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IV. DEVELOPMENT OF THE IRON AND STEEL INDUSTRY

View in 18601

A third important manufacturing industry was that of iron and steel products. The United States was dependent on England during the colonial period and for years afterward for these products, but by 1860 this country was producing a great part of the iron and steel consumed here.

The total value of Agricultural Implements made in 1860 was $17,802,514, being an increase of 160.1 per cent. upon the total value of the same branch in 1850, when it amounted to the sum of $6,842,611. This manufacture amounted in New England to over two and threequarter millions of dollars an increase of 65.8 per cent. In the middle States the value was nearly five and a half millions, having increased at the rate of 122.2 per centum. In the western States, where the increase was most extraordinary, the value of implements produced was augmented from $1,923,927 to $7,955,545. The increment alone in those States was, therefore, only a fraction less than the product of the whole northern section of the Union in 1850, and was greater by 313 per cent. than their own manufacture in that year. In each of the States of Ohio and Illinois, which are the largest manufacturers in the west, the value of the product exceeded two and a half millions dollars, being an increase in the former of 382, and in the latter of 235 per cent. in ten years. Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin increased their production of agricultural implements 1,250,386 and 201 per cent., respectively. (While in some of the southern States there has been a decrease, in Virginia, Alabama, and Louisiana the increase in this branch has been large, and in Texas, which reported none in 1850, agricultural implements of the value of $140,000 were manufactured in 1860. The whole value produced in the southern States in the latter year (including cotton gins) was $1,582,483, exhibiting an increase of over 101 per cent. in the last decade.

The quantity of Pig Iron returned by the census of 1860 was 884,474 tons, valued at $19,487,790, an increase of 44.4 per cent. upon the value returned in 1850. Bar and other Rolled Iron amounted to 406,298 tons, of the value of $22,248,796, an increase of 39.5 per cent. over the united products of the rolling mills and forges, which in 1850 were of the value of $15,938,786. This large production of over one and a quarter million of tons of iron, equivalent to 92 pounds for each inhabitant, speaks volumes for the progress of the nation in 1 Preliminary Report on the Eighth Census, 1860. (Washington, 1862), 61–3.

all its industrial and material interests. The manufacture holds relations of the most beneficial character to a wide circle of important interests intimately affecting the entire population; the proprietors and miners of ore, coal, and limestone lands; the owners and improvers of woodlands, of railroads, canals, steamboats, ships, and of every other form of transportation; the producers of food, clothing, and other supplies, in addition to thousands of workmen, merchants, and capitalists and their families, who have directly participated in the benefits resulting from this great industry. It has supplied the material for an immense number of founderies, and for thousands of blacksmiths, machinists, millwrights, and manufacturers of nails, hardware, cutlery, edged tools, and other workers in metals, whose products are of immense aggregate value and of the first necessity. The production of so large a quantity of iron, and particularly of bar iron, and the demand for additional quantities from abroad, tell of the progress of the country in civil and naval architecture and all the engineering arts; of the construction of railroads and telegraphs, which have spread like a net over the whole country; of steamengines and locomotives; of spinning, weaving, wood, and metal working, milling, mining, and other machinery; and of all the multiform instruments of science, agriculture, and the arts, both of peace and of war; of the manufacture of every conceivable article of convenience or luxury of the household, the field, or the factory. The aggregate statistics of iron exhibit the extent to which the general condition of the people has been improved by this great agent of civilization during the ten years embraced in this retrospect.

The materials for the manufacture of iron ore, coal and other fuel, water power, etc. are so diffused, abundant, and cheap that entire independence of foreign supplies appears to be alike desirable and attainable at no distant period.

Probably no class of statistics possesses more general interest, as illustrating the recent progress of the country in all the operative branches, and in mechanical engineering, than those relating to Machinery. Nearly every section of the country, particularly the Atlantic slope, possesses a great affluence of water power, which has been extensively appropriated for various manufacturing purposes. The construction of hydraulic machinery, of stationary and locomotive steam-engines, and all the machinery used in mines, mills, furnaces, forges, and factories; in the building of roads, bridges, canals, railways, etc.; and for all other purposes of the engineer and manufacturer, has become a pursuit of great magnitude. The annual product of

the general machinists' and millwrights' establishments, as returned in the census of 1850, was valued at $27,998,344. The value of the same branch, exclusive of sewing-machines, amounted in 1860 to $47,118,550, an increase of over eighteen millions in ten years. The middle States were the largest producers, having made over 48 per cent. of the whole, but the southern and western States exhibit the largest relative increase. The ratio of increase in the several sections was as follows: New England, 16.4 per cent.; middle States, 55.2; southern, 387; and western, 127 per cent. The Pacific States. produced machinery of the value of $1,686,510, of which California made $1,600,510. In Rhode Island the business was slightly diminished, but in Connecticut it had increased 165 per centum. The great facilities possessed by New York and Pennsylvania in iron, coal, and transportation, made them the largest manufacturers of machinery, which in the former was made to the value of $10,484,863, and in the latter $7,243,453 an increase of 24.4 and 75 per cent., respectively. New Jersey raised her product to $3,215,673, an increase of 261 per cent., while Delaware and Maryland and the District of Columbia exhibited an increase of 82, 41, and 667 per cent., respecIn all the southern States the value of the manufacture, though small, was largely increased; the ratio in Virginia, the largest producer, being 236 per cent., while in Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina, the next in amount of production, it was 1,626,270, and 525 per centum, respectively. This was exclusive of cotton-gins, which were included with agricultural machinery. Ohio was the largest producer in the west, and the fourth in the Union, having made to the value of $4,855,005, an increase of 125 per cent. on the product of 1850. Kentucky ranked next among the western States, having produced over one million dollars' worth, and increased her product 213 per cent. The ratio of increase in the other western States was, in Indiana, 98; in Illinois, 24; Wisconsin, 208; Missouri, 214; and Iowa, 2,940 per cent., respectively; but in Michigan there was a small decrease in the amount manufactured.

