Introduction Moss production become the Great American Art Pal Maz, American Prosperity ince the 1920s the term mass production has become so deeply ingrained in our mm Vocabulary that we seldom question its origin. The purpose of this study is t0 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 dlistinet lines inthe fiest half of the nineteenth century that English observers inthe 1850s, referred to an “American system" of manufactures. This American system grew and 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.” In 1925 the American editor of the Encyclopaedia Britannica wrote to Henry Ford asking him to submit an article on mass production forthe three-volume supplement to the Britannica. Apparently Ford's office. if not Ford himself, responded favorably and promptly set Ford's spokesman, William: 1. Cameron, to werk on the article. Cameron consulted the company’s chief production planner about how to state the principles of ‘mass production for the “general reader.” When Cameron completed the article, be placed Henry Ford's name beneath it and sent it to the Britannica's New York office." Although Cameron would later say that he “should be very much surprised 0 learn that [Henry Ford had] read it,"? tis article played a fundamental roe in giving the phrase ‘mass production a place in the English vocabulary. Even before the article appeared in the Britannica, the New York Times had published it as a full-page feature in @ Sunday edition, titled “Henry Ford Expounds Mass Production: Calls It the Focussing of the Principles of Power, Economy, Continvity and Speed.”” and distributed it through the ‘wire service. An editorial on the Subject appeared in the same edition.’ The Britannica editor's reason for choosing the term mass production is unknown, but there i Tittle doubt that the ghostwritten Ford article led to its widespread use and identification with the assembly line manufacturing techniques that were the hallmark of automobile produc tion.* After 1925, the term appeared in reference works such as the Reader's Guide t0 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 It soon superseded the previously popular expression Fordism, ‘Thus the article signed by Ford endowed the expression ‘mass production with a certain universality despite its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. * ass wax—anc ist grammarians would sa sil isa nov eater than an adjective The tem mass production raves the gustan of wiser thie i pratacton aimed a the “masses oF merely quUntyFicvne 04, A Day's Output of Ford Model T's, Highland Park Factory, 1915. (Hemry Fort “Museum, The Edison Institute. Nog. No. 0-716.) Much more important than the story of how mass production entered the English lopments that lay behind the production system described in the and the Britan sential questions: voedbulary article, Comm Democracy, B 1 aticle in bis Engines of With (Fo those produetion methods in use today in e ily the methods of Eh ition? They large automobile plant with se Whitney and Samuel Colt, impr economy in time, space, men, motion, money and materil.""S 1d applied with intelligent economyIntroduction aa ERS a Ticuet 42. Ford Motor Company, Highland Par ‘The Edison Insitute, Neg, No, 833-700.) rory Employees, 1915. (Menry Ford Mur Since the establishment of the history of technology as an academic discipline in the United States, the assertions contained in both Ford’s Britannica acticle and Burlingame’ 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 MeCormick, and others, has become one of the most productive areas of American scholarship in the history of tecknolog; at new scholarship, combined with the research in this study, indicate that the Ford article came much nearer the truth than ted, “mass produc sth century Was not “Portions oft did Burlingame and his followers. “In origin,” the Ford piece sug, tion i American and recent””—what Whitney et al did in the ninet {rue mass production. The ttle ofthis stady 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 larly conceming a basic aspect of modern manufacturing, the interchangeablity of parts The symbolic kingpin of interchangeable parts production fell in 1960 when Robert S. Woodbury published his essay "The Legend of Eli Whitney and Interchangeable Pars in the first Volume of Technology and Culture, Woodbury convincingly argued thatthe parts of Whitney's guns were notin fact constructed with interchangeable parts. In 1966 the artifactual research of Edwin A, Battison solidly confirmed Woodbury's more tradi- tional dacument-based research findings. Euge pioneering article, “Except for Whitney's ability to sell an undeveloped idea, litle remains of his title as father of mass production, With Eli Whitney reinterpreted asa promoter rather than asa pioney interchangeable parts manufacture,* it remained for Merritt Roe Smith to identity con clusively the personnel and the circumstances ofthis fundamental step in the development fof mass production. Smith demonstrated that the United States Ordnance Department ‘was the prime mover in bringing about machine-made interchangeable parts production of st Springfield, Massachusetts, played a major roe in this, process, especially in its efforts to coordinate its operations with those of the Harpers Ferry Armory and John Hall’s experimental rifle factory, also at Harpers Ferry. Although these federally owned arms plants were central to its efforts, the Ordnance Department Ferguson later wrote of Woodbuty's of machine-made stall arms. The national armalso contracted with private armsmakers. By specifying interchangeability in its contracts and by giving contractors access fo techniques used inthe 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. British observers foun these techniques sufficiently different from their