” 50, 331
turing," assembly techniques (static), Die-forging. See Drop forging
Colt, Samuel, 87, 92 234-38, 244, 249, 256; on Ford Diehl, Fred, 225, 229
—assesses causes of early failure,
-assesses assembly line, 245, 373 n. 82, Diehl, Philip, 117, 358 n. 137
47 375 n. 107; on Ford machine Diemaking, 285
-contract of, with Thomas War- tools, 230, 233, 370 n. 14: on Division of labor: Babbage's
Babbage’s analy-
ner, 47 materials handling at Ford factory, sis of, 33; at McCormick factory,
-contract of, with Eli Whitney, 238; on motion study at Ford,
Ford. 169; in needle manufacture at
Jr., 47 236, 374 n. 92; visit of, to Ford's
Ford’s Wheeler and Wilson, 75; at
—contrasted with private arms con-
-contrasted Highland Park factory, 228, Springfield Armory, 32-33, 44
tractors, 46-47 371 n. 32, 375 n. 104 Dolnar, Hugh. See Arnold, Horace
—contrasted
-contrasted with Eli Terry, 54 Committee on the Machinery of the L.
-display of.of, at Crystal Palace Ex- United States, 45, 61, 332 Domestic Manufacturing Company,
hibition, 16 Consumption engineers, 322 98
—employment of Gage Stickney
-employment Conveyor systems: for breweries Domestic Sewing Machine Com-
by, 21 flour mills, 241;
and t1our 241: at Chevrolet, pany, 97-99, 357 n. 90
-as expert witness before Select 265; and food canning, 241, 243; Downs, Ephraim, 54
Committee on Small Arms, 18-19 at Ford factory, 238-39, 244, Drawings, mechanical: breakdown
—gauging methods of, 23, 49
-gauging 256; of Gunnison Housing Cor- Ford’s system of, 286; use of,
of Ford's
--Hartford
-Hartford armory of: as archetype poration, 311, 312, 314 at Brown && Sharpe, 77; use of, at
of armory practice, 50; article on, Cost accounting: at Ford Motor Ford, 224, 272-73, 286, 377 n.
Magazine, 332;
in United States Magazirze, Company, 272, 377 n. 32; lack of, 34
and bicycle manufacture, 193-94, in bicycle industry, 205; by Leland Dreyfuss, Henry, 309
202;
202: in U\57,
1857, 46; establishment of, at Brown & & Sharpe, 81 Drop forging: adopted by Singer,
402 INDEX

Drop forging (continued)

(eon1i'izt.1ed) Faurote, Fay Leone, 228, 260, 284, 283, 285, 292, 295; and produc-
92-93, 100, 355 n. 70; John 288 tion of fifteen millionth Model T,
Anderson‘s
Anderson's study of, at Colt’s Colt's Ferguson, Eugene S S.,, 3, 115.
5. 99, 279, 280
armory, 351 n. 112; and armory 163, 352 n. 134 Ford, Henry, 221, 223, 249; on
Ford.
practice, 50, 203-4; John Hall's Hall’s Filene, Edward A.: advocates mass
Filene. annual model change.
change, 300-301;
300-30 I;
development of, 41; and manufac- production methods in furniture assoc1ation of, with Walter Flan-
association
ture of Ford
ford Model A, 280-81;280- 81; manufacture, 315, 382 n. 35; 220-22: and Britannica arti-
ders, 220-22;
and manufacture of Pope bicycle, 305 -6;
background of, 305- 6; defines cle, "Mass Production," l, 1, 2, 6,
194; Elisha K. Root’s
194: Root's work in, 48; mass production, 307-8; equates 11, 12. 107, 303, 305, 306, 308,
at Wheeler and Wilson, 74. See “Fordism”
"Fordism" and "mass“mass produc- 309; with William J. Cameron,
also Ford Model A, manufacture of tion," 345 n. 4; “Fordizing"
4: on "Fordizing" 304; on changeover to Model A,
Drucker, Peter, I10,
0, 263 America, 305-
305-6;6; on Ford’s mtro-
Ford's intro- 279, 283; and Charlie Chaplin,
Duggan. Edward, 127
Duggan, duction of the Model A, 307:
ducti.on 307; on 319, 320; and chief production ex-
"Duplicate and Interchangeable Henry Ford as an exemplar, 308; perts, 270; contemplates model di-
Manufacture“ (Alford), 336
Manufacture" on mass production in America, 278; contrasted with
versification, 278:
du Pont, Pierre S S.,, 265 305 - 6
305-6 Gandhi, 322; and cost accounting,
Durfee, William F., 335 Files: purchase and use of, by Sin- 272; on credit buying, 277; crite-
ger, 85; sales of, by Singer com- rion of, for mass production, 6,
Eames,
Eames. Albert. 48 pany for repairs, 92; use of, at al 49, 107, 122; criticized, 301, 316,
Eames, George. 71 Singer’s Scotland factory, 96,
Singer's 96. 121 321, 381 n. 133; decides to make
Earl, Polly.
Polly, 127 Filing, 206. See also Fitting only Model T, 227; on decline of
Eastern Rate
Nate case, 249 Findlater,
hndlater, John, 225 Model T, 276:276; defines mass pro-
Economies of scale: concept of, at Finishing, l113, 198,206,
13, 198, 206, 369 n. 62 duction, I, 303; as an ex-
1, 3, 217, 303:
l—1arpcrs
Harpers Ferry Armory, 40:
40; con- rischer, Charles T., 323
Fischer, emplar, 306, 308',
308; and experi-
cept of, at McCormick, 173; in Fitch.
Fitch, Charles: on the American mentation in production technolo-
furniture industry, 145; John system of manufactures and inter- gy, 220, 234; and fifteen millionth
Hall’s opportunity to test.
Hall's lack of opporlllnity test, changeable parts, 347 n. 4; article Model T, 279, 280; and five-dollar
42-43: Leighton Pine’s
Pine's concept of, ''The
"The Rise of a Mechanical day, 256-59; folk wisdom about,
clay,
of, at Singer cabinet factory, 140 Ideal,” and interchangeable manu-
Ideal," as impairment to scholarship, 271,
Ezlinbzirglt Encvclopaedia, 35
c'din!Jurgh Eiicvclopaedicz. facture, 334:
334; evaluation of Thomas 272; gains control of Ford Motor
Edison, Thomas. 333 Warner, 44; and "Report
“Report on the Company, 218, 220; Giedion's
Giedion’s
E. Howard Watch and Clock Corn- Com- Manufactures of Interchangeable views on, 217;
217: on introduction of
pany. See Howard, E., Watch and Mechanism,” 153, 333; on Eli
Mechanism," V-8, 296-97, 300; on mass pro-
Clock Company Terry, 54 agriculture. 12,
duction in agriculture,
Elgin Sewing M Machine
achinc Company, Fitters,
fitters, 6, 49, 107, 122 309-10; on materials handling.
handling,
202 Fitting: absence of, at Ford, 234; of 375 n. 99; memorandum to, from
Emde, Carl, 225; and design of fix- Singer’s Elizabethport fac-
parts at Singer's 277; and Model A de-
Kanzler, 277:
tures and gauges, 230; and design !OS, 107, 116, 337-44;
tory, 99, 105, 337-44: sign, 278-85,
278 -85, 294;
294: and Model A
of special-purpose machinery, 227; of parts in clockmaking, 352 n. production, 282, 283, 292; and
and first Ford assembly line, 127; of SSinger
ingcr machines together Model T idea, 218-19; and My
247- 48; as key member of Ford
247-48: in Scotland, 94; of spare parts for Life and Work,
Work. 305, 316, 321,
production team, 223-24 McCormick reaper, !59: 159; of spare 373 n. 79; on origin of assembly
lrincvelopaedia
Encyclopaedia Britannica:
Bntannica: and machine. 92
parts for Singer machine, line, 10, 239, 241; plans Highland
Ford’s “Mass Produc-
Ford's article, "Mass Five-dollar day, 11,ll, 256-59 Park factory, 225225-26;
-26: as propo-
tion," 1,
I, 2,6, 107,303,
2, 6, 11, 12, !07, 303, Fixtures: construction of, of. at McCor- nent of interchangeable parts, 10,
305. 306, 308, 309; “Furniture
305, In-
"Furniture 1n- mick, 166; for core setting on 221; at public showing of Model
articlc, 145
dustry," article, Hall’s design of,
Ford V-8, 297; Hall's A, 283; purchases Johansson com- coin-
Eriew'l0pe'zlie (Diderot), 38
Encyclopedie 41-42;
41- 42; as part of rational produc- pany, 286; on relieving tensions of
Enfield Arsenal, 4, 45, 61, 126 tion system, 6; quick-change de- mass production society, 321; re-
Engineer, 333 sign of at Ford, 230-31, 230-31.
230 -31. sistance of, to change, 275-76',
275-76;
Engineering Magazine, 91, 260 See also Jig, fixture, and gauging and soybean development, 309, 309.
English and American Machine
Machi1ic system 310; on Taylorism, 251-52,
Tool Builders (Roe), 17, 335 Flanders, Walter E., 149, 220-23.
flanders, 220-23, 374 n. 94
Enlightenment. 25
Enlightenment, 226 Ford, Henry, II, ll, 293
Ettema, Michael
Ettcma, M1chael J.. 127 Flexible mass production: achieve- Fordian Science Monitor, 316
Forclian
European method of manufacture, ment of, at Ford,
ford, 297; movement Fordism, 1: 1; compared and con-
5, 91 toward. at Ford Motor Company,
toward, trasted with Taylorism, 249 -53; as
249-53;
10-11, 51,241,243
Evans, Oliver, 10-11,51,241,243 294; necessity of, 261; new era of, description of fordFord production and
Everitt-Metzger-Flanders
Everitt-Metzger- Flanders Company, 13, 264 labor system, 218:
218; origin of, 11;
149 Flivver King, The (Sinclair),
(Sinclair). 320, triumphed over by Sloanism, 267.
Ewen. Stuart. 322
Ewen, Stuart, 321 Sec also Mass production:
See Filene,
production; Fi1enc,
Foot, Adonijah, 350 n. 71 Edward A.
Factory system, 306-7,
306 -7, 331 Ford, Edsel B., 277, 293, 300, Fora’ Methods and the Fora‘
Ford 1'1/letliods Ford Shops
Fairfield,
fairfield, George A.,
A .. 49-50, 193,
193. 323; and Charlie Chaplin, 319, (Arnold and Faurote), 228,22R, 260
203 320; and Ford
ford Model A, 281, 282, Ford Model A
 Index
lndex 403

