The manufacturing systems of the world have developed from mere hand
and household industries to those of the machine and factory in less
than two centuries. For thousands of years the simple requirements of
men--of clothing, of domestic life, of agriculture and of
transportation--were met with articles produced by hand labor,
performed for the greatest part in the household or in simple
workshops adjacent thereto. Then, in the latter half of the eighteenth
century, man discovered that he could harness the power of the
waterfall and, by making the wheels which it turned turn other wheels,
could utilize that power in performing many tasks which he had
hitherto performed laboriously by hand. The turning wheels twisted the
wool and flax and cotton into threads stronger and finer and better
than his wife had been accustomed to twist with the spinning wheel and
distaff, and produced in a single day as much of this yarn as a
hundred industrious women could produce in a week or a fortnight. By
gearing the wheels to operate a loom he could weave the yarn into
cloth with a small fraction of the labor and time which had been
required to weave it by the hand loom and obtain better results.
Thus arose the custom of manufacturing by machinery operated by the
power of the waterfall the cloth which had hitherto been manufactured
by hand labor in the household; this was the beginning of the modern
manufacturing industry.
To do this, however, it was necessary to plant the machines beside the
waterfall and bring to them the raw material and the persons necessary
to operate them, for the machine was unable to perform its task unless
assisted by the intelligent labor and guidance of experienced men and
women. Thus arose the system of performing in a single workshop, with 186
the aid of a considerable number of people and machines, the
manufacturing which had been hitherto performed by many people in many
households and with many machines of simpler form and operated by
human power--the factory system.
This new system developed new occupations. The buildings in which the
work was carried on must be constructed. The machinery required for
operating the factory must be made and kept in repair, and new
machines made to take the place of those worn out. So there came
occupation for mechanics and skilled machinists in manufacturing and
repairing the machines, and for others skilled in operating them. The
material used in manufacturing the cloth must be transported to the
factory, instead of being used at the place where it was grown as
formerly; and the cloth must again be transported to the consumer; and
thus there were new occupations for man and beast in transportation
and in constructing and maintaining the roads over which the material
was transported. Still another, and equally important, industry
developed was that of supplying the food and other requirements of the
men and women engaged in the factory, and this gave new activity to
the agricultural industries near the factory and further occupation to
those engaged in transportation.
To supply the wants of those employed in the factories, who were so
busily engaged that they could not find time to grow their own food,
or make their own clothing, other enterprising men and women
established themselves near the factory to sell the required food and
household supplies, to supply the fuel with which they cooked their
daily food, to buy small portions of the cloth made in the factory and
turn it into clothing to sell to the operatives, to shave their rough
beards and occasionally trim their hair--and thus arose the factory
town.
So the factory system, which at first threatened to take away the 187
occupation of thousands who had formerly devoted their time to making
yarn and cloth by hand labor, developed new occupations and new
industries, and brought portions of the hitherto scattered people into
groups, and these groups in time developed better accommodations for
themselves and their families in homes, in comforts of life, in
educational facilities, and in hours of labor; and in doing this they
also supplied the masses with cloth at a less cost of labor than they
had formerly expended in obtaining it.
Meantime man was learning another important lesson, one which was to
develop even more rapidly the art of manufacturing. He found through a
long series of experiments that power could be generated by heating
water until it turned into an expansive vapor which he called steam,
and that this expansive force could be controlled in such manner as to
put in operation a machine which he called the steam engine, which
could in turn transmit its power to that machinery formerly operated
exclusively by the power of the waterfall.
This discovery again revolutionized the manufacturing industry, which
had hitherto been limited in the scope of its operations by the supply
of water power so located that the raw material could be transported
to it and the finished products in turn transported thence to market.
With this new force, steam, by which the manufacturing machinery could
be made entirely independent of the waterfall, the factories were
located at points convenient to the natural supply of fuel and
manufacturing material or to the market for the finished products.
