Other Topics: General | Standard of Living | Productivity | Lowell and the Early Textile Mills | Pope and the American System of Manufactures | DEC and the Computer in New England

Books

Colonel Albert Pope and His American Dream Machines by Stephen B. Goddard. McFarland & Company, 2000.
In Hartford, Connecticut, Pope became the world's largest bicycle manufacturer in the late 1800s. This biography covers Pope’s challenges, setbacks, and remarkable achievements, including his development of production methods and foray into automobile production.

From the American System to Mass Production, 1800–1932: Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States by David A. Hounshell. Reprint edition. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985.
Traces the rocky origins of the development of the technology that propelled mass production manufacturing in the United States from arms making to sewing machines to the automobile industry.

Other Readings

“Popeism and Fordism: Examining the Roots of Mass Production,” by Glenn Norcliffe, Regional Studies 31.3, pp. 267–280.

“Technological Change in the Machine Tool Industry, 1840-1910,” by Nathan Rosenberg. Journal of Economic History, Volume 23, Issue 4 (December 1963), pp. 414–443.

"The American Bicycle Industry, 1868–1900," by Bruce Epperson. July 2001.
Unpublished paper.

"Major Taylor, Colonel Pope, and the General Commotion over Bicycles," by Robert Jabaily. Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, The Ledger (Spring 2001), pp. 6–19.
http://www.bos.frb.org/education/ledger/ledger01/spr01.pdf#page=6