--as art, 304

-as tooling up for, 223; work- -engineering department of, of. 268,
-changeover to, 12: 12; announcement scheduling for, 229 270-73, 380 n. 124
of, 279; chaos of,
of. 289-92;
289- 92; con- -1913 touring car. car, 219 —factory
-factory letters of, 273
trasted with Chevrolet, 266-67:
With Chevmlet, -output of. II, 11, 223, 224, 268 -gaugemaking operations of, 286
cost of, 379 n. 85: lessons of, -placement
—placement of gasoline tank in, -Highland Park factory of: aerial
293-94;
293 -94; problems in, 281-92:
281-92; and 284 photograph of, 227; day's day’s output
recordkeeping at Ford, 271-72 —reintroduction
-reintroduction of colors for, 275 2; decline of, 268; description
of, 2:
—changes in.
-changes in, 295-96 Ford Motor Company of, 227; employees at, 3; foundry
—cost of.
-cost of, 281 -ability of, to accommodate 238-39,
at, 238 -39, 239-40; initial pro-
—design of,
-design of. 279-84
279 --84 changes in Model T. 274-75 duction at, 228; labor turnover at,
--drop in sales of, 296
-drop —adoption
--adoption of armory practice, I100 11, 257-58; planning and erection
—first public showing of, 282, 283
-first —adoption
--adoption of sheet steel stamping, of, 225-27; power plant at, 228;
—manufaeturc of: end of, 296;
--manufacture 296: final 10, 224-25
10. punch press operations at, 225 225-26;
-26;
assembly in, 289-91, 290-91; -analyses of, 276-77
--analyses role of Taylorism at, 249-53
first engine, 282:
282; Henry Ford‘s
ford's -and annual model change, —institutes credit financing, 293
-institutes
plans for, 283; machine
machme tools 186-87, 263. 277,277. 300-301 —introduces Victoria, 296
-introduces
acquired for, 288; new parts pro- —assemb1y techniques of: and body
-assembly —managerial structure of, 293
-managerial
duction departments for, 286-87;
286 -87; drop station, 254; and delay of —marketing strategy of.
-marketing of, 9, 275,
286. 379 n. 80; prob-
precision in. 286, Model A production, 292; 292: dc-
de- 278, 292-93. 295-96
278. 295 -96
lems in, 281. 283 -86, 292; record
283-86, velopment of moving line.line, —market share of, II,
-market ll, 12, 264,
output achieved in, 295; tooling up 237-56; influence of breweries and 276, 295, 296
for, 281-82 flour mills on, 241, 243; influence ---mechanical drawing system of.
-mechanical of,
—public response to. 292,
-public 292. 295-96, of canning on.
on, 241, 243; influence
iniluence 224, 272-73.
272-73, 286, 377 n. 34
304 of foundry conveyors on, 239- 239-40; 40; -operations
--operations sheets at, 224.
Ford Model B. 297 influence of slaughterhouses on, 270-71, 273, 376-77 11,
270-71' n. 24
Ford Model N, 218, 220-21, 222 241, 242; for Model A chassis, -performance of, in 1929, 295
Ford Model T 289, 290, 291; for Model N -performance of, in 1931, 1931. 296
--as aa "car
“car for the masses,"
masses,” 9, (static), 222; for Model T (static), --Piquette Avenue
A venue factory of.of, 220,
218-19 234 -38; for Model T chassis
234-38: 222
—in Brave New World, 316
-in (line), 249, 252, 253, 254, 255, —reasons for success of, 220
-reasons
—changes in, 273-75
-changes 256, 257; for Model T chassis -recordkeeping
--recordkeeping at, 271-72
-decline of, 12, 264, 276-77. 279 237: for Model T con-
(static), 237; —and rise of mass production, 9.
-and
—design of, 218-19
-design trasted with Model A, 289; for 215
-engine of, compared to Model N, N. Model T dashboards (line), 259: 259; -River Rouge factory of: assembly
224 for Model T dashboards (static), operations at, 289-91:
289-91; conveyor
—Henry Ford's
-Henry Ford’s decision to manu- 236; for Model T engines (line), belt at, 298; development of, of
facture only, 227 248-49,
248-49. 251), 251; for Model T
250, 251: 267-68; Diego Rivera‘s
Rivera's frescoes
Ford’s views on, 277
-Henry Ford's engines (static), 234, 235; for of, 323, 324-26, 327; furlough of
of.
—history oL
-history of. 1915-1927, 267-80 Model T magneto coils (static).
(static), workers from, 296; 296: high overhead
-idea of, 218-19, 275 234; for Model T magneto coils
234: of. 274; Model A frame pro-
costs of,
--influence of 1926 changes in, on
--mfluence (line), 244-48,
244- 48, 246, 247; for duction nt, 292; Model T body
at, 292:
Ford machine tools, 294 Model T rear axles (line), 258; for production at, 174; in 1930.1930, 269;
—manufacture
-manufacture of: accommodation Model T rear axles (static), 234, soybean operations at, 309, 310;
of change in, 273; ''all-metal"
“all-metal” 235, 236; for Model T transmis- visitors at, 383 n, n. 61
body and, 274-75, 378 n. 40; be- sions (line), 247, 248; for Model --sociological department of, 259
fore the assembly line, 228 -38; T upholstery (line), 260; origin of —Sorenscn's purge of Model T
-Sorensen's
cost accounting methods for, for. 272.:
272; moving line, 212,
212. 237; at Piquette men from, 289-92
cost and price trends in, II 11,. 224, Avenue factory, 220:220; productivity —strategy of purchasing from out-
-strategy
377 n. 29; crankshaft grinding gains of moving line, 248, 249. 249, side suppliers, 272, 300
machines, 232; drilling and ream- 254-56; role of Taylorism in, —and support for soybean develop-
-and devclop-
ing engine block, 233; end of, 249-53; for V-8 engine, 299 ment, 309, 310
menl,
279; experimentation with tech- -backward integration of, 268 Ford News,
Ne11•s, 282, 289
niques of, 234; fifteen millionth.
mques —changcover from Model A to
-changeover Fordson tractor.
tractor, 268
279, 280; likened to tin can fac- V-8, 296-301 Ford V-8: changeover to, from
tory, 229, 241; machme
machine tool ac- —changeover from Model T to
-changeover Model A, 296-301; cost of
quisition for, 231-33; machine Model A, 12-13, 279-95 changeover to, to. 298; delays in in-
tool placement for.
for, 229; machining —contrasted with Pope Manufactur-
-contrasted troduction of.of, 296
296-97;
-97; design and
engine blocks, 231; principles of ing Company,
Company. 206 production of, as an engineering
economy in, 229; profit margm
margin —cost accounting at, 272, 377 n.
--cost feat, 297; production problems
on, 378 n. 49; quick-change fix- 32 with. 297-98; serial number one,
tures for, 230-31, 230-31; spe- -design
--design of machine tools at, 227. 227, 300
cial-purpose machinery for, 233; 233: 230-33, 372 n. 43 Ford X-car, 278
standards of accuracy in, 229; sys- -early
~early history of, 218-20 Forging. See Drop forging
tem to increase output in, 268,268. -—as educator on mass production,
-as Fortune, 300, 314
270-71; testing methods in, 229;
270-71: 11, 260-61
II, Foundry: at Ford's Highland Park
404 INDEX
INDEX

