The conditions of labor in Europe, and therefore those of the manufactures, changed materially dming the period between the 16th and the 18th centuries. The combinations of workingmen into guilds, and the wealth and power to which these attained, brought about the introduction of the force of capita2, by the concentration of great wealth in a few hands; and the application of this force to manufactures on an enormous scale was brought about by the application of power to machinery, and the establishment of the factory system. From this moment, not only the system of manufacturing, but the character of the workmanship, and of artisans, the nature and amount of the demand for manufactures, the methods of supply, and the modes of transportation, altered throughout the civilized world. The history of manufactures fell under the influence .of the invention and application of machinery, to which the arts of design necessarily played a secondary part. From 1771, when the first mill with water-power, and Ark wright's machinery, was set up in England, to 1835, the number of operatives employed in the factories of the United Kingdom had grown to 354,¢84, of which number 195,508 were females. In 18'56 the number of operatives was 682,497, of whom 409,300 were females, 2'5,982 being under 13 years of age. The number of factories, between 1838 aud 1856, increased 28 per cent; the amount of power increased 63 per cent; and the tnumber of hands employed, 80 per cent. In 1786, in every $200,000,000 in value of the product of manufacture i it France, 60 per cent of the cost was for labor, and 40 per cent for raw material. In 1876 this condition was exactly reversed, 40 per cent only of the cost being for labor, and 60 per cent for raw material. In 1876 the total industrial product of France was valued at $2,400,000,000. These tew figures are offered merely for their suggestive value; the statistics of the different articles of manufacture, and in +different countries, will be found under their proper titles; see COTTON, LLNEN, HATS, etc.
Beverley, in his 117story of Virginia, writing in 1705, refers thus to the dependence of the American colonists upon other nations to supply their wants: " They have their clothing of all sorts from England, as linen, woolen, and silk. hats and leather; yet flax and hemp grow nowhere in the world better than here. Their sheep yield good increase and bear good fleeces, but they shear them only to cool them. The mulberry-tree, whose leaf is the proper food of the silk-worm. grows there like a weed, and silk-worms havo been observed to thrive extremely, and without hazard. The very furs that their hats sae made of, perhaps, go first from thence. The most of their hides lie and rot, or are made use of only for covering dry goods in a leaky house. Indeed, some feN-v hides, with much ado, are tanned and made into servants' shoes; but at so careless a rate that the farmers do not care to buy them if they can get others; and sometimes, perhaps, a better manager than ordinary will vouchsafe to make a pair of breeches of deerskin. They are such abominable ill-husbands, that though their country be overrun with wood, -they have all their wooden-ware from England; their cabinets, chairs, tables, stools, chests, boxe:, cart-wheels, and all other things—even so much as their bowls and birchen brooms—to the eternal reproach of their laziness." From which emphatic narrative by -an eye-witness it will be inferred that the standard of manufactures in the country under consideration, a century and three-quarters ago, did not offer promise of the results reached at the present time. The first attempt at ship-building in the colonies was in the construction of the ()west in 1614 at Manhattan river. She was 16 tons burden, 38 ft. keel, 44 tt. long, and 11+ ft. wide. In her, iu 1616, capt. Wilkinson discovered the Schuylkill river, aud explored nearly. the entire coast from Nova Scotia to the capes of Virginia. The saw-mill is said to have been introduced into Massachusetts in 1633, some years before it was used iu England. And as late as 1767 a saw-mill was destroyed in the latter country by a mob, because it was supposed to be destructive to the work of the sawyers. In 1641 the general court of Massachusetts passed an act to the effect that there " should be no monopolies but of such new inventions as were profitable to the
.country, and that for a short time only." Saw-mills were introduced by the Dutch in New York as early as 1633, and seem to have been used there also for grinding-mills. The erection of these mills brought about an improvement in house-building, which had previously amounted only to the construction of huts or wigwams. The first brick-kiln in New England was set up in Salem, Mass., in 1629. In New York bricks were imported from Ilolland, until governor Stuyvesant introduced the industry. There were certainly tanners, cart-makers, glovers, furriers, and shoemakers in the colonies about the middle of the 17th c., despite the assertion of Beverley, whose observation, however, was probablY confined to Virginia.
In the manufacture of fabrics the early colonists used the distaff and spindle, soon superseded by the spinning:wheel. The British in those days, seeking to force the colo nists to buy everything in the home market, threw every- possible obstacle in the way of sdornestic manufactures. Early in the 18th c. spinning-schools were started in Boston, .-and special taxes were imposed for their support. During the revolutionary war the 'colonists depended on their own exertions for clothing and other necessities, and Har greave's and Arkwriglit's inventions were not permitted to be introduced across the Atlantic, so jealous were the British of the trade in their manufactures. Despite all their efforts, however, a cotton-factory was established at Beverly, Mass., in 1787; of Arkwright's machines, the first used in the United States was in a mill at Pawtucket, R. I., in 1790. The first cotton-mill ever built in the world, which combined all the requi sites for making finished cloth from raw cotton, is said to have been erected in Waltham, 3Iass., in 1813. Our colonial ancestors usually obtained their furniture from England, the most of it, of the best class, being made of mahogany and oak. At first the articles made in the colonies were of the rudest character, and constructed of native woods. Later on, a South American and -West India island trade sprang up, and mahogany and rose-wood were imported, and worked up into bedsteads, sideboards, and cupboards. The first nails made in the colonies were manufactured by- hand, and it was customary _among the country people to erect forges in the chimney-corners, and in the long winter ,evenings to inake quantities of nails--even the children taking a share in the labor of this industry. About 1790 a machine for cutting and heading nails was invented by Jacob Perkins of Newburyport, Mass., which is said to have had a capacity of 10,000 nails per day. Another machine, invented by a citizen of Bridgewater, Mass., made, in 1815, 150,000,000 tacks. The introduction of the manufacture of glass into the American 'colonies was contemporaneous with the settlement of the country; the first glass manu factory being set up in the woods about a mile froin Jamestown, Va., in 1607. In 1621 fuud was subscribed to establish a factory of glass beads, to be used as currency in trading with the Indians for furs. The first glass manufactory in 'Massachusetts was established at Germantown, near Braintree, for glass bottles alone. In 1639a glass-house was set up in Salem. In 1752 the general court of Massachusetts passed an act granting -the sole privilege of making glass in the province to Isaac C. Wesley. A glass-house existed in Philadelphia in 1683. Pottery was brought out from England and Holland by the first settlers, but the early colonists used wooden dishes and pewter platters. Some pottery- was made by the Plymouth, Jame,stown, and Manhattan colonists. In 1819 the manufacture of fine porcelain was commenced iv New York, and in 1827 it was made in Pennsylvania. The manufacture of hats was considered of importance by the colonists, and in 1662 the colonial government of Virginia offered a premium of 10 lbs. of tobacco for every hat made in the province. Protection was early applied to the raw material of this industry, and iu 1675 its exportation was prohibited. Before 1800 this manufacture was conducted in nearly every state in the union, and by the census of 1810 returns were s-nade of the manufacture of hats to the amount of $4,323,744.