From the American System to Mass Production, 1800-1932

By David Hounshell

Categories: Engineering & Transportation, History

Historian David Hounshell traces American mass production back to the American system of manufacture of the nineteenth century, when armories pursued interchangeable parts. Drawing on company records, he shows that the spread of armory methods was slower and rougher than earlier accounts claimed. Moving through sewing machines, furniture, bicycles and reapers, Hounshell argues that mass production was a twentieth-century development owed largely to Ford, and shows how General Motors' annual model change began a new era.

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• Seth Godin: “This is a powerful book, an extraordinary insight into the change from handmade to factory, from skilled craftsmen to cogs in a system. This really happened, and it happened to our great grandparents. The shifts were mammoth—in one two year period, productivity at a Ford plant went up by more than five times.”