own as to allude to them as the ““American system,”” the “American plan," and the ““American prin- ciple." Although British visitors to the United States in the 1850s, especially Joseph Whit- worth and John Anderson, were impressed with every aspect of American manufacturing, ‘mall arms production received their most careful and detailed analysis, Certainly tis was, Anderson’s job, for he had been sent to the United States to find out everything he could about small arms production and to parchase armsmaking machinery for the Enfield Armoury. In his report, Anderson indicated that the federal armory at Springtield had inded achieved what the Ordnance Department had sought since its inception: tue inerchangeability of parts. Anderson and his committee had designed a rigorous tes (0 verify this achievement, and when they had completed it, they were no longer doubters. 12 ‘What Anderson was not Iikely to have known was the extraordinary sum of money that the Ordnance Department had expended over 4 forty- fifty-year period, "‘in order,” as an Ondeance Officer wrote in 1819, “to attain this grand object of uniformity of parts.” Nor was Anderson necessarily aware that the unit cost of Springfield small arms with imerchangeable parts almost certainly was significantly higher than that of arms produced, by more traditional methods. He sbould, however, have known thatthe Ordnance Depart- ment could annually tum out only a relatively small number of Springfield arms manufac- ‘ured with interchangeable pars. Despite the high costs and limited output, Anderson pointed out thatthe special techniques used in the Springiield Armory as well as in some private aemories could be applied almost universally in metalworking and woodworking establishments. Infact, by the time Anderson reached this conclusion, the application of those techniques in other industries was already under way The new manufacturing technology spread first to the production of @ new consumer durable, the sewing machine, and eventually it diffused into such arcas a typewriters bicycles, and eventually automobiles. Nathan Rosenberg has provided economic and technological historians with an excellent analysis of « major way in which this diffusion ‘occurred. # Rosenberg identified the American machine tool industry, which grew out of the small arms industry (notably 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 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 pars. As each problem was solved, new knowledge went back into the machine tool firms, which then could be used, {or solving production problems in other industries. Rosenberg called this phenomenon “technological convergence."” In many industries that worked with metal, the final products were sold in vastly different markets—the Springfield Armory, for example, “sold” its products to a single customer, the government, whereas sewing machine 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” at the point where the machine tool industry interacted withthe firms that bought its machine toolsInuroduction [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 10 automobile manufacture. Examples of such mechanies abound. Henry M. Leland is an obvious example: he worked at the Springfield Armory, catried this Knowledge 10 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. But the process of diffusion was neither as smooth nor as simple as Rosenberg and ‘thers would have it. New research suggests thatthe factories of two of the giants of nineteenth-century manufacturing, the Singer Manufacturing Company and the MeCor- ‘mick Harvesting Machine Company, were continually besct with production problems. Previously, many historians attributed the success of these two companies to their a vanced production technology. But it now appears that a superior marketing strategy, including advertising and sales techniques and policies, proved to be the decisive factor.!® Although the Singer sewing machine was the product ofthe colorfully scandalous Isaac Singer, the successful enterprise known as I. M. Singer & Co. {incorporated in 1863 as Singer Manufacturing Company) was primarily the handiwork of lawyer Edward Clark Clark's success rested on marketing, not on production techniques. The Singer company initially held no technical advantages and no decisive patent monopoly aver major com- Petiiors because in order to construct a workable sewing machine, four organizations {Guclading Singer) had been forced to pool their patents. In fac, one member of the pool the Wheeler and Wilson Manufacturing Company. took an early and wide lead until Singer surpassed its production in 1867 (lorty-three thousand Singer machines versus thirty-eight thousand Wheeler and Wilson). After 1867, Singer dominated the industry anc! eventually absorbed Wheeler and Wilson, Wheeler and Wilson had based its produe- ‘ion on what contemporaries called "armory practice,” that is, the produetion techniques used at leading armories, such as Springfield. ts manufacturing system was established by three former amsmaking machinists, one trained at Colt’s Hartford armory, one who worked at Nathan Ames’s armory and for eight years atthe 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 instrument maker's shop and later it rented “rooms” in a New York manufacturing 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! Manhattan Firearms Company, rather than in one of the great advanced armories of New England. As the company's leader, Edward Clark had empha- sized marketing rather than production. In 1855 he wrote a high-level company employee thar “a large part of our own success we attribute 10 our numerous advertisements and publications. To insure success only two things are required: Ist to have the best machines and 2nd to let the public know it."""7 "To have the best machines” implied not only excellence in design but also quality in manufacture, There was no question in Clack’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 ‘A notable aspect of Singer's marketing trategy——as well as Cyrus MeCormick's—was thae the Singer machine was deliberately sold atthe top of the pricelist for the industrythroughout the nineteenth century, Moreover, Singer maintained its high price for most of this period despite significant growth in production and sales. Its 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 ard ‘more machines at the same price level."