Manufacturing Advantage: War, the State, and the Origins of American Industry, 1776-1848

278 Pages·2019·4.96 MB·English

by  Lindsay Schakenbach Regele

MANUFACTURING ADVANTAGE
STUDIES IN EARLY AMERICAN ECONOMY AND SOCIETY
FROM THE LIBRARY COMPANY OF PHILADELPHIA
Cathy Matson, SERIES EDITOR
MANUFACTURING
ADVANTAGE
War, the State, and the Origins of American Industry,
1776–1848
Lindsay Schakenbach Regele
johns hopkins university press
Baltimore
© 2019 Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2019
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Schakenbach Regele, Lindsay, 1984– author.
Title: Manufacturing advantage : war, the state, and the origins of American
industry, 1776–1848 / Lindsay Schakenbach Regele.
Description: Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019. | Series: Studies in
early American economy and society from the Library Company of Philadelphia |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018020730 | ISBN 9781421425252 (hardcover : alk. paper) |
ISBN 1421425254 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781421425276 (electronic) |
ISBN 1421425270 (electronic)
Subjects: LCSH: Industrial policy—United States—History. | Defense industries—
United States—History. | Textile industry—United States—History. | United
States—Politics and government—1783–1865.
Classification: LCC HD3616.U46 R414 2019 | DDC 330.973/05—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018020730
A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
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please contact Special Sales at 410-516-6936 or [email protected].
Johns Hopkins University Press uses environmentally friendly book materials,
including recycled text paper that is composed of at least 30 percent post-consumer
waste, whenever possible.
CONTENTS
Series Editor’s Foreword vii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 “Our Naked Troops” 15
2 The Political Economy of Guns and Textiles 27
3 Embargo and War 59
4 Financing Industry through Florida 85
5 Managing New Markets 111
6 Industrial Manifest Destiny 135
Conclusion 161
Appendix A. Terms Related to Textiles 169
Appendix B. Terms Related to Firearms 172
Notes 175
Index 255
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SERIES EDITOR’S FOREWORD
In this addition to the series Studies in Early American Economy and
Society, a collaborative effort between Johns Hopkins University Press
and the Library Company of Philadelphia’s Program in Early American
Economy and Society (PEAES), Lindsay Schakenbach Regele explores
two unlikely partners in the early North American republic’s rise to
prominence. Together, she argues, the arms and textiles industries be-
came the foci of policy makers’ efforts to create national security in the
fragile post-Revolutionary years.
Manufacturing Advantage: War, the State, and the Origins of Amer-
ican Industry, 1776–1848 weaves together the ambitions and institu-
tional strategies of statesmen and manufacturers behind the production
of guns and cloth, finding them at the crux of the infant American state’s
efforts to protect its citizens, institutions, and resources from perceived
internal and external enemies, one based on military preparedness and
the other based on the search for national economic self-sufficiency. Un-
like the generations of colonial dependence on the power of the British
Empire to protect its subjects and guide expansion, the new federal
policy makers and intellectual leaders were clear that their goals de-
pended on safeguarding political independence before surging forward
into the future. Until the Revolutionary War had been won, North
Americans did not have to decide what to produce or how their com-
merce would influence foreign affairs. But within the infant republic,
the future of its newly created citizens and immigrants was at risk from
persistent tax rebellions in the new states, warfare on western frontiers,
and ceaseless hostilities in the Caribbean and in Europe. To overcome
these and other problems, argued key officials in state and federal gov-
ernments, a steady supply of reliable firearms and semi-durable cloth-
ing would be vital steps. Rebuilding a permanent dependence on the
British Empire for these goods was out of the question in the new ideo-
logical framework of independence.
vii
Schakenbach Regele tells us a compelling story about how manufac-
turers and government officials collaborated to transform the newly
independent country from agricultural supplier to industrial producer,
from colonial dependent to substantial power in Atlantic commerce.
To the extent that interested parties were successful in these endeavors,
it demonstrated that the United States was born from a partnership
between government intervention and private initiative. Private arms
production depended on direct federal funding, while entrepreneurs in
the textile industry mobilized private capital with the aid of the govern-
ment’s friendly banking, commercial, technology, and labor legislation
from the relatively early years after the Revolution. In both cases, per-
sonal ingenuity and risk-taking surely factored into success, but these
private businesses also depended on federal subsidies and protectionism,
trade regulations, and diplomacy to create superior economic environ-
ments. Ideologically, free-market capitalism was a non-starter; Schak-
enbach Regele insists that “market competition and capital investment
for the sake of profit were secondary to economic and military indepen-
dence and protection.” In short, what we recognize as a regular feature
of the North American economy by the late nineteenth century—the
partnership of private and public capital in the interest of national and
public security—had its roots in the early republic.
Cathy Matson
Richards Professor of American History, University of Delaware,
and Director, Program in Early American Economy and Society,
Library Company of Philadelphia
viii   SERIES EDITOR’S FOREWORD
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am not sure how to thank properly the many individuals and institu-
tions who have generously given time and resources to help me write
this book.
This project began during my second semester at Brown University in
Michael Vorenberg’s legal history seminar. I am forever grateful to him
for his early guidance and generous feedback. Brown University was a
wonderful place to be a graduate student, and the early phases of this
project benefited from the encouragement of many faculty and fellow
graduate students, especially Laura Perille, Ania Borejsza-Wysocka, John
Rosenberg, Ben Holtzman, Liz Searcy, Sara Mattiesen, Anne Gary Fischer,
Eunsun Han, Zack Dorner, Patrick Chung, Rachel Knecht, Henk Isom,
and Alicia Maggard. Hal Cook was a generous reader of my work, and
the conversations I had with him helped me see the early United States
through the lens of early modern commercial networks. I owe my big-
gest intellectual debt to my adviser, Seth Rockman. He changed how I
think about the past, shaped the development of my project, and cleaned
up my messy writing, all while making me think that it was my own
doing. I cannot thank him enough for balancing critical pen marks on
chapter drafts with kind words of encouragement. Every graduate stu-
dent should be so lucky to have a Seth Rockman in her or his corner. He
continues to be a wise, witty, and generous mentor.
A number of other institutions provided the community and resources
necessary to complete this work. In addition to Brown University and
Miami University, Harvard University, the Colonial Dames Society, the
Rovensky Fellowship, the Massachusetts Historical Society, American
Antiquarian Society, the Library Company of Philadelphia, and the Hun-
tington Library provided funding for archival research. The extraordi-
narily knowledgeable and helpful staffs at the Waltham, College Park,
and Washington, DC, branches of the National Archives; the American
Antiquarian Society; Harvard Business School’s Baker Library; the His-
ix