Foundry ((continued)
colltinued) Great Sewing Machine Combina- Howe. Elias. 6861\
factory. 238-39, 239-40. 373 n.
factory, tion.
tion, 68 Howe. Frederic
Fredcnc W., 80
63; nt
63: Ford· s River Rouge factory,
at Ford's Gregory, Charles Hutton,
Hutton. 333 Howe. Ireland. 52
Howe, John Ireland,
268;
268: at McCormick factory, 164, Gribeauval, Jean-Baptiste de.
GribeauvaL dc. Hubbard. Guy, 336.
Hubbard, 336, 351 n. 119
167. 168,
167, 168. 183:
183; mold conveyors at 25 -26
25-26 Hubmaking: at Pope, 203.
J-lubmaking: 203, 204: at
Westinghouse Airbrake Company, Grinding, mechanized, 49, 81-82,
81- 82. Studebaker, 149, ISO:
Studebaker. 150; at Western
240; at Singer factory.
240: factory, 90, 1011,
100, 93, 198, 232 Wheel Works, 210--!2,
210--12, 2ll
211
104-5
104--5 Grover and Baker Sewing Machine Huetteman
Huctteman & Cramer Machine
French, Nathaniel, 44
French. Company, 68 Company. 241
Company,
Fries, Russell, 351 n. 114
h·ies, Guardian Trust of Detroit,
Detroit. 293 Hussey, Obcd,
Obecl, 154
Furniture industry: ASME's desire (nvsscr), 138-41
Gumwood (nyssa), 138- 41 Huxley, Aldous, 316
to inlroduce
introduce engineering principles 11-12. 310-11.
Gunnison. Foster, ll-12, 31D-l1,
145; entry costs of, 144:
into, 145: 144; of 314, 382 n. 29
314,382 .\/I. Singer & Co. See Singer
I. 'vl.
Grand Rapids contrasted with Sin- Corporation.
Gunnison Housing Corporation, l\/lanufacturing Company
Manufacturing
ger woodworking operations, 144: 144; 31 1. 312-13
31!,312-13 Company.
Indiana Manufacturing Company,
influence of Fordism on, 11-12;
ll-12; Gunstocking machinery, 24, 24. 129:
129; at 134
mass production in, 11-12,
11-12. 127,
127. 126: Hall's
Enfield Arsenal, 125, 126; Hall’s lndianapol is Cabinet Company,
Indianapolis
146. 315,
145, 146, 315. 382 n. 35:
35; no Hen- Blanchard’s compared, 41;
and Blanchard's 41: 134, 136
ry Ford in, 151:
151; segmentation of.
of, improvements on, by Cyrus Buck- Industrial
lnduslrial design movement. 304,
304.
144-45; views of Archer Richards
144-45: land, 44;
44: as microcosm of Amer- 30~ -9
308-9
on, 146 ican system, 35; Whitworth's
Whitworth’s Ingraham,
lngraham, Elias.Elias, 54
observation of,
oL 62 contractors, 109-10. ll
Inside contractors. L
111.
Galamb.
Galamb, Joseph. 275. 280,
Joseph, 218, 275, 115--16.
115 117.205
-16, 117. 205
285 Haas, Julius H.. 323
.Julius H., Inside contract system: adoption of.
lrv;idc
Gamel, Joseph, 348 n. 32 Haglund, Philip E., 380 n. 124
38011. at Singer's main factory.
factory, 356 n.
Gandhi, Mahatma, 322, 3S2 382 n. 44 Hall, John H., 38-43, 54 practice, 50:
73: and armory practice. 50; and
“Gandhi Dissects the
"Gandhi tlle Ford Idea" Hall‘s Rifle Works, 40-43
Hall's Blanchard at Springfield,
Springfield. 38;3~: at
(Ca11ender). 322
(Callender), Hallock, James Lindsey, 359 n. 12 Brown & Sharpe, 81: 81; at Colt's
Colt‘s
Gauges and gauging systems: and Hanna, William, 177 Hartford armory, 49-50, 49 -50, 60,
armory practice, 6. 6, 50;
50: in clock- Harpers Ferry Armory, 3, 33, 38 351 n. 119:119; at McCormick.
McCormick, 157: 157; at
making,
making. 55.55, 55 -56, 601
55-56, 60; at Coifs
Co|t's Harrison, James, 54 Singer's Elizabethport factory, 85.
Hartford armory,
armory. 48:48; at Colt’s
Colt's Hartford Cycle Company, 202-3 93. 109,
93, 109. 120. 359 n. 152: 152; at Sin-
London armory, 35 351I n. 113:
113; im- Hartford Rubber Works,
Works. 202 ger‘s Glasgow, Scotland.
ger's Scotland, factory,
provement of, through grinding.
grinding, Hartner. Charles B., 279,
Hartner, 279. 282 116-17; at Singer’s
116-17: Singer's South Bend
82;
S2; inspection armories.
inspect1on at national armories, Hastings.
Hastings, Sir Thomas, 348 n. 2! 21 cabinet works, 133. 134. 140. 140,
34, 45: Johansson. 286. 287; 287‘. John Hawkins. Norval, 258
Hawkins, also Inside contractors
143. See u/so
Hal1‘s, 41; llmlt,
Ilall's, 41: limit, 121, 286; at Henry, Leslie R., 273 Inslee. William, 110
Inslce,
McCormick works, 163-64: at Henrv' s Wonderfiil
Henr_t".s' Mod!'/ T,
W0/rderfiil Model Installment purchasing. See Sec Credit
Pope Manufacturing Company,
Company. I908-1927 (Clymer), 273
1908-1927 buying
206-7; at Providence Tool Com- Hill, Frank Ernest: on Ford orga- Integration. 202,
Integration, 202. 261\
268
pany, 97; refinement of, by patent 19305. 267:
nization in 1930s, Ford's
267; on Ford’s llnterarmory standardization. .14,
nterarmory standardization, 34, 42
armsmakers.
arms makers, 46; at Singer Manu-
46: al work with soybeans, 309: 309; on lntcrchang:eablc parts, 28;
Interchangeable 2S; British
facturing Company, 92. 92, 95. 115.
95, !15. Kanzlcr
Kanzler memorandum, 277-78; on study of.of, 21. 23-34. 62, 348 nn.
l 17, 120-21:
116, 117, 120-21; at Springfield Model T announcement.
announcement, 219; on 27. 30;
30: in clockmaking.
clockmaking, 54: and
Armory.
Armory, 34, 44, 45, 45. 64, 350 n. origin of Ford assembly line.line, the Colt armories, 21, 2!, 23-24,
23--24, 47,
71. See also Jig.
Jig, fixture, and 237-38, 244-46; on River Rouge 48. 348 nn. 29. 30; as a criterion
41\. 341\
gauging system factory, 267-68
267- 68 for mass production, 6. 49. 107,
(J, 49,
Gear-cutting machines, 93, 355 n. "History
'·His tory and Modern Development 122; diffusion of system to bicycle
122:
71 of the Art
Arl of Interchangeable Con- manufacture, 8. 189. 2214; 14; and ex-
Geddes, Norman Bel, BeL 309 Mechanism. The''
struction in Mechanism, The" pression "American
“American system of
General Electric Company, 3311 11 (Durfee). 3.15
(Durlee), 335 manufactures.“ 331-36; fac-
rnanufactures," 15, 331-36:
General Motors.
Motors, 13, 186,186. 263, 300,
300. Hoadley. Silas. 52
Hoadley, Silas, tors influencing production of, 23,
306. See also Chevrolet:
Chevrolet; Sloan, Hobbs.
Hobbs, Alfred C., C.. 88. 332-33 42.
42, 77, 81-82;
1\1-1\2: Henry Ford as .
Alfred P. “Hobbs" system of manufactur-
"Hobbs' proponent of, of. I10, 221 . 230;
CJ, 221.
General Motors Acceptance Cor- ing,“
ing,·' 332 French origins of, 25-27;
uf, 25 · 27; in furni-
poration. 277.
poration, 277, 293 Hoover. Herbert.
Herbert, 307 industry. 145:
ture industry, 145; and John Hall,Hall.
Gibbs,
G1bbs, James E. A.. A., 75 Inc .. 311
Houses, Inc., 39-42: impact of, on manufactur-
39-42;
Giedion.
Gicdion, Siegfried, 217 Howard. E.. E., Watch and Clock ing costs. 39, 48-49. J5l
39. 41\-49, 351 n. 114;
ll4:
Goodrich, Carter,
Carter. 345 n. 4 Company. 202 Jefferson's enthusiasm for,
Jetlerson·s for. 25-26,
Goodyear.
Goodyear, S. W., 334 .134 Howard. Robert: on interchangeable 31; and McCormick reaper. reaper, 153,
Gould, F.7.ru,
Ezru, 85, 92 parts. 351 nn. 114,114. 118:onlow
118: on low 364- n. 551;
364 I: means to achieve,
achieve. 27:27;
Gray, Charles M., 156, 160 precision requirements in Amer- and Simeon North, 28-29, 30, 42:
Gray.
Gray, Edward. 228 352 n. 134:
ican clockmaking, 3.'i2 134'. on and Pope Manufacturing Com-
Great Depression, 13, 13. 298,
298. 300, quality ofuf Colt’s
Colt's Paterson-made re- pany. 19.1, 19~, 367 n. 11:
193. 198, 11; pursuit
314,
314. 322 volvers.
volver>, 351 n. 106 of. by United States military offi-
of,
 Index 405

