Sublime

continuous processing, the mechanization of unreliable hand processes, and John Hall’s style of reconceiving a process down through the finest-grained of production details. British visitors to American steel plants were astonished—not just at their scale and speed but by the “very conspicuous absence of labourers.”

The consolidation and scaling up of Holley-style continuous-process manufacturing businesses in the 1870s and 1880s—besides iron and steel, in oil, chemicals, flour, meat—eliminated many traditional craft categories. Labor historians sometimes speak of the “de-skilling” of manufacturing, which is not entirely accurate. It took considerable judgment

one Carnegie executive claimed he could make a farmboy into a melter, previously one of the more skilled positions, in just six to eight weeks. Integrated operations also eliminated the last vestiges of internal contracting. Line employees now worked only for other hired hands, increasing their psychological distance from senior managers. One labor

As the British had discovered to their grief in steel, it is almost impossible to maintain a technology edge amid declining production, and the huge new refineries and pipelines in Texas and California were inevitably a generation ahead of the Standard’s.