ABSTRACT
The phenomenon of the modern factory is unprecedented in human history Before the late eighteenth century there were no buildings housing lines of machines, churning out thousands of identical products with the aid of human attendants. The factory’s origins can be most readily traced to textile manufacture, although factories emerged simultaneously in other industries. Factories might seem to have developed naturally from new technology, but centralized workplaces had separate origins. The textile factory symbolized a new age to many Europeans and Americans. It promised limitless economic growth, but also threatened to undermine the dignity of work and the cohesiveness of family life based on shared labors. But even if these early mills were islands of mechanization in the seas of agrarian and craft society, they were linked to the traditional world of work and family. These factories originated in Britain, but they were adopted quickly by Americans-although with distinct features peculiar to the early United States.
