Beach Haven

FROM THE AMERICAN SYSTEM TO MASS PRODUCTION 1800-1932
By David A. Hounshell
The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984, 411 pages
Reviewed by Michael Beach
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Businesses depicted in the book in question had to struggle with getting their product available at a price affordable by people, and the increase in demand that price setting can cause. Lower price breeds more demand. More demand requires lowering costs to remain sustainable and competitive as a company. Sometimes increased demand was the result of a single large customer, the U.S. government. This system of customer demand fueled by lowering costs and increased marketing created a natural evolution toward mass production. In a number of cases this cycle is depicted in the text by a number of annual product output reports showing ever increasing numbers of products manufactured/sold. Based on the examples given here is a sort of matrix of my own depicting some of the evolution mentioned in the book:

​Although the book does show some political influence in the system supporting this migration, the strongest arguments seem to be economic. Governments are often shown as a customer, though there are a few regulatory examples. Other books I’ve read so far have attempted to show a larger number of stakeholder depictions in the documented systems. Like sections in American Genesis, there are overarching cultural themes examined in the chapter titled The Ethos of Mass Production & Its Critics. For example on page 316 Upton Sinclair is quoted as saying mass production “should be shown in Museums of Unnatural History.” The argument was also shown in both works that when man puts nature in order then something of beauty or aesthetic is lost. People become efficiently unhappy. To keep product delivery quantity high it is difficult to make changes, constantly offering new models. Not offering new models can cause drop in sales. The tendency is to keep models static for as long as possible leading to a more sterile societal experience.

It’s not clear to me who the intended audience would be for this work. For scholars, there are patterns that can be identified such as the productivity evolution I mentioned earlier (see the table). The histories of various industries with specific business examples is helpful in seeing how each business evolved, or failed to, and how each business was impacted. Like many of the works I’ve been reading, the major issues are raised, but probably never really answered. What does mass production mean? Is it delivering to the masses? Is it delivering large quantities? Does an increased need cause increased demand and increased production, or does increased production and marketing cause an corresponding increase in demand? In either case, stating the generalized questions, then sharing specific examples, followed by critiques of the issues is a reasonable way to approach a topic like this. For me as a reader, getting both the ideas and the examples is helpful.

​AMERICAN GENESIS
By Thomas P. Hughes
Penguin Books USA Inc., 1989, 529 pages
Reviewed by Michael Beach

One theme shared in American Genesis by Thomas P. Hughes refers to a sort of pendulum. Close to the turn of, and well into, the 20th century, technology was seen in many ways as a metaphor for improvement or advancement. Technology became a tool to put order into the chaos of nature, a means of control. Hughes points out, through lots of examples, how technology tends to evolve from the independent inventor working towards some sort of innovation, who is at some point taken over by, or creates, large institutions which then advance technology more incrementally. Once the larger institutions get involved, the scale ramps up. The institutions can be varied; commercial industry for profit, or maybe government organizations for social welfare. Whatever the motivation, upping the scale and improved efficiency tend to go hand-in-hand. Towards the end of the 20th century the pendulum, Hughes argues, began to swing in the other direction. As life became more standardized, more urbanized, more crowded, there has been a call to better balance the modern with the natural. Interestingly enough, it is technology that is making this movement more possible. As electricity, communications, and transportation have been able to reach ever more rural parts of a given country, the need for physical centralized workers and resources has lessened. Even in industries that require physical assets such as manufacturing, the days of placing all the stages of manufacture (raw materials, parts manufacture, and assembly) in a single mega-complex are giving way to a more dispersed chain. Automobile manufacture and assembly are no longer concentrated in the US in Detroit for example.


Similar to a portion of the Hughes argument on the tendency toward up-scaling, Susan Douglas in her work Inventing American Broadcasting 1899-1922 uses the example of Marconi, among others. The focus of the book, and the story of the Marconi group of companies, is narrower than American Genesis. In the Douglas work Marconi makes the evolution from innovative inventor, to corporate controlled strategy, to incremental technological improvement. Unfortunately for Marconi, the rest of the industry shifted with customer expectation. Marconi attempted to shape customer expectation which worked for a while, until it didn’t. The example Hughes shares about Ford and his creation of the Highland Park and River Rouge facilities that literally housed all aspects of car manufacture, including a smelting plant for turning ore into steel, shows that Ford eventually recognized the need for change. Moving around portions of the car manufacture to put smelting close to the mining sites, parts manufacture in other locations, and assembly in yet other locations was a responsiveness to advantages of decentralization as the support technologies made it possible. Douglas shows the pattern through the experience of multiple companies in a single industry. Hughes shows the pattern through multiple companies in multiple industries, including large government efforts such as nuclear energy and electrification. Then he takes it a step further to show the reflection of the pattern in art and architectural trends.