* Singer's business continued to expand both in the United States and abroad, By 1880) the firm’s world output had reached five hundred thousand machines annually. Singer's factory superintendent, who had been hired away from the Manhattan Arms Company, had gradually introduced special-purpose machinery and ha striven toward production of ‘more uniform parts. Yet for a long time, as B. F. Spalding pointed out in the Americar: “Machinist in 1890, Singer “compromised with the European method fof manufacture| by employing many cheap workmen in finishing picces by dubious hand work wich could hhave been more economically made by the absolutely certain processes of machinery." The records of the company show conclusively that Spalding was right. In fact despite the increasing use of a rational jig, fixture, and gauging system (a hallmark of arms. production technology), parts of Singer sewing machines were hank-fitted together by skilled fiters as late as 1883. The inability of Singer's major U.S. factory to meet the continually growing demand for sewing machines finally led the president of the com pany, who had “worked bis way up from the bench," to establish an ad hoc production committee. This committer, whieh included the president, dhe factory superintendent, end the superintendent's chief assistants, resolved in March 1883 that “each piece com: ‘menced in a department shall be finished there to gauge (sie] ready for assembling and no part shall be made in the department where itis assembled into the machine." ‘This resolution clearly indicates that extensive hanc/-ftting and custom machining were ‘done during the process that Singer publicly called “assembly.” Try as they would atin interchangeable pars on Singer machines, however, a Singer official noted almost two years later that the factory was “no further ahead than we were {Wo years ago" in perfecting interchangeable parts manufacture.?" Whereas Springfield Armory had turned ‘out arms numbering into the thousands constructed with perfectly interchangeable parts, the Singer Manufacturing Company could not achieve the goal ata time when it made half million sewing machines annually. Singer simply could not afford to lavish the same mount 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 Encyelopuedia Britannica: “In mass production there are no fiters.""2? Despite its grand successes in both sales and production, the Singer Manufacturing Company left the development of mass production unfinished “tis impontant to understand whats edn! by "ston is xtra ewgng sem," becabsc twas it hs stom that rears makers nthe ancl pra! wore bl to pace weapons with neha she pars The system was rtnna bec was asd ona mn, wih nen see Ga Be peed 2 kin! of Patonie malin hit aemsmkers viewed te mel weapon asa We form Al rodicton ats ‘sere but imperfect imitations ofthis sul (ut fal) mod. gs and fixes afe denice fo fxr HAM Tworpiess ip machine 108. How a workpiece is Fixed in machine tol determines on pat) 6 curacy ‘xpecilly when moe can one machining operstion ix dvolvd. If several operations are pformed on ‘workpiece which regres sever ifrent fxs to Mo it in machine to or a series of chine tos sceracy becomes problematic unless the xt are desighed on some common. rational Dass The nine "cei contr, the mn povided this ui, AI fnturs were Gesned with ore othe mod, teehy ‘enstrig uifoiy. Ie ation, exes to vey this norms were as contre. Where densions ad Tis were crcl, gauges were made base the oslo eal ores. Wah uch eid ages an at Pts produced ie machine tol aprons eomparale pat the mideIntroduction because it continued to rely upon fitters, The same was even more true at the MeCormick Harvesting Company. Peshaps no major American manufacturing establishment has been more misun- dexstood than the MeCormick reaper works inthe nineteenth century. Throughout popular literature of the nineteenth century anc’ in secondary historical literature ofthis century, the McCormick works is deseribed as a model manufacturing establishment and credited with advanced production techniques, This certainly may have been true when compared {o other agricultural implement makers, but when viewed alongside the Springfield Armo- ry or even the Singer Manufacturing Company, the production technology at the MeCot- mick works appears crude. It has long been asserted that Cyrus MeCormick adopted the manufacturing techniques developed in New England armories when hc established the seaper works in Chicago in 1848. But the firm’s founder never took a serious interest in the manufacture of his reaper. He let that to his youngest brother, Leander J. MeCor- ‘mick, who had learned only the craft of blacksmithing before he lft the family’s Virginia homestead to superintend Cyrus's Chicago factory Between that date, 1848, and 1880 there is little evidence that Leander expanded his ‘echnical 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 litle evidenee 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 outpat of 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, MeCormick was manufacturing on ‘small scale. Like the Singer machine, the price of MeCormick’s produets was top ofthe line, From the outset, Cyrus McCormick had marketed