By Abdul Mohammed
In the year 1776, the year America declared Independence from Britain, it was pretty much dependent on Britain for manufactured goods, much like the case of sub-Saharan’s dependence on the developed world for much of the same today. This was a situation deliberately orchestrated by Britain. Britain had instituted policies and acts throughout its colonies banning them from producing manufactured goods, permitting them only to produce raw materials, which were shipped to Britain at prices it controlled, and Britain in return sold manufactured goods in its colonies, which of course were multiple times in value of the raw materials it got from its colonies. This was one of the conditions that the American colony found increasingly intolerable that led to the War of Independence. Another major issue were taxes imposed by Britain that the American colony found increasingly onerous.
Despite the acts/policies of Britain banning manufacturing, there was some illegal small-scale manufacturing going on the American colony prior to 1776. This small-scale manufacturing was the result of interactions between a few technically inclined farmers and blacksmiths. Now you need to understand that late 18th century America was an overwhelmingly rural country with virtually every one being a subsistence farmer (as about two-thirds of Africa is now) living on subsistence farms. The few who were not farmers tended to be millers who helped farmers convert their grain to flour or they were blacksmiths fashioning all manner of relatively crude tools and utensils for farmers. During winters when no farming could be done, technically inclined farmers would hang out with blacksmiths to carry out all manner of experiments.
In this way, America’s manufacturing output slowly grew, though to be sure it was very small-scale and taking place in just a few locations in the northeastern part of the country where the first colonists settled before spreading southwards and then westwards. Still, it was the beginning of the process that would turn the US from an agricultural nation to an industrial nation. We shall soon meet some of these farmers turned engineers (though the word engineer didn’t exist at the time), who kick started America’s Industrial Revolution from the bottom up but I should point out that there was also equally top down activity by some visionary politicians to get America’s industrialization going, which I think it is instructive that we visit first.
Foremost amongst these visionary politicians was Alexander Hamilton, America’s first Secretary of the Treasury (Minister of Finance. A position he held at the age of 33). You see, even though the War of Independence had been won, Britain was still using other means to keep America dependent on them for manufactured goods. They banned skilled artisans from emigrating to the US, and often dumped goods at prices below cost. Hamilton realized that this situation inimical to the long-term health of the American nation because in the future, a nation’s wealth and power would largely be a function of its industrial economy. I think that it is unfortunate that something Hamilton grasped then, many African politicians are still struggling to grasp more than 200 years later. Anyway, Hamilton was dead set on pushing reforms that would transition America from an agricultural nation to an Industrial nation. The reforms had 3 main points; Setting up a national (central) bank that could lend money to manufacturers and provide a stable currency that would encourage investment; Set up a tariff system to regulate imports in order to protect America’s nascent industry; The funding and building of a transportation system consisting of toll roads, canals and railroads to span the entire country (often described as a continent because the US is a country of continental proportions) in order to create a national market that could spur nationwide demand for manufactured goods. He submitted his ideas in a report to Congress titled Report on Manufactures in 1791. He would find backing for his proposals from the North, particularly the Northeast, where the few industries that existed were generally found.
However, he was opposed by the South save for the limited implementation of an act setting up the national bank, which was led by Thomas Jefferson, the first Secretary of State and later, 3rd president of the US. For about 70 years, the South and the North would consistently lock horns over these issues till the eruption of the Civil war in 1861, broke the deadlock in the North’s favor. They also happened to win the War as well. The South opposed these reforms because having no industries, the national bank would be of little benefit to them. They also thought a tariff system would only increase the price of goods and finally, a nationwide transportation system would be of little use to them because they had a river system that enabled their main revenue earner, cotton to be easily shipped to the ports for export to Britain. Jefferson also thought such reforms would make government beholden to financial and business interests, and become unresponsive to the common man. I should also add that Jefferson and Hamilton had great animosity for one another.
With the onset of the War, many southern states would secede from the US. This gave the North the majority it needed to push through its reforms. The reforms themselves would play a crucial part in helping them win the war in 1865. A fact that was not lost on the defeated South. After the war, the South would come around to the North’s way of thinking and agreed that that the creation of a self-sufficient nation was contingent upon a diverse economy that could be achieved only through the development of industry.
We can now circle back to the ingenious farmer/engineers that built the machines that built America. The first major figure was Oliver Evans who made many innovations but arguably his most influential was the conveyor belt he conceived over a couple of years in 1782 and 1783. Originally conceived to convey grain to millers, today, conveyor belts are everywhere that we use them without thinking. Escalators at train stations, airports and shopping malls. On production and assembly lines in factories. In hoisting bricks, mortar and every kind of building material on construction sites.
Next we look at Sam Slater, a Briton who is credited with having started large scale textile production in America. He was able to do this because he was extremely fortunate to win an apprenticeship at the age of 14 in Britain’s very first factory. By age 21, he emigrated to the US in 1789. But before he did that, he memorized every single detail of the factory he worked in, and on embarking on his journey dressed as a farmer so he wouldn’t be suspected of being an artisan. Though he landed in the US penniless, he soon found financial backers. He then from memory, reproduced the factory he had worked in in Britain. For this he is credited for having gotten the Industrial Revolution officially underway in the US.
