Manufacturing Power

The work of 300

Pins—The machine tended by a single girl at the Waterbury factory in Connecticut, does the work of 300 persons by the old process. Each day they manufacture 8,000,000 of pins. This article will soon be exported.

1846.05.08

Manufacturing Power

The following striking passage occurs in a publication entitled the English Poor-law Guide.

Manufacturing pressures tend to increase improvements in machinery. Driven by profits the manufacturers seek every means of reducing the cost of production; and hence it has occurred that, during the last five or six years, there has been more improvement in machinery than has taken place for twenty five years before that period. We believe we are correct in stating that, some eight or nine years since, the maximum capability of the spinning-mule did not exceed the power of turning above 640 spindles. There are self-acting mules now in use that will turn upwards of 2,000 spindles! A mill of the present day, with improved machinery is capable of given quantity of work at about one third less expense than it could have been done seven years since; in other words a factory, which in 1836 required an outlay of 600l per week for wages, can now throw off the same quantity of work for 400l per week. –

We have heard one respectable manufacturer declare, that if this forty inch cotton was made fast to a vessel allowed to make the best of her way to Canton, he would make the cotton as fast as the ship could sail away with it or he would consent to have nothing for it. Now allowing the ordinary voyage of four months, and calculating the number of miles the ship would sail, it would require about twenty-four million yards of cloth to keep pace with the ship, or above 8,000 years per hour working the whole time, night and day. The same machinery would in seven months, make a belt round the earthy forty inches wide. Now, we would ask if one manufacturer could do this, what could the whole machinery of England alone accomplish? Could it not make sufficient cloth in a few years to cover the whole surface of the inhabited part of the globe!

—Western Literary Messenger

1845.11.29

Improved Loom

A new machine has been greatly improved in England by which a weaver can change his pattern in a similar manner to that changing the tune on a box or barrel organ. Fine satinetts are chiefly woven by the machine.

1846.02.13

A New Brick Machine

We examined on Saturday inst., a new brick machine constructed by Culberson, McMillen & Co., which appears to be a great improvement upon any thing of the kind which has yet been attempted. In fact it differs entirely in principle from any we have before seen or heard of.

The clay in a crude state is thrown with a shovel into a hopper, in which a mill, or pulverizer, placed over the upper press wheel in such a manner as to discharge the clay into the moulds on both sides of the press-wheel. The moulds being drilled in this manner with pulverized clay pass under the press wheel twice – giving the brick a double pressure and shaving them smooth by means of a knife attached to the machine. The bricks are then thrown out of the moulds by an admirable contrivance on a table at each end of the machine at the rate, the proprietors say, of 5,000 per hour, sufficiently hard to be stacked in the kiln. At the whole works will be under cover they can work as well in rainy or foul weather as when it is dry.

After a pretty close examination, we could see no reason why this machine will not answer the purpose for which it was intended.

—Cincinnati Atlas

1846.02.27

A New Cab

A new Cab has been introduced in London, the chief novelty of which is the absence of springs and the substitution of a caoutchouc (Indian rubber) tire to the wheels; an elastic table encircles each wheel, neutralizing every jolt, giving a singularly smooth and steady motion, deadening the noise, and having the further advantage, that in case of accident the wheels may pass over anyone without much hurt. Many have suffered the wheel to cross their foot without experiencing a worse sensation than a little numbness.

1846.06.18

A Question for Workingmen

It is well known Dr. Franklin calculated that if every individual would labor at some useful employment four hours a day, that would produce enough of the comforts of life for all.

Since his time there have been improvements in labor saving machinery and probably more labor can now be accomplished in three hours than could then have been in four. There are two or three different ways by which we can prove Dr. Franklin's calculation was correct, while a very little reflection will convince any one that our own supposition is within the truth.

Now if three or even four hours of daily labor is sufficient to produce the comforts of life, why is it that day laborers, journeymen, seamstresses, clerks and others who do the hardest and most useful labor are obliged to toil ten and fourteen hours a day for a bare subsistance.

1847.10.29