MANUFACTURING AS A SPECIALTY OF THE UNITED STATES The Rank of the United States in Manufacturing.—In 1919 the total value of the manufactured products of the United States reached the enormous total of over 62 billion dollars. When we deduct the value of the raw materials, 37 billion dollars, there remain 25 billion as the value added by manufacturing. This is ahnost identical with the total value of farm products for the same year. The number of persons engaged in manufacturing and in agriculture in 1919 was also almost identical, being about 10,800,000. Since 1919 was a year of very high prices, 25 billion dollars then represents approximately as much as 15 billion would now. How the value of the manufactured goods in the United States compares with that in other countries cannot be deter mined, for the standards of value and the methods of keeping statistics vary greatly. Moreover, the Great War prevented accurate census returns in Europe, and still causes production there to be abnormal. This much, however, is clear: the activity of the United States, com bined with its huge population, makes it today by far the greatest manu facturing country. Its chief manufacturing districts produce more per capita than any other parts of the world. Nevertheless, the United States stands second to western Europe, not only in the total amount of manufacturing, because of Europe's large population, but also in the percentage of the general population engaged in manufacturing (Fig. 54).
The Permanence of Manufacturing in the United is sometimes supposed that manufacturing is a relatively new develop ment in the United States, and that it has grown amazingly in recent decades. This is partly true, but ever since the manufacturing era was ushered in by the steam engine, cotton gin, and other mechanical inventions, manufacturing has been an important industry in this country. For example, according to the census of 1810 the total annual value of manufactures amounted to $198,000,000, or $27.40 per capita in 1809. A century later the value was $20,672,000,000, or $224.50 per capita. These figures at first suggest that manufacturing in 1909 was about eight times as important as in 1809, but that is not correct, for the purchasing power of money increased greatly during the nine th century. For example, in 1849, the earliest year for which data available, the average wage earner in factories received $246 per year, while in 1909 he received $518. Most of this difference was due to a general increase in the cost of living. In 1809 a dollar was worth fully three times as much as a century later. Thus the $27.40 of manu factures per capita in 1809 would have been worth over eighty dollars if the prices of 1909 had then prevailed. If we reckon in another way,
the result is similar. In 1849 the wage earners in manufacturing indus tries numbered 4.1 per cent of the total population and in 1909, 7.2 per cent.* In 1809, the figure was probably not far from 21 or 3 per cent, while in 1919, when the factories employed more than the normal num ber of people, it had risen to 8.6 per cent. The general conclusion to be drawn from all these figures is that as long ago as 1810 the manu facturing industries of this country were perhaps a third as important as today in proportion to the population. But even in England, where manufacturing first became important, the percentage of the total population engaged in manufacturing industries was apparently not much more than a third as great in 1809 as now. Hence it appears that in proportion to the population and to the degree of development of machinery, the United States has ranked high in manufacturing for at least a century.
The Places where Manufacturing Increases.—Manufacturing tends to remain in the same places generation after generation. It expands rapidly in new regions only under certain clearly defined conditions. For example, from 1899 to 1919 the percentage of the population engaged as wage earners in the factories of the United States increased from 6.2 to 8.6 per cent for the country as a whole. But this increase of 2.4 per cent was by no means distributed equally as appears in Fig. 84. A comparison of this with Fig. 82 shows that on the whole the greatest additions to the manufacturing population were in regions where manu facturing is already fairly well developed. The most rapid increase was in Michigan and Ohio where the lake transportation, nearness to coal and iron, nearness to the great market of the level farming states, and a location in the best climatic zone of the country helped to cause the automobile industry to become firmly established between 1900 and 1920. Other regiolis that showed a relatively large growth in manu facturing were New Jersey, West Virginia, Indiana, Illinois, and Wiscon sin, all within or on the border of the area of most intensive manufactur ing as shown in Fig. 82. The only other states that rivaled these were Oregon, Washington, and Idaho where another manufacturing center begins to show many resemblances to that of the North Atlantic and lake states, North Carolina with its cotton factories, and Louisiana with its sugar industry. The area where manufacturing is carried on with great activity is apparently expanding, but there is a strong tendency for the greatest expansion to take place where industry is already well estab lished. Such regions seem to be especially adapted to manufacturing.