Merritt Roe Smith

I read this book is fits and bursts during lunch during the work week usually. Each chapter is by a different author so it worked out rather well.

All in all the idea of technological determinism is that technology drives history. The invention of the heavy plow changed society in Europe or the invention of the printing press required society to change. While technology adaptation within society does/can change society the overall opinion is that technology itself does not drive change. It is merely one piece at work in the march of change. One reason this is apparent is that every society does not have the same changes when new technologies appear. Some changes that are tied to new technologies do not happen in a society until a significant amount of time has passed. So, technology may be an agent of change but it should only be viewed as a part of the greater picture when one measures the factors that drive societal change.

Overall the book contained some good analysis on the subject but it was somewhat technical in nature. This was not written to appeal to the broad masses.
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In his "Introduction," Smith points to labor saving machinery is America's genius. As Hindle and Lubar describe in their Engines of Change, for many reasons, mechanization found a welcome environment in the United States. As early as 1842, the year the Tsar commissioned the construction of a railroad, America was exporting technology to Europe. The 1851 Crystal Palace Exhibition in London demonstrated that American technology had come of age, especially with the production of small arms based upon interchangeable parts manufacture. Dubbed the "American System," by the British, the evolution of this armory practice in the US is the subject of Smith's study. Recounting what we already know about the impact of work discipline on time, culture and society, he points to arms manufacture as a place where industrialization threatened to bastardize craft. Having studied the armory at Harpers Ferry, he argues that "the story of Harper's Ferry, most notably the efforts of its inhabitants to preserve accustomed life styles and practices in the wake of accelerating technology, presents a microcosmic view of the industrial revolution which is perhaps more suggestive of America's bittersweet relationship with the machine than many historians have heretofore recognized." (p. 21)

The very selection of the site at Harper's Ferry was from the beginning an exercise of regional interest. As we learn in "Regional Interests and Military Needs: Founding the 'Mother Arsenal,' 1794-1801," George Washington selected the site for the armory to foster the local economy in the western part of Virginia and to help in building the environment for a "Great Federal City" along the Potomac River. Opposition from the war department made the process drag on slowly, with purchase and work on a canal and dam progressing slowly. In keeping with the localism of this frontier-like location, the man chosen for the work gave the work to less-than-capable locals -- and this slowed the process down quite a bit. In the end, they turned to the Army to complete the canal, with federal troops being stationed at Harper's Ferry to work on the canal.

In "The Craft Origins of Production, 1798-1816," we learn that the armorers who worked at the Ferry were mostly from the Pennsylvania craft community. Indeed "the roster of early armorers at Harpers Ferry reads like a 'Who's Who' of Pennsylvania gun making." (p. 59) Sustaining their craft tradition through the apprenticeship system, many young boys came to Harper's Ferry to learn the trade to 1809. At that time, however, the introduction of the piece-rate accounting procedures began the bastardization of the craft. Viewing the workers at the armory through Thompson, he points to the impact of time and work discipline on the armory workers. Though they worked hard, the armorers did it at their own pace. Preindustrial culture at Harper's Ferry included drinking and brawling at the workplace. They resisted the trend toward becoming machine tenders, instead insisting on the ability to make a complete product - "lock, stock and barrel." (p. 67)

Though the superintendent of the Harper's Ferry Armory, James Stubblefield, attempted to the put in place the division of labor and time accounting practices pioneered at Springfield, by 1820 Harper's Ferry had fallen way behind Springfield in productivity. Smith explains the cultural reasons for this in "Production, Labor and Management, 1801-1816." It came down to craft resistance to the new system "So long as craft-trained artisans occupied key decision-making positions a the factory, the likelihood of substituting machinery for traditional hand methods was remote." (p. 84) "Early Manufacturing Techniques, 1816" pioneered at Springfield were only half heartedly implemented at Harper's Ferry, if at all.

