We describe our digitization of a uniquely detailed study of 19 th century production methods assembled by the United States Department of Labor (1899). The staff spent five years collecting and assembling data on the production of hundreds of highly specific products (as well as some services)...

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...

During the nineteenth century, the US manufacturing sector shifted away from the "hand labor" mode of production, characteristic of artisan shops, to the "machine labor" of the factory. This was the focus of an extremely detailed but extraordinarily complex study by the Commissioner of Labor...