A View of the Factory System

Repeating Fire-Arms. A Day at the Armory of Colt’s Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company (1857)

The extent of Americans’ fascination with the technological innovations that fueled the manufacturing revolution can be glimpsed in this enthusiastic report of a visit to Samuel Colt’s armory. In this article published in the United States Magazine in 1857, the author describes in detail the armory’s design and Colt’s innovative process of manufacturing revolvers using interchangeable parts.

The new armory … is located about one hundred yards south of the mouth of Little River, immediately inside of the dyke, and fronting on the west side of the Connecticut River. It was finished and operations commenced in it in the Fall of 1855.… It is a massive structure of brown sand-stone, of the variety usually designated “Portland freestone.” The front parallel is 500 feet long, 60 wide, and three stories high; at the center, for about sixty feet of the front, there is a projection of eighteen feet wide, surmounted by a pediment. This forms ample space for hall and stairways to give access to the several stories. On top is the cupalo, with a canopy of blue, emblazoned with gilt stars, the whole surmounted by a large gilt ball, on which stands a colt, rampant. The rear parallel is 500 feet long by 40 wide; the center building is 150 feet long by 60 wide, and three stories high. At each end, between the extremities of the parallels, are two small two-story dwellings, both of which are occupied by the watchmen; from these erections to the main buildings are heavy walls, with massive gates; thus the space inclosed by the stone walls is just 500 by 250 feet square. Nearly adjoining on the north, and connected to the main building by a light latticework bridge, is a brick building, three stories high, 60 by 75 feet square, and surmounted by a turret and clock. This is occupied by the officers, and as a wareroom.

The motive power is located about in the center of the main building. It consists of a beam engine — cylinder, 36 inches in diameter, 7 feet stroke, fly-wheel 30 feet in diameter, weighing 7 tuns. This engine, which is rated at 250 horse-power, is supplied with the well-known “Sickel’s Cut-off,” which the superintendent and engineer speak of as the most useful and important addition to the steam-engine since the days of Watt. The steam is furnished from two cylindrical boilers, each 22 feet long and 7 feet in diameter. The power is carried to the attic by a belt working on the fly-wheel; this belt is 118 feet long by 22 inches wide, and travels at the rate of 2,500 feet per minute.

Fully appreciating the great interest manifested by our readers in descriptions of this kind, we will now proceed to conduct them through the interior of this immense industrial pile, and on the way we will endeavor to explain, as understandingly as possible, the various processes of the manufacture, from the raw metal and wood, to the complete and effective arms familiarly known as Colt’s Revolvers.…

At this point it is well to inform the reader that almost the entire manual labor of the establishment is performed by contract. The contractors are furnished room, power, tools, material, heat, light, in fact all but muscle and brains; themselves, however, and their subordinates are all subject to the immediate government, as prescribed by the code of rules, laid down by the Company. The contractors number some scores—some particular manipulators requiring only their individual exertions, while others employ from one to forty assistants. Many of them are men of more than ordinary ability, and some have rendered themselves pecuniarily comfortable by their exertions.

We now pass into the forge shop, an apartment 40 by 200 feet square, comprising the whole of one arm of the parallel. Along each side range stacks of double-covered forges — the blasts for which, entering and discharging through flues in the walls, carry off the smoke and gases. Here, for the first time in our life, we were in a blacksmith shop in full operation, yet free from smoke and cinders, and with a pure atmosphere. Several kinds of hammers are used — those most in use, however, being “drops” of a novel construction and peculiar to the establishment; they are raised on the endless screw principle, and tripped by a trigger at the will of the operator. All the parts of the fire-arm composed of iron or steel are forged in swedges, in which, although they may have ever so many preliminary operations, the shape is finally completed at a single blow. That some idea may be formed of the amount of work on a single rifle or pistol, we have determined to state the number of separate operations of each portion, and in each department. We adopt the navy or belt pistol, the weight of which is thirty-eight ounces, as the example. In forging, the number of separate heats are enumerated: lockframe, 2; barrel, 3; lever, 2; rammer, 1; hammer, 2; hand, 2; trigger, 2; bolt, 2; main spring, 2; key, 2; nipples, two each, 12; thus we find that no less than thirty-two separate and distinct operations, some of which contain in themselves several sub-divisions, are required in the forging for a single pistol.…

We now follow them to the armory proper, which, in the first place, is the second story of the front parallel. This is probably not only the most spacious, but the best arranged and fitted workshop extant. We fully understand this to be a broad and sweeping assertion, yet we have an abundance of competent authority to back the opinion. On first entering this immense room, from the office, the tout ensemble is really grand and imposing, and the beholder is readily impressed with an exalted opinion of the vast mechanical resources of the corporation. The room is 500 feet long by 60 feet wide, and 16 feet high. It is lighted, on all sides, by 112 windows that reach nearly from floor to ceiling; it is warmed by steam from the boilers — the pipes being under the benches, running completely around the sides and ends; there are also perfect arrangements for ventilation, and sufficient gasburners to illuminate the whole for night-work. Running through the center is a row of cast-iron columns, sixty in number, to which is attached the shafting — which here is arranged as a continuous pulley — for driving the machines, as close together as possible, only allowing sufficient space to get around and work them. The whole of this immense floor space is covered with machine tools. Each portion of the fire-arm has its particular section. As we enter the door the first group of machines appears to be exclusively employed in chambering cylinders; the next is turning and shaping them; here another is boring barrels; another group is milling the lockframes; still another is drilling them; beyond are a score of machines boring and screw-cutting the nipples, and next them a number of others are making screws; here are the rifling machines, and there the machines for boring rifle-barrels; now we come to the jigging machines that mortice out the lock-frames; and thus it goes on all over this great hive of physical and mental exertion.

This machinery, though at first sight like that employed in the manufacture of cotton and silk, apparently intricate, is in reality mostly composed of simple and well-known elements, ingeniously and specially applied to effect the mechanical actions required; no better evidence of its perfection can be adduced than the fact that the various parts of the arms produced are so perfectly identical that, in assembling a pistol, the several pieces, taken promiscuously from the heaps, unite almost without manual labor. The limited space of this paper prevents a detailed description of the various machines, nearly 400 of which are in use in the several departments; however, it would be well for some other establishments that we have in our time visited if a portion of the mechanical advantages which they insure were more universally adopted for all general purposes.

The United States Magazine, vol. 4 (New York: J. M. Emerson & Co., 1857), 233–235.

READING AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS