The History of American Technology -- Spring 1999
	Sample Midterm (Spring 98)

Grouped True/False (35 pts.)
Mark each statement with a clearly legible "T " (true) or " F " (false) as appropriate.
Read the conditioning statements carefully!

What was life like in preindustrial America?

16. F Artisans such as tailors and shoemakers enjoyed the highest social status and standard of living among those who lived in the cities
17. T Generally, to more well-to-do owned more tools and often avoided buying goods in the cash economy when they could make them at home
18. F Because all of their work was hand-crafted, artisans tended to stay busy all the time and generally used any slow times to build up stocks of finished goods
19. F Most families on farms maintained strong division of labor based on sex: men took care of all the food production and processing -- women cooked, cleaned the house, and took care of children's needs
20. T Women -- in town and on the farm -- most often were responsible for work that was central to the success and profitability of the family

What are valid points of comparison between the British and American experiences in the early Industrial Revolution (before 1850)?

21. T In general, British manufacturers enjoyed a reputation for producing better quality goods at lower cost than did their American competitors
22. T The British iron and steel industry was much more quick to innovate and modernize than the Americans
23. F The Americans enjoyed the advantage of a relatively larger labor pool that was willing to work for considerably lower wages than English workers would accept
24. T American industrialists were much more likely than their British counterparts to develop special purpose machine tools
25. F American industrialists invested much more heavily in steam power to operate their mills and factories than did the British

What can we say about Andrew Carnegie and his contributions to American Industrialization?

26. F Because of his concern with cost accounting, Carnegie was ferocious in urging his managers to carry out frequent and extensive maintenance operations to keep the equipment in his steel mills operating at peak efficiency. He wanted to make his equipment last
27. F Carnegie was born and bred to the steel business. He learned the business from his father, and it was in his blood
28. T One of Carnegie's greatest problems came in the difficulties of finding qualified managers to operate his steel making operations
29. T Carnegie came from a family that had fallen on hard times, but he had gained a respect for education and ideas. He was well read, and he was a strong believer in philanthropy that supported education
30. T Carnegie's belief in cost accounting, and he also had a strong dedication to improving processes.

What can we say about the origins of the American textile industry?

31. F The only reason Samuel Slater hired children to work in his mill (1793) was to get workers who had the nimble fingers needed to operate spinning machines
32. T Slater's skill was that of a factory organizer and manager. Others had built machines; he knew how to make them work and organize production to make a profit
33. T Francis Cabot Lowell and his partners in the Boston Manufacturing Company hired young women to work in their mills in order to have access to a pool of reliable workers. The Lowell girls proved an expensive source of labor, but in the early days it was worth it because of the lack of any other pool of reliable workers
34. F The Lowell mills focused on the high quality trade. They made textiles for the fine clothing market and table linens
35. T Actually, Lowell was able to enter the textile business only because the War of 1812 had cut off access to British goods, and after the war the mills could only continue to compete because the government placed tariffs on imported textiles

What happened in the development of machine tools and mass production based on interchangeable parts in the early industrial revolution (before 1850)?

36. T One of the most important reasons for Whitney's failure to produce muskets with truly interchangeable parts was his lack of machine tools that could produce uniform components
37. T The government owned and operated armories were the real centers of development for machine tools and mass production based on interchangeable parts
38. F From the first, products based on interchangeable parts had clear market and cost advantages over the hand crafted competition
39. T Americans in the 19^th century tended accept cheaply made and inferior goods, believing that it didn't matter if things wore out because newer and better products would soon become available
40. T The development of specialized machinery, which cost much more than the artisan's tools, had an important effect in shutting out the "small man" from entering business as a manufacturer

What was the impact of mechanization on farming and the lumber industry?

41. F Because of the labor requirements in farming, it did not make too much sense to try to improve harvesting equipment for wheat until improvements were made in the technology for plowing, harrowing, and planting
42. T Important disadvantages kept steam tractors from having much impact on the mechanization of farming
43. T Most farmers in the early 19^th century refused to produce perishable crops for sale simply because there was no effective way to store perishables or to get the products to market
44. F The key to the development of the large scale lumber industry in the 19^th century was in the technology of harvesting trees -- power saws and steam tractors for handling logs
45. F Frederick Weyerhauser saw the key to the lumber industry in controlling the channels of distribution -- access to markets

What created the Second Industrial Revolution?

46. F The shift from emphasis on production of iron to steel resulted from changes in market demand. There really were not any one or two key technical innovations that led to the shift
47. F The Edison entry into the electrical industry was rather late. The incandescent light bulb was an invention that fit in extremely well with technologies that had been developed over a period of 20 years
48. T Edison's DC (direct current) opened the market for electrical lighting, but by 1900 DC was on its way out
49. T Dupont's entry into manufacturing cellophane makes an excellent example to illustrate trends in the Second Industrial Revolution. They did not invent the product; the acquired it from another company
50. T In large part, the purpose of many of the early industrial research labs seemed to be in protecting patent monopolies rather than in producing new products

Part II -- Essay ***CHOOSE 1 *** 30 pts.

1. Life for the preindustrial housewife was very different from what it would become after industrialization. Think about the daily activities for a housewife of the 1790s living on a prosperous farm in eastern Pennsylvania. She's married and has six children (girls aged 16, 10 and 1; boys aged 17, 13, and 6). She and her husband own a 120 acre farm that produces wheat, corn, flax, and dairy products. Her husband has the boys and one hired hand for help. He often hires additional laborers by the day whenever they're needed. Besides her own girls for help, our housewife has two teenage girls working as servants. The family owns many tools, including several spinning wheels and a loom. They also have a large orchard and operate a very large spring house.
   
   It is time for the wheat harvest in late summer. What might this housewife do all day?

 

2. When Cyrus McCormick moved his manufacturing operation from Virginia to Chicago in 1847, his friends thought he was crazy. McCormick made the move to solve some of his most important problems. What were those problems, and how did he mean to address them? Finally, why did his friends think he was wrong in choosing Chicago over other cities such as Cincinnati or St Louis? What advantage could one city have over the others?

 

3. The factories of the late 19^th century were very different from what they had been in the 1810s or 1820s. The workers and their attitudes toward their work were also very different. Explain what the industrial worker described below might think about his job and his life in the 1890s.
   
   This worker is male, and he makes a fairly good wage as a foreman in a textile plant located in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. He pays rent to live in a company-owned house with his a wife and five children aged 4 to 17. The family has one of the larger houses, and they've made enough room take in two paying boarders. The two older children in the family (17 and 15) have already left school and taken jobs in the mill where their father works, but they still live at home and both also pay for room and board. Two children (ages 12 and 8) are in school and the youngest (age 4) is still at home all day. The 12-year-old boy is very bright and does well at the local parish school. The priests at his school think maybe he should go on to high school instead of going straight into the mills.
   
   What does this worker think the future holds? What does he think about the future of his children, especially the 12-year-old? What might he think his wife should do with her time, especially since they have the extra income from two boarders and the room and board the older two children are paying? What is his attitude toward his job and the prospect of a very busy season that is going to require longer shifts and some work on Sundays? What does he think about the workers in the dye house who are organizing to demand shorter work days? What about the fact that the plant superintendent and his assistant both took a vacation last summer when the mill shut down?