his machine aggressively, spending what his brother William considered “enormous” sums of money on advertising. AS the years proceeded, McCormick changed his initial agent or distributor system of sales to fran- chised dealerships supervised by regional office managers.2* Although these changes resulted in greater sales and the potential for even more, Leander steadfastly refused 1 allow significant increases in the 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 artival of Wilkinson and his tutelage of Princeton-educated Cyrus McCormick, Jr., played a major role in bringing about radical change in McCormick production methods. Drawing on his experience in small arms production, be 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, leamed the principles well. Cyrus, J., caried the new approach forward in his “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 rns plants, the McCormick company continued to be plagued by the farm implement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 :more flexible but less productive traditional approach to manufacture during his tenure as superintendent from 1848 to 1880. The perceived necessity t© make annual changes order to keep the MeCormick 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 elements of the American system, « new product was being born that would serve as abridge 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 @ number of reasons.** The physical nature of the proluct 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 salety bicycle introduced the American public to the wonders of person alized transportation, which was probably used mote for recreation than for transportation to the workplace. During the 1890s, with more and more Americans riding bicycles (sales, in 1896 exceeded 1.2 million bieycles), speed in personalized transportation came to be Tooked 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, advert ‘grew in importance and sophistication. During this period several commercial artists became famous for their bicycle advertising poster work and advenising layouts in popu lar journals, But it was in production technology above all thatthe bicycle left its mark as, 4 transitional industry to mass production, Joseph Woodworth, author of American Too! Making and Interchangeable Mamufae turing (1907), argued that the “‘manufacture of the bicycle . . . brought out the ca: pabilities of the American mechanic as nothing else had ever done. 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 ina manner tuly 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." Clearly the bieycle Industry aS a staging ground for the diffusion of armory practice cannot be ove emphasized. Rosenberg’s idea that the machine too! industry played 2 leading role in this 4iffusion applies even more clearly tothe 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—shoet metal stamping and clectrc resistance welding techniques. These new techniques rivaled in importance the {iffusion 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, hhubs, and so forth) made from sheet steel. Punch pressing or stamping operations were combined with the recent invention of electric resistance welding to produce parts at significantly lower costs. This technology would become fundamental the automobile industry. Albert A. Pope is regarded as the father of the American bicycle industry because he first imported English ordinary or high-wheel bicycles to the United States an! then beganInvroduction to make them here, Pope initially built an effective patent monopoly for his high-wheel Columbia bieyele (the bicycle with the big front whee}), but his patent position faded during the first years ofthe 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 1892-93, ‘and ended abruptly in 1896-97, Nevertheless, Pope had created a large enterprise during the high-wheel era and had (because of his viral patent monopoly) sold his Colambia at the high price of $125~135. Through aggressive marketing and advertising, he managed bicycle both the prestige and the price of the high-wheet Columbia, whose name as 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 bieyele manufactured in America. Despite the price, the Pope Columbia, like the Singer machine and the MeCormick implement, dominated its industry. At the peak ofthe boom, Pope Manutac: turing Company produced sixty thousand Columbias in a year, each carefully hand assembled 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.” Despite such views, the one manufacturer that outstripped Pope's production at the peak of the bieyele boom was the Western Whee! Works of Chicago, Which made a “first class” bicycle out of pressed steel hubs, steering head, sprocket, Fame joints, crank hanger, fork, seat handlebar, and various brackets. Although slightly less expensive than the Columbia, the Western Wheel bicycle ranked high inthe top price cotegory 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 Tin 1912, the last full year ofits manufacture before introduction of the assembly line: Singer, McCormick, Pope, and the Western Wheel Works all held one characteristie 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 sueceeded in the market because they were cheaply made and low priced, Only Singer annually produced numbers of products ranging into the hundreds of thousands—figures that conjure up in our own minds an image of “mass production.”” But the techniques used by Singer near the end of the nineteenth century proved problematic, As late as 1883 Singer was still using many fitters, and the manu- seit records end before resolution of these problems is apparent. In terms of production, itis only with the rise of the Ford Motor Company and its Mode! 