“Mechanization Takes Command?": Powered Machinery and Production Times in Late Nineteenth Century American Manufacturing

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) Jeremy Atack, Vanderbilt University; Robert A. Margo, Boston University; Paul W. Rhode, University of Michigan

Version:  View help for Version V1

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HML_jeh_replication.dta application/x-stata-dta 399.2 KB 04/04/2022 06:47:AM
Replication document for Atack Margo Rhode Mechanization Takes Command Version of March 31 2022.docx application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document 23.7 KB 03/31/2022 07:18:AM

Project Citation: 

Atack, Jeremy, Margo, Robert A. , and Rhode, Paul W. “Mechanization Takes Command?": Powered Machinery and Production Times in Late Nineteenth Century American Manufacturing. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2022-04-04. https://doi.org/10.3886/E166741V1

Project Description

Summary:  View help for Summary During the nineteenth century, U.S. manufacturers shifted away from the “hand labor” mode of production, characteristic of artisan shops, to “machine labor,” which was increasingly concentrated in steam-powered factories. This transition fundamentally changed production tasks, jobs, and job requirements. This paper uses digitized data on these two production modes from an 1899 U.S. Commissioner of Labor report to estimate the frequency and impact of the use of inanimate power on production operation times. About half of production operations were mechanized; the use of inanimate power raised productivity, accounting for about one-quarter to one-third of the overall productivity advantage of machine labor. However, additional factors, such as the increased division of labor and adoption of high-volume production, also played quantitatively important roles in raising productivity in machine production versus by hand.

Scope of Project

Subject Terms:  View help for Subject Terms Labor productivity; technological change
Geographic Coverage:  View help for Geographic Coverage United States
Time Period(s):  View help for Time Period(s) 1813 – 1896
Collection Date(s):  View help for Collection Date(s) 1894 – 1899

Methodology

Sampling:  View help for Sampling Selected by Bureau of Labor beginning with a producer of a highly specific manufactured product made by the latest (1890s) methods (=machine production) for which the Bureau of Labor then sought data for a producer of the same product busing "old-fashioned" (artisan/hand) methods
Data Source:  View help for Data Source United States, Department of Labor. Hand and Machine Labor (Thirteenth Annual Report). Washington DC: GPO, 1899
Unit(s) of Observation:  View help for Unit(s) of Observation Task level data from matched individual producers of highly specific product by different modes of production

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V1 [2022-04-04]

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