eials, 27,
cia1s, 33. 35. 42, 44-45. 47.
27. 33, 10, 241, 244-46,
assembly line. 10. 244-46. 178-79. 180,
178-79, 180. 182; and \vorkman-
workman-
49; and Singer Manufacturing 373 n. 63: on Sorensen firing of ship. 155
91-92, 9R
Company, 91-92. 98-99,
-99. 105-7. Model T men,
men. 289-90 McCormick, Cyrus H., H.. Jr.: as assis-
I112,
12, 337-44. 355 nn. 66. 69: at
66, 69; Klein, Julius.
Julius, 321 tant factory superintendent.
superintendent, 7, 179;
Springfield Armory. 23. 23, 24,
24. Knox, Henry, 26 as factory superintendent, I180: 80: as
44-45. 62; status of
34-35, 44-45, Knudsen. William, 264-66 president of reaper company,
company. 182; 182:
manufacture of. in early twentieth Kulick. Frank. 279
KL!Iick, Frank, receives report on Robert H. ancl and
century, 370 n. 11.ll. 372 n. 45;
45: and Leander McCormick.
McCurmick. 177-78
Wheeler and Wilson Manufactur- Labor: costs of. in Britain and McCormick, Leander J. (Cyrus H.'s H.‘s
ing Company, 71. 73 73-74;
-74; and Eli U.S., 96, 347 n. 13, 13. 352 n. !55;
155: brother).
brother), 170, 173, 177, .164 36411.n.
Whitney, 3, 30-32. See Sec also at Ford. 248. 256-59;
256-59: at McCor- 34; contrasted with Cyrus H
.14; H.,, 162:
162;
American system of manufactures; mick, 165-67. 182; and wood- dispute of, with Cyrus H., 168, 168.
practice; Clauges
Armory practice: Gauges and working industry.
industry, 144. See olsoalso 175,
17 5, I177-78:
77-78: as factory manager.
manager,
gauging systems: Jig, fixtme,
fixture. and Labor. hand 7, 154, 159,
159. 160, 176, 177; fired
gauging system hand! and American system
Labor, hand: by Cyrus H., H.. 7.
7, 178. 366 n. 85:85;
Iron Age, 200,
200. 260 of manufactures. 20 -21, -21, 23; imi ts reaper pl"oduction,
Ilimits 72-73,
production, 1172-73.
Ives. Joseph, 58, 59-60
[ves, 59- 60 Colt’s views on, 21, 23.
Colt's 23, 47; at 178. 180;
175, 17/l. 180: and Cyrus H.
Derringer's factory, 64; on Ford McCormick’s
McCormick's European affairs.
Jackson, W. H H.,.. 110 285. 292; at McCormick
Model A. 285, 166-67: moves to Chicago.
Chicago, 156;
Jefferson, Thomas. 25-26.25 -26, 27, 30.
27. 30, works, 159, 164-67, 181. !82: 182: in partnership of.of, with Cyrus H., H..
31 pinmaking. 551;
pinmaking, I; at Singer l\’1anufac-
Manufac- 162, I174:
162. 74: procurement of machine
Jerome, Chauncey: on benefits of turing Company. 84, 99, 119; 119: in tools by, 173173-74;
-74; and reaper cle-de-
·'system,'·
“system,” 51; brass clock move- small arms production.
production, 347 n. 18: sign. 166-67.
:,ign, 166-67, 169. 170;
170: and reap-
ment of, 59: objectives
Objectives of, con- at Studebaker, 149, 150, ISO, 151; at er manufacture in Virginia, 155
trasted with those of United States Wheeler and Wilson Manufactur- McCormick, Robert (Cyrus H.'s 1'1.‘s
War Department,
Department. 60: output from ing Company, 75; 75: Whitworthls
Whitworth's father). 155. 177
factories of, 60; on production of views on necessity or of skilled. 21.
21, McCormick, Robert Hall (Cyrus
clocks. 54: use of raised
wooden clocks, 23 H.'s nephew), 174, 177-78,
177-78. 180,
beading, 58-59, 59-60:59-60; veneer Frederick, 117-18
Lander, Ftukrick, 366 n. 85
clock cases of. I131 31 Lathe. Blanchard, 35. 36,
Lathe, 36. 38. See McCormick.
McCormick, William S. (Cyrus
Jig, fixture. and gauging sy:-tern:
systeni: also Blanchard,
Blanchard. Thomas; Gun- H.’s brother): advocates buying a
H.'s
John Anderson’s
Anderson's study of, 64: 64; at stocking machinery mower. 167; as bookkeeper, 155: 155;
Brown & Sha111e.
Sharpe. 76, 78; defined.
defined, Leach, George. 117 1 17 compared to Cyrus,
Cyrus. 162; death of, of.
6; developments in, 1902-1912, League orof American Wheelmen.
Wheclmcn. 168; on demise of reaper business.
372 n. 45; at Ford Motor Com- 198, 199.
199.203, 36811.
203, 368 !1, 45 160: and impact of Civil War on
160;
10, 221, 224. 230-31, 271.
pany, 10,221,224,230-31,271. Lechler,
Lechler. Henry, 33 reaper business, 165; and materials
272-73; at McCormick works, works. 011 the Lahour
Lectures on Labour Queslion
Qlreslirm purchases. 159; moves to Chicago,
180; David Pye on. on, 56; at Singer (Brasscy). 333
(Brassey), 156; taken into partnership with
Company. 85. 92.
Manufacturing Company, Lee, John R., 225, 258 H, 162
Cyrus 1-1..
117-18; at Wheeler and Wilson Lee, RoswelL
Roswell. 28-29, 33, 34-35,
34-35. McCormick & Bro., C. H .. 173
Manufactunng Company, 71,
Manufacturing 71. 74. 43- 44
43-44 McCormick & Bros, Bros., C. ,1?
Q12 H .. 162,
See also Gauges and gauging sys- Leland, Henry M .. 5,
Leland. 5. 80-81,
80-81. 224. 165-68,
165-68. 169
tems 45
372 n. -15 McCormick & Co., Co.. C. H. & & LL. J.J..
55. 56, 57, 95,
Jigs, 55, 95. 205 Lewis, Charles. 239 174-75
174 -75
Johansson, C. E., 286 Liebert, A.... 133
Liebert. John A McCormick Harvesting Machine
John P. Lovell Arms Company. See Sec Cmnpany, 5, 278
Lincoln Motor Company, Company. 5. 7, 177, I178 78
Lovell, John P P.,.. Arms Company Loewy, Raymond, 309 McCormick mower. 171
John R. Keim Company. See Keirn Keim P.. Arms Company,
Lovell, John P., Company. McCormick reaper
Company, John R, R. 202 ~changes in models of,
—ehanges of. 159
Johnson, Iver, 200 ~demand
—demand for. for, during Civil War,
Jungle, The (Sinclair), 241 McCormick. Cyrus H.. H , 1150.
50, 156.
I 56. 166
170. 182:
160, 170, 182; contracts of,
of. for ~"dropper" first built, 170
-“dropper”
Kahn, Albert. 226. 323
Albert, 226, manufacture, 155
reaper manufacture. -56: de-
155-56: ~early
-early problems with. with, 155
C., 268, 277-78.
Kanzler, Ernest C, sire of. to expand business.
business, 162,
162. ~hand raker discontinued,
-hand discontinued. 165
293 169, 172, 175; dispute of.
172. 173. 175: --harvester
~harvester and twine binder.bmder. ca.
Keim
Keun Company.
Company, John R.,R.. 10.
10, with Leander. 168. 175, 1777S:
withLeandcr.168.175, 177--78; 1881. 179
224-25, 234 European affairs of. 166-67: hires ~instructions
—instructions to farmers for assem-
Keller engraving machine, 285 Lewis Wilkinson, 179: hires patent bly of.
of, 158
ISS
Kettering. Charles, 267
Kettering, expert. 175-76;
175 -76: incorpmatcs
incorporates firm.
firm, ~Leander's views on quality and
-Leander‘s
Kiesler. Frederick. 309
Kiesler, 177; and invention of reaper, 154: 15-'1; price of, 173
Klann, William: and engine and machine tools owned by, 162- 64;
by. 162-64; ~manufacture
--manufacture of: assembly proces-
transmission assembly line,
line. marketing strategy of, 5, 7, 7. 8.
8, 9.9, ses for.
for, 157: beginnings of, of. in
248- 49; firing of, 289-90;
of. 289 -90; Ford 172; partnerships
155, 159. 162, 172: Chicago. 156:
Chicago, 156; by contractors,
engine assembly stands described of, 156. !62.
of. 156, 162, 174:
174; and reaper 155 -56; cost of.of, 159, 172, I176;76;
by, 372 n. 52; on origin of Ford manufacture. 153. 160,
manufacture, 7. 153, 160. 175,
175. dependence on skilled labor for,
406 INDEX
INDEX

