Manufacturing

Look around. Everything you see was manufactured. Unless you are one of the guys on ‘This Ole House’ with MIT skills and years of experience with all the tools and unlimited funds, someone else manufactured everything you see. You may have some antiques that were crafted by an artisan to finely tool woodworking or metal work or glass blowing beyond the detail a factory could produce, but most of what fills our closets and tops our tables and cover our bookshelves and overrun every drawer and cabinet are mass manufactured.

Seems when we traveled over the pond, we were riding tiny wooden ships manufactured by craftsman with years of experience in bending wood and sealing with tar in hopes it makes it through the waves to the other side. Once in the land of plenty, there were no contractors or architects. There was a plot of land and trees and dirt. Shelter had to be constructed by hand and dirt tilled and seeded for there was no bodega at the end of the dusty road. Until others arrived, frontiers were self-sufficient.

Others did arrive and communities started to form. Everyone chipped in to barn raisings bartering time for food or fellowship. Religious groups constructed churches which doubled for schools and meeting houses.

Still the household was worked by family unless there was enough money to go to the river and buy some people from another land to chattel the family sublimit.

With the constant invasion of indigenous land, the military from the east were sent out to build forts and shelter for the settlers under attack from the native savage, the French, the Spanish and the English all contesting the rights to the property.

Some of these communities grew into townships. Located next to a water source, there was transportation for trading and renewing supplies. As the railroad expanded, other towns popped up along the way as hubs connected together by wires messaging morse code.

Farmers, plantation owners, land owners who manufactured more than their family could consume would take their crops, drive their cattle, herd their sheep to the towns for sale, slaughter and trade.

One of the first manufacturers were the spirits. Whether it was a homemade moonshine still or a distillery, saloons or taverns arrived to distribute a mug of the finest for a few. The hospitality industry was manufactured.

Demand for mass production of clothing, wagons, housing, food, education created manufacturing beyond the single. They are artisans who possess a high level of skill and expertise in a particular craft, often involving the creation of tangible, aesthetically pleasing objects to supply could not keep up with the demand.

Factories were assembled with craftsmen (and women) to sew the buttons, dig in the mines, cut the timber, slaughter the animals, provide the furniture for the expansion of townships.

Being fond of guitars, I think of the Martin factory that brought Ole World skills of making small guitars to the New World and adjusting to the new music since 1833. Each guitar was handmade construction from a luthier with knowledge of wood and sound reproduction who carved and bent the wood, bracing the pieces for resonator and final assembly was a prized procession to any musician who held one. I’ve been to the factory and watched years old techniques that still hold true. There is some automation and shortcuts but the final product is worth the price.

Not every pot and pan and chair and table can have this constant attention to detail, so the factories had to speed up the process while losing the quality. Henry Ford comes to mind of creating the assembly line where workers were separated to doing a particular task as the product moved on a conveyer belt. There wasn’t a lot of skill or craftsmanship in turning a screw every minute.

What brought this to mind was World War II. The machinery of war that was manufactured here and shipped overseas to fight the battle was amazing. The country got out of a depression to hire anyone who could be trained to weld a sheet of metal or pack ammunition or take oil and make tires for thousands of vehicles that would carry our troops to victory. The logistics of keeping track of all these items from uniforms to bullets alone was staggering. Those who didn’t pick up arms worked in factories manufacturing the weapons of destruction. There were limited educational requirements and the working conditions were minimal but the cause was right. After the fighting stopped there was plenty of surplus for the movies.

Labor unions worked for the masses who had no say in salaries or hours worked until factories moved to another country with cheaper labor. The factory of educational manufacturing grew to train generations in adapting to peacetime consumption. Tanks and jeep turned to automobiles and refrigerators, aerial runways tuned to strips of highways, cities spread out into suburbs with matchbook houses. Oil was king. Distilling crude to plastics changed everything.

Rooms full of accountants cooking the books in ledgers turned to cool rooms full of whirring computers. Coal mines were replaced by giant machines that stripped the mountains down from the top. Ships lost their guns to carrying stacks of cargo containers or floating hotels. Department stores morphed into shopping malls as office complexes reached to the heavens. Everyone had a car.

Every place you go has a factory. Whether if it is the local restaurant or filling station or grocery store, they are all mini-manufacturing factories. They all have logistics of receiving, inventory, staff, accounting, distribution, sales, profits, security, insurance….

I never thought of myself as a factory worker, but on reflection I worked in manufacturing as everyone else. I worked from a newspaper. A communication factory manufacturing the news on a daily basis. A 24/7 operation delivering  a new multi-page book filled with sports, politics, local and national news, fashion, stocks, weddings, obituaries, classified pages and even comics 365 days a year. I was a white-collar clog in the machine. I was in the ‘creative’ department that was supposed to assist sales staff persuade clients to pay for their message to be printed in a defined space to be viewed by an audience in hopes that some will see their advertisement and react with calls and request and profits.

The bell rings and we clock out.