Manufacturing Independence with Robert Smith

Manufacturing Independence: Forging a Nation in the Crucible of War

What did it really take to turn rebellion into a revolution—and ideals into a functioning nation? In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Professor Robert Allison welcomes Professor Robert Smith of the Valley Forge Military College, author of Manufacturing Independence:  Industrial Innovation in the American Revolution, for a sweeping conversation about the workshops, foundries, supply lines, and human ingenuity that powered the American cause.

Smith peels back the romantic veneer of the Revolution to reveal a world of iron, timber, powder, and persistence. From cannon cast in makeshift furnaces to uniforms stitched by candlelight, listeners discover how farmers, artisans, merchants, and soldiers became the hidden engine of independence. Together, Allison and Smith explore how local industry, wartime logistics, and civilian resilience shaped strategy on the battlefield and survival on the home front.

This episode invites you into the noisy, smoky, and determined world behind the musket’s flash—where a nation was not only declared, but made. Whether you’re a history devotee or a curious first-time listener, Manufacturing Independence offers a fresh lens on how Americans forged freedom with their hands as much as with their words.

https://www.westholmepublishing.com/book/manufacturing-independence-robert-f-smith/

Transcript

WEBVTT
 
 00:00:01.459 --> 00:00:01.820
 Hello.
 
 00:00:01.899 --> 00:00:02.701
 Hello, everyone.
 
 00:00:03.080 --> 00:00:04.642
 Welcome to the Revolution Two Fifty
 
 00:00:04.682 --> 00:00:05.222
 podcast.
 
 00:00:05.243 --> 00:00:06.022
 I'm Bob Allison.
 
 00:00:06.083 --> 00:00:07.985
 I chair the Rev Two Fifty Advisory Group
 
 00:00:08.085 --> 00:00:09.885
 and also teach history at Suffolk
 
 00:00:09.965 --> 00:00:10.686
 University.
 
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 And our guest today is Robert Smith.
 
 00:00:12.987 --> 00:00:15.769
 And Robert Smith is the provost at Valley
 
 00:00:15.789 --> 00:00:17.791
 Forge College in Valley Forge,
 
 00:00:17.830 --> 00:00:18.472
 Pennsylvania.
 
 00:00:19.172 --> 00:00:20.573
 And we are going to be talking about
 
 00:00:20.593 --> 00:00:23.234
 his great book Manufacturing Independence
 
 00:00:23.274 --> 00:00:25.477
 Industrial Innovation in the American
 
 00:00:25.556 --> 00:00:26.176
 Revolution.
 
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 And by the way,
 
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 our podcast today is sponsored by the
 
 00:00:28.719 --> 00:00:30.219
 Richard Lounsbury Foundation.
 
 00:00:30.600 --> 00:00:31.800
 So thank you so much for joining us,
 
 00:00:31.841 --> 00:00:32.100
 Bob.
 
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 It's good to be here.
 
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 I'm excited to have this conversation.
 
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 So this is one of those stories that
 
 00:00:39.408 --> 00:00:41.529
 we all should know better.
 
 00:00:41.729 --> 00:00:43.750
 And it's really an essential one to the
 
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 story of the Revolution,
 
 00:00:44.911 --> 00:00:47.073
 how Americans went from being woefully
 
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 unprepared for the war to actually being
 
 00:00:50.616 --> 00:00:53.359
 able to manufacture arms, munitions,
 
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 the other things they needed to win the
 
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 war.
 
 00:00:55.521 --> 00:00:57.682
 And you've told the story very well in
 
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 this book.
 
 00:00:59.274 --> 00:00:59.896
 Thank you very much.
 
 00:00:59.936 --> 00:01:00.595
 I appreciate that.
 
 00:01:00.957 --> 00:01:04.980
 Yeah, I wish more people knew about it.
 
 00:01:05.281 --> 00:01:08.864
 I wish there was a greater respect for
 
 00:01:09.444 --> 00:01:10.406
 what the Americans were able to
 
 00:01:10.426 --> 00:01:10.986
 accomplish.
 
