416 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Ingenious Yankees: The Rise of the American System of Manufactures in the Private Sector. By Donald R. Hoke. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990. Pp. xii + 345; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $40.00. Ingenious Yankees sets out to document the collaborative effort of en trepreneurs and mechanics that led to the creation of the “American system” of manufactures. Donald Hoke, beginning in 1800, uses the example ofEli Terry’s work in wooden clock manufacturing to document the industrialization of a craft industry. Next, Hoke examines Elisha Root’s axe manufacturing from 1832 to 1845, a chapter that culminates with the installation of a complete production line in S. W. Collins and Company’s new plant in Collinsville, Connecticut, in 1845. Then Hoke analyzes typewriter production from 1875 to 1910 to illustrate the ad aptation of armory practice, specifically the model-based system devel oped at Remington and other arms factories. He emphasizes that me chanics employed by the private sectordesigned products and production processes to cut costs and expand the market. Watchmaking at Waltham and Elgin marked the end of the model system. At this point automatic machinery was being developed in many manufacturing industries, as well as more sophisticated measuring devices that would make the elab orate system of models, jigs, and fixtures less important. Hoke has nicely illustrated the increasing efficiencies of American production methods during the 19th century. He clearly demon strates that economic factors were most significant in tire private sector. The specialization of labor, increased accuracy of measuring and machining, and the development of special-purpose machinery were the elements that allowed American manufacturers to cut costs and reach an expanding mass market. Hoke also has another mission—to refute the assertion made in earlier scholarship that the various elements of the system all had their roots in Eli Whitney’s work at New Haven and later work at Springfield and other armories where the model system reached its height. Perhaps this scholarship on 19th-century American manufac turers, including Merritt Roe Smith’s seminal work on Harpers Ferry, focused on the armories because of the readier availability of primary source materials. Scholars like Smith made use of these sources in order to examine the production process closely. They found that the process of mass-producing arms entailed the creation of a “perfect” prototype and a series ofjigs, fixtures, and gauges made from each part of the model that were then used in production to ensure interchangeability. This system also incorporated the use of powered machinery where possible to make the parts faster, more easily, and, in many cases, more accurately than could be done by hand. The work of David Hounshell and others has reinforced the concept of the military origins of the American system by tracing its adoptions in the sewing machine, bicycle, and auto industries. TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 417 Ingenious Yankees, however, asserts that elements of the system were developed in the private sector before their use in armories, and that private-sector mechanics adapted innovations developed in armories only selectively. Hoke’s analysis of wooden clock making and type writer production, for example, shows that mechanics built in adjust ability to allow for lack of precision that was simply not needed. The result in the case of Terry’s wooden clocks was a cheap, dependable, and more easily assembled product that broadened the lower end of the market. Hoke believes, quite correctly, that the history of technology should be grounded in a thorough understanding of machines and process, and his analysis of complex production processes is outstanding. However, he does not spend the time or space to make the reader comfortable with the details before getting to larger issues. In addition, one wishes that this book had focused more on the people who helped create and worked in these industries. Waltham, for example, was a city where nearly everyone worked in the watch industry. Who were they? Were they native born? Immigrants? Men or women? Who held the skilledjobs and who held the unskilled? The mechanization described in these pages created many jobs that did not require Yankee ingenuity. Why did the Irish...