McCormick reaper —at Ford Motor Company: acquisi-

-at culture, 12, 308; Americans’
Americans' re-
-—rnanufacture of (continued)
-manufacture tion of, 231-33, 271; and newed faith in, 330; and bicycle
159, 164; differing
diffenng views of Cyrus changeover to Model A, 288; industry, 201,
20 I, 202; compared to
and Leander on, 173; effect of close grouping of, 229, 287; con- factory system, 306-306-7;7; critics of,
model changes on, 166, 167, 169, trol over inventory of, 271, 377 n. 316-27;
316-27: as a "cult"
“cult” and "doc-
“doc-
178; and inside contracting sys- 25; design of, 231-33, 372 n. 43; trine,”
trine," 322; defined, I1,, 3, 122,
I 57; limits on, proposed by
tem, 157; for Ford V-8, 297; sequential 217, 228, 263, 307-8:
307-8; as depicted
Leander, 175; overproduction in, arrangement of, 224, 229, 370 n. by Diego Rivera, 323. 323, 324-26,
170, 172, 173, 175; pressures in, 14 327; diffusion of, 260- 61,
160; and problems during Civil —grinding machine, 49, 81-82, 93,
-grinding 3755 nn. l107,
37 07, 108; distinguished
War, 166; techniques of, com- 198, 232 from American system of manu-
Singer’s, 182, 185-86;
pared to Singer's, —at McCormick reaper works,
-at factures, 3; Eucyclopaedia
Encyclopaedia Britan-
under the American system of 162-64, 170, 173-74, 363 n. 19, nica article on, 1, 2, 6, 11, 12,
manufactures, 178- 178-82;
82; in Vir- 365 n. 65 107, 303, 305, 306, 308, 309;
ginia, 155 —mi1ling machine, 29, 41, SO,
-milling 50, 80, ethos of, 11-12, 303-16; Edward
—marketing of: contrasting views
--marketing 92, 231, 288 Fi1ene’s views on, 305-6,
Filcne's 305-6. 307-8;
on, of Cyrus and William, 160; —at Singer Manufacturing Com-
-at “flexible.” 13, 261, 264, 294.
"flexible." 294,
effect of new model on, 172; and pany, RS,
85, 88, 92, 95, 96 297; Henry Ford’s criterion for, 6,
Ford's cnterion
fear of overproduction, 168, 169; Mack, Harry, 290-91 49, 1 07, 122; at Ford Motor Com-
107,
initial, 154; techniques of, 162 McKenzie. Frederick A., 335
McKenzie, pany,9-11,12-13,218,245,
pany, 9-11,12-13,218,245,
-—output
--output of, 1841-1885, 7, 161 McKenzie, George R., 93, 109: and 272-73, 371 n. 40; of fumiture,
furniture,
--problerns
--problems in production
productton of, 156, armory practice, 96-96-99;
99; back- 11-12, 127, 144-46, 315, 382 11. n.
157
!57 ground of, 91; and establishment 35: and the Great Depression, 13,
35;
—problerns
-problems posed by experimental of Elizabetl1port
Elizabethport factory,
factory, 99. 104;
99, 104: 298, 300, 314, 322; and housing,
work on, 166, 167 follows developments at Eliza- 11, 311-15; and industrial design
—repairs for, 159
-repairs bethport factory, 1110,
10, 112-21; and movement, 304, 308-9; labor's labor’s
—self-binding (wire type), 176
-self-binding Montreal factory, 117-18; sets critique of, 321; Mumford's
Mumford’s cri-
-self-raking (Advance), 170, 171
--self-raking policy on operations at Eliza- tique of, 314-15, 330; New York
-self-raking (Reliable), 165, 165,
—self-raking(Re1iable), bethport
hethport factory, 116; and wood- Times on.on, 1, 306-7; origin and
170 working operations, 136; work of, I, 303,345 n. 4; as a
use of term, 1,303,345
-workmanship on, 155, 159-60 at Scottish factory, 93, 115-16, panacea, 305; product vs. material
McCormick reaper works: additions 121 144-45. 151; of radio
basis of, 144-45,
to, 160, 168; appointment of new Madison, James, 31 cabinets, 146; and reaper manufac-
superintendent for, 178; assemb- Manhattan Firearms Company, 92 ture, 154; salvation of, 330; and
ling processes at, 157, 181, 185, Marketing strategy: and American TVA, 308; use usc of term in MyM_vL1fe
Life
186; destroyed by fire, 173; in system of manufactures, 60; in and Work, 305. See also Ford,
1849, 157; ca. 1860, 163; in clock industry, 51, 54, 60; for Henry;
Henry: Ford Model A; Ford Model
1868, 169; in 1885, 183; estab- Ford Model A, 292-93; for Ford T; Ford Motor Company
lished in Chicago, !56;
156; foundry Model T, 9-10, 218-19, 275, Materials handling equipment, 238,
167. 168, 183; labor
of, 164, 167, Ford’s diversification
292; and Ford's 241,371
241' 17,373
371 n. 17, 373 n. 60.
60, 375
problems at, 166-67, 182; ideas, 278;
278: of General Motors, 13, n. 99
machine tools at, 162--64,
162-64, 16R,
168, 263, 264-65, 267; at McCormick, Maudslay, Henry, 24, 37, 38
174, 180; operations of, 176, 184; 5, 7, 8,8. 9, 155, 159, 162, 172; of Maxim, Hiram Percy, 214
relocation on South Side, 173. Sec See Pope, 8-9, 198, 203,367
203, 367 n. 20, Mazur, Pau1M.,
Paul M., 322,381
322, 381 n. 12
also McCormick, Cyrus H.; 368 n. 44; and rise of "consump-
“consump- Mechanics: Brown & Sharpe as
McCormick, Leander J.; McCor- tion engineer,“
engineer," 322-23; of Singer training ground for, 79; Colt's
Colt’s
mick reaper company, 5, 9, 84, 84, 85, 87, 8'7, Hartford armory as training ground
'McCurdy, Charles W., 355 n. 58
McCurdy, 89,93,
88, 89, 93, 96, 355 n. 58; in for, 49, 50; role of, in diffusion of
McGee, W. J., 189-90 woodworking industries, 145 American system, 5, 8, 45; role
Macluuery, 260
Machinery, Martin. P. E., 245, 270, 282;
Martin, 282: coor- of, in Ford Motor Company.
Company, 220
Machine tool industry, 4, 8, 79, dinates move into Highland Park Mechanization
Mcchani.zation of production. See Sec
231-33, 272 factory, 227-28; and five-dollar also American system of manufac-
Machine tools day, 258; and Ford assembly line, line. tures; Armory practice; Special-
»-American and British, compared,
-American 239, 241, 247- 48; given responsi- purpose machinery
352 n. 142 bility for Model T production, -and American system of manu-
-and annual model change, 380 n. 223-24;
223- 24; prediction of, on Model factures, 4, 49, 51, 61-62, 64,
106 A production, 292; and production 352 nn. 144, 155
—and bicycle industry, 194, 198,
-and 198. of fifteen millionth Model T, 279; —in bicycle industry, 200, 204
-in
203-4, 212
203--4, as user of Ford system of mccha-
mecha- —British views on, in America,
-British
—at Brown &
-at & Sharpe, 76,
76. 77, nical
nicctl drawings, 273; waning power 61-62, 64
79-
79-R282 of, 268; work-scheduling system —in clockmaking,
-in clockmaking. 51, 54-55,
—at Chevrolet, 265
-at of, 229 59-60
-at Colt’s
Colt's armories, 47-51 Mass consumption, 13, 13. 314, 322 —at McCormick factory, 180
-at
—deve1opment oL
-development of, in early twen- Mass production: and agriculture, —in needlemaking,
-in needlcmaking, 75
232. 372 n. 45
tieth century, 232, 12, 309-10, 310; and American -nonfirearms developments, 51
 Index 407

-and
—and sequential operation of spe- Morgan, Henry, 32 51; Model 1813 pistol made by,
cial-purpose machinery, 15, 35, Morgana, Charles, 225, 231, 30; and uniformity system, 29; use
38, 64, 350 n. 77, 352 n. 144 270-71 of division of labor by, 28; and
—in sewing machine industry, 71,
-in Motion study, 236, 249 -53
249-53 use of receiver gauge, 29, 34, 41;
80-81, 91, 92, 93,
91,92, 96, 109
93,96, Miiller-Freienfels, Richard, 320-21 work of, compared to Whitney's,
Whitney’s,
—in small-arms industry: Blan-
-in Mumford, Lewis, 25, 314-15, 330, 32
chard’s contribution to, 35; British
chard's 382 n. 30 Norton, Edwin, 243, 373 n. 70
study of, 19-21, 23-24, 61-62, Murphy, John 1.,
J., 54, 60-61 Nyssa, 138-41
64; at Colt’s
Colt's armories, 47-50, My Life and Work (Ford), 305,
35011.
350 n. 77; Hall's
Hall’s work, 41-43; 316, 321, 373 n. 79 Oak, 143
North’s work, 28-29; at Spring-
North's Mysteries of the Soul, The (Muller-
(Mi.iller- O’Connor, James, 254, 290-91
O'Connor,
field Armory, 35, 38, 44; War De- Freienfels), 321
Freienfcls), Oflicial Descriptive and Illustrated
Official l!lustrated
partment’s pursuit of, 27-35,
partment's Catalogue (London Crystal Palace
Whitney’s work,
38-45; and Whitney's Nasmyth, James: argues for super- Exhibition), 331
30-32 iority of Colt arm, 21; on British Operations sheets: Henry Leland’s
Leland's
—in wagonmaking, 147, 148, 149
-m origin of the American system, 24, 24. development of, at Brown & &
—in woodworking, 127-29
-in 348 n. 32; as expert witness before Singer’s blue book
Sharpe, 82; Singer's
Meida, Charles, 279 Select Committee on Small Anns, Arms, of, 120; use of, at Ford, 224,
Meikle, Jeffrey L., 304, 308-9 maintains interchangeability of
19; maintams 270-71, 273, 376-77 n. 24
Metal spinning machines, hot, Colt revolvers, 23; and origin of Ordnance Department. See United
285 -86
285-86 term "American
“American system of manu- States Ordnance Department
111, 249-50
Meyer, Stephen, III, factures," 17, 334-35; testimony Orr, Robert, 32
Military, 25, 27, 3330
30 of, about machinery production, Overman, A. H., 200-201,
200-201,369 369 n,
n.
Miller, Lebbeus B.:B,: career of, at 19; testimony of, on labor inputs, 64
Singer, 92-93, 96, 120; and Chap- 20; on ult1mate
ultimate result of mecha-
man tour, 104-
104-6;6; and inside con- nization, 23; views of, on Colt's
Colt’s Parks, B. A., 126,
126,145
145
tracting, 93, 109, 114; and Mon- gauging methods, 351 n. 113 Parliamentary committee on small
treal factory, 117-18; reports
repmis of, National armories, 17-18, 25, 34. arms. See Select Committee on
to McKenzie, 110.
110, 112-20; role See also Hall’s
Hall's Rifle Works; Har- Small Arms
of, in expansion of Singer output, pers Ferry Armory; Springfield Parrish, Maxfield, 203, 368 n. 44
95,104,109,
95, 104, 109, 120, 122, 358 n. Armory Patent armsmakers, 45- 45 - 46
135
l35 Needle manufacture, 74, 75, 92 Patent Arms Manufacturing Com-
Miller, Logan, 374 n. 87, 376 n. Nevins, Allan, 10:10; corroborates pany (Colt's),
(Colt’s), 47. See also Colt,
Colt.
20 Sorensen’s account of conveyors,
Sorensen's Samuel
Miller, William H., 47 244; on Ford organization in Patent pool, sewing machine indus-
Milling machine: dependence on, at 1930s, 267; on Ford production try, 68
Colt’s
Colt's armory, 50; first owned by technology, 220, 223, 233; on Peabody Rit1e
Rifle Company, 333
Singer, 92; at Ford, 231, 288; Ford’s work with soybeans, 309;
Ford's Peddler system, 54
Hall’s
Hall's development of, 41; impor- on Kanzler memorandum, 277-78; 277-7f\; Pelletier, LeRoy, 223
tance of, in American system, 29; on Model T announcement, 219; Pentz, Albert
Albe11 D., 110, 112-17,
improvements to tools at Brown & & on origin of Ford assembly line, 120,358
119, 120, n, 134
358 n.
80; North's, 29; universal,
Sharpe, 80: 237-38, 244-46, 246; on River Perkins, Jacob, 51
80 Rouge factory, 267-
267-68;
68; on role of Perry, Thomas, 126
Mitchell, George, 54 Taylorism at Ford factory.
factory, 249-51 Perry, William H., 69--73
Pmy, 69-73
Model, 6, 34, 42, 164-65 New York Times: article of, on mass Phelps, Orson C., 82-82-8383
Model changes production, I,1, 303, 306; on de- Piece rate system, 32, 81, 118,
-American
--American fetish for, 261 cline of Ford Motor Company, 206, 248
—annual:
-annual: at Chevrolet, 264-264-66;
66; 276; editorial on Ford's
Ford’s article, Pierce Foundation, 31 311J
discussed in Fortune,
Forwne, 300-301; at “Mass Production,"
"Mass Production,” 306 -7; edito- Pine, Leighton: advocates use of
Ford, 264, 295; and General Ford’s proposal on mass
rial on Ford's bentwood covers, 142; advocates
Motors, 13, 263-64, 376 n. 6: 6; production in agriculture, 310; gumwood,
use of gum 138-39;
wood, 138 -39; as
impact of, on machine tool ac- editorial on lack of planning at cabinet maker for Singer, 132; ex-
quisitions, 380
380 n. I106;
06; at McCor- 301:
Ford, 30 Ford’s article, "Mass
l; Ford's “Mass plores production costs, 142:
mick, 8, 185-86; and mass pro- Production.”
Production," in, L 1, 303; report of, leaves and returns to Singer, 134;
duction, 264 on Ford changeover, 279, 281, as manager of Singer cabinetmak-
—Ford’s views on, 277
-Ford's 282, 288; report of,‘
of, on Model A ing operations, 133; on the mean-
—in furniture industry, 145, !50
-m 150 changes, 295 ing of quantity production, 140;
—impact of, on market share, 278
-impact New York Times Magazine, 322 work of, on all-veneer cabinets,
—at McCormick, 159, 166-67,
-at Niebuhr, Reinhold, 381 n. 133 136-39, 142, 361 n. 54
169, 170, 178 North,
North. Simeon: contracts to make Pinmaking,
Pin making, 51, 52
“Model T dilemma,''
"Model dilemma," 315 Hall breechloader, 42; contracts to Pioch, William: on changeover to
Modern Times (Chaplin),
(Chaplin). 318-20, make pistols with interchangeable Ford Model A, 284.284, 287, 293
293-94;
-94;
318, 319, 323 28; decline of, 45; Hall's
parts, 28: Hall’s in- on changeover to V-8,
V -8, 297; on
Molding machinery, I105, 05, 239, 240 on, 43; and mechanization
fluence on. Ford’s
Ford's abandonment of stampings,
Monroe, James, 33, 39 of arms production, 29, 41, 349 n. 280;
2.80; as head of Ford tool depart-
408 rrstortx
INDEX