Next we look at Eli Whitney. Whitney’s name is supremely associated with America’s journey to mass manufacturing though without controversy. The two inventions most associated with him are the cotton gin and the system of interchangeable parts. Some observers (though not all), question his role in the emergence of these two things, some believing he only made minor improvements to the cotton gin and wasn’t much more than a gifted promoter of interchangeable parts. What is not in doubt is that his name is associated with these two inventions more than any other, so I will go on to describe, what happened as if there is no controversy.
Whitney, though trained as a lawyer had a technical inkling from a young age. After graduation, he would move from the North where he was from to the South to take up a job as a tutor, but would soon get distracted by the problems cotton growers were having harvesting cotton. The process was painfully slow, even with hardworking slaves working all day. Whitney would devise the cotton gin in 1794 which would increase a slave’s productivity by about 50 times. An unfortunate byproduct of this success was that it gave a spur to the slave trade, which is rather ironic given that Whitney vehemently opposed slavery.
But as intended, it greatly increased cotton output. In a single year after Whitney’s invention, the US cotton crop increased from 5 to 8 million pounds. 6 years later (1800) 35 million pounds were produced. In 1805 this figure doubled, rising to 70 million. By 1820, it was 160 million and by 1825 (the year Whitney died) it was 225 million. Whitney would however make little money from his cotton gin as he could not enforce his patents and so his invention was liberally copied with him, hardly receiving a dime. So he soon found himself in dire financial straits.
At the time Whitney made his far more important contribution, American manufacturing was based on the handcraft system. What this meant is that manufactured goods were made by skilled artisans largely unaided by machines. One large flaw of the handicraft system was that no 2 units of the same good, for example a gun, even made by the same artisan, were exactly alike. So if you had what were supposed to be two identical units of the same gun that were supposed to consists of the same parts, you couldn’t interchange their parts because artisans could not get the corresponding parts in the two units of the gun to be exactly alike. Another major flaw was that the handcraft system was too slow and so output of industrial scale that could supply the needs of an entire nation wasn’t possible. Whitney changed all of that. In 1798, the US almost went to war with France. To prepare for the possible outbreak of war, the US required the production of war rifles, enough to equip an army and manufactured with utmost speed.
Even though Whitney had no prior experience with weaponry, through high contacts he secured the contract. The contract called for him to deliver 10,000 rifles in 3 years. He knew there was no way the handcraft system could turn out that many rifles in so short a time. Therefore, he started thinking about building machines that would build the rifles. It was then he was supposed to have also come up with the idea of making that parts of the rifles interchangeable, since machines could be consistent in a way human beings could not. Whitney would be grossly late in fulfilling the contract, not completing the order until 8 years after. The US government however seemed to have been satisfied because they gave him another contract which secured him financially.
It is almost impossible to exaggerate the importance of the breakthrough of interchangeable parts to global mass manufacturing today and to the US at the time. Once machines could be devised to produce a manufactured product’s parts to very fine tolerances as to make the parts interchangeable, it was relatively straightforward to get those machines to produce any other manufactured product with interchangeable parts and without the need for skilled artisans. All the skill necessary was embedded in the machines and unskilled labor could competently operate the machines. So from rifles, then to revolvers, the system of interchangeable parts was soon used to produce just about every manufactured good on a very large scale basis…farm harvesters, clocks, typewriters, sewing machines, which is credited with having spurred feminism…women in America first found work outside the home in textile factories producing standardized clothing. Earning money for themselves gave them the platform to push for other rights like the right to vote…bicycles, cameras and then ultimately automobiles largely through the visionary efforts of Henry Ford. The automobile would be a spur to many other industries, particularly steel and petroleum. The automobile industry would surpass both of them in annual gross value in 1925, becoming the dominant sector in the US economy. It would also completely revolutionize social life in America. Housing, shopping, dating, all were radically changed by the automobile. By this time, America had become the world’s industrial powerhouse.
America didn’t stop there of course. It has continued to redefine what it means to be an industrial nation. Since then it has achieved breakthroughs in electricity production and electronics, computing, Jet aircraft, robotics, biotechnology, clean technology, nanotechnology…with interchangeable parts and mass manufacturing playing crucial roles in all these areas. There seems to be no end in sight and it is hard to see what the future brings. One thing is certain though, scientific and technological expertise will be at the heart of any new breakthroughs and will be the basis for new rounds of economic prosperity.
Bibliography
- Burlingame, Roger. 1953 Machines that Built America. New York: Signet Key Books
- Roser, Christoph. 2017 “Better, Faster Cheaper” in the History of Manufacturing: From the Stone Age to Lean Manufacturing and Beyond. Boca Raton: CRC Press
- Olson, James S. et al. 2015 The Industrial Revolution: Key Themes and Documents. California: ABC-CLIO