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Besides a large amount of machinery and other castings included in the returns of machine shops, the value of the production of Iron Foundries, returned by the census of 1860, reached the sum of $27,970,193, an increase of 42 per cent. on the value of that branch in 1850, which was $20,111,517. New York, whose extensive stove founderies swell the amount of production in that State, made to the value of $8,216,124, and Pennsylvania, $4,977,793, an increase of 39 and 60.9 per cent., respectively.

With the subject of iron and its various manufactures that of Fossil Fuel naturally associates itself. The unequalled wealth and rapid development of the coal fields of the United States as a dynamic element in our industrial progress affords one of the most striking evidences of our recent advance. The product of all the coal mines of the United States, in 1850, was valued at $7,173,750. The annual value of the anthracite and bituminous coal, according to the Eighth Census, was over nineteen millions of dollars. The increase was over twelve millions of dollars, and was at the rate of 169.9 per cent. on the product of 1850. It was chiefly produced in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Virginia. The coal mined in Pennsylvania, in 1850, was valued at $5,268,351. In the year ending June 1, 1860, the State produced 9,397,332 tons of anthracite, worth $11,869,574, and of bituminous coal, 66,994,295 bushels, valued at $2,833,859, making a total value of $14,703,433, or an excess of $7,529,683 over the total product of the Union in 1850. Of bituminous coal, Ohio raised 28,339,900 bushels, the value of which was $1,539,713; and Virginia, 9,542,627 bushels, worth $690,188. The increase in Ohio was $819,587, and in Virginia, $222,780, in the value of mineral fuel, being at the rate of 113 per cent. in the former, and 47.6 per cent. in the latter. The increase in Pennsylvania was 179 per centum on the yield of 1850.

V. THE LEATHER INDUSTRY

Development during the Decade 1850-18601

The tanning of leather and its manufacture into boots, shoes, and harness, formed another important industry. On the one hand the industry touched the agricultural interests of the country and on the other the manufacturing and shipping interests.

The production of Leather is also a leading industry of much importance to the agriculturist and stock raiser, as well as to the commercial interest, inasmuch as it consumes all the material supplied by the former, and feeds an active branch of our foreign import trade. The tanning and currying establishments of the United States produced in 1850 leather, exclusive of Morocco and patent leather, to the value of $37,702,333. The product of the same branch in 1860 reached $63,090,751, an increase of nearly 67 per centum. In the New England States it was $16,333,871, in the Middle States, $36,344,548, and in the Western States, $5,986,457; being an increase 66.6 per cent., 90.7 and 13.3 in those sections, respectively.

1 Preliminary Report on the Eighth Census, 1860. (Washington, 1862), 68–9.

The Pacific States and Territories, (including Utah,) which returned no leather in 1850, produced in 1860 to the value of $351,469. The largest producers of leather are New York, $20,758,017; Pennsylvania, $12,491,631; and Massachusetts, $10,354,056; an increase in those States of 111.7, 98.4, and 82.3 per cent., respectively. Including Morocco and patent leather the aggregate value produced in the Union in 1860 exceeded sixty-seven millions of dollars.

If we add to the sum total of this manufacture the aggregate value of all the allied branches into which it enters as a raw material, or take an account of the capital, the number of hands, and the cost of labor and material employed in the creation and distribution of its ultimate products, it is doubtful if any other department of industry is entitled to precedence over that of leather.

The manufacture of Boots and Shoes employs a larger number of operatives than any other single branch of American industry. The census of 1850 showed that there were 11,305 establishments, with a capital of nearly thirteen millions of dollars, engaged in making boots and shoes to the value of $53,967,408, and employing 72,305 male and 32,948 female hands. The returns of 1860 show that 2,554 establishments in the New England States employed a capital only $2,516 less than that of the whole Union at the former date; and with 56,039 male and 24,978 female employés produced boots and shoes of the value of $54,767,077 or eight hundred thousand dollars more than the entire value of the business in 1850, and 82.8 per centum in excess of their own production in that year. Massachusetts increased 92.6 per cent., having made boots and shoes of the value of $46,440,209, equal to 86.6 per cent. of the general business in 1850. The State of New York returned 2,276 factories, with an aggregate production of $10,878,797; and New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey together produced $75,674,946 worth of these articles, being 40.4 per cent. more than the product of all the States in 1850, and 67.9 per cent. more than their own manufacture in that year. The three counties of Essex, Worcester, and Plymouth, in Massachusetts, produced boots and shoes to the value severally of about 141, 91, and 9 millions of dollars. The largest production of any one town was that of Philadelphia, in which it amounted to $5,329,887; the next that of Lynn, Massachusetts, was $4,867,399; the third, Haverhill, $4,130,500; the fourth, New York city, $3,869,068. The largest production of a single establishment was of one in North Brookfield, Massachusetts, and amounted to over $750,000. This establishment was the largest of five the same proprietors had

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