We examine the long transition from water to steam power in US manufacturing, focusing on early users of mechanical … power: lumber and flour mills. Digitizing Census of Manufactures manuscripts for 1850 to 1880, we show that as steam costs … declined, manufacturing activity grew faster in counties with less waterpower potential. This growth was driven by steam …

manuscripts of the decennial censuses between 1850 and 1880 to examine whether the adoption of the steam engine as the primary … power source by manufacturers during industrialization contributed to urbanization. While the data indicate that steam …-powered firms were more likely to locate in urban areas than water-powered firms, the adoption of the steam engine did not …

We use establishment level data from the 1850-80 censuses of manufacturing to study the correlates of the use of steam … power and the impact of steam power on labor productivity growth in nineteenth century American manufacturing. A key result … is that establishment size mattered: large establishments, as measured by employment, were much more likely to use steam …