*Some thoughts on Michael P. Roller’s article “The Archaeology of Machinic
Consumerism: The Logistics of the Factory Floor” by George L. Miller. June
11, 2019*

Roller’s article appears to place more value on theory than on other types
of research.  I am glad to see all of the references he provided on the
ways that society is changing.  It appears to me that Roller constructed
his model of “Machinic Consumerism” and then went to web sites to pull
together information on some of the artifacts from privy fill that dates
from ca 1910 to ca 1959 that he excavated in Lattimer, Pennsylvania.  This
family that was associated with this household most likely were coal miners
or involved later in the textile manufacturing.



Roller’s use of the information from the web sites has some problems.  For
example on page seven he mentions “two or three” plates marked MADE IN
JAPAN.  He cites a web site by Jan-Erik Nilsson that “Such patterns largely
date to the period after the Second World War, when Japanese-made import
ceramics were required to be marked as such.”  Page 23 of the Nilsson web
site clearly states that the 1892 McKinley Tariff required all imported
ceramics to have a mark as to the country of origin.  Japanese ceramics
until 1921 were marked made in Nippon, after that date they were required
to be marked made in Japan.  Following the Nilsson comments on the marking
of Japanese ceramics he shows several plates marked “MADE IN OCCUPIED
JAPAN” and states that this mark was used from 1946 to 1952.  This
information clearly suggests that the Japanese plates from the privy date
from before WWII.



That is a minor mistake, however, the discussion of the take off period for
glass containers is more problematic.  On page eleven Roller states:
“Recovered glass bottles demonstrate characteristics from semi-automatic
machining processes, such as Owens suction scars from the first decades of
the 20th century (SHA 2014).  These are followed, by fully automatic
examples from the 1940s and with base knurling and stippling that not only
provide traction for conveyor-belt production, but also served to conceal
the signs of production of the finished product.”



This statement is used to describe the takeoff of mass production.  It is
wrong on a couple of points.  One is that the Owens machine was the first
fully automatic bottle-blowing machine to be invented and put into
production.  The Owens machine lowered the cost and greatly accelerated the
production glass containers.   The average labor cost for a gross of
bottles before the Owens machine in 1902 was $1.53 per gross.  The Owens
Company was quoted as reducing labor cost to $0.06 per gross (Miller and
McNichol 2012:81).  In 1903 it was stated that the early Owens machine
could produce ten bottles per minute (Miller and McNichol 2012:83).  The
fifteen-arm Owens machine that was developed later could produce 350 gross
pint bottles in 24 hours or a rate of 20 bottles a minute (Miller and
Sullivan 1984:86).



After the Owens machine was patented in 1903 they incorporated the Owens
Bottle Machine Company (Miller and McNichol 2012:78).  The Owens Bottle
Machine Company did not sell their machine to other glass manufacturers,
but only leased them with limits on what the lessee could produce on the
machine.  These were licensed to the major glass producers as shown below.



Year

Company

Leased to produce

1904

Baldwin-Travis, later merged with Thatcher Manufacturing Co.

Milk bottles

1904

Ohio Bottling Co.

Beer, porter and Soda bottles

1905

Owens European Bottle Machine Co.

Bottles for the European market

1906

Greenfield Fruit Jar Co. to Ball Bros in 1909

For fruit jars

1907

Rhein-Ahr Glasfabrik Co.

Apollinaris and mineral water bottles

1909

Hazel-Atlas Glass Co.

For packers ware

1909

H. J. Heinz Co.

For Heinz Company products

1909

Whitney Glass Works

Ammonia bottles and prescription ware

1910

Illinois Glass Co.

Whiskeys

1910

Charles Boldt

Whiskeys

1913

Maryland Glass Co.

For blue glass containers









A more complete list of licenses for the use of the Owens machine can be
found on Miller and McNichol 2012:93-95.  From the above list of firms
using the Owens Automatic Bottle Blowing machine, it is clear that glass
container production began to take off in the first decade of the 20th
century.  An excellent understanding of the impact of machine production of
glass containers can be found in Scoville’s *Revolution in Glass Making*.
Web sites such as the SHA one for Bottle Dating are a great source for
identification but are not a substitution for research and going back to
the cited articles from the web sites.



            Roller’s description of bottles recovered from the privy, as
being from fully “automatic examples from the 1940s and with base knurling
and stippling” is interesting.  The introduction of beer cans in 1935 led
to the glass industry developing light weight beer bottles that were
throwaway products to compete with the canned beer (Miller and McNichol
2012:89).  Archaeological assemblages have a problem in documenting
changing consumption patterns of beer bottles because beer bottles used
before Probation carried a 2-cent deposit per bottle and they would be
rarely discarded unless broken.  After the development of the throwaway
bottle it would appear the beer consumption increased, but that would be a
factor of the change to throwaway in containers.  There are other areas
where archaeological assemblages fall short in the studies of consumption
patterns.



            Much has been made of the differences between bottles made on
semi-automatic versus fully automatic machine-made bottles.  Our ability to
identify bottles made on the two processes is very limited.  The Owens made
bottles are an exception because of the suction scar.  Here are some
comments on this from my 1984 article with Catherine Sullivan.



