Article ID: CBB248076434

Crafted for Mass Production: Imported Spinning Machinery on the Shop Floor, China, 1910s–1920s (October 2022)

unapi

Craft and mechanization are often cast as antithetical. This article questions the facile distinction by examining the customization and modification of American spinning machines to China's diverse local conditions, especially its varieties of cotton. It draws on machine manuals and contracts, engineering textbooks and journals, and correspondence between an American machine firm and its engineers in Shanghai. Engaging with the revisionist scholarship of industrialization that highlights craft continuing into the age of mass production, as well as recent studies challenging Western- and invention centered narratives in the history of technology, this article argues that the skills and knowledge that Chinese users of foreign machines possessed were critical elements in mechanization. It establishes the "hand" and the "machine" as mutually constitutive categories on the factory floor, presenting Chinese engineers and technicians as active participants in the coconstruction of global spinning technologies.

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Authors & Contributors
Holden, Roger N.
Grim, Valerie
Peter Svik
W. Walker Hanlon
DeWalt, Bryan
Gardner, Lin
Concepts
Textile industry
Cotton and cotton industry
Globalization; internationalization
Mechanization
Technology transfer
Crafts and craftspeople
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
18th century
Modern
21st century
20th century, early
Places
United States
Great Britain
China
Stockport, England
Southern states (U.S.)
England
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