Harrisburg Industrializes: The Coming of Factories to an American Community by Gerald G. Eggert

Abstract

620 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGYAND CULTURE operations grew larger and more complex and became associated with big conurbations, the physical need to find accommodation for one’s workforce declined, and the paternalism of the company towns was increasingly resented. But the possibilities demonstrated in these model communities for good housing, sensible planning, the separation of “living” from “working” zones, an infrastructure of good drains and services, and the well-balanced provision of urban amenities were all taken up and assimilated into the town-planning process that has been accepted as a matter of course in all the advanced industrial nations in the 20th century. In a sense it is true to say that we have all benefited from the example of these pioneering communities. R. Angus Buchanan Prof. Buchanan is director of the Centre for the History of Technology at the University of Bath. Harrisburg Industrializes: The Coming ofFactories to an American Community. By Gerald G. Eggert. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993. Pp. xix+412; illustrations, tables, notes, bibliography, index. $35.00. Most histories of industrialization in the United States have focused either on the episodic or on the largest cities and the businesses that grew most rapidly to become part of the center economy. Less attention has been paid to industrialization occurring in smaller cities or in industries or companies that did not grow large or were not particularly unique or dramatically successful. That older tradition was challenged by Philip Scranton. In Proprietary Capitalism (1983), Scranton revolutionized the way historians viewed the process of industrialization by focusing on smaller textile manufacturers in Philadelphia—ones which never inno­ vated or grew dramatically to become part of the center economy, but nonetheless more closely typified the course industrialization took in most of America. Gerald Eggert follows Scranton’s lead in this fine and very important study ofindustrialization in Harrisburg, a city more typical of the American experience than Lowell, Pittsburgh, or Detroit. In Harrisburg, the process of industrialization was relatively slow and incremental and was seldom terribly disruptive of the existing eco­ nomic, social, and political arrangements. It did not destroy overnight the old craftsmen’s empire, it did not replace older mercantile elites with new robber barons, it did not attract massive numbers of “new” immigrants to fill the ranks of unskilled labor. The population remained largely native born, with a minority of Irish and Germans, and blacks. There was little strife on the plant floor, few strikes or other disturbances (other than the great Railroad Riot of 1877), and not much in the way of ethnic or racial violence. After a generation of slow growth, the industries that had come to Harrisburg began to fade away, and the city increasingly became a government center. TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 621 There are a number of strengths to Eggert’s book. First, he deals with both entrepreneurs and workers and with their interactions. Second, he considers the impact that economic and technological changes had on the spatial, social, and political life of the community. Third, Harrisburg and its experience probably is far more typical of what happened in 19th-century America than are the more dramatic accounts of the rise of massive enterprises in large cities. Most of 19th-century America still lived in small cities, towns, and farms; only a small percentage lived in large metropolitan areas or in bleak mill towns. Nor did most firms grow to become U.S. Steel or General Motors. The typical experience was for firms to be born, grow modestly, and then either remain stagnant or die after two or three generations. Harrisburg fits that pattern. Also, by dealing with firms that were not “first movers” in terms of technological innovation, firms that adopted new technologies slowly and hesitantly, Eggert is examining a technological experience closer to the norm. Despite these very real strengths, there are also some shortcomings to Eggert’s work. The most important of these is simply that it is not very exciting to read. I can hear my students complaining if I assigned it for class—“It’s boring!” “It’s dull!”—despite all my protestations about the importance and significance of the book. Perhaps its rather turgid...