Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 07.djvu/466

* FACTORIES. 418 FACTORIES. factory system, as applied to textiles, promoted by Whitney's invention of the cotton-gin in 1792, and by Lowell's introduction of the power-loom and other improvements in his factory at Wal- tham, has enjoyed uninterrupted progress and has powerfully influenced the development of the factory system in other lines. Carroll D. Wright says that the Lowell factory at Waltham, Mass., completed in the fall of 1814, "was the first in the world, as far as the records show, in which all the processes of converting raw cotton into the finished product were performed in one establishment, by successive steps, under one har- monious system." Owing to different economic conditions, due to the difference between an old country where popu- lation centres are fixed and a new. where immi- gration and the rapid growth of the country makes any favorable site a possible centre of pop- ulation, thp development of the factory system in the United States was not only later, but also different in character from that in the mother country. Water-power continued to be the almost exclusive motive power, long after the application of steam was understood. It was the splendid water-power offered by the Merrimac River that determined the location of Manches- ter, Lowell, and Lawrence, and so powerfully affected the industrial growth of New England. It may be added that the inventions and achieve- ments of the hydraulic engineer have been scarce- ly less essential to the development of America's factory system than those of the inventor of automatic machinery. Many of the experiments in hydraulic engineering which have been most fruitful were conducted in efforts to improve cur- rent methods of developing and applying water- power as a motive force for driving machinery. Within recent years the possibilities of utilizing water, especially at a long distance, have been enormously increased by transmitting power in tne form of an electric current. Outside of the cotton and woolen mills, the growth of the factory system in the United Stated was slow. Domestic and neighborhood industry continued to predominate, even in these indus- tries, until 1830, and it was not until 1840 that the factory method extended itself widely to mis- cellaneous industries. It was in 1840 that Bige- lovt applied power-driven machinery to the weav- tt i carpets, and ten years later, at Waltham, [ass., automatic machinery was used for the t i 1-1 time, by consecutive processes, in a single manufactory, in the making of the mosi delicate of mechanical instruments, the watch. (See Watch.) Gradually, with flu- invention of the requisite machinery, the new method of produc- tion "a- extended to other industries. During l.i i half of the century, and particularly after the close of the civil War. factories of all kind- sprang up. ftrsi in New England and later in the West and South, 'flip mu bj stem obtained little footing in the South until the verj close of flu' century, when, tempted by (be low cost of 'mountain white' and colored labor, much capi- tal, largely from New England, was directed ■ h nt of Factories in the South. the century the system prevailed throughout freater pari of 1 1 linn 11- ol product ion. to the I in extincl ion of domes! ic and small shop industries. Germany, in particular, expe- riem industt ial awakening, toward the close of the century, and has so far outstripped England in the extent and variety of her factory products that the phrase 'made in Germany' is the bugbear of the English manufacturer. The nineteenth century also saw the establishment of the factory system in Japan and China. In the latter country the attempt has scarcely passed the experimental stage; for, though wages are low, labor is so unskilled and unreliable that, measured by the product, it is most expensive. The great advances made in all departments of applied science during the century have already proved far-reaching in their effects upon the fac- tory system. The use of electricity for long- distance transmission of power has already been mentioned. For distributing and applying power as well, electricity is proving an economical and convenient substitute for steam, and seems likely to do away with much of the cumbersome and uncleanly shafting and belting by means of which power is distributed through the ordinary factory. Edward Atkinson goes so far as to prophesy that the use of electric power, so easily transmitted and applied, will finally result in the dispersion to their own homes of the multitudes of workers now* gathered in factories, and that the weaver will work at his own loom, and the spinner at his spindle in his own cottage, and a new form of pow : er-driven household industry will supplant the factory system. Few will agree with Mr. Atkinson in thus forecasting the probable effect of electricity upon the factory system. The whole trend of modern industry is toward a still greater centralization of capital and labor. "The larger the plant the cheaper the product," savs a prominent mill operator. Andrew Carnegie, writing on the development of the steel industry in the United States, puts the ease still more forcibly when he says: "One essential for cheap production is magnitude; concerns making 1000 tons of steel per day have little chance against those making 10.000 tons. We see this law in all departments of industry. It evolves the 20,000- ton steamship and the 50-ton railway car. Im- proved engines and the use of electricity as a motor, the new loading and unloading machinery are all contributory causes to the cheapening of steel Among those contributory causes," adds Mr. Carnegie, "automatic machin- ery ranks first and continuous processes next. Workshops 1100 and 1200 feet long are becoming common, in which the raw material (ore) enters at one end and e rges finished (steel billets) at the other without handling, and often without stopping except for reheating." In one branch of industry, however, two other systems of production have flourished side by side with the factory system, although apparently antagonistic to it. These are the sweat shop and tenement house work in conned ion with the ready- made clothing industry. (See Sweating sis- TEM.) It is a curious fact that in all branches of the clothing industry — not only in the making of textile garments, but of hats, gloves, and shoes — home anil small shop labor have been strangely persistent. In the portions of the Twelfth United States Census devoted to investi- gating these industries, this fact is brought out. Certainly tin' abuses which have sprung tip in connection with the manufacture of clothing out- idi ■'! factories have been so grave and far- reaching :i- to make the alleged evils of the factory system seem but trifling in comparison.