From the American System to Mass Production, 1800-1932: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States / Edition 1

by David Hounshell

Overview

David A. Houndshell's widely acclaimed history explores the American "genius for mass production" and races its origins in the nineteenth-century "American system" of manufacture.

Previous writers on the American system have argued that the technical problems of mass production had been solved by armsmakers before the Civil War. Drawing upon the extensive business and manufacturing records if leading American firms, Hounshell demonstrates that the diffusion of arms production technology was neither as fast now as smooth as had been assumed. Exploring the manufacture of sewing machines and furniture, bicycles and reapers, he shows that both the expression "mass production" and the technology that lay behind it were developments of the twentieth century, attributable in large part to the Ford Motor Company.

Hounshell examines the importance of individuals in the diffusion and development of production technology and the central place of marketing strategy in the success of selected American manufacturers. Whereaas Ford was the seedbed of the assembly line revolution, it was General motors that initiated a new era with its introduction of the annual model change. With the new marketing strategy, the technology of "the changeover" became of paramount importance. Hounshell chronicles how painfully Ford learned this lesson and recounts how the successful mass production of automobiles led to the establishment of an "ethos of mass production," to an era in which propoments of "Fordism" argued that mass production would solve all of America's social problems.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801831584
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	09/01/1985
Series:	Studies in Industry and Society , #4
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	440
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

David A. Hounshell teaches history at the University of Delaware and is curator of technology at the Hagley Museum in Wilmington.

Table of Contents

Figures and Tables
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1. The American System of Manufacures in the Antebellum Period
Chapter 2. The Sewing Machine and the American System of Manufactures
Chapter 3. Mass Production in American Woodworking Industries: A Case Study
Chapter 4. The McCormick Reaper Works and American Manufacturing Technology in the Nineteenth Century
Chapter 5. From the American System toward Mass Production: The Bicycle Industry in the Nineteenth Century
Chapter 6. The Ford Motor Company and the Rise of Mass Production in America
Chapter 7. Cul-de-sac: The Limits of Fordism and the Coming of "Flexible Mass Production"
Chapter 8. The Ethos of Mass Production and Its Critics
Appendix 1. The Evolution of the Expression The American System of Manufactures
Appendix 2. Singer Sewing Machine Artificial Analysis
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

The history of technology at its very best. It is also a volume which has a great deal to interest the business historian . . . A superb study replete with new insights and eqully valuable in its parts as in their sum . . . This is an exciting book which deserves the highest praise.
—Business History

David Hounshell's history of the evolution of American production methods has few rivals: in execution of the theme it has none . . . Both the armchair historian and the specialist in the history of technology will find this a highly readable and most informative work.
—Science

From the Publisher

The history of technology at its very best. It is also a volume which has a great deal to interest the business historian . . . A superb study replete with new insights and eqully valuable in its parts as in their sum . . . This is an exciting book which deserves the highest praise.

Business History

David Hounshell's history of the evolution of American production methods has few rivals: in execution of the theme it has none . . . Both the armchair historian and the specialist in the history of technology will find this a highly readable and most informative work.

Science

"David Hounshell's history of the evolution of American production methods has few rivals: in execution of the theme it has none... Both the armchair historian and the specialist in the history of technology will find this a highly readable and most informative work."

Science