Unit 9: Technology in America

E-Library

Supplementary Readings

John H. Hall

In 1819, John H. Hall, a New England gun-maker, signed a contract with the War Department to produce 1,000 breech loading rifles—a weapon he had designed and patented in 1811. Under the terms of the contract Hall came to Harpers Ferry, where he occupied an old Armory sawmill along the Shenandoah River. The site soon became known as Hall's Rifle Works, and the small island on which it stood was called Lower Hall Island. Hall spent several years tooling new workshops and perfecting precision machinery for producing rifles with interchangeable parts—a boldly ambitious goal for an industry which was traditionally based on the manual labor of skilled craftsmen.

In a letter to Secretary of War John Calhoun on December 20, 1822, Hall described his recent accomplishments at Harpers Ferry:

　　I have succeeded in an object which has hitherto completely baffled (notwithstanding the impressions to the contrary which have long prevailed) all the endeavors of those who have heretofore attempted it;I have succeeded in establishing methods for fabricating arms exactly alike, with economy, by the hands of common workmen, in such manner as to ensure a perfect observance of any established model, to furnish in the arms themselves a complete test of their conformity to it.

During his two decades at Harpers Ferry, Hall developed and constructed drop—hammers, stock—making machines, balanced pulleys, drilling machines, and special machines for straight—cutting, lever—cutting, and curve—cutting. Hall's straight—cutting machine was the forerunner of today's versatile milling machine, and a critical tool used in the fabrication of precision metal firearm components.

Hall's success at Harpers Ferry was attested to by Colonel George Talcott of the Ordnance Department, who wrote in 1832 that Hall's "manufactory has been carried to a greater degree of perfection, as regards the quality of work and uniformity of parts than is to be found anywhere —almost everything is performed by machinery, leaving very little dependent on manual labor."

From 1820-1840, John H. Hall devoted his uncompromising attention to the "uniformity principle" of interchangeable manufacture, laying a solid foundation for America's developing factory system right here at Harpers Ferry.

Thomas Alva Edison and His Electric Lamp

One of the outstanding geniuses in the history of technology, Thomas Edison earned patents for more than a thousand inventions, including the incandescent electric lamp, the phonograph, the carbon telephone transmitter, and the motion-picture projector. In addition, he created the world's first industrial research laboratory. Born in Milan, Ohio, Edison was an inquisitive child. By the time he was 10 he had set up a small chemical laboratory in the cellar of his home after his mother had aroused his interest in an elementary physical science book. He found the study of chemistry and the production of electrical current from voltaic jars especially absorbing and soon operated a homemade telegraph set. In 1868 he obtained a position in Boston as an expert night operator for Western Union Telegraph Company; by day he slept little, however, for he was gripped by a passion for manipulating electrical currents in new ways. Borrowing a small sum from an acquaintance, he gave up his job in the autumn of 1868 and became a free-lance inventor, taking out his first patent for an electrical vote recorder. In the summer of 1869 he was in New York, sleeping in a basement below Wall Street. At a moment of crisis on the Gold Exchange caused by the breakdown of the office's new telegraphic gold-price indicator, Edison was called in to try to repair the instrument; this he did so expertly that he was given a job as its supervisor. Soon he had remodeled the erratic machine so well that its owners, the Western Union Telegraph Company, commissioned him to improve the crude stock ticker just coming into use. The result was the Edison Universal Stock Printer, which, together with several other derivatives of the Morse telegraph, brought him a sudden fortune of $40,000. With this capital he set himself up as a manufacturer in Newark, New Jersey, producing stock tickers and high-speed printing telegraphs. In 1876 Edison gave up the Newark factory altogether and moved to the village of Menlo Park, New Jersey, to set up a laboratory where he could devote his full attention to invention. He promised that he would turn out a minor invention every ten days and a big invention every six months. He also proposed to make inventions to order. Before long he had 40 different projects going at the same time and was applying for as many as 400 patents a year. In September 1878, after having viewed an exhibition of a series of eight glaring 500-candlepower arc lights, Edison boldly announced he would invent a safe, mild, and inexpensive electric light that would replace the gaslight in millions of homes; moreover, he would accomplish this by an entirely different method of current distribution from that used for arc lights. To back the lamp effort, some of New York's leading financial figures joined with Edison in October 1878 to form the Edison Electric Light Company, the predecessor of today's General Electric Company. On October 21,1879, Edison demonstrated the carbon-filament lamp, supplied with current by his special high-voltage dynamos. The pilot light-and-power station at Menlo Park glowed with a circuit of 30 lamps, each of which could be turned on or off without affecting the rest. Three years later, the Pearl Street central power station in downtown New York City was completed, initiating the electrical illumination of the cities of the world. In 1887 Edison moved his workshop from Menlo Park to West Orange, New Jersey, where he built the Edison Laboratory (now a national monument), a facility 10 times larger than the earlier one. In time it was surrounded with factories employing some 5,000 persons and producing a variety of new products, among them his improved phonograph using wax records, the mimeograph, fluoroscope, alkaline storage battery, dictating machine, and motion-picture cameras and projectors. During World War I, the aged inventor headed the Naval Consulting Board and directed research in torpedo mechanisms and antisubmarine devices. It was largely owing to his urging that Congress established the Naval Research Laboratory, the first institution for military research, in 1920.