 00:01:11.746 --> 00:01:14.329
 I think that even two hundred and fifty
 
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 years later,
 
 00:01:14.990 --> 00:01:18.093
 we still take it as as a miracle,
 
 00:01:18.153 --> 00:01:19.795
 as some kind of miracle.
 
 00:01:20.676 --> 00:01:21.575
 really lucky break.
 
 00:01:23.296 --> 00:01:25.037
 But the Americans have a lot of skill.
 
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 They had a lot of resources available to
 
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 them that they had to put into operation.
 
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 And they did.
 
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 Of course,
 
 00:01:32.920 --> 00:01:34.781
 it's not to the level that we get
 
 00:01:34.820 --> 00:01:37.260
 to later when we're an established nation.
 
 00:01:37.361 --> 00:01:41.582
 But for a country that's a couple of
 
 00:01:41.623 --> 00:01:43.003
 months and a couple of years old,
 
 00:01:43.442 --> 00:01:44.804
 I think it's a pretty good deal.
 
 00:01:46.103 --> 00:01:47.548
 so can we talk a little bit about
 
 00:01:47.929 --> 00:01:50.575
 what they do what are the beginnings of
 
 00:01:50.614 --> 00:01:53.962
 this industrial process that happened with
 
 00:01:54.082 --> 00:01:55.045
 the beginning of the war
 
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 Sure,
 
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 and to discuss that before we get into
 
 00:02:00.269 --> 00:02:00.469
 that,
 
 00:02:00.549 --> 00:02:02.492
 we need to frame what we're talking about
 
 00:02:02.572 --> 00:02:04.093
 in terms of industrialization.
 
 00:02:05.073 --> 00:02:05.655
 Typically,
 
 00:02:07.537 --> 00:02:11.080
 we as historians of technology and
 
 00:02:11.379 --> 00:02:12.480
 American history generally,
 
 00:02:12.580 --> 00:02:18.306
 we look at machinery and machines as being
 
 00:02:18.366 --> 00:02:19.987
 the be all and end all of innovation.
 
 00:02:21.128 --> 00:02:25.031
 And so we still today look at Samuel
 
 00:02:25.070 --> 00:02:27.372
 Slater as being the beginning of the
 
 00:02:27.391 --> 00:02:29.152
 Industrial Revolution in the United States
 
 00:02:29.212 --> 00:02:35.074
 and his water-powered mill in Rhode
 
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 Island.
 
 00:02:37.395 --> 00:02:39.497
 Industrial innovation was happening prior
 
 00:02:39.518 --> 00:02:39.818
 to that.
 
 00:02:39.919 --> 00:02:43.141
 Industrial innovation was really taking
 
 00:02:43.201 --> 00:02:43.902
 two paths.
 
 00:02:44.182 --> 00:02:45.604
 One was machine driven.
 
 00:02:46.245 --> 00:02:48.146
 The other was organization driven.
 
 00:02:48.467 --> 00:02:49.427
 And of course, then,
 
 00:02:50.429 --> 00:02:52.010
 two hundred years after this point,
 
 00:02:52.050 --> 00:02:54.032
 we'll get to Henry Ford,
 
 00:02:54.052 --> 00:02:55.655
 who puts both of those together.
 
 00:02:57.317 --> 00:03:01.038
 But for the seventeenth through the
 
 00:03:01.079 --> 00:03:01.979
 nineteenth century,
 
 00:03:02.019 --> 00:03:04.620
 there is this struggle for, well,
 
 00:03:04.719 --> 00:03:07.461
 how are we going to make things better?
 
 00:03:08.062 --> 00:03:09.502
 What does manufacturing look like?
 
 00:03:09.581 --> 00:03:11.502
 And one of the options is machines.
 
 00:03:11.983 --> 00:03:13.383
 The other is organization.
 
 00:03:13.463 --> 00:03:15.564
 How do we organize workers?
 
 00:03:15.965 --> 00:03:17.205
 How do we train workers?
 
 00:03:18.086 --> 00:03:19.406
 How do we make them more efficient?
 
