The Baldwin Locomotive Works, 1831-1915: A Study in American Industrial Practice (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Baldwin Locomotive Works, 1831–1915: A Study in American Industrial Practice * Patrick M. Malone (bio) The Baldwin Locomotive Works, 1831–1915: A Study in American Industrial Practice. By John K. Brown. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995. Pp. xxxii+ 328; illustrations, tables, appendixes, notes, bibliography, index. $35.95. The Baldwin Locomotive Works was the largest builder of capital equipment in America, part of a vital economic sector that historians have slighted in most accounts of industrial development. John K. Brown corrects that oversight with this thorough and perceptive analysis of Baldwin’s significance. He examines not only this particular Philadelphia firm but also the business of building locomotives and the critical role of capital equipment suppliers in the economic growth of the nation. This is an amazing book that no American historian can afford to ignore. [End Page 774] Brown has written the first detailed and scholarly study of a major locomotive builder in nineteenth-century America. After a masterful introduction and a discussion of the growth of the firm from its establishment in 1831 to 1866, he offers chapters on locomotive building and innovation in locomotive design. Here and throughout the book, he stresses the priority that Baldwin placed on marketing its products and satisfying customer needs. Next is a series of thematic essays on the company’s management, workforce, and shop practices, covering the period from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. The final chapter describes Baldwin’s heyday in the years immediately after 1900 and briefly summarizes the long decline that set in before World War I. It is reassuring that a historian can learn so much about a company that threw out most of its business records when it gave up making locomotives in the 1950s. Brown is an indefatigable sleuth, and his book is a model of investigative research. It is also well grounded in the historiography of several specialized fields. The author builds carefully on the best work of business and technological historians but fearlessly attacks powerful interpretations that have become accepted wisdom. Brown refutes the conclusion of Alfred Chandler and other scholars that mass production firms were the first to establish systematic controls for manufacturing. He pulls high volume producers down from the Olympian heights where historians of the American system of manufacturing have placed them and asserts that capital equipment builders (a truly different breed) deserve at least as much credit for establishing America’s productive superiority by the beginning of the twentieth century. The historical revisions come in rapid succession as Brown reveals the inner workings of an industrial giant with distinctive technological processes, labor relations, managerial systems, and marketing strategies. The shops and the drafting room at the great Baldwin Locomotive Works in the heart of Philadelphia may seem like an alien world to historians who focus on corporate mass production. The talented Baldwin partners (many of them former artisans from the works) were deeply involved in day-to-day operations and knew their way around a locomotive. The capital equipment sector produced heavy machinery for factories, railroads, waterworks, farms, mines, shipyards, and many other users. Brown began his research project because he suspected “that capital equipment builders must have faced unique operational issues compared with those confronting the integrated corporations and American System manufacturers that have dominated recent industrial historiography” (p. xxvi). He shows us how these builders developed similar strategies to deal with narrow markets, demanding buyers, rapid technological change, and volatile economic cycles. The crucial challenge was to respond rapidly to the special needs of particular end users. One way that Baldwin managers did that was by working closely with purchasers to develop customized [End Page 775] designs that included large numbers of high-quality, standardized components. Many of the incremental improvements that dramatically increased the tractive power of locomotives by the end of the nineteenth century came from the master mechanics of the railroads. On the other hand, their demanding specifications forced Baldwin to offer many different classes of locomotives. As it turned out, the company’s “reactive heritage” (pp. 227–28) proved to be a major factor in its downfall, delaying Baldwin’s adoption of diesel-electric motive power...