The American System of Manufacture
The stages of mass production
- the factory system
- the American System of Manufacture
- the assembly line
- automation
Eli Whitney:
- Remember Eli Whitney trying to make guns
with interchangeable parts? (see craft
knowledge )
- that was the next step in the development
of mass production--metal machines are much harder to mass
produce than cloth or shoes.
- Whitney's demonstration of
interchangeability was in 1801, around the time textile
factories were first getting going.
- he was trying to achieve interchangeable
parts by hand-filing the gun parts to match pattern pieces
Inventing the American system:
- a better solution was to invent
special-purpose machine tools that could automatically cut
out identical shapes
PEM photo: Blanchard Stocking Lathe, Springfield Armory National
Historic Site
- The first successful machines were for
woodworking, such as Blanchard's
lathe
for cutting a gunstock to match a pattern developed at
Springfield Armory
- major inventions and improvements in
machine tools were needed
PEM photo: milling machine American Precision
Museum
- Many gun companies and government
armories worked on interchangeability, but it wasn't
achieved even for specialized weapons until 1826 at Harpers
Ferry and for the main production in 1840 at Springfield armory
(and even then it was lost from 1842 to 1849 when a new gun
requiring higher precision was introduced).
- American System of Manufacture
- division of labor
- mechanization (special-purpose machine
tools)
- precision
- standardization
- interchangeable parts
- It got the name American System when guns
with interchangeable parts were exhibited at the Crystal
Palace Exposition in England in 1851--the British were very
impressed
Impact of the American System:
- The development of mass production of
guns, and particularly the use of special-purpose machine
tools was transferred to other industries via those machine
shops we talked about as the place where mechanical
engineers got their apprentice training.
- Machine tools:
- the Lincoln miller stabilized in the
1850s.
- Christopher Spencer, inventor of the repeating
rifle, invented the automatic turret lathe for
sewing machine spools--key to all modern automatic lathes.
- Wilcox & Gibbs started
manufacturing sewing machines in 1858--
- by 1862 Brown & Sharpe was selling
the first Universal Milling Machines (used rotary cutter
to cut irregular shapes in metal, such as spiral drills)
PEM photo: milling machine
These new machine tools
revolutionized the manufacture of clocks, textile machinery,
printing machines, professional and scientific instruments,
locomotives, cash registers, typewriters (1873), sewing machines
(1850), agricultural implements, cigarette rolling machines
(1884), bicycles, and eventually automobiles. For example:
- Sewing machine patented in 1846 by Elias
Howe and developed in the 1850s by a number of
inventors. Isaac
Singer put the pieces together most successfully,
particularly with clever marketing and installment purchase
plans. Singer Sewing Machine Company made 43,000
machines in 1867, 500,000 in 1880.
1883 Singer Sewing Machine
- First practical typewriter developed by Christopher
Sholes in 1867 and manufactured by Remington starting
in 1872. For 20 years or so there were a variety of
competing designs. The QWERTY keyboard won
out. Clerical work had previously been done by men but
the typewriter came to be associated with women.
Sholes & Glidden Type Writer
The machine age :
- shift from home to factory production
- machine tool industry diffuses innovation
- new factory machines lead to new products
- need for standardization
- American style--as in simple screw
threads ( historical
background
on screw threads )
this page written and
copyright by Pamela E.
Mack
last updated 10/3/05