 00:03:20.167 --> 00:03:22.848
 And what we see here at the beginning
 
 00:03:22.888 --> 00:03:24.889
 of the American Industrial Revolution,
 
 00:03:24.908 --> 00:03:25.368
 in my opinion,
 
 00:03:26.429 --> 00:03:27.889
 And what we definitely see in the American
 
 00:03:27.909 --> 00:03:30.711
 Revolution for this is taking these
 
 00:03:30.752 --> 00:03:34.093
 workers who have skills, which, as I said,
 
 00:03:34.133 --> 00:03:35.534
 we have these resources in the United
 
 00:03:35.574 --> 00:03:35.854
 States.
 
 00:03:35.955 --> 00:03:38.836
 One of them is people, our people.
 
 00:03:39.456 --> 00:03:42.618
 We have skilled craftsmen that can do lots
 
 00:03:42.639 --> 00:03:43.400
 of different things.
 
 00:03:43.479 --> 00:03:45.540
 They may not all be gun makers.
 
 00:03:45.580 --> 00:03:47.521
 They may not all be weapons manufacturers,
 
 00:03:47.983 --> 00:03:49.282
 but they have skills that are
 
 00:03:49.323 --> 00:03:50.024
 transferable.
 
 00:03:50.503 --> 00:03:53.006
 And so if we can organize them and
 
 00:03:53.126 --> 00:03:54.806
 we learn to do that from the British,
 
 00:03:55.048 --> 00:03:56.748
 we see the British do this at Woolwich
 
 00:03:56.808 --> 00:03:58.469
 Arsenal and some of their other
 
 00:03:58.490 --> 00:04:00.391
 manufacturing sites.
 
 00:04:00.972 --> 00:04:02.293
 We know that the French are doing it.
 
 00:04:04.055 --> 00:04:06.216
 And if we can do that same thing,
 
 00:04:06.256 --> 00:04:10.098
 then we can really make a lot of
 
 00:04:10.139 --> 00:04:14.723
 progress out of the small resources that
 
 00:04:14.742 --> 00:04:15.683
 we're able to mobilize.
 
 00:04:18.266 --> 00:04:21.629
 and so there is a push then to
 
 00:04:21.749 --> 00:04:24.430
 create arsenals and and we know about a
 
 00:04:24.531 --> 00:04:26.192
 number of them and you you were talking
 
 00:04:26.232 --> 00:04:27.954
 earlier about going to carlisle and then
 
 00:04:27.994 --> 00:04:32.216
 looking at other places so um was there
 
 00:04:32.377 --> 00:04:34.538
 already you said they're already skilled
 
 00:04:34.619 --> 00:04:36.360
 craftsmen able to do things so what is
 
 00:04:36.379 --> 00:04:38.281
 the organizational strategy they then
 
 00:04:38.341 --> 00:04:40.543
 adapt in order to bring all of this
 
 00:04:40.584 --> 00:04:42.625
 together to an end they hadn't been
 
 00:04:42.685 --> 00:04:45.026
 anticipating before that is making rifles
 
 00:04:45.047 --> 00:04:46.988
 cannon as well as uniforms and other
 
 00:04:47.009 --> 00:04:47.249
 things
 
 00:04:47.990 --> 00:04:50.670
 So the Continental Congress knows from,
 
 00:04:50.990 --> 00:04:53.591
 again, these are smart people, right?
 
 00:04:53.612 --> 00:04:56.733
 Our founding fathers aren't these country
 
 00:04:56.752 --> 00:04:58.994
 bumpkins that, again, we sometimes,
 
 00:04:59.774 --> 00:05:03.096
 the mythology says that these guys kind of
 
 00:05:03.136 --> 00:05:04.375
 come up with this stuff out of thin
 
 00:05:04.456 --> 00:05:04.656
 air.
 
 00:05:04.716 --> 00:05:05.276
 And they don't.
 
 00:05:05.317 --> 00:05:06.216
 They're well-read.
 
 00:05:07.598 --> 00:05:08.937
 They're sharing knowledge across the
 
 00:05:08.978 --> 00:05:09.577
 Atlantic Ocean.
 
 00:05:11.738 --> 00:05:13.218
 One of the things they understand is how
 
 00:05:13.259 --> 00:05:14.519
 the British are manufacturing.
 
