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The Industrial System

The transition from the artisan system to the factory system unfolded gradually in the United States. This movement relates to other major themes of the period: changing conditions and hours of labor, formation of a factory culture, and transformative technological developments, all of which affected workers’ attitudes, lifestyles, and health. Generally, the artisan system dominated from the 1700s to the 1860s, though factory discipline began to be implemented in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Textile mills, which required large equipment and water-power, appear to have adopted the factory system earliest. For instance, Samuel Slater, a British textile entrepreneur, opened his mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island in 1793, employing entire families in the work process. Slater’s system included a system of tenant farms around the mills to house the working families. Likewise, the Union Manufacturing Company in Oella, Maryland began production shortly after 1808.

The introduction of the industrial system, which often shifted production from the home to a separate manufacturing site, meant that workers lost power over their tools and equipment and lost the ability to set their own prices or sell their own goods. Instead, industrial workers sold their labor-power at prices set by factory owners. In this system, labor was coordinated under a single technical system, often under the same roof. This system involved minimizing the importance of craft skills on the part of laborers as compared to that of the artisan system and an emphasis on the techniques of labor and time discipline. The new mode of manufacture saw the cheapening and regularization as well as the consolidation of control over labor regimes.

Work and social life became disciplined to synchronize with the repetitive and rhythmic operations of increasingly mechanized processes. Mechanization increasingly displaced skilled labor. Machines also meant the loss of ability to sell acquired skills at the same rate of remuneration as prior to the introduction of the machine. Still, the process of de-skilling the labor force was gradual and uneven across the different industries. On the whole, from the late eighteenth to the middle of the nineteenth century, labor conditions generally deteriorated in the United States.

The United States saw significant changes including increasing industrialization during the period from 1826 to 1861. The population of the United States in 1826 is estimated to have been around 11,000,000; it tripled to 33,000,000 by time of the Civil War. The magnitude of everything from railroads and immigration to farm production increased. During this period, wage labor became the dominant manner of organizing production and economic affairs passed from the community as a whole to a special class. Although the nation was still agrarian and half or more of adults were self-employed by the end of the Civil War, the nation was quickly transitioning to a country where the majority of individuals worked for employers.

The former industrial town of Harpers Ferry in West Virginia illustrates the movement from artisan to industrial systems and its effects. During the first part of the nineteenth century, Harpers Ferry underwent a transition from a small craft village to an industrial armory. This conversion was not at all times peaceful or comfortable.

The expansion of industry in the nineteenth century required increasing amounts of labor. In the beginnings of the factory system, the labor requirement could be met with long hours similar to the working day in agriculture, initially drawing from women and children. Immigration and migration supplied the growth of industry and the construction of its infrastructure. Widening national markets and subsequent competition compelled manufacturers to seek to lower costs and reduce wages by employing cheap labor.

This drive to lower costs led to social differentiation and segmentation of the workforce, pitting different groups against each other. As a result, conditions were created that prioritized production over workers’ health and safety. Processes such as enslavement, migration, itinerancy, and the development of ethnic, race, and class enclaves are all important aspects to the relationship between labor and the movement of people.