Where this was not practicable the factories were located at places to
which the materials could be readily and cheaply carried by water
transportation, either on some navigable stream or the sea-coast.
Another important contribution made by steam power to the development 188
of the manufacturing industry was the decrease in cost of
transportation. Before the development of the railway and the
steamship the material of manufacture, unless produced within a short
distance of some navigable water, canals, rivers, lakes or oceans, was
of comparatively little value. It was not always practicable to plant
the factory in the section which most readily produced the wool or
cotton or flax or hemp or silk, or to place it alongside the iron or
copper mine; and even if this were done the manufactured material was
valueless unless it could be transported to those requiring it. Even
the lighter articles of manufacture, such as wool or cotton or fibers
or silk, could not be transported any considerable distance without
greatly increasing the cost to the manufacturer, and thus
proportionately advancing the cost of the manufactured article. But
when, in the middle of the nineteenth century, the railways began to
penetrate the continents and the steamships began to cross the ocean
and extend their tours to the commercially undeveloped sections of the
world, the manufacturers found new sources of supply open to them and
quantities of raw material reaching them from distant lands at such
comparatively low cost as to enable them to enlarge their output,
increase the variety of their productions and reduce the cost of both
the necessities and conveniences and luxuries which they were offering
to the public. The railways of the world grew from 25,000 miles in
1850 to 500,000 miles in 1900 and 600,000 in 1909. The tonnage of
steam vessels on the navigable waters of the world grew from less than
one million tons in 1850 to 24 million in 1909; and the carrying power
of the sail and steam vessels of the world, measured in sail tons,
grew from 15 million tons in 1850 to 100 million in 1909. The general
reduction in freight rates meantime is illustrated by the fact that
the price of transporting wheat from Chicago to New York by rail 189
fell from 33½ cents per bushel in 1872 to 10 cents per bushel in
1900, and the charge for transporting wheat from New York to Liverpool
fell from 17 cents per bushel in 1875 to 3 cents per bushel in 1905;
and similar reductions were made in the charges for transporting
manufacturers’ materials.
Thus the application of steam to manufacturing and transportation
multiplied the power of production. The area over which it could be
performed was greatly enlarged, the cost of materials was reduced
through cheaper transportation, new devices and processes were
developed as a result of the competition, cheaper raw material was
obtained from countries where plentiful supplies and cheap labor give
low prices, and the opportunity of locating the factory near the place
of production or at some convenient meeting point between the various
places of production--all these contributed to reduction of cost and
increase of supplies of material of manufacture. The great iron and
steel works of western Pennsylvania, and northern Ohio, Indiana and
Illinois, for example, are located not at the iron mines or the coal
fields, but at places between these two fields to which these
materials can be cheaply carried from their respective places of
production. The iron ore is chiefly produced in the Lake Superior
region and carried at a very low cost by vessels especially
constructed for this purpose to the southern shores of Lake Erie. The
coal is chiefly produced in western Pennsylvania and central Ohio,
Indiana and Illinois. The cost of transporting the coal from the mine
to the lake shore, or the ore from the lake shore to the mine, or both
coal and ore to some mutually convenient meeting point by river or
canal or railroads constructed for this purpose across a comparatively
level country, is extremely small, less in many cases than that of
carrying material to the waterfall which is not infrequently located
at places difficult of access. The vessels carrying the manufactures
of the United States or the manufacturing countries of Europe to 190
South America, Africa and the Orient, bring back at a very low cost
the india rubber, the tin, the fibers, the wool, the silk, the
Egyptian cotton of those distant countries; and the manufacturer who a
century ago was limited in his supply of raw materials to the
immediate vicinity of his factory may now bring his material from all
parts of the world, while the area in which he may sell his products
has been correspondingly enlarged.
