Fake It Until You Make It

PETER: If you’ve been following this presidential election, both campaigns have been responding to concerns about the country’s declining manufacturing industries. Here at BackStory, we faced a challenge in responding to all that election chatter. How do you tell the history of dozens of industries? Well, every industry produces things, objects, that have become parts of our lives. What about looking at how the objects themselves have changed American history?

BRIAN: Today on the show, we’re looking at a history of US manufacturing through five objects. We’ll find out how porcelain caused a trade war in a teacup. And we’ll look at how the birth certificate radically changed who could work in American factories in the early 20th century. We’ll also discuss why nylon stockings caused a run on American department stores in 1946.

ED: Brian, I can’t wait to hear about those nylon stockings. But first, let’s return to the musket.

BRIAN: Oh, not the musket!

[LAUGHTER]

ED: Brian’s on fire today. Now, do you remember Eli Whitney’s demonstration of interchangeable parts in front of Jefferson and Adams?

PETER: Yep.

ED: Well, historian Merritt Roe Smith says that Whitney pretty much faked it.

MERRITT ROE SMITH: The reality is– is that Whitney did not invent interchangeable parts. That’s a process that worked itself out in the United States primarily over a 40-year period. He never achieved it in his lifetime. But that said, his legend cannot be completely destroyed, because he was a promoter of the idea. He wanted to see this new technology developed. He just didn’t do it himself. There were others that achieved that idea.

ED: He kind of planted the seed, right, by claiming that he could to it–

MERRITT ROE SMITH: He planted the seed– absolutely. He pushed the idea, planted the seed, and for that, he deserves a lot of credit.

ED: You know, today, when we’re used to everything being interchangeable, it seems like we should have discovered this a long time ago. Why was it such a hard thing for people to imagine, much less accomplish?

MERRITT ROE SMITH: The main reason is if we project ourselves back to, say, 1800, think of the lack of machines and the lack of measuring devices that just were not in the United States at that time. A whole new set of ways of making things had to be developed.

ED: I see. All right.

MERRITT ROE SMITH: And these are primarily not just self-acting machines, like a milling machine, for example, but also more precise gauges that were used to test the parts as they were coming off the line. And that was a whole different mindset than what had existed under the craft system in the United States.

ED: I see.

MERRITT ROE SMITH: Or in Europe, for that matter.

ED: Right. But why guns? I mean, of all the other things that we could have made with interchangeable parts– does it say anything about the United States that weapons were our main contribution to 19th century manufacturing?

MERRITT ROE SMITH: Why guns? It’s a great question. I think it has to do with the military implications. First of all, governments often sponsored the development of this new technology, both in the United States and in Europe. And it’s an expensive venture. No private individual in the early 1900s could have afforded to invest–

ED: I see.

MERRITT ROE SMITH: –the amount of money that was needed in order to develop this over the course– think. If you’re a company in, say, New Haven– or wherever– having to invest in the development of a new technology over a 30- or 40-year period, you’d be bankrupt.

ED: Right

MERRITT ROE SMITH: Long before that happened.

ED: And nobody else has that much of an incentive for their parts to be interchangeable. It’s only if you have lots of men with lots of guns does that become a big deal, right?

MERRITT ROE SMITH: Absolutely. You know, it wasn’t the US Army that actually did the work. There were private individuals– and public institutions, like the two National Armories at Springfield and Harper’s Ferry. But it was the constant prodding and congressional funding of these ventures that made them– you know, in effect, made it possible for these procedures and these new techniques to be worked out.

ED: I think people might be surprised. We think about this as being a clear example of just private enterprise, but the federal government’s been a critical ingredient from the very beginning, then.

MERRITT ROE SMITH: I think one of the most interesting things about American history is what I tell my students about. I call it government in, government out. And what I mean by that is that when an idea often comes about in the private sector– a particular inventor has a great idea but doesn’t have the money to develop it– they turn to the government support. And basically, that government support helps them get through that risky time when the new invention– there’s no guarantee it will work out or not. But once it becomes economically viable, government gets out and it becomes privatized, basically.

ED: So it really was kind of a national accomplishment. And it must have been a surprise to the world that the Americans could do this. So how did this invention identified with the United States become known around the world?

MERRITT ROE SMITH: Well, basically, it happened at the London Crystal Palace Exhibition in 1851, which was organized by Queen Victoria’s husband. The thing that’s interesting about it is that the United States tended to send very utilitarian stuff. You know, countries like Russia were exhibiting very fine ware– Faberge, for example, and French tapestries, very fine stuff. And here are the Americans, exhibiting guns and rifles and apple peelers and plug tobacco and stuff like that. Then the British were sort of making fun of these American notions, as they called them.

But you had people like this firm from Windsor, Vermont, named Robbins & Lawrence– they exhibit six interchangeable rifles. It was so novel to European eyes that it got the name “The American system of manufacturers” to encapsulate, basically, the whole process of interchangeable manufacturing, especially in firearms.

ED: So did the invention of interchangeable parts and the American arms industry sort of spread through other industries in the United States?

MERRITT ROE SMITH: Surely did, and it moved fairly quickly. Once the arms industry had developed the capacity to make guns with interchangeable parts, you see them– that information, those techniques– moving to other technically rated industries. And as a result of that, gunmakers, interestingly, became the first manufacturers of the first commercial product made with gun-making technology. Take a guess what it is.

ED: Um, it’s not a cotton gin.

MERRITT ROE SMITH: Not a cotton gin.

ED: A washing machine?

MERRITT ROE SMITH: Well, you’re in the right area.

ED: OK.

MERRITT ROE SMITH: It’s a sewing machine.

ED: Whoa, didn’t see that coming.

MERRITT ROE SMITH: Sewing machines, to locomotive equipment, to pocket watches. And you can go right on down the line, from watches and bicycles to automobiles, refrigerators– you name it.

ED: Are all of those technologies built on interchangeable parts?

MERRITT ROE SMITH: Yeah, absolutely.

ED: So that’s the commonality.

MERRITT ROE SMITH: That’s the commonality, is the use of machine tools and gauges, and basically precision-measurement devices to manufacture parts interchangeably and to products that could be used in the consumer market. And I think the thing that’s interesting about this story of interchangeable parts is how it strings itself over a long period of time and touches so many different areas of manufacturing.

ED: Great.

MERRITT ROE SMITH: We’ve only talked about a few. But you know, it has profited from what originated from Eli Whitney and his contemporaries in the early 19th century.

ED: Merritt Roe Smith is a historian at MIT and co-author of Inventing America: A History of the United States.