The Factors that Determine where Manufacturing shall be Active.— In considering the factors that determine where manufacturing shall be located it must be remembered that sometimes one factor is most important and sometimes another. One factor may determine the general location of an industry, while still another may determine its exact position. (1) Climate, through its relation to health and energy, is as important in the United States as in the rest of the world. Its part in determining the degree of activity of manufacturing may be judged somewhat from the strong resemblance between Figs. 22, 23, 82, and 85. It is also evident from Fig. 18 which shows how the health and energy of factory operatives vary from season to season in close harmony with the weather. It cannot be made too clear, however, that climate and health are chiefly important in determining the degree of activity and not its kind. Moreover, they do not prevent other con ditions such as transportation or the age of a community from having an equally marked effect.
(2) The importance of transportation in determining the location of American industries is evident in the fact that among the manufac turing cities of the United States with a population of over 500,000 in 1920 every one is provided with water communication. Except for St. Louis and. Pittsburgh these cities are all on the ocean or Great Lakes. Another evidence of the importance of transportation is the concen tration of American manufacturing in strips along: (a) the North Atlantic coast, (b) the shores of the Great Lakes, (c) the Pacific coast and the Willamette Valley, (d) the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and (e) certain railway lines such as the New York Central.
(3) A vast number of American industries owe their location to the presence of raw materials. The making of brick, the ginning of cotton, the canning of fish or fruit, the sawing of lumber, and the dressing of rock are almost invariably carried on where the raw material is pro duced or else where transportation by water enables the bulky raw material to be carried easily and cheaply to some more convenient place.
(4) The presence of fuel or Water power has a similar effect in deter mining the location of industries, especially those of a simple type. We have already seen how this works in the case of blast furnaces. In some cases such as ore smelting, the location of the industry depends upon the complex balance between the cost of transporting the raw ore, the cost of transporting the coal or of obtaining hydroelectric power, the cost of carrying the finished product to market, and the presence of skilled labor, as well as several other factors. Thus some South American ore comes to northeastern New Jersey to be smelted, because that is the cheapest method, when all things are considered.
(5) A supply of labor is quite as important as any of the other factors. That is one reason why the Atlantic coast maintains the lead in manufacturing. When European immigrants reach the United States they naturally go to work in the factories of the coast rather than in those that are farther away. The skill of the labor supply is as important as its volume. In some of the cotton towns of Massa chusetts, such as Fall River, or the brass towns of Connecticut, such as Waterbury, there is a large body of workmen skilled in certain indus tries. New industries of the same sort can be established elsewhere only by bringing workers from a distance, or by a slow and costly process of training new ones.
(6) An industry needs capital as well as raw materials, fuel and labor. Hence the presence of capital influences the location of many industries in the United States. Fig. 89 indicates the relative abun dance of capital in various parts of the country, for where many people pay income taxes there is surplus capital for investment. A better
guide to the distribution of capital is found in the average income per person among those who actually pay the tax, as given in Col. D, Table 46; the larger the incomes the more money people have to invest. Although many investments are made in distant regions, it is almost always easier to get capital for a local industry than for one far away.
(7) The sale of goods is as important as the making of them. Hence the presence of a market is one reason for the establishment of many industries. For example, the Pacific coast might buy its manufactured goods from the East, or the East might buy from Europe. But in both cases there is a growing local market, and the tendency is to supply that market with goods made locally, and thus reduce transportation charges. Of course many other factors enter into the matter, so that one cannot say that any one is the sole cause of the location of an industry. San Francisco and Seattle would probably not be such flourishing industrial centers if they were located in a hot climate, if they were not on the seacoast, if they did not have some raw materials such as lumber, if they were not able to bring coal by sea, if they were not large enough to begin to have a surplus population to draw on for new industries, and if they did not have a good supply of capital. But all these condi tions would not cause manufacturing unless they were accompanied by a market in which the manufactures can compete with those of other regions in fairly equal terms. As a matter of fact the Pacific coast is less favored than the Atlantic in most of the conditions that lead to manufacturing, and hence cannot manufacture as cheaply as can the eastern states. But the fact that the Pacific coast has its own market west of the Rockies and that it there has a decided advantage over the East in transportation charges joins with cheap water power and petroleum in making it easy for industries to expand.
(8) Certain accidental causes also may determine where manufac turing is located. The original choice of Troy for a collar factory, Gloversville for gloves, Bridgeport for brass, Lynn for shoes, and Detroit for automobiles was more or less accidental. That is, the gen eral region in each case was favorable, but if the first factories had been located fifty or a hundred miles away in some similar location they might have been equally successful. When once an industry is estab lished, it is easy for other factories of the same kind to come in. They can draw a few skilled workers from the old plants, and thus get under way. The lines along which raw materials and fuel are brought are already established, the selling avenues are open, and people who have money to invest know that the business has already succeeded. Such considerations have much to do with the fact that particular kinds of business tend to cluster in limited areas.
(9) Another accidental cause is the mere question of age. Sines New England was already fairly well settled when machinery was first applied to manufacturing on a large scale, while western New York was the frontier, and Ohio and the states farther west were a wilderness, many New England industries obtained a start which has given them an almost unshakeable lead. But when a country begins to manu facture a new product like automobiles, maps, cameras, or moving picture films, a new industry has a chance to develop in places like Detroit, Chicago, Rochester, and Los Angeles.
From all this it appears that while the general activity of a region in manufacturing depends largely on the character and energy of the people, the exact location of any special industry depends upon a great variety of interacting causes.