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Networked Machinists

High-Technology Industries in Antebellum America

David R. Meyer

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A century and a half before the modern information technology revolution, machinists in the eastern United States created the nation's first high technology industries. In iron foundries and steam-engine works, locomotive works, machine and tool shops, textile-machinery firms, and firearms manufacturers, these resourceful workers pioneered the practice of dispersing technological expertise through communities of practice.

In the first book to study this phenomenon since the 1916 classic, English and American Tool Builders, David R. Meyer examines the development of skilled-labor exchange...

A century and a half before the modern information technology revolution, machinists in the eastern United States created the nation's first high technology industries. In iron foundries and steam-engine works, locomotive works, machine and tool shops, textile-machinery firms, and firearms manufacturers, these resourceful workers pioneered the practice of dispersing technological expertise through communities of practice.

In the first book to study this phenomenon since the 1916 classic, English and American Tool Builders, David R. Meyer examines the development of skilled-labor exchange systems, showing how individual metalworking sectors grew and moved outward. He argues that the networked behavior of machinists within and across industries helps explain the rapid transformation of metalworking industries during the antebellum period, building a foundation for the sophisticated, mass production/consumer industries that figured so prominently in the later U.S. economy.

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Reviews

This study contains a wealth of information and surprises.

An excellent, up-to-date, synthetic volume with strong themes and evidence.

An excellent synthesis of decades of scholarship.

This book will be an important volume for specialists.

Meyer's book should prove invaluable to scholars of early American industrialization, and particularly to historians of technology.

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Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6.125
x
9.25
Pages
328
ISBN
9780801884719
Illustration Description
30 halftones
Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Machinists' Traces
Part I: The Formation of the Networks, 1790-1820
1. Iron Foundries Become Early Hubs of Machinist Networks
2. A

List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Machinists' Traces
Part I: The Formation of the Networks, 1790-1820
1. Iron Foundries Become Early Hubs of Machinist Networks
2. A Networked Community Built by Cotton Textile Machinists
3. The Federal Armories and Private Firearms Firms Operate in Open Networks
Part II: The Elaboration of the Networks, 1820-1860
4. Iron Foundries Rule the Heavy Capital Equipment Industry
5. Networked Machinists Build Locomotives
6. Resilient Cotton Textile Machinist Networks
7. The Cradles of the Metalworking Machinery Industry
8. Machine Tool Networks
9. Machinists' Networks Forge the Pivotal Producer Durables Industry
Abbreviations
Notes
Essay on Sources
Index

Author Bio
Resources

Additional Resources