The American Reaper: Harvesting Networks and Technology, 1830-1910

Abstract

The American Reaper: Harvesting Networks and Technology, 1830-1910 By Gordon M. Winder Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012. xii + 225pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, and Index. $124.95 (hardcover), ISBN: 9781409424611.What role does the manufacturing of farm machinery play in the rise of corporate capitalism? How did networks, legal protections, and technology condition how the American reaper was produced? How did the harvesting machinery industry prefigure contemporary economic geographies of globalized networks of industrial capital and localized networks of agglomeration economies with urban metropoles? These are some of the questions Gordon M. Winder seeks to answer in his fascinating volume Ihe American Reaper: Harvesting Networks and Technology, 1830-1910.Winder demonstrates quite clearly that the development of the reaper industry prefigures later patterns of vertical disintegration, flexible specialization, and agglomeration economies that were identified by economic geographers as exemplary of the new face of industrial capitalism starting in the latter third of the twentieth century. In Winder's retelling of this important chapter in United States economic history, it is not simply a case of individual firms and an industrial sector implementing mass production techniques in response to rising demand for farm machinery. Rather, the development of complex production networks and the eventual rise of corporate-led vertical integration was the outgrowth of the interplay between the technological limitations of Victorian era craft production, a strong patent protection system that facilitated technology transfer and decentralized production networks, and struggles over control of the labor process.From the 1830s to the 1880s, harvesting machinery manufacturing in North America and globally was dominated by a decentralized craft production paradigm due to locational, technological, labor process, seasonal, and institutional factors. First, it made sense to distribute production to minimize transportation costs of the finished product. Second, prior to the production of steel, harvesting machines used wood, then iron as the primary materials; these materials were not amenable to mass production techniques, which required both skilled labor and significant modification of finished parts before final assembly of harvesting machines. Third, the International Molders Union struggled with reaper manufacturers over the shop floor, and the key role of skilled foundry workers in producing iron implements served to limit economies of scale and hold down productivity advances. Fourth, most production prior to 1870 was seasonal for two reasons: One, this was the general pattern in manufacturing because laborers would work on the farm or forest for part of the year, and in factories another part of the year. Two, the sale of harvesting machinery was seasonal, with sales having to take place before the harvest season. Seasonality of production discouraged large investments in plants because of low capital utilization, and encouraged dispersal of production to reduce capital requirements. Fifth, a strong patent system and requirements by many foreign governments to license manufacture for sale to domestic markets, along with import limitations, encouraged the creation of decentralized production networks and technology transfer as a business expansion strategy in the United States and abroad. Reaper manufacturers licensed out production of entire machines, as well as components used in their own plants. Patent holding companies, such as McCormick or Deering, would license other companies to manufacture and sell machines within a particular region or country, with royalties paid per machine sold to the patent holder. This type of business organization demanded high levels of trust among the members of a business network of largely autonomous actors.Winder provides an extensive case study of one highly decentralized harvest implement manufacturer based in New York - D. …