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:
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 :
image credit
this page written and
copyright
by Pamela E. Mack
last updated 10/3/05