Dear Mr. Miller,



I am sure these are errors that Dr. Roller will seek to correct in future publications. However, I would encourage you to reach out to him in private, as a very public forum such as histarch doesn't seem to be the right place to dissect a junior scholar's research.



I'd encourage you to read Dr. Roller's book on studying structural violence through the archaeological record if you haven't already checked it out. Dr. Roller makes important theoretical and archaeological interventions on the intergenerational health and material consequences of the mining industry. Here's a link to it: https://www.amazon.com/Archaeology-Structural-Violence-Twentieth-Century-Cultural/dp/081305608X



Finally, thank goodness the quality of our scholarship isn't determined by one article or publication. Let’s not forget most of us are trying our best despite the pressure of increased teaching loads, dwindling support for higher education and archaeology, and growing publishing and scholarly output expectations in the academy. 



Sincerely,



Stacey Camp

---------------------------

Stacey L. Camp, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Anthropology

Director, MSU Campus Archaeology Program

Department of Anthropology

Michigan State University

MSU Campus Archaeology Program: http://campusarch.msu.edu/

WWII Internment Archaeology Project: www.internmentarchaeology.org

Office Location: McDonel Hall, E-34

Email: [log in to unmask]









-----Original Message-----

From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of George Miller

Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2019 7:38 PM

To: [log in to unmask]

Subject: Comments on Roller's latest article



*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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