Pioch, William (continued) Prescott, Benjamin, 32-34 Rockelman,

Rockel man, heel Fred L., 279
ment, 272; on pilot lines for Press work. See Stamping. sheet Roe, Joseph W W.,, 17, 335-36
cltangeovers, 294; views of, on
changeovers, :,tee!
steel Roland, Henry. See c'l"ee Arnold,
close grouping of machine tools. tools, Principles of
Prim'iple.\" Scientific lvfunugement
o/’Sct'e1ilr')‘ic Mtmogement Horace L.
287,
21\7' 297 (Taylor), 249-50 Root, Elisha K. K.,, 48, 92
Planing machines, hand, i\5, 85. 93. contractors, 28--32.
Private arms eontracturs, 28-32. Nathan: and concept of
Rosenberg, Nathan
uf1·u Machine tools
See also -50
45 --50 "technological convergence," 4,
“technological convergence,”
Pomeroy.
Pomeroy, Lemuel, 43, 45 Proctor. William F., F.. 81\,
88, 91. 95, 8, 19, 193; on origin of the term. term,
Pond, Lucius W., W_. 174 1 10, 112
110, 1 12 “American
''American system of manufac-
Pope, Albert A,: and League of
A .. ancl dilemma,'' 13,
'·Productivity dilemma."
“Productivity 13. I186
K6 tures," 16; scholarship of, of. on
American Whcelrncn,
Whcclmen. 198. l9il. 203, Prosser, Richard, 19-20, 19-20. 24, 24. 3K
38 woodworking, 127
368 n. 45: marketing strategy of.
3611 Providence Tool Company.
Company, 80. 80, Ross, Francis A., 132
9. 202--3. 367 n. 20.
198. 201. 202-3,
9, ll.l8. 97-99. 357 n. 90 Rudimentarv Treatise on the
Rudi/netztar_\* t/re Con-
Cou-
368 n. 44: and origin of American Punch pressing. See Stamping, Stamping. ,s'trm'tz'rm of
struction Locks (Tomlinson),
0f1.ocl<.s'
industry, 8-9, 190; patent
bicycle industry. sheet steel 331
strategy o1, 9, 198, 200; predicts
of, 9. pr·eclicts Purdy, James, 244 Rumely. Edward A., 261
Rumely,
automobile, 214;
usc of automobile.
use 214'. and Weed Pye. David. 56
Pye, David, -57
56-57 Russell, W. B., 133
J<ussell,
Sewing Machine Company.Company, 190, 190. “Russian plan," 24
''Russian plan,“
202 Qualityi of American machine-made
Quality:
Pope, George (Alben(Albert A.'s cousin),
cousin). pins, 51; and American system of Scientific management, 204. 204,
20R, 212
202, 208, manufactures, 20-21, 23,
mamd'actures, 23. 99, 249--53
Pope, Harry (Albert A.’s A. ·s cousin), 119-20, 212: dispute over, he- be- Scott, John, 109
203 tween Singer and Providence Tool See, James W., 334
lVlanufacturing Company: and
Pope Manufacturing Company, of, at
97-99; pursuit of.
Company. 97-99: Select Committee on Small Arms
adoption of or electric welding.
welding, 200; Singer, 85,
RS, 96, l119-20;
19-·20; and sheet (British): assesses impact of
and armory practice, 192-2.08:
192-208; steel stampings, 211-12; sought by mechanization on cost of small
assembly operations of, 197, llJK. 198. Brown & Sharpe through armory yuestioning
arms, 20; categories of questioning
234: backward integration
205 -· 6, 234;
205-6, practice, 78 of, 19; establishment and purpose
of, 202;
202: and ball-bearing manufac- 17. 207- H.
Quality control, 1117, 8. Sa
See of. to describe
of, 17; expressions of,
ture, 194; bicycles of,
ture. 194: of. 191, 192:
192; u/so Gauges and gauging systems:
also systems; American production methods,
and competition, 200, 208: 208; and Jig, fixture. and gauging system
Jig. 332: investigates British arms
cost accounting, 205; finishing op- procurement system, 17-18; in-
206: and Hartford Cy-
erations of, 206; Rackham.
Rackham, Horace, 259 vestigates mterchangeability
interchangeability of
cle Company, 202-3; hubrnakinghubmaking Rankine, William .1. J. M., 96 23 -24, 49;
American arms, 21, 23-24,
operations oL 01'. 203-4;
203- 4; as industrial Reaper, invention of, 154 arm could be made
questions if an ann
leader, 9, 208. 369 n. 64;
192. 20K.
9. 192, Reaper, rrranufacture
manufacture of. SeeSec by machinery, 19; questions quali-
and inside contracting, 205; manu- McCormick reaper ty of American arms,
arms. 21; recom-
facturing operations of, at Weed Reiss, Hans,
Hans. 110, 112-13 mendations of,of. 25
Sewing Machine Company, Company. 190, Remington Arms Company, 202 Sellers, George Escol, 352 n. 142
Sellers. I42
192-94. 193, 195-97, 198, 200,
192-94, Repair parts, 91-92, 159, 174 Sellers, William, 174
202; marketing strategy of. 9. 9, 198,
198. Report of' of the Committee on 011 the
rhe Sewing machine cabinets: compared
201.
201, 202-3. 367 n. rr 20,368
20, 368 n. 44: ll/J(1cl1iner_v of'
Machinery the United States
ofthe to other wood products, 145-46:
145-461
quality control at, 196, 2117. 207, (Anderson), 16, 125, 322 “drop" cabinet for Singer 1m-
"drop" Im-
207-8:
207-- stampings.
8; and sheet steel stampings, “Report on the Manufactures of In-
"Report proved Family machine. 141; fan-
204, 210, 368 nn. 48, 50
1111. 48. terchangeable Mechanism"
Mechamsm'' cy. for
fur Singer machines.
machines, 135; as
Portcr,
Porter, Edward, 52 (fitch), 153, 333
(Fitch), 127. 128, 128; manufac-
furniture, 127,
Harry Franklin, 261
Porter, !-larry
Purtcr, "Revolution in Machine-Shop Prac- 127- 46; plain walnut for
of. 127-
ture of,
Levi. 52
Porter, Levi,
Porter. The“ (Arnold), 335
tice, The" Singer machines, 135; plain wal-
Portsmouth blockmaking machin- Richards, Archer W., 146 table with paneled cover for
nut tablc
ery, 24, 35, 37, 38 Richards, John, 129, 144, 360 n. Singer machines, 137; Singer bent
David. 322--23
Potter, David,
Potter. 16 plywood cover, 143; of the Wilson
Potter, Orlando.
Orlando, 68 Richards, William, 21, 23 Company, 1876.
Sewing Machine Company.
Pratt, Charles,
Charles. 198 Rigby, John, 335 128
Pratt, Francis, 49
PralL 49-50
-50 “Rise of a Mechanical Ideal, The"
"Rise The” Sewing machine industry, 4,
Pratt & & Whitney,
Whitney. 50, 202 (Fitch). 334
(Pitch), 67- 68, 121, 202. See also Brown
67-68,
Precision: in clockmaking, con- Diego; Detroit industrY,
Rivera, Diego: de-
lmlustry, dc- & Sharpe Manufacturing Com- Coni-
trasted with armsmaking, 56 -57.
56-57, tail of South Wall, 326; Detroit pany;
pany: Singer Manufacturing
Manufactunng Com-
352 n. 134:
1341 demands of, for self- lnrlustt"_\'. North Wall, 324; Detroit
lndustrv, pany; Weed Sewing Machine
binding reaper, 176: 176; of machining 1ndusrr_\', South Wall, 325; fres-
lndustrv, Company; Wheeler and Wilson
at Ford Motor Company, 286, coes of.of, as critique of mass pro- Manufacturing Company
379 n. 80; pursuit of, at Singer, Singer. duction, 323.323, 327 Sewing machines: artifaelual
artifactual analy-
116-17; standards of. of, at Chev- Robb, John, 44 337- 44; Singer
sis of Singer, 337-44:
rolct,
rolet, 265. See alsoolso Gauges and Robbins & & Lawrence Co., 4, 71, (1851), 83; Singer Improved Fami-
gauging systems 73, 78, 80 ly, 108;
108‘, Singer Model A A (I R58),
(1858),
Prei'abricated
Prefabricated housing, II, 1 1, 311-15
31 1-15 Roberts, Gideon, 54 90; Singer New Family (1865).
 Index 409