 00:05:15.019 --> 00:05:16.680
 They know the British ordnance system,
 
 00:05:18.160 --> 00:05:20.880
 which is a system of contractors and
 
 00:05:21.341 --> 00:05:22.800
 government-run arsenals.
 
 00:05:24.302 --> 00:05:27.322
 And if you go to any talk about
 
 00:05:28.262 --> 00:05:30.843
 British weapons in the eighteenth century,
 
 00:05:31.043 --> 00:05:32.483
 we talk about their pistols,
 
 00:05:32.524 --> 00:05:33.783
 about Brown Bess,
 
 00:05:34.403 --> 00:05:37.824
 you hear about the manufacturing at the
 
 00:05:37.865 --> 00:05:38.485
 Tower of London.
 
 00:05:39.084 --> 00:05:42.367
 There's also one at Woolwich Arsenal down
 
 00:05:42.387 --> 00:05:43.766
 at River Thames from London.
 
 00:05:44.827 --> 00:05:45.588
 There's several others.
 
 00:05:45.708 --> 00:05:48.930
 The Navy has Portsmouth Dockyard.
 
 00:05:51.230 --> 00:05:52.851
 But they know that these are being
 
 00:05:52.951 --> 00:05:57.954
 organized around a military system where
 
 00:05:57.973 --> 00:06:00.095
 you have a military hierarchy that
 
 00:06:00.634 --> 00:06:04.177
 recruits skilled craftsmen and encourages
 
 00:06:04.216 --> 00:06:05.338
 them to work together.
 
 00:06:05.838 --> 00:06:07.879
 And so you use that hierarchy
 
 00:06:09.197 --> 00:06:12.879
 to make sure that your cadre of carpenters
 
 00:06:12.999 --> 00:06:14.778
 are working with your cadre of
 
 00:06:15.199 --> 00:06:15.798
 blacksmiths.
 
 00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:19.639
 In the case of the Woolwich Arsenal,
 
 00:06:20.339 --> 00:06:23.901
 you do end up with trained armorers,
 
 00:06:25.940 --> 00:06:26.862
 cannon craftsmen,
 
 00:06:28.081 --> 00:06:29.422
 and the United States is going to do
 
 00:06:29.461 --> 00:06:30.161
 the same thing.
 
 00:06:30.622 --> 00:06:32.502
 They recognize that they don't have
 
 00:06:33.483 --> 00:06:35.425
 uh trained armors they don't have a
 
 00:06:35.906 --> 00:06:39.129
 plethora uh one uh
 
 00:06:40.230 --> 00:06:42.112
 One author's research that I looked at
 
 00:06:42.232 --> 00:06:44.434
 said that the United States might have had
 
 00:06:44.454 --> 00:06:50.497
 about three hundred actual gunsmiths at
 
 00:06:50.517 --> 00:06:51.838
 the time of the American Revolution.
 
 00:06:52.319 --> 00:06:53.519
 And so if you can get a few
 
 00:06:53.579 --> 00:06:56.141
 of them and get them to train or
 
 00:06:56.182 --> 00:06:58.043
 get them to be finishers for these
 
 00:06:58.083 --> 00:06:58.663
 products,
 
 00:06:59.384 --> 00:07:01.464
 then you can mobilize these other
 
 00:07:01.485 --> 00:07:02.005
 craftsmen.
 
 00:07:02.065 --> 00:07:05.387
 So what the Congress does is creates a
 
 00:07:05.447 --> 00:07:07.189
 roadmap for this and then appoints a
 
 00:07:07.228 --> 00:07:09.750
 gentleman named Benjamin Flower.
 
 00:07:11.011 --> 00:07:13.432
 who's a Pennsylvania well he's from
 
 00:07:13.492 --> 00:07:14.673
 Maryland originally but he lives in
 
 00:07:14.692 --> 00:07:18.874
 Philadelphia he's a craftsman and he is
 
 00:07:18.913 --> 00:07:21.454
 the person that puts this into place and
 
 00:07:21.555 --> 00:07:24.475
 what he does is he builds a regiment
 
 00:07:24.516 --> 00:07:27.877
 of artillery artificers it's common and
 
 00:07:27.918 --> 00:07:29.997
 this regiment is divided up into companies
 
 00:07:30.778 --> 00:07:32.658
 and each company is
 
 00:07:36.029 --> 00:07:38.831
 for the most part, specialized.
 
