Manufacturing Advantage: War, the State, and the Origins of American Industry, 1776-1848

by Lindsay Schakenbach Regele

Overview

How manufacturing textiles and guns transformed the United States from colonial dependent to military power.

In 1783, the Revolutionary War drew to a close, but America was still threatened by enemies at home and abroad. The emerging nation faced tax rebellions, Indian warfare, and hostilities with France and England. Its arsenal—a collection of hand-me-down and beat-up firearms—was woefully inadequate, and its manufacturing sector was weak. In an era when armies literally froze in the field, military preparedness depended on blankets and jackets, the importation of which the British Empire had coordinated for over 200 years. Without a ready supply of guns, the new nation could not defend itself; without its own textiles, it was at the economic mercy of the British. Domestic industry offered the best solution for true economic and military independence.

In Manufacturing Advantage, Lindsay Schakenbach Regele shows how the US government promoted the industrial development of textiles and weapons to defend the country from hostile armies—and hostile imports. Moving from the late 1700s through the Mexican-American War, Schakenbach Regele argues that both industries developed as a result of what she calls “national security capitalism”: a mixed enterprise system in which government agents and private producers brokered solutions to the problems of war and international economic disparities. War and State Department officials played particularly key roles in the emergence of American industry, facilitating arms makers and power loom weavers in the quest to develop industrial resources. And this defensive strategy, Schakenbach Regele reveals, eventually evolved to promote westward expansion, as well as America’s growing commercial and territorial empire.

Examining these issues through the lens of geopolitics, Manufacturing Advantage places the rise of industry in the United States in the context of territorial expansion, diplomacy, and warfare. Ultimately, the book reveals the complex link between government intervention and private initiative in a country struggling to create a political economy that balanced military competence with commercial needs.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781421425276
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	02/19/2019
Series:	Studies in Early American Economy and Society from the Library Company of Philadelphia
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	280
File size:	4 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Lindsay Schakenbach Regele is an assistant professor of history at Miami University.

Table of Contents

Series Editor's Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1. "Our Naked Troops"
Chapter 2. The Political Economy of Guns and Textiles
Chapter 3. Embargo and War
Chapter 4. Financing Industry through Florida
Chapter 5. Managing New Markets
Chapter 6. Industrial Manifest Destiny
Conclusion
Appendix A. Terms Related to Textiles
Appendix B. Terms Related to Firearms
Notes

What People are Saying About This

John M. Belohlavek

A pathbreaking, long-awaited study for scholars of the early republic. Manufacturing Advantage is well researched and well written.

Lawrence A. Peskin

An engaging and timely examination of the connections between the federal government, national security, imperialism, and the domestic economy during the antebellum period.

Richard R. John

Manufacturing Advantage retells an iconic story in an unconventional way. By locating New England's nineteenth-century industrial revolution in a global context, Schakenbach Regele shows how public policy and the state shaped the business strategy of the region's leading small arms and textile manufactures—with consequences that reverberated not only across the region but also around the world.

Sven Beckert

Lindsay Schakenbach Regele's important book carefully chronicles the role of the federal government in managing the industrial development of the United States in its earliest decades. She shows how the state, in myriad ways, enabled, accelerated, and influenced the industrial economy of the new republic. This book does away with one-sided celebrations of the entrepreneurial genius of the Samuel Slaters and Francis Cabot Lowells and debunks the myth that the United States economy was ever in some exceptional and peculiar way devoid of powerful state interventions. While others have ignored the state, Regele sees the rise of a 'national security capitalism.' A must-read for anyone interested in US economic history.

From the Publisher

A pathbreaking, long-awaited study for scholars of the early republic. Manufacturing Advantage is well researched and well written.
—John M. Belohlavek, University of South Florida, author of Patriots, Prostitutes, and Spies: Women and the Mexican-American War

Manufacturing Advantage retells an iconic story in an unconventional way. By locating New England's nineteenth-century industrial revolution in a global context, Schakenbach Regele shows how public policy and the state shaped the business strategy of the region's leading small arms and textile manufactures—with consequences that reverberated not only across the region but also around the world.
—Richard R. John, Columbia University, author of Network Nation: Inventing American Telecommunications

Lindsay Schakenbach Regele's important book carefully chronicles the role of the federal government in managing the industrial development of the United States in its earliest decades. She shows how the state, in myriad ways, enabled, accelerated, and influenced the industrial economy of the new republic. This book does away with one-sided celebrations of the entrepreneurial genius of the Samuel Slaters and Francis Cabot Lowells and debunks the myth that the United States economy was ever in some exceptional and peculiar way devoid of powerful state interventions. While others have ignored the state, Regele sees the rise of a 'national security capitalism.' A must-read for anyone interested in US economic history.
—Sven Beckert, Harvard University, author of Empire of Cotton: A Global History

An engaging and timely examination of the connections between the federal government, national security, imperialism, and the domestic economy during the antebellum period.
—Lawrence A. Peskin, Morgan State University, author of Manufacturing Revolution: The Intellectual Origins of Early American Industry

Editorial Reviews

An original and fascinating book that rewards the reader with discerning insights into the genesis of American industry . . . The author writes with verve and a captivating command of nuance, insight, breadth and in-depth analysis . . . In sum, both historians and economists would benefit from closely engaging with the arguments in this fine addition to the bookshelf on the early sources of American industrial supremacy.
—B. Zorina Khan, Bowdoin College, EH.Net

From the Publisher

An original and fascinating book that rewards the reader with discerning insights into the genesis of American industry . . . The author writes with verve and a captivating command of nuance, insight, breadth and in-depth analysis . . . In sum, both historians and economists would benefit from closely engaging with the arguments in this fine addition to the bookshelf on the early sources of American industrial supremacy.

EH.Net - B. Zorina Khan

Manufacturing Advantage is an important addition to the field of policy history and an equally important contribution to scholarship in several other historical disciplines, including business history, history of technology, and military history. Her analytical framework of "national security capitalism" offers an important new perspective for scholars in the above fields.

Pennsylvania History - Vagel C. Keller