From: Rosemary D'Angelo
Date: 3/1/00
Time: 7:27:29 PM
Remote Name: 209.246.209.92
Rosemary D’Angelo
July 4, 1788, was the day Independent weavers and Society wage owners proudly paraded through the streets to demonstrate their new technological devices that made cloth. These devices included “a card machine that prepared cotton for spinning, a spinning jenny that produced 89 spindles of yarn at once, a large handloom, and a cloth-printing machine.” Since the beginning of independence, there was much controversy on technological advancements. The controversy was between machinery and handcraft. Alexander Hamilton, a manufacturing enthusiastic, was thrilled about these “machines ingeniously constructed.” George Washington even wanted a law to be passed, which encouraged this new technology. He believed that these machines could improve American productivity and eliminate Americans from relying on foreign manufacturers, which would lead to independence. Thomas Jefferson, wanted their work shops to remain in Europe. It was the craftsmen people who resisted machinery, as well Jefferson, and insisted on sticking to the works that were passed down from their fathers. Many agreed with the advancement of new technology because of the beneficial outcome it produced. Managers expanded their productions from households to big factories. Their idea reduced the labor of one hundred men, into thirty men. Workers who went to these factories had strict rules to obey that were honored when they worked at home. They could no longer work their own hours, or at their own pace; and their holidays were limited. These workers saw themselves becoming “slaves of machines”, which they did not like. Some went to work in these factories “only long enough to acquire the means and experience needed to set up independent shops.” The ones who enjoyed and engaged themselves in these technological advancements even produced a process called the “division of labor.” This process also increased the productivity for these American industries tremendously. The “division of labor” was the distribution of work among the workers. Each worker performed its own specific task at his job sight; no single worker did all the work. This process allowed factories to “hire unskilled people for simple tasks formerly carried out craftspeople.” These limited skills enabled factories to pay lower wages to their workers. So, this “division of labor” and the technological advancements in the New Republic benefited only factory managers, and made slaves out of machine workers. It allowed factories to limit their workers’ freedom while decreasing their wages. It increased the production for these factories, which lead to the increasing of their money.