 00:07:38.911 --> 00:07:40.333
 So you'll have a company of carpenters,
 
 00:07:40.353 --> 00:07:41.874
 you'll have a company of blacksmiths,
 
 00:07:42.593 --> 00:07:46.596
 and then they'll recruit a few specialties
 
 00:07:46.637 --> 00:07:47.137
 within that.
 
 00:07:47.177 --> 00:07:50.540
 So you have tinsmiths, you have armorers,
 
 00:07:53.430 --> 00:07:55.011
 that are sprinkled in with these different
 
 00:07:55.031 --> 00:07:55.430
 groups.
 
 00:07:55.992 --> 00:07:57.413
 And then what you'll do with the arsenals,
 
 00:07:57.432 --> 00:07:58.372
 what they'll do at Philadelphia,
 
 00:07:58.392 --> 00:07:59.314
 so there's three arsenals,
 
 00:07:59.634 --> 00:08:00.795
 one at Philadelphia, one at,
 
 00:08:01.435 --> 00:08:02.735
 three main arsenals, I should say,
 
 00:08:02.956 --> 00:08:05.298
 Philadelphia, Carlisle, Pennsylvania,
 
 00:08:05.939 --> 00:08:07.360
 and Springfield, Massachusetts.
 
 00:08:07.879 --> 00:08:09.880
 And what they'll do is they'll have these
 
 00:08:09.920 --> 00:08:10.382
 companies
 
 00:08:11.925 --> 00:08:14.028
 commanded by their commander.
 
 00:08:14.889 --> 00:08:18.351
 But then one of those commanders is also
 
 00:08:19.512 --> 00:08:21.274
 a master craftsman in their field.
 
 00:08:21.774 --> 00:08:24.697
 And so then within the physical structure
 
 00:08:25.298 --> 00:08:28.540
 of the arsenals, they'll be organized.
 
 00:08:29.101 --> 00:08:31.663
 And they're managed by this overlapping
 
 00:08:31.983 --> 00:08:32.565
 hierarchy.
 
 00:08:33.186 --> 00:08:34.326
 And so then what you see
 
 00:08:36.831 --> 00:08:39.192
 Springfield is the best example because
 
 00:08:39.212 --> 00:08:41.192
 it's designed to look like Woolwich
 
 00:08:41.253 --> 00:08:41.614
 Arsenal.
 
 00:08:41.994 --> 00:08:46.054
 This big square where the manufacturing
 
 00:08:46.095 --> 00:08:46.575
 buildings,
 
 00:08:47.095 --> 00:08:49.875
 and it only gets better over time at
 
 00:08:49.936 --> 00:08:50.495
 Springfield.
 
 00:08:50.756 --> 00:08:51.756
 They build it out better.
 
 00:08:52.697 --> 00:08:55.317
 But initially, around this open square,
 
 00:08:55.357 --> 00:08:56.918
 you have the military stores buildings.
 
 00:08:58.899 --> 00:09:00.460
 the manufacturers of,
 
 00:09:02.220 --> 00:09:03.961
 or you say the carpenters are making gun
 
 00:09:04.020 --> 00:09:04.421
 stocks,
 
 00:09:04.461 --> 00:09:06.201
 they're making wagons and wagon wheels.
 
 00:09:06.721 --> 00:09:08.081
 And then they'll pass that on to the
 
 00:09:08.101 --> 00:09:12.182
 blacksmiths who will make the furniture to
 
 00:09:12.202 --> 00:09:14.982
 put the muskets together and the pieces,
 
 00:09:15.023 --> 00:09:17.604
 the tires for the wagon wheels.
 
 00:09:17.884 --> 00:09:19.705
 And then they'll build out Carlisle the
 
 00:09:19.745 --> 00:09:20.164
 same way.
 
