Engineering Philadelphia Summary

After reading “Engineering Philadelphia” and “The First Industrial City”, there were a few themes that seemed to be consistent in the two articles. The biggest one was how families and individual people had a profound effect on economic and industrial development. In Philadelphia, this force was the Seller’s family, who’s growing family and business networks left a profound effect on not only Philadelphia’s industry, but also its policy, city development, and the field of manufacturing. What I found most interesting about the influence of the Seller’s family was their ability to use their social capital in the area to revolutionize how industry ran and work. With all of their business connections, they were able to compound industries in order

This correlates with the definition of metropolis from our last class, an area of shared power defined by boundaries of economic influence. These relationships are also visible in Manchester, where networks not only included other cotton and textile manufacturers, but also the nearby tradition of engineering, including clock making, which strengthened mechanical capacity as well as technological innovations. Not only was Manchester being reliant on technology in order to make the textile industry more efficient, but Philadelphia was also reliant since its status as one of America’s most important industrial cities was being threatened. This is why the Sellers created a dynasty of not only artisans, but also businessmen, politicians, and scientists; in order to create a group of the economic elite to keep the interests of capitalism alive and move industry

Those “elites” that organized in Philadelphia are parallel to the merchant capitalists in Manchester who were in charge of the putting-out system, the system in which workers processed raw materials were processed into finished products in the home, then brought to a central marketplace to be sold. This was attractive because it let workers work at their own speed, as well as didn’t subject adult and child workers to the harsh conditions of a factory. I found that this was the precursor to full out industrialization, with mechanization and everyone working in a factory because it was the beginning stages of getting agriculturally-centered families to be involved in production. This next step can be seen in Philadelphia, where manufacturing jobs fully brought people into the city for jobs. In both Philadelphia and Manchester, industry created social stratification. Merchants and artisans found themselves at the top, while working class people found themselves at the bottom. As industry grew and the roles became more defined, the gap in social classes also widened. This was probably also exasperated by the very vigorous polytechnic culture that came out of industry, seen in both Philadelphia and Manchester. In Philadelphia, industrialists advocated for mandatory basic education in order to create better workers (if they can read and better understand