94; Wheeler and Wilson. 73: Will- at, 121; Chapman’s

at. Chapman's account of Smith, Oberlin, 36lJ369 n. 71
cox & Gibbs, 76 ((1875),
lt\75), 104-6; established, 95, 95. Smith, William, 224, 225
Sharpe, Lucian, 75-78, 80-82 96, I104;
95, lJ6, 04: gauging system at, Sorensen, Charles, 245, 270, 273,
Sharps Rifle
Rifle Manufacturing Com- 92,95,
92. 115. 116,
95, 115, 116. 117,
117,120-21;
120-21: 282, 300:
300; and Clarence Avery,
pany, 193, 195 inside
mside contract system at, I109. 09, 249, 290; and changeover to Mod-
249.
Sheldrick, Laurence. 281, 285-86,
Shcldrick, 285-86. 120, 359 n. 52; manufacturing op- el A, 266, 285, 288-89, 292; on
294 erations at,at. depicted, 100-104:
1110-104; conveyor system at Ford, 244: 244; and
Sinclair, Upton, 241, 316, 320. 321 manufacturing operations at, de- design of Model T, 218, 224; and
Singer, lsaac:
Singer. Tsaac: background of. of, 88:
88; scribed, 104-6, 109-10, 112-17, 112-17. development of assembly line,
on first attempts to introduce inter- 118-20; productivity of, 120:
118-20: 120; 239, 244, 247-
247-48,48, 249, 255, 289;
changeable parts, 355 n. 66; im- resolution on production at, 1116; 16; and five-dollar day, 258: fires
provements of, on sewing Scott’s
Scott's account of ((1880),
1880), I109
09 "Model T sons-of-bitches,"
“Model sons-of-bitches,“
machine, 85:85; as an inventor of the —employment of L.
-employment L, B. Miller.
Miller, 92 289-91;
289·- F1anders‘s contribu-
91; on Flanders's
sewing machine, 5, 82: 82; and patent —incorporation of, 91
-incorporation tions to Ford, 220.
220, 222:
222; on Ford's
Ford’s
pool, 68; sewing machine of, —inside contract system at, 85,
-inside 85. 93,
93. decision to end Model T produc-
1851. 83
1851, 109, 116-17, 120, 133, 134, 140.
109,116-17,120,133,134,140, tion, 279; at Highland Park fac-
Singer, Phelps & Co., 82 143, 356 n. 73,73,359359 n. 152 tory, 223-24, 227-28, 22lJ,
223-24. 227-28. 229, 279;
279:
Singer & Co., I. 1. M. See Singer —and interchangeable parts.
-and parts, 6, 91,
91. and machine tools at Ford, Fore!, 224,
Manufacturing Company 92, 96, 98-99, 105-7, I112,
92,96, 116.
12, 116, 231-32; at River Rouge factory,
231-32: factory.
“Singer Assembly System," I107
"Singer 07 122, 337-44,
337-44. 354 n. 52, 355 nn. 289. 292, 293, 320:
268, 289, 320; and
Singer Manufacturing Company. 66, 69 stamping techniques at Ford,
See also
at/so Bennett.
Bennett, Edwin H., H.; -interfactory operations of. 224 -25
224-25
Clark, Edward;
Edward: McKenzie, George 93-96,109,115-16,117-18.
93-96,109,115-16,117-18. Soybean, 309, 310
R.; Miller, Lebbeus B.; B.: Pentz. 120-21,133,139
120-21' 133, 139 Spalding, B.
Spalding. 182; articles of.
F.. 182:
8. F., of, on
Albert D. ~leadership of, 87-
--leadership 87-88,
88, 91 American system in American:
American
~and American system of manu-
—and -marketing strategy of, 5-6, 84, Maclririisr,
Machinist, 334334-35;
-35; identity of,
factures, 5-6, 88, 88. 90-91, lJ6-99,
96-99. 84, 85-87, 87, 88, 89, 93, 93. 96 355 n. 61; on Singer company‘s
company's
105-7,116,119-20.122
105-7, 116. 119-20. 122 --mechanization of production production techniques, 6, 91. 91, 98,
practice. 6, 85-
-and armory practice, 85-87.
87. processes at. 91 91,, 92-93, 96, 109 106, 107
92.96-99,119,122
92, 96-99. 119, 122 —Montrea1 factory operations of,
-Montreal Special-purpose machinery;
machmery: and
—Boston manufacturing operations
-Boston 117-18 American system of manufactures,
of, 1\3-84
of. 83-84 --needlemaking
-necdlemaking at, 92, 101 38,61,
15, 35, 38, 64, 350 n. 77.
61, 64,350
-cabinetmaking operations of, 12. 12, —l\lew
-New York factory operations of, 144; and armory practice,
352 n. 144:
132-46; and adoption of
104, 132-46: 86, 85-87. 90-93, 95 SO;
50; Blane hare!' s gunstocking
Blanchard’s
woods. 134, 138-39;
cheaper woods, -output of sewing machines, 6, machinery, 35, 36; built by North,
compared with other woodworking 89, 359 n. 146 29; at Chevrolet, 265;
29: 265: in clock-
establishments, 137, 144; contracts -Paris factory established, 88 making, 51.51, 54:
54; at Colt"s
Colt's armor-
133-34. 136.
of, with other firms, 133-34, -production history summarized, 48. SO,
ies, 48, 50, 62; at Ford Motor
144; Elizabethport factory's
factory’s manu- 5-6, 121-22 Company, 222, 227, 227. 233, 288; for
facture of machinery for, 133, --production methods of, contrasted high wheel Columbia bicycle. 194,
139-40; factory costs of, 134, 134. with other mantffacturers, 85- 87.
mandfacturers, 85-87, 198; at McCormick reaper works. works,
140, 142; as a heat user, 138, 145: 145; 121-22 ' 169, 180; Portsmouth blockmaking
and inside contract system, 133. —and question of quality, 99,
-and machinery, 37, 38; at Singer, 85,
140. 143:
134, 140, 143; management of. 114-15,119-20
114-15. 119-20 91, 92, 136, 142; in wagon indus-
140, 143:
133, !40, 143; output of, 132,
132. -repair methods of, 91 try, 146-47, 148: 148; in woodwork-
144; and sensitivity to
140, 142, 144: -—Scottish
--Scottish factory operations of, ing, 35, 36, 37, 38, 12lJ, 129, 136,
136.
changes. 136:
style changes, 136'. South Bend 93-96,115. 120-21. 356 n. 78
93-96, liS. 120-21, 142, 146, 148
established. 132-33:
factory established, 132-33; and —-sewing machines of, 83, 90, 90,
--sewing Spencer. Christopher M., 49
Spencer, -50,
49-50,
supply of products for European 93, 94, 108, 109, 337-44 194
market, 133.
13 3, 142; veneering op- —-work at, of Edwin H. Bennett,
--work Spring, Charles: advocates price re-
erations of, 132, 133, 135, 16,118-21,139
16, 118-21. 139 ductions on reapers. 172: 172; assumes
137-40, 142-43, 143 Single-purpose machinery. See Spe- William McCormick’s
McCormick's duties, 168; 16il:
-contract of, with Providence Tool cial-purpose machinery estimates fire damage at McCor-
Company, 97-99 Slaughterhouse, 241. 241, 242 mick works, 173. 174: I74; given stock
-contrasted with Ford Motor Com- Slides, gravity. 238, 242, 256,
gravity, 238. in McCormick corporation, 177: 177;
pany, 260 371 n. 17,17,373
373 n. 60 reports of, on Leander, 177, 177; re-
—and
-and Domestic Sewing Machine Sloan, Alfred P., Jr., 263, 265, 267 ports of, on lost sales, 178; views
sales. 178:
Company, 97-99 Sloanism, 267 of, on McCormick factory under
-—early
-early production methods of, 5. 5, Smith, C. J., 218 Cyrus, Jr., 11\0,
180, 11\2
182
6, 354 n.n, 52 Smith, Merritt Roe: on John H. Springfield Armory: and American
--Elizabethport factory of: assem-
--E\i7.abethport Hall, 39-43; on North‘sNorth's milling system of manufactures, 3- 3-4:4:
bling operations at, 103, 105-6, machine. 29; on ongin origin of Amer- assembly operations at, 62, 63;
107,110,112, 113, 116,117,
107,110,112,113,116,117, ican system, 3; 3: on Wadsworth and Blanchard’s work at, 35, 36. 38;
Blanchard's 3il;
122; blue book for operations at,
122: Bomford, 33; on Eli Whitney, 29, British study of, 23, 6l-- 61-- 62; de-
120 -21;
-21: bureaucratic procedures 31 velopments at, reviewed.
reviewed, 332-35,
2-35,
410 INDEX
INDEX