The "Cooperation between the Armories, 1815-1829" was very much a result of the personal and professional relationship between their superintendents. Roswell Lee, superintendent at Springfield, was a devotee of mechanization. Working in close concert with Colonel George Bomford, head of Army Ordinance, he implemented a series of "go-no go" gages for weapons components. On many occasions Lee sent armorers of Harper's Ferry and invited Stubblefield to the Springfield arsenal. The Blanchard Lathe, developed under contract for the Springfield Armory and producing major improvements in production there, was resisted mightily at Harper's Ferry upon its introduction.

We learn a great deal about Harper's Ferry's Superintendent Stubblefield in "James Stubblefield: Virginia Entrepreneur, 1815-1829." He came from a local gentry family and sought above all to foster the local economy, with which he was tied by birth, marriage and other kinship ties. The local community was tied together by paternalistic bonds which made it absolutely essential that Stubblefield dispense patronage to suit local political needs as opposed to heeding the demands of Washington for mechanization and greater efficiency. In particular, he clashed with Colonel George Bomford, the Army's head of ordinance, who insistently pushed Stubblefield to put national over local goals. If he disliked Bomford, he liked David D. Hall even less. Sent by the ordinance department in 1819 to head up a new rifle works, Hall was a Yankee mechanic will ties to Secretary of War Calhoun. From the very start he clashed with Stubblefield. Both former employees and jilted vendors complained to the War Dept. and to Congress about corrupt practices at Harper's Ferry. As a result Stubblefield's last years at the armory witnessed a good deal of outside criticism, which hardly sat well with xenophobic Harper's Ferry. Beset by a set of investigations by committees appointed by the federal government that produced critical reports, Stubblefield had the pleasure of adding Hall to his growing list of "outside" critics. Though the Wool Commission absolved Stubblefield of wrongdoing, a second investigation found his inept (though not criminal), it was a bumpy ride for the last few years.

In "John H. Hall: Yankee in the Garden, 1819-1841," we learn about this enterprising mechanic from Maine, who build a coalition of influential lobbyists to get an army contract to build his breach loading rifle. After a great deal of persistent lobbying, he got the contract to produce rifles as a private contractor at Harper's Ferry in 1919. Setting up shop at Harper's Ferry, Hall encountered technical and political difficulties. Stubblefield demanded an inquiry by Secretary of War Barbour. The committee came back with a glowing report in 1826. A difficult man on a personal level, he was driven by his devotion to the idea of interchangeability and actually succeeded in producing the elusive technical feat of interchangeability. Though his rifles were never cheaper for the Army than hand crafted ones. That was never the goal.

In "Hall and the American System, 1824-1840," Smith summarizes Hall's importance -- "John H. Hall stood foremost among those who combined inventiveness with entrepreneurial skill in blending men, machinery, and precision measurement methods into a workable system of production. The achievement formed the taproot of American industrialism." (p. 21() To achieve this he put a great deal of emphasis on machine making and quality controls. Instead of employing the Blanchard lathe, he built his own custom lathe. The result of his use of machines was, as the craft-oriented armorers around him at Harper's Ferry feared, that he could employ inexperienced boys to do their jobs.

In "Politics and Technology, 1829-1859," Smith discusses the continuing saga of localism in conflict with national goals and the jockeying of the factions to protect their positions. Harper's Ferry is turned over to military control but not before one of the superintendents is killed by a disaffected former employee. As a result of local protest and jockeying for position in Washington, the armory returns to civilian hands right before John Brown's raid occurs. "The Community in Crisis, 1859-1861" recounts the events of the raid and its aftermath, including the construction of the Richmond Armory that would serve the Confederacy.

In his final chapter he reviews the reasons why Springfield modernized and Harper's Ferry did not. "Cultural Conditions and Technological Change: In Retrospect" could be read as an explanation of why the Confederacy started with one hand tied behind their backs. The persistence of localism and the craft tradition in the south seems one more set of reasons for the South's inability to match the north in the war of production that ran through the course of the Civil War.… (més)