America's Industrialization in the Nineteenth Century

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John Steele Gordon, The Days of Porkopolis. Thomas Blanchard hated working in the tack factory. Instead of quitting, he eliminated his job by inventing a tack-making machine. Wall Street Journal, Nov 20, 2012 (title in print)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 27293606022734.html
(book review on Charles R Morris, The Dawn of Innovation; The first American industrial revolution. PublicAffairs, 2012)

Quote:

"The industrialization of America in the last third of the 19th century * * * made the United States the most powerful nation in the world, a position it holds to this day. But the post-Civil War industrialization had an important and largely overlooked predecessor in the first decades of the 19th century, when [quoting the book] 'the American penchant for mechanized, large-scale production spread throughout industry, presaging the world's first mass-consumption economy.'

"In 1800 * * * shipbuilding was the only major American industry that competed overseas. Sixty years later, on the eve of the Civil War, the US had the largest industrial base after Britain and the world's second largest gross domestic product. It had greatly expanded its agricultural exports, especially cotton to feed the insatiable British textile mills and wheat to feed Britain's soaring population. But it had also built its own vast textile and whaling businesses in New England.

"The lard (or pig fat) from the slaughterhouses * * * served as the basis for the country's first chemical industry. *  * * It [lard] was a principal ingredient in soap, which farm wives made themselves, a disagreeable and even dangerous task thanks to the lye used in the process. But when lard processing was industrialized to make soap, it led to an array of byproducts such as glycerin [and stearine].

Note:
(a) Cincinnati
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cincinnati
(In 1790, Arthur St. Clair, the governor of the Northwest Territory, changed the name of the settlement to "Cincinnati" in honor of the Society of the Cincinnati[, which] honored General George Washington, who was considered a latter day Cincinnatus [520-430 BC], the Roman farmer who was called to serve Rome as dictator, an office which he resigned after completing his task of defeating the Aequians in no less than 16 days)

(b) Regarding quotation 1: specifically, "Sixty years later [in or about 1860], on the eve of the Civil War, the US had * * * the world's second largest gross domestic product."

No doubt the statement is untrue: China was the undisputed No 1 (189,470----in millions of 1990 International Dollars; head and shoulders above the rest)--followed by India, ruled by British East India Company, as No 2.
(i) historical list of ten largest countries by GDP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His ... st_countries_by_GDP
(section 9 Angus Maddison statistics of the ten largest economies
by GDP (PPP): In 1870, UK (3rd in the world; 100,180) and US (4th; 98,374))
(ii) List of regions by past GDP (PPP) per capita
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
(section 1 World 1–2003 (Maddison): 1870 in 1990 International Dollars, UK (3,190), US (2,445), India (533), and China (530))
(iii) The 1860 census showed US population was 31,443,321.
(iv) Vol III General Report, in Census of England and Wales; For the Year 1861. Her Majesty's Station Office, 1863
http://vision.port.ac.uk/text/ch ... p;cpub_id=EW1861GEN
(Chapter I  Population, Houses, and Families: Table I showed total population for United Kingdom (29,321,288): England and Wales (20,228,497), Scotland (3,096,808) and Ireland (5,850,309))

UK at the time reigned over the entire island of Ireland.

(c) lye
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lye
(commonly sodium hydroxide (NaOH); historically potassium hydroxide (KOH, from hydrated potash); Previously, lye was among the many different alkalis leached from hardwood ashes)

* leach (vt): "to dissolve out by the action of a percolating liquid <leach out alkali from ashes>"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/leach

(d)
(i) For glycerin, see glycerol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycerol
(Glycerol (or glycerine, glycerin))
(ii) For stearine, see stearin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stearin
(a triglyceride derived from three units of stearic acid)
(A) stearin (n; French stéarine, from Greek stear; First Known Use 1817):
"an ester of glycerol and stearic acid"
(B) stearic acid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stearic_acid
(18 carbons: CH3(CH2)16COOH; Its name comes from theGreek word stéar, which means tallow)

(e) The review states, "Procter & Gamble, founded in Cincinnati in 1837 by an Irish soap maker and an English candle maker who had married sisters, grew into a giant company as the fast-rising middle class sought gentility.
(i) Procter & Gamble
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procter_%26_Gamble
(section 1 History)
(ii) The English surname Procter is variant spelling of Proctor. The "proctor" -- a modern word meaning "supervisor, specifically : one appointed to supervise students" (www.m-w.com) --
"was used most commonly of an attorney in a spiritual court."
(iii) The English surname Gamble is "from the Old Norse byname Gamall meaning ‘old.’"

(f)
(i) Chauncey jerome
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chauncey_Jerome
(1793–1868)
(ii) Movement (clockwork)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movement_(clockwork)

(g)
(i) Eli Terry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eli_Terry
(1772-1852; a clockmaker in Connecticut; introduced mass production to the art of clockmaking, which made clocks affordable for the average American citizen; Terry occupies an important place in the beginnings of the development of interchangeable parts manufacturing)
(ii) gun maker
Thomas Blanchard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Blanchard
(1788-1864; lived in Springfield, Massachusetts, where in 1819, he pioneered the assembly line style of
mass production in America, and also invented the major technological innovation known as interchangeable parts)

* tack
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tack
(may refer to a type of nail or thumbtack, among other things)
(iii) George Henry Corliss
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Henry_Corliss
(1817-1888; developed the Corliss steam engine in Providence, Rhode Island' The Corliss engine "provided a reliable, efficient source of industrial power, enabling the expansion of new factories to areas which did not readily possess reliable or abundant water power")

The reviewer thus describes Mr Corliss: "By the mid-19th century, the United States was clearly in the lead in steam-engine design, thanks especially to Corliss, whose engine proved to be an astonishing 30% more fuel-efficient than earlier models."