George J. Chisholm, in the Introduction to Bartholomew’s Atlas of the World’s Commerce, outlines the history of the development of manufactures and the relation thereof to commerce as follows:
“In the latter part of the eighteenth century there took place in England a number of inventions which have brought about a change in the conditions of manufacturing industry and of commerce, and an acceleration of the rate of the economic development of the world, to which all previous history presents no parallel or approach to a parallel. It is a change that has affected the entire world,
bringing about an entirely new trade with the New World and the antipodes, and completely altering the character of the trade with the East, depriving spices of the peculiar value which they held in commerce for so many centuries, and developing a trade of incomparably greater magnitude with the East than was at one time ever dreamt of, and largely in commodities of a bulky character yielding comparatively little profit on small quantities. The revolution was inaugurated by the inventions in connection with the cotton industry between 1769 and 1785 and the concurrent improvements in the steam engine by James Watt, who thereby first made this a generally serviceable machine. These were followed by the introduction of steam locomotion by land and water in the first quarter, and the rapid extension of these modes of transport in the remainder of the nineteenth century. The result of these inventions was to give a new value to the stores of coal and iron in the United Kingdom, and ultimately a new value to undeveloped land in new countries. It was railways that first made it possible to fill great ships with bulky produce like grain drawn from the far interior. The remarkable expansion of commerce thus brought about greatly increased the commercial advantages of Great Britain due to its situation and local facilities for shipping. In so far, however, as the unexampled development of British manufacturing industry and commerce in the period immediately following the Industrial Revolution was due not to geographical conditions but merely to the fact that the great inventions originated there and consequently the resources of Great Britain for carrying on manufactures by the new methods were developed first, the expansion of British manufactures and commerce was bound to be affected by the development of similar resources elsewhere; and the more rapid growth of manufactures in some rival countries resulting from this cause, and partly, it may be, from other causes, has been one of the marked features of recent economic history.”
I. MODERN MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD.
The manufacturing systems of the world have developed from mere hand and household industries to those of the machine and factory in less than two centuries. For thousands of years the simple requirements of men—of clothing, of domestic life, of agriculture and of transportation—were met with articles produced by hand labor, performed for the greatest part in the household or in simple workshops adjacent thereto. Then, in the latter half of the eighteenth century, man discovered that he could harness the power of the waterfall and, by making the wheels which it turned turn other wheels, could utilize that power in performing many tasks which he had hitherto performed laboriously by hand. The turning wheels twisted the wool and flax and cotton into threads stronger and finer and better than his wife had been accustomed to twist with the spinning wheel and distaff, and produced in a single day as much of this yarn as a hundred industrious women could produce in a week or a fortnight. By gearing the wheels to operate a loom he could weave the yarn into cloth with a small fraction of the labor and time which had been required to weave it by the hand loom and obtain better results.
Thus arose the custom of manufacturing by machinery operated by the power of the waterfall the cloth which had hitherto been manufactured by hand labor in the household; this was the beginning of the modern manufacturing industry.
To do this, however, it was necessary to plant the machines beside the waterfall and bring to them the raw material and the persons necessary to operate them, for the machine was unable to perform its task unless assisted by the intelligent labor and guidance of experienced men and women. Thus arose the system of performing in a
single workshop, with the aid of a considerable number of people and machines, the manufacturing which had been hitherto performed by many people in many households and with many machines of simpler form and operated by human power—the factory system.
This new system developed new occupations. The buildings in which the work was carried on must be constructed. The machinery required for operating the factory must be made and kept in repair, and new machines made to take the place of those worn out. So there came occupation for mechanics and skilled machinists in manufacturing and repairing the machines, and for others skilled in operating them. The material used in manufacturing the cloth must be transported to the factory, instead of being used at the place where it was grown as formerly; and the cloth must again be transported to the consumer; and thus there were new occupations for man and beast in transportation and in constructing and maintaining the roads over which the material was transported. Still another, and equally important, industry developed was that of supplying the food and other requirements of the men and women engaged in the factory, and this gave new activity to the agricultural industries near the factory and further occupation to those engaged in transportation.
To supply the wants of those employed in the factories, who were so busily engaged that they could not find time to grow their own food, or make their own clothing, other enterprising men and women established themselves near the factory to sell the required food and household supplies, to supply the fuel with which they cooked their daily food, to buy small portions of the cloth made in the factory and turn it into clothing to sell to the operatives, to shave their rough beards and occasionally trim their hair—and thus arose the factory town.