The fact that this story of the world’s manufactures is intended
primarily for the information of people of the United States, coupled
with the further fact that the United States is itself the world’s
largest producer of manufactures, seems to justify a somewhat detailed
study of the manufactures of this country, the growth of the
manufacturing industry, and especially the part which they bear in our
foreign commerce. Originally the United States, like all new
countries, devoted its attention chiefly to agriculture. The products
of the soil are man’s first requirements. He must have food. When he
obtains food his next thought is of clothing, but that he can obtain
temporarily from the skins of the beasts whose bodies supply him with
food. So the production of manufactures was of secondary importance in
the early development of that part of the North American Continent
which is now known as the United States. The eastern part of the area
being densely wooded, the work of the first and second and third
generations of our forefathers was to fell the trees and prepare the
ground for agriculture for the production of the wheat and corn and
other foodstuffs which they must have to sustain life. If there came
as a result a given quantity of potash and pearlash and leather and
other manufactures of this crude type which could be utilized by the
people or exported to foreign countries they accepted this thankfully,
but made no special effort to develop the manufacturing industry.
During the colonial days little effort was made in the development of
manufacturing, except to supply the household requirements. The
housewife spun and wove the wool and flax into threads and cloth, and
a large part of the population was clothed in “linsey-woolsey,”
produced in this manner. Even during the period of the Confederation,
which immediately followed the Revolutionary War, conditions in the 264
manufacturing industries did not materially change and nobody seems to
have thought them of sufficient importance to justify any governmental
attention or action. Shortly after the adoption of the Constitution,
however, Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury,
submitted to the Congress of the United States, in 1791, a “Report on
Manufactures,” which pictured manufacturing conditions in this country
at that day. He enumerated some 17 industries which had “grown up and
flourished with a rapidity which surprises, affording an assurance of
success in future attempts.” These 17 industries were as follows:
1. Skins.--Tanned and tawed leather, dressed skins, shoes, boots and
slippers, harness and saddlery of all kinds, portmanteaus and trunks,
leather breeches, gloves, muffs and tippets, parchment and glue.
2. Iron.--Bar and sheet iron, steel, nail rods and nails, implements
of husbandry, stoves, pots and other household utensils, the steel and
iron work of carriages, and for shipbuilding, anchors, scale beams and
weights, and various tools of artificers, arms of different kinds;
though the manufacture of these last has diminished for want of a
demand.
3. Wood.--Ships, cabinet wares and turnery, wool and cotton cards and
other machinery for manufacture and husbandry, mathematical
instruments, coopers’ wares of every kind.
4. Flax and hemp.--Cables, sail cloth, cordage, twine and pack
thread.