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 ‘expression, than we have realized. Unlike Singer, McCormick, and Pope, Ford sought 10 manufacture the lowest priced automobile and to use continuing price reductions t0 produce ever greeter demand. Ford designed the Model T to be a "‘car for the masses.” Hefore the era of the Model the word masses had carried a largely negative connotae tion, but with such a clearly stated goal and his company’s ability to achieve it, Ford0 recognized “the masses"?* as a legitimate and seemingly unlimited market for the most sophisticated consumer durable product of the early twentieth century. Whether Henry Ford envisioned “the masses" as “the populace or “lower orders’ "29 of late 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 work demon. strated forthe first time that maximum profit could be achieved by maximizing production While minimizing cost. He added that “the essence of the mass-production process is the reversal of the conditions from which the theory of monopoly was deduced, The new assumptions constitute a veritable economic revolution.”” Drucker saw mass production as ‘an economic doctrine as well as an approach to manufacture, For this reason if for m0 other, the work of the national armories, Singer, McCormick, Pope, et al., differed substantially ftom Ford’s. But Ford was able to initiate this new “economic revaluti because of advances in production technology, especially the assembly line. Before their adoption of the revolutionary assembly line in 1913, Ford's produetio engineers had synthesized the two different approaches to production that had prevailed the bicycle era. First, Ford adopted the techniques of armory practice. All of the com ppany’s earliest employees recalled how ardently Henry Ford had supported efforts to 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 pany, and he hired mechanics who knew what was required o achieve that goal. Certainly by 1913, most of the problems of interchangeable parts manufacture had been solved at Fond. Second, Ford adopted sheet steel punch and press work. Initially ke contracted for stamping work with the John R. Keim Company in Buifslo, New York, which had been 2 ‘major supplier of bicycle components. Soon after opening his new Highland Park factory in Detroit, however, Ford purchased the 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- gether, armory practice and sheet steel work equipped Ford with the capability to turn out Virtually unlimited numbers of components, It remained forthe assembly line to eliminate the remaining bottleneck—how to puc these parts together The advent of line assembly at Ford Motor Company in 1913 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 needed here. The assembly line, ‘once it was first tried on April I, 1913, came swiftly and with great force, Within eighteen months of the first experiments with roving 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 fen times the output of static assembly methods. Allan Nevins accurately called the moving assembly line "a lever to move the world,""™! There can be litle doubt that Ford engineers received their inspiration for the moving assembly line from outside the metalworking industries. Hensy Fond bimself claimed that the idea derived from the “uisassembly 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 production."*"? 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 rnuich to Oliver Evans, a debt never recognized in Ford's Britannica article. Although there is merit to this view, ic should be recalled that Evans's flour mill, especialy its flour handling machinery, represented a brilliant synthesis of existing components, not an rely new technology.*? Similarly, although there may have been a clear connection in the minds of Ford engineers between “flow production” and the moving assembly Tine, 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 2 view. “The origins of the Ford assembly line are less important than its effect. While provid ing @ clear solution to the problems of assembly, the line brought with it serious labor problems. Ford's highly mechanized and subdivided manufacturing operations already ‘nnposed 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. 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 ins have argued that this wage system more than doubled the wages of “accept- 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 “5 In any case, the five-dollar day effectively doubled the earnings of Ford workers ‘end provided a tremendous incentive for workers to stay “on the line.”” With highly tmechanized production, moving line assembly, high wages, and low prices on products, Fordism"™ was born During the years between the birth of **Fordism’” and the widespread appearance of the term mass production, the Ford Motor Company expanded its annual output of Model 1s from three hunded thousand in [914 to more than (wo million in 1923, In an era when "most prices were rising, those of the Model TT dropped significantly —about 60 percent in current dollars. Throughout the Model T’s life, Henry Ford opened his factories to technical joumaliss 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 Tines, other automobile companies began putting their cars together “on the line,"* Manufacturers of other consumer durables followed suit. Ford’s five-dollar day Jogced automakers in the Detoit vicinity to increase their wage scales, Because Ford had secured more than 50 percent of the American automobile market by 1921, his ations had «t notable impact on American industy. Ford's work and its emulation by other manufacturers led tothe establishment of what ‘could be called the ethos of mass production in America. The creation of this ethos marks ‘significant moment in the development of mass production and consumption in Amer- Jea. Certain segments of American society looked at Ford's