Springfield Armory (continued) tem of manufactures, 374 n. 95; dianapolis

diana polis Cabinet Company,
38, 43- 45; and diffusion of
43-45; and Fordism, 249-53, 374 n. 94 136-37:
136-37; production of, 134; use
pr~ctice, 5, 45; gauging
armory practice, Darwin, 309
Teague, Walter Dorwin, of, by Singer, 133, 134, 136-40,
system of, 34-35, 41, 44; and Technics and Civilization (Mum- 142-43, 361 n. 41; use
usc of, by
John RH. Hall, 41, 43, and inter- ford), 330 Wheeler and Wilson,
Wilson. 136
changeable parts, 23, 24, 34-35, Technological convergence, 4, 19
44- 45, 62; mechanization at, 35,
44-45, Authority. 308
Tennessee Valley Authority,
44-45, 62, 64; output of, 349 nn. Terry, Eli, 51-52, 53, 54 Wadsworth, Decius, 27, 33, 40
64, 65 Terry, Henry, 351 n. 127 Wagon industry, 146-50
Springfield principle, 21, 24 Terry, Samuel, 54 Wallis, George: as ~s expert witness
S9, 59-60
Stamping, brass, 58, 59, Testing machine, 207, 208, 369 n. before Select Committee on Small
Stamping, sheet steel: adoption of, 64 Arms, 19;
19‘, on mechanization of
at Ford, 10, 224-25, 225, 226, Thomas, Seth, 52, 55,
55,55,
55, 56, 57 production in America, 62; Special
234; adoption of, at Studebaker, Thomson, Elihu, 149. 200, 201 Report of, 16, 18, 61, 331-32:
331-32;
149; development of, in bicycle Thornton, William, 39 testimony of, on interchangeable
industry, 209-12, 209, 210, 211, Time study, 374 n. 92. See also parts for Springfield musket,
213; and Ford Model A, 280-81, Motion study 348 n. 27
285, 295; history of, 369 n. 71; Tin Lizzie; The Story of the Fabu- Walters, Ernest A., 225, 274-75,
274 -75,
techniques of, contrasted with lous Model T Ford (Stern), 273 284-85
armory practice, 209-12; views Tires, pneumatic, 202 Wandersee, John F., 279
of, by traditional metal-working Tomlinson, Charles, 331 Warner, Seth P., !56 156
firms, 9 Tousard, Louis de, 26-27, 33 Warner. Thomas, 44-45, 47
Standardization: and American Toward Civilization (Beard, ed.),
ed. ), Warren,
Watrcn, Alanson, 69
taste, 151; and critics of mass pro- 308 Warren, Wheeler, and Woodruff.
duction, 315, 316, 321; of Ford Treatise on the Construction and See Wheeler and Wilson Manufac-
product, 227, 307, 371 n. 28; Operation of W0od-
Wood- Working turing Company
French origins of, 25; interarmory, Machines (Richards), 129, 144, Waters, Asa, 35,35. 45
34; interfactory, at Singer com- 360 n,
n. 16 Waters, Asa. II,ll, 35
l 20-21; lack of, in furniture
pany, 120-21; Tulloh, James SS.,, 43, 347 n. Ill,
I, Way Out, The (Filene). 315
design, 145; of McCormick reap- 350 n. 77 Webb, Sidney, 306
production. 307;
er, 157; and mass production, Tungsten carbide, 297 Weed Sewing Machine Company:
Singer’s efforts to achieve, in
Singer's factory of, 195; and manufacture
manufacturing, 96 Colt’s views of,
Uniformity system: Colt's of Pope bicycle, 190, 192-93,
Standards of manufacture, 119-20
1 19-20 21, 49; Hall’s
Hall's methods of, 41-42;
41-42: 198,200,202,
193, 194, 198, 36711.
200, 202, 367 n.
Stearns Manufacturing Company, North’s, 29; origins of, in
Simeon North's, ll; purchased by Pope Manufac-
II;
205 France, 25; pursuit of, by United turing Company, 202; 202: purchases
Steel tubing, cold-drawn, 202 States Ordnance Department, 4, electric welding machinery, 200
Stem, Philip Van Doren, 273, 274 27, 33-34, 42; at Singer, 87; at Welding,
Welding. electric resistance: adop-
Stevens, Joshua, 352 n. 142 Studebaker, 147. See also Amer- tion of, by Studebaker, 149; for
Stickney, Gage, 19, 21, 24, 49, ican system of manufactures; Ford Model A, 284-85, 286; for
351 n. 108 Armory practice; Gauges and sheet steel bicycle parts, 8, 210,
Stiles, N. C., 174 gauging systems; Jig, fixture, and 210, 367 n. 33; Thomson electric
Stubblefield, J~mes,
James, 28-29, 34, 35, gauge system;
system: Interchangeable welder (1891
(1891),), 201; use of, on
40 parts Pope bicycle, 200
Studebaker, Clement, 147 United States Corps of Artillerists Western Wheel Works: history of,
Studebaker, Henry, 141477 and Engineers, 26 208-13, 369 n. 71; materials
Studebaker, John Molher, 147 United States Ordnance Depart- handling at, 212; outstrips Pope
Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing ment, 3-4, 33. See also United production, 192, 208; 208: production
Company, 146-47, 149-51 States War Department methods of, 9, 209-12
of. 9.
Style changes: in clock industry. United States War Department: and Westinghouse Airbrake Company,
Westinghot,se
54, 60; in Ford Model T, 273-77‘.
273 -77: establishment of Springfield 240, 240
in woodworking industry, 136, Armory, 32; and interchangeable Whedon, James, 177-78
145, 150, 361 n. 40. See also parts, 25, 26, 27-28, 49; objec- Wheeler, Nathaniel, 68- 68-69,
69, 71-73
Model changes tives of, contrasted with clockmak- Wheeler and Wilson Manufacturing
Successful
Succes:,jiil Living in This Machine ers‘, 60; and private arms contrac-
ers', Company: assembly room of, 72;
Age (Filene), 307 tors, 28, 40, 47. See also United cabinetmaking operations of,
Swaging, 208, 369 n. 64 States Ordnance Department 130-32, 131, 134, 136; contrasted
Sward, Keith, 257 Universal Credit Corporation, 293 with Brown & Sharpe and Singer,
Swope, Gerard, 311 Uselding. Paul, 48, 347 n. 5
Uselding, 121-22; history of, 5, 68 68-75:
-75;
Systeme Gribeauval, 25, 26, 33 machine shop of, 71: 71; output of
Van Dyke, James, 137-39 (1853-1876), 70: 70; punching out
Taylor, Frederick W., 204, 249-53 Veneer: for clock cases, 55; costs needle eyes at, 74; sewing
Taylor, Zachary, 47 of, compared to solid work, 142:
142; machmc of (ca. 1876). 73
machine
Taylorism, 204; and American sys- manufacturing techniques of, at In- Wheeler.
Wheeler, Wilson and Company. See
 lnciex
Index 411

Wheeler and Wilson Manufactur- 288, 294; on changeover to Ford hibition, 129; general purpose,
ing Company V-8, 297; on Ford layout depart- 359 n. 12; for gunstock manufac-
Wheelmaking
Whee!making machinery, 146-47, ment, 271; on machine tools at ture, 24, 35, 36, 41, 44, 125,
148, 151 Ford, 232, 287- 88; on mass pro- 126, 129; owned by McCormick
Wheelmon, 198
Whee/man, duction at Ford, 371 n. 40; work in 1859, 164; problems of schol-
White Sewing Machine Company. of, at Ford, 270 -71, 300, 377
270-71, arship on, 129; at Singer Manufac-
202 n. 27 turing Company, 132- 46; at
Mankind: A Panorama of
Whither Manl<incl.' Widdicomb Furniture Company, Studebaker, 14147;
7; for wheel manu-
Modern Civilization (Beard,
Mad ern Civiftzation (Beard. ec1.),
ed. ), 144 facture, 148; at Wheeler and Wil-
321 Wilkinson, Lewis, 7, 178-
178-8080 131, 134, 136;
130-32,131,
son, 130-32,
Whitney, Amos, 49-50 Willcox, Charles, 75, 76, 77 Joseph Whitworth’s
Whitworth's views on,
Whitney, Eli, 26, 40, 43; and ideas Willcox, James A., 75, 76, 77 61-62, 125. See also Woodwork-
of Blane,
8 lane, 30; and interarmory Willcox & Gibbs sewing machine: ing technology
standardization committee, 34; and Henry M. Leland‘s
Leland's contributions Woodworking technology: ASME's
ASME’s
legend of interchangeable parts, 3, to manufacture of, 81; manufac- critique of American, 12, 145;
331,
I, 32; musket deliveries of, ture of, by Brown & Sharpe, contrasting American and British
349 n. 57; as private arms contrac- 82; output of, 70, 353 n. 30;
75-82;
75- views of, 125-27; John Richards
tor, 28-32 U.S. patent model (1858),
(t858), of, 76 and history of, 360 n. 16; schol-
Whitney, Eli, Jr., 47 Willcox & Gibbs Sewing Machine Singer’s con-
arship on, 127-28; Singer's
Whittemore, Amos, 5! 51 Company, 75 centration of, 144; of Studebaker
Whitworth, Joseph: and American Williams, Raymond, 345 n. 4 Brothers, 146; veneer, heat inputs
clockmaking, 51, 59; on British Wills, C. Harold, 218, 223, 224,
224. to, 362 n. 80; and Wheeler and
origin of the American system, 24; 239, 245, 258 Wilson's veneer work, I136.
Wilson’s 36. See
as expert witness before Select Wilson, Allen B., 68-69 also Singer Manufacturing Com-
Committee on Small Arms, 18, Wilson, James, 71 pany, cabinetmaking operations of;
19, 20; on musket assembly, 62, Winchester, 202 Woodworking machinery
198; on necessity of hand work, Wollering, Max, 221, 222--23
222-23 Woodworth, Joseph V., 8, 8. 189,
20, 21, 23, 99; observations of, on Woodbury, Robert S., 3, 194 214, 335
American woodworking, 125, 129; Woodruff, George B., 69, 356 n. “Workmanship
"Workmanship of certainty,"
Special Report of, 16, 18, 61, 83 56-57
331-32; and tour of Springfield Woodward, Helen, 322, 327 “Workmanship of risk," 56
"Workmanship 56-57
-57
Armory, 45, 62; and tour of Woodworking firms, 127, 144
United States manufacturing Woodworking machinery: Amer- Young, James C., 276, 277
plants, 61; views of, on inter- 125. 126;
ican, at Enfield Arsenal, 125, Young, Owen D., 311
changeable parts, 23 John Anderson's views on, 125;
Wibel, A. M.: on changeover to for clockmaking, 54-55; displayed Zieber, George B.,
13., 82
Ford Model A, 279, 284-85, at New York Crystal Palace Ex-