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The rocky road to mass production: change and continuity in the US foundry industry, 1890-1940

Harris, HJ

Authors

HJ Harris



Abstract

This article is a pioneering exploration of technological change in the U.S. foundry industry from the period of its most dramatic growth through its interwar stagnation and decline. Not only does it describe key changes in the mechanization and reorganization of manufacturing processes that helped transform parts of the industry into sites of classic 'Fordist' mass production, but it also explains why the impact of these changes was so slow and limited. Through analysis that divides the 'foundry industry' into its constituent parts (defined in terms of the forms of business organization and the types of product market that characterized them), the article locates change and continuity within different sectors of an 'industry' that was in fact plural rather than singular.

Citation

Harris, H. (2000). The rocky road to mass production: change and continuity in the US foundry industry, 1890-1940. Enterprise & Society: The International Journal of Business History, 1(2), 391-437. https://doi.org/10.1093/es/1.2.391

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date Jun 1, 2000
Deposit Date Jan 5, 2011
Journal Enterprise and Society: The International Journal of Business History
Print ISSN 1467-2227
Electronic ISSN 1467-2235
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 1
Issue 2
Pages 391-437
DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/es/1.2.391

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