Throughout his career, Edison consciously directed his studies to devices that could satisfy real needs and come into popular use. Indeed, it may be said that in applying himself to technology, he was fulfilling the ideals of democracy, for he centered his attention upon projects that would increase the convenience and pleasure of mankind.

Scientific Management

Frederick Winslow Taylor:

Probably the first attempt at formally timing work was in 1760 when a Frenchman, Jean Radolphe Perronet, studied the manufacture of pins and attempted to establish standard times for various operations.

Documents have been found relating to the Old Derby China works for the year 1792 in which a Mr. Thomas Mason pledged himself to undertake time studies in the factory and to undertake his work conscientiously and diligently.

At the turn of the century the problems of layout and method were studied by Robert Owen. Owen's work at the New Lanark Mills was revolutionary at the time. Through experimentation, he succeeded in raising the living conditions of his workers whilst reorganizing his mills on commercial principles.

Robert Owen is credited with being the first to recognize fatigue and the work environment as factors affecting the performance of factory workers.

Frederick Winslow Taylor:

By far the most influential person of the time and someone who has had an impact on management service practice as well as on management thought up to the present day, was F. W. Taylor. Taylor formalized the principles of scientific management, and the fact-finding approach put forward and largely adopted was a replacement for what had been the old rule of thumb.

He also developed a theory of organizations which altered the personalized autocracy which had only been tempered by varying degrees of benevolence, such as in the Quaker family businesses of Cadbury's and Clark's.

Taylor was not the originator of many of his ideas, but was a pragmatist with the ability to synthesize the work of others and promote them effectively to a ready and eager audience of industrial managers who were striving to find new or improved ways to increase performance.

At the time of Taylor's work, a typical manager would have very little contact with the activities of the factory. Generally, a foreman would be given the total responsibility for producing goods demanded by the salesman. Under these conditions workmen used what tools they had or could get and adopted methods that suited their own style of work.

F.W. Taylor's contributions to scientific management:

By 1881 Taylor had published a paper that turned the cutting of metal into a science. Later he turned his attention to shoveling coal. By experimenting with different designs of shovel for use with different material (from 'rice' coal to ore) he was able to design shovels that would permit the worker to shovel for the whole day.

In so doing, he reduced the number of people shoveling at the Bethlehem Steel Works from 500 to 140. This work, and his studies on the handling of pig iron, greatly contributed to the analysis of work design and gave rise to method study.

To follow, in 1895, were papers on incentive schemes. A piece rate system on production management in shop management, and later, in 1909, he published the book for which he is best known, Principles of Scientific Management.

A feature of Taylor's work was stop-watch timing as the basis of observations. However, unlike the early activities of Perronet and others, he started to break the timings down into elements and it was he who coined the term 'time study'.

Taylor's uncompromising attitude in developing and installing his ideas caused him much criticism. Scientific method, he advocated, could be applied to all problems and applied just as much to managers as workers. In his own words he explained:

　　"The old fashioned dictator does not exist under Scientific Management. The man at the head of the business under Scientific Management is governed by rules and laws which have been developed through hundreds of experiments just as much as the workman is, and the standards developed are equitable."

Objectives of Scientific Management

The four objectives of management under scientific management were as follows:

　　The development of a science for each element of a man's work to replace the old rule-of-thumb methods.

　　The scientific selection, training and development of workers instead of allowing them to choose their own tasks and train themselves as best they could.

　　The development of a spirit of hearty cooperation between workers and management to ensure that work would be carried out in accordance with scientifically devised procedures.

　　The division of work between workers and the management in almost equal shares, each group taking over the work for which it is best fitted instead of the former condition in which responsibility largely rested with the workers. Self-evident in this philosophy are organizations arranged in a hierarchy, systems of abstract rules and impersonal relationships between staff.

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