FACTORIES are establishments where large numbers of persons co-operate in the production of some article of consumption, the principle of the division of labor being in all cases applied, and generally machinery to a greater or less extent. The factory system is opposed to the practice of individual labor at the homes of the artisans. Every production of art requires a longer or shorter series of operations, often varying con siderably in their nature. The hand-worker performs most of these himself; one and the same person makes the complete article. In a factory, every article goes through as many hands or machines as there are separate processes required; each workman per forms only one, and that always the same, process. The chief advantages of this way of proceeding are the following: Loss of time is avoided in passing from one operation to another, a loss which is the greater, the greater the difference in the nature of the oper ation, The workman, confined to one thing, in itself usually simple, not only learns it sooner, but attains a quickness and skill that one distracted with a variety of operations can never attain; besides, the constant occupation with one kind of work leads the workman to light upon improvements in tools and machines so as to increase their rapidity of execution and their precision. As only few of the processes are very diffi cult, it is possible to turn to some account less skillful workmen, and even children, and to assign to each person that kind of work at which he is most effective. All parts of the work, too, that are quite uniform in the case of each article, can generally be done by machinery. Lastly, in F., there is more • opportunity of turning to advantage all kinds of refuse.
A necessary consequence of these advantages is, that the cost of production is less on the factory system than in the other way; and more than that, the articles them selves, when of a nature adapted to this mode of production, are better, and of a uni formity otherwise unattainable. Wherever a comparatively homogeneous material has to be made into a large number of uniform articles, there the factory system is in its proper place. The best examples are spinning, weaving, cloth-printing, pin and needle
making, etc. But even in the manufacture of complex articles composed of different kinds of material, the factory system may be pursued with advantage whenever the number of the articles required is great, and the separate parts of such a kind that a great number can be made exactly alike. This is the case with watches, weapons, locks, etc. Such a manufacture divides itself into as many separate employments as there are parts in each article, and the putting together and adjusting forms another. The degree of complexity is carried still further in such cases as the manufacture of carriages, where operations of the most heterogeneous kind have to concur. In some cases, F. do not concern themselves with the putting together of the parts, but merely produce them for liand-ivorkers and special professionists, as is the case in watch-mak ing. In making clothes and shoes and the like, where each individual article requires special adaptation, factory work is not so suitable. How far it is advisable in any case to employ machinery, depends on the nature of the work, the cost of the machinery, the scale on which operations are to be carried on, etc. Nowhere have the factory system and the employment of machinery been carried further than in America. In Cincin nati, for instance, one establishment has produced 200 doz. chairs a week, another 1000 bedsteads, most of the work being done by machinery; and one boot and shoe factory has used 600 bushels of shoe-pegs. Even the killing of pigs is done on this grand scale, one firm at Chicago killing and packing 373,725 hogs in four months.—F. cannot suc ceed in great numbers except in localities where the population is sufficiently dense to afford a sufficient choice of hands, and also to cause a comparatively low rate of wages. Other conditions of a good locality for factory production are abundance of water power or the presence of coal for steam power, nearness to the raw material, and good communications.