MOST WONDERFUL MACHINE
MECHANIZATION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN BERKSHIRE PAPER MAKING, 1810-1885
By Judith A. McGaw
Princeton University Press, 1987, 439 pages
In her work Most Wonderful Machine Judith McGaw dives deep into the paper mill industry in the Berkshire region. Though the industry and location are specific, she shows how larger forces both influence, and are influenced by, events and larger systems. In particular the work speaks to mechanization of an industry that starts out local and creates a hand-crafted product. The forces she identifies first inspires the creation of the industry, then is slowly shaped.
Among her approaches, throughout the work McGaw speaks to the individual people involved in the industry creation and expansion. Those who adopt or resist mechanization and their likely incentives are explored. The culture of the people is important. Initially the mill owners, workers and townspeople are mostly homogeneous in their acceptance of Calvinistic and Congregational moral foundations. There was a very egalitarian mindset. That helped keep owners close to the work and the workers. They were cautious about adoption of machines that would be detrimental to workers, though as business need put pressures on them, adoption became the norm. I found it interesting how work was organized based on the religious assumptions such as the role of women, and the need of less skilled men to adjust their working time around farming work.
As machines increased there was less need for some skilled work. Some men moved to work more traditionally thought of as women’s work, but some jobs stayed firmly in the hands of women until they too were finally mechanized. McGaw tells us that technological determinism is not an overriding force. Most all the decisions shown were based on culture and business need. Many of the industry moves came as a result of owners’ interactions with each other, not as competitors, but as a sub-community. They also seemed to make decisions from a paternalistic point of view in regards to the industry and the local community. For example McGaw tells us mill owners were often held responsible for the actions of their workers outside the mill. Likewise the owners felt free to 'manage' the lives of their workers such as asking them to sign an agreement not to give in to drink.
McGaw approaches her work much like Susan Douglas did in Inventing American Broadcasting in that one industry is the focus. Like Douglas, she also helps dig into the psyche of the mill owners. Unlike Douglas, she also focuses into a specific geographic location where Douglas was attempting to look at the entire broadcast industry. Both limit themselves to a specific time period. Both discuss the specifics of the technology evolution and how the “advances” came about. Both use the historical context to show change in the larger system. For example, in the work on broadcasting, the inventors concentrate on a specific technology shortcoming and try to fix that technical issue. When they do, those who compete in the space use the technology to advance their standing in the business. The driving force seems to be individual advancement and competition. In the case of paper mill owners, the incentive is different. As costs increase and price demands decrease through competition, mill owners adopt changes in technology almost grudgingly. In general they are not inventing the technology to lead an industry, but rather tend to adopt a technology in order to keep pace with an industry.
In both cases there is a sort of salient or reverse salient that drives technology change. In the Douglas work the incentive is to solve a technological issue. In the McGaw work the incentive is to solve a business issue. In either case the decision makers are shaped by environments. For example, McGaw points to the raw materials needed, the sort of people needed, and the transportation available. As things change in each of these areas, so does adoption of mechanization change. In one case, as paper demand grows and rag supplies don’t grow in accord, there is a shift to use of chemical means to make previously unusable rags now usable. Unfortunately the change results in an increased polluting impact on the water supply. A need to increase drying capacity resulting from increased paper creation through mechanization (a reverse salient), adding heated drying creates a new supply need for burning fuel (wood, then coal). This need leads to deforestation and increased air pollution. Increased transportation options lead to a migration from local markets, then to regional markets, and finally to national markets. All of this adds demand, and the cycle of reverse salient, to mechanization, to new reverse salient continues through this entire history.
I like the approach of using a specific example to illuminate larger issues or trends. In the work, the specifics are easy to understand and give clarifying language to understand what choices are made, and why they are made. The decisions influence change and are influenced by change. Getting to know an industry I had not considered before made the reading more interesting. For my own future research I could find this approach useful. I find the simplification of the language in a story format helpful. I say simplification of language, but I don’t mean simplification of complex issues. The strength of the work is that complex issues are depicted in understandable ways. Her use of specific data is also a helpful tool. That blend seems to appeal to the academic interested in the topic. I’m less sure if people outside academia would have an interest unless they are in the paper industry. One other area I would have liked to have seen is a comparison with some other region. I’m sure paper mills in another region of America would have had different influences through its development. Some high level look at such a comparison might have been helpful to show the bigger Science, Technology and Society (STS) issues could have been more clarifying.
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