One very recent contribution to the convenience and cheapness of
manufacture is found in the transmission of power in the form of
electricity. Formerly the machines of the factory were operated by
power obtained from the steam engine or the water wheel through lines
of shafting, gearing, belts, friction pulleys, etc. This made it
necessary that the factory operated by water power be placed alongside
the waterfall, or at least within a comparatively short distance of
the source of power. Recent inventions have made it possible to
transform power into electricity, carry that electricity hundreds of
miles on a wire, and transform it back into power for the operation of
the machinery of the factory or the transportation of the raw material
or the finished product. This has increased greatly the value of the
world’s water power in its relation to manufacturing. Formerly only a
small part of the waterfalls of the world were used at all, largely
because of their comparative inaccessibility and the cost of
transporting the raw material to them and the finished product from
them. Now that power, generated at any point, however inaccessible for
freight handling, may be transmitted in the form of electricity on a
simple piece of wire to any convenient point within a hundred or even
two hundred miles of the place of production, and by a simple process
applied to the operations of machines small or large, simple or
complex, the possibilities of the waterfall in supplying power for the
manufacturer are greatly enlarged.
Not only is this true of the waterfalls now in existence but of those 191
which may be brought into existence, for now that man has found a way
to use the power thus generated he may readily increase the number of
waterfalls by constructing dams at many places, and using the water
over and over again in its flow from the place of origin to the ocean
level. The great quantities of water stored up in the form of snow and
ice in the mountain ranges of the world, and gradually liberated by
melting may supply almost untold quantities of power as they flow down
the mountain sides used not merely once but many times. The
manufacturing power of Italy, Switzerland and southern France is now
being greatly augmented by this process.
Another possibility of the use of this new distributor of power,
electricity, is the multiplying of workshops and the return in some
instances and certain articles to household or small shop manufacture.
It is now so easy to introduce the electric wire and a small electric
motor into the household or the shop adjoining the household and to so
operate small machines for the various processes in many of the
manufacturing industries, that this new use of electricity for the
transmission of power is already making visible changes in the factory
systems of the world, and promises still greater changes. In many
lines of manufacture in which the machinery occupies small space and
requires little power and the quantity of material handled is not
great, such as watch and clock making, the manufacture of clothing,
boots and shoes, toys, etc., a part or all of the work can now be
performed in the household or small shop through the power generated
miles away and brought into the workman’s home on a simple piece of
wire.
On the other hand the use of electricity in the great factory or
manufacturing establishment is equally important. Instead of
transmitting the power of the engine to the various classes of
machinery by belts, shafting and gearing, much of it is now 192
transmitted and applied in the form of electricity. Great cranes which
handle many tons of material are operated by the electric motor
without the intervention of the costly shafting, belting and gearing;
and the great magnet, made such by electricity, picks up its ton of
steel rails with the same ease that the toy magnet picks up the
needle, and is managed with no greater physical exertion than the
other.
Cassier’s Magazine, an accepted authority on engineering matters,
publishes with favorable editorial comment, in its issue of September,
1909, a statement by Sylvester Stewart that “we could take out in
regions where water power is needed at least a hundred times as much
water power as is now employed, furnishing a safer and cleaner power
than steam, at a lower cost, and thus prolong the existence of our
coal fields. * * * A running stream may be compared to an endless
driving belt only awaiting connection to the machinery it is capable
of driving, but it has not been appreciated because we have become so
familiar with it; if it had suddenly been discovered, doubtless it
would have been harnessed immediately. Coal is passing away, but water
flows continuously. A hundred thousand horsepower may be taken from a
river and its place is still filled, but the coal vein once emptied is
emptied forever.” Mr. Stewart adds that probably not one-thousandth
part of the water power of the world is now utilized, and that while
the greater part of this power is not at present available, because of
its existence in out-of-the-way places, or in rivers so deep and
sluggish that the energy obtainable from them would cost more than
steam power, at least a hundred times as much water power as is now
used could be, under present conditions, utilized in a manner to
supply it at less than the cost of coal at present prices.