and the entite automobile Industry's ability to produce large quamtties of goods at surprisingly low costs. When they tid so, they wondered why, for example, housing, furniture, and even agriculture could rot be approached in precisely the stme manner in which Ford approached the automobile ‘Consequently, during the years that the Modet T was in production, movements arose within each of these industries to introduce mass production methods. In housing, an industry always looked upon as one of the most staid and preindustrial, prefabrication forts reached new heights. Foster Gunnison, for example, strove to become the "Henry Ford of housing" by establishing & factory to tum out houses on a moving assembly ‘ine, and Gunnison was only one among many such entrepreneurs. Furniture productionalso saw the influence of Ford and the automobile industry. Inthe 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 cemtury—the century of mass production.” Consequently. the ASME estab- lished in 1925 a Wood Industries Division, which served to focus the supposed sr powers of mechanical engineering on all aspects of woodworking technology. In agricul- lure, Henry Ford argued that all problems could be solved simply by adopting mass production techniques.** Ford conducted experiments in this direction, but he was 10 more Successful than the mechanical engineers and housing fabricators were in bringing about mass production in their respective industries. One could argue, however, tha 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 techeology. In hous ing, furnishings, and clothing, Americans for some reason refused to allow thele 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 w factory. Yet he sold few houses in comparison with the number of on-site jionally built houses in the United States. Singer Manufacturing Company built (wo ‘woodworking factories that produced cabinets and tables for its entire U.S. and European output of sewing raachines. But the production of « phenomenally large number of sewing machine cabinets failed to lead to a true mass production furniture industry.” American furniture manufacturers continued to operate relatively small factories em- ploying around 150 workers, annually turning out between five thousand and fifty thou: sand units. Beliefs that automotive proxluction technology holds the key to abundance in all areas of consumption persist today. As recently as 1973, Richard Bender observed in his book on industrial building that “much of the problem of industializng the building industry has grown out of the mistaken image of the automobile industry as @ model.” In many areas, the panacea of Fordism will continue to appeal to those who see init 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 the very timing of the rise of this ethos along with the appearance of the En: cyelopaedia Britannica azticle on mass production shows how full of paradox and irony’ history is. Although automotive America was rapidly growing in ils consumption of everything under the sun and although 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." Ford and his production experts had driven mass production into a deep cul-de se. American buyers bad 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, ‘million of them had been produced, What followed in the changeover to the Model A was, ‘one of the most wrenching nightmares in American industial history. Designing the new ‘model, tooling up for its production, andl achieving satisfactory production levels posed an array of unanticipated problems, which led to a long delay in the Model A's introduction,Invraduction {In some respects, the Ford Motor Company never recovered from the effects of its first big changeover. Changes in consumers’ tastes and gains in their disposable incomes made the “Model T and the Model T idea obsolete. Automobile consumption inthe 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 car for every purpose and every purse." its unwritten policy of| annual change, and its encouragement of “trading up'” to a more expensive car. Ford learned painfully and at great cost that che times called for & new era, that of “flexible ‘mass produetion."" ‘The Great Depression dealt additional blows to Ford's version of mass production, As. Aramatic decreases in sales followed the Great Crash, Fort and the entire industry began laying off workers. As a result, Detroit hocame known as the “beleaguered capital of mass production.""? Mass production had not prevented mass unemployment or, more prop- 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 erities as they saw hundreds of thousands of men out of work in the Detroit area alone Americans may have had concerns about the il efTects 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 1930s witnessed the publication of extensive literature on the economics of consumption. As history would Ihave it, the prophets of mass consumption were prover 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 vatiously 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 concems shared by Americans. There are few discussions about mass production today that mieror those of the late 1920s and early 1930s, Nevertheless, one still reads about our nation's productivity dilemma"—the problem of choosing between frequent product changes and lower productivity or no change and higher productivity “# This so-called dilemma is bby no means new. It was born with the establishment ofthe 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 dilemina, even though he seems never to have been able to resolve it, Indeed, the dilemma itself may be insoluble. Yet the origins ofthe dilemma in the "American system” of manufactures in antebellum America provide an important starting point for more cicarly understanding its dimensions