What Hughes brings forward in this work is to show how patterns of thought that relate to the intersection of technology and society are much more widespread than is evident in just one industry, or just in industry. Growing scale, and a need to improve efficiency to improve profit, lower costs, or any other motivation comes with a cost. At some points in history the cost was seen as a benefit, at other points as a negative. The “main” message of the author, if there is one, is not always clear. Because he is simultaneously documenting other trends as well, the work feels as if there is no specific central message. Perhaps there isn’t one intentionally. The pendulum I mentioned, for example, only becomes clear toward the latter half of the work. Other threads, such as societal perspectives and the resultant variation of approach to technology, are also woven through the book. Individual history of inventors and how that affects their individual approach is another early theme. The US model of increased productivity in a capitalistic society is contrasted with how other political and societal situations adapted the approach with varying success, is another theme. If the intended audience is academia and the specialized disciplines considering how society and technology interact, then there are plenty of areas for the student to focus on. However, if a reader does not approach the work from that perspective, they could find the work feels less organized. If I were considering my own future research, I think my own approach would be to focus on a more central theme or idea, any theme Hughes used would work, then consider the other areas of focus as supportive, or not supportive, of that theme.

​​INVENTING AMERICAN BROADCASTING 1899 – 1922
By Susan J. Douglas
The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987, 363 pages
Reviewed by Michael Beach
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The work in question looks at the forces that brought about the technology leading to the early radio industry. The focus is on invention of technology followed by invention of the businesses that intended to capitalize on the technology. Douglas also looks at the networks (people, society, technology, regulation, etc.) that helped steer events that lead to the industry.
 
In the area of people there were inventors, business leaders, the press, and politicians. They are described variously as the outsider, self-made, those with connections, tinkerers, academics, hero-inventor, boy-hero-inventor, diligent, hard-working. Motivations included fame, wealth, knowledge, and a use of intellect as a form of masculinity.
 
Tools the early inventors used were technology (patents), business acumen and the press. Often the successful inventors were missing one or more of these and found partners to hit all three of these areas. The book also looks at power or control. Captains at sea had total autonomy at sea. Once wireless was available to the admiralty, the captain suddenly had less power. There were tensions over control between inventors and their business partners; commercial, military and amateur interests in wireless; and arguments for and against regulation.
 
Douglas also shows evolutionary forces in the industry. Technology has to move from innovation, to incorporation, to monetization. Wired telegraphy gave way to wireless telegraphy, which in turn gave way to wireless entertainment to the masses. The wireless technology moved from the spark system, to the audion tube, to crystal sets. Transmission migrated from encoding using Morse code to continuous wave and voice. The press showed inventors as heroes, then failures, then heroes again. Amateur operators were first depicted as heroes, then wireless meddlers, then skilled enlistees for the military.
 
The work shows early events that seem as shadows of events we see today. For example, during emergencies the airwaves, that were not regulated at first, became overloaded (jammed) with interference of many operators trying to talk at once. This is not unlike how cell phone circuits can get tied up by overuse in an emergency. During the Titanic disaster some operators spread false information that the Titanic was safe and on its way home. This sounds not unlike our world of so called “fake news.” The amateur operators were both “faceless and yet known at the same time.” They could be equated with social media trolls or lurkers.
 
Ownership was another theme explored by Douglas. The airwaves (or ether as it was called) was not a thing, but became a thing. As a thing, who owned it? Would it be public or private property? If public, who would represent “the people”?
 
A few other themes in the book include how external events such as shipwrecks, international conferences and international rivalries shaped the use of airwaves. All involved were seeking some mechanism to make order out of chaos. A need to create order is a human value not shared by all people. There is also an examination of the haves and have-nots. On the surface the early days of radio seemed opened to all, but there really were conscripting influences that made access not so open.
 
The read would appeal to those who study how technology and society interact. Historians, broadcasters, business people, inventors might also find the work worth reading.