Mass Production
Today, the term “mass production” often conveys a negative sentiment, evoking feelings of commonality and generic indistinguishability. While this may often be true, mass production in the modern era also greatly benefited humanity in a variety of ways. This process greatly reduced the price of common goods, allowing even the poorest people access to a wide variety of goods and services only the wealthy could afford in the generations prior to its implementation. By lowering the cost of production and increasing the availability of a wide variety of items, access to higher standards of living were not far behind.
History records examples of mass production before the 19th Century, but these instances tended to be rare and isolated. It was not until the 1800s that the idea of creating interchangeable parts in rapid succession and then assembling them in a compartmentalized and orderly fashion led to the prosperous world in which we live. As is often the case with technological breakthroughs, early success with mass productions came as a result of military needs. Though the British Royal Navy made great advancements with aspects of shipbuilding in the early 1800s, the United States achieved full interchangeability of parts for gun manufacturing by mid-century.
The idea of full interchangeability quickly spread to other businesses. Soon, everyday items like glass jars and tin cans were being manufactured in massive quantities, greatly reducing the price of basic yet vital items for rich and poor alike.
The positive effects of mass production did not just make items cheaper, it raised living standards in other ways as well. Many of the hardest, most physically exhausting jobs for people and animals alike were replaced by relatively simple steam or electrical machines that completed the most undesirable jobs. Also, productivity increased until the average hours a factory laborer worked fell from 70 hours in the beginning of the century to 60 hours a week by the end, eventually culminating in the modern 40-hour work week by the early 20th century.