Tariff and Technology: The Foundation and Development of the American Tin-Plate Industry, 1872-1900

Abstract

IN 1890 THE UNITED STATES imported from Wales over 300,000 tons of tin plate-virtually its entire consumption and nearly three quarters of the Welsh product. Just ten years later America was herself producing nearly 400,000 tons, and the Welsh product had been driven from the domestic market.' In order to produce this transformation, the American tinplate manufacturers had to overcome two formidable obstacles. First, they had to master a complex technique of production, and second, they had to produce at a price which could compete with that of the Welsh plate.2 Both of these problems were solved against the backdrop of the McKinley tariff of 1890. Neither polemicists nor scholars have been able to agree on what role tariffs have played in American life generally or to define their role in promoting or preventing technological innovation. Circumstantial evidence, however, points to the fact that those manufacturers who sought to establish an American tin-plate industry counted on the McKinley tariff to aid in the solution of their problems, both economic and technological. Their views were not unopposed, and much of the ensuing debate was carried on in terms far removed from the real interests of the participants. But the fact remains that with the political discussion of tariff and technology emerged a new American industry. Essentially, tin plate is merely black iron or steel rolled into thin sheets, and covered with a protective coating of tin. Once a relatively exotic material, it was fast becoming abundant, and therefore more widely used, in the years following the Civil War. The rapidly growing dairy and petroleum industries were shipping their products in tin containers, and tin plate was found useful as a roofing material.3 Perhaps the most startling development in the use of tin plate * Mr. Pursell is a member of the research staff of Dr. A. Hunter Dupree's investigation of the role of science in the Federal Government, 1940-1960.