“All glass-blowing machines (semi-automatic and automatic) that have been
successfully taken into production, have involved three separate molding
steps.  These involve a ring mold which shapes the finish, a parison or
part-size mold to give initial shape to the hot glass, and a blow mold or
full-size mold to form the container’s final shape, size and any embossed
letters or designs it might have.”



The parison and blow mold lines will be together where they meet the ring
mold, but often are not together at the base of the container that is
caused by movement from the parison mold to the blow mold.  Add a feeder to
a semi-automatic machine and it becomes a fully automatic bottle-blowing
machine with no changes in the mold lines.



There are a number of underutilized sources that anyone studying 20th
century consumption patterns one might want to consult.  The *International
Scientific Committee on Price History* was organized in 1929 and later
received funding from the Rockefeller Foundation (Cole 1938:XXI).  Funding
for price histories of many cities in America, Europe and elsewhere were
the results.  This study was thought to be helpful in understanding the
Great Depression and other economic events.  This type of research focused
on gathering raw data fell out of favor with the rise of a new paradigm
that was reflected in Koopmans 1947 article “Measurement without Theory.” A
number of academic disciplines moved toward a theory approach to data
(Fischer 1996:Appendix O.)  Fischer provides an excellent discussion of the
shift toward the role of data in research.  Fischer makes excellent use of
data from the *International Committee on Price History* showing the value
of such information and its usefulness in constructing and understanding
price cycles through history.  Fischer’s book is very readable volume and
helped my research.  He shows that data are forever and theory comes and
goes.



During World War I the United States government established the *War
Industry Board* under the direction of Bernard M. Baruch that worked to cut
down on waste by reducing the variety of things in production.  For example
“The number of colors on typewriters ribbons was reduced from 150 to 5;
Styles of pocket knives were cut from 6,000 to 144” (Hession and Sardy
1971:568).  The War Industry Board papers from the meetings held by many
manufacturers of various commodities are held in the National Archives.  These
provide an insight into these industries at a point in time.  Later during
the Great Depression, Hoover continued this effort to reduce the variety of
products and to standardize sizes to help with economic recovery.



            During the Depression in 1938 Congress established a committee
titled the *Investigation of Concentration of Economic Power: Hearings
before the Temporary National Economic Committee of Congress of the United
States*.  The volumes containing the testimony of industrial leaders before
these committees and they reveal a great deal of information on
development, restraints of trade, patents and other information.  David
Lynch’s 1946 book *The Concentration of Economic Power* provides an
excellent overview of the hearings and the contents of the various volumes.
These volumes are a gold mine of information.  We could use another
congressional committee looking into the concentration of economic power in
our present economy.



            Last but not least are the reprinted catalogs such as the 1896
Montgomery Company and later ones by Sears and Roebuck.  Looking at the
great variety of goods available suggests that this may reflect a take off
an age of mechanical production.  An excellent study by Emmet and Jeuck
titled *Catalogues and Counters*: *A History of Sears, Roebuck and Company*
provides an insight into the use of their economic power to make large
purchases to reduce prices of things like bicycles, sewing machines and
cream separators that speeded up the consumption of these items and many
others. In short, the lowering of prices created a series of horizon events
in consumption. This is an excellent read and well worth adding to your
library if you are a student of 20th century material culture.

            I wanted to bring these sources to the attention of those doing
research on 20th century material culture.  It is time to stop being held a
prisoner by the assemblage you are working with and to expanding your
research.  Come on in, the water is fine.  I find that theory research
being valued over other types of research to be irritating.  Roller’s paper
falls short of his Marx.



Peace,

George L. Miller.



Cole, Arthur Harrison Cole

1938            *Wholesale Commodity Prices in the United States 1700-1861*.
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.



Emmet, Boris and John E. Jeuck

1950            *Catalogues and Counters: A History of Sears, Roebuck and
Company*.  University of Chicago Press, Chicago.



Fischer, David Hackett

1996    *The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhyme of History*.  Oxford
University Press, New York.



Hession, Charles H. and Hyman Sardy

1971    *Ascent to Affluence: A History of American Development*.  Allyn
and Bacon, Inc, Boston.



Koopmans, Tjalling

1947            Measurements without Theory. *Review of Economic Studies*
29:161-172 as cited on page 313 of David Hackett Fischer.



Lynch, David

1946    *The Concentration of Economic Power*, Columbia University Press,
New York.



Miller, George L., Patricia Samford, Ellen Shlasko and Andrew Madsen

2000    Telling Time for Archaeologist.  *Northeast Historical Archaeology*
Vol 29:1-24.



Miller, George L. and Tony McNichol

2012    Dates for Suction Scarred Bottoms: A Chronology for Early Owens
Machine-Made Bottles.  *Northeast Historical Archaeology* Vol 41:75-95.



Miller, George L. and Cathrine Sullivan

1984            Machine-Made Glass Containers and the End of Mouth-Blown
Bottles.  *Historical Archaeology* Vol 19(2):86.



Roller, Michael P.

2019    The Archaeology of Machinic Consumerism: The Logistics of the
Factory Floor. *Historical Archaeology* Vol. 53, 1:3-24.



Scoville, Warren C.

1948            *Revolution in Glass Making: Entrepreneurship and
Technological Changes in the American Industry 1880-1920.* Harvard
University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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