 00:09:21.184 --> 00:09:22.606
 so that the physical structure of the
 
 00:09:22.647 --> 00:09:26.211
 place matches how they're organizing the
 
 00:09:26.270 --> 00:09:26.912
 men themselves.
 
 00:09:28.313 --> 00:09:28.573
 Interesting.
 
 00:09:28.594 --> 00:09:29.794
 We're talking with Bob Smith,
 
 00:09:29.955 --> 00:09:32.097
 author of Manufacturing Independence,
 
 00:09:32.138 --> 00:09:34.139
 Industrial Innovation in the American
 
 00:09:34.200 --> 00:09:34.780
 Revolution.
 
 00:09:36.231 --> 00:09:39.495
 now these guys are they actually
 
 00:09:39.916 --> 00:09:41.398
 blacksmiths carpenters when they're
 
 00:09:41.437 --> 00:09:43.038
 recruited or is that something they're
 
 00:09:43.320 --> 00:09:46.043
 recruited and become blacksmiths gunsmiths
 
 00:09:46.702 --> 00:09:48.044
 no they are that's a great question they
 
 00:09:48.225 --> 00:09:50.447
 are um blacksmiths and carpenters and tin
 
 00:09:50.466 --> 00:09:52.629
 smiths when they're recruited and uh
 
 00:09:52.769 --> 00:09:54.390
 flower and his commanders
 
 00:09:55.518 --> 00:09:56.097
 his subordinates,
 
 00:09:57.379 --> 00:10:01.120
 purposefully advertise to bring in these
 
 00:10:01.160 --> 00:10:01.902
 types of workers.
 
 00:10:02.081 --> 00:10:04.823
 And this isn't really so different from
 
 00:10:04.903 --> 00:10:08.605
 what we'll see in the Civil War and
 
 00:10:08.645 --> 00:10:10.206
 in the First and Second World Wars,
 
 00:10:11.388 --> 00:10:14.168
 where skilled craftsmen are brought into
 
 00:10:14.208 --> 00:10:16.571
 the war for specific tasks.
 
 00:10:18.578 --> 00:10:22.123
 My grandfather struggled greatly with the
 
 00:10:22.163 --> 00:10:26.288
 fact that he was a machinist and he
 
 00:10:26.347 --> 00:10:29.471
 managed a machine shop making tank guns.
 
 00:10:30.352 --> 00:10:34.057
 All of his brothers-in-law went to fight
 
 00:10:34.076 --> 00:10:36.458
 the war and he's stuck here.
 
 00:10:37.837 --> 00:10:38.578
 in his own mind,
 
 00:10:39.240 --> 00:10:41.402
 but he's performing a task that other
 
 00:10:41.422 --> 00:10:42.182
 people couldn't do.
 
 00:10:42.243 --> 00:10:43.783
 And we know that's a huge story in
 
 00:10:43.844 --> 00:10:44.424
 World War II,
 
 00:10:44.524 --> 00:10:50.510
 where men with specific tasks stay in the
 
 00:10:51.432 --> 00:10:52.592
 home front.
 
 00:10:52.633 --> 00:10:53.374
 The same thing is happening in the
 
 00:10:53.394 --> 00:10:54.114
 American Revolution.
 
 00:10:54.855 --> 00:10:57.157
 Congress, the War Department,
 
 00:10:58.398 --> 00:11:00.158
 or the Board of War, I should say,
 
 00:11:01.200 --> 00:11:02.360
 don't really have a department yet.
 
 00:11:03.120 --> 00:11:05.403
 They recognize that we have these people.
 
 00:11:06.202 --> 00:11:07.823
 And they want to give to the war
 
 00:11:07.884 --> 00:11:08.144
 effort.
 
 00:11:08.164 --> 00:11:11.027
 And it's a waste to send them to
 
 00:11:11.086 --> 00:11:13.788
 the front lines when, of course,
 
 00:11:13.808 --> 00:11:15.330
 the way we're fighting at that time is
 
 00:11:15.389 --> 00:11:17.230
 very formulaic.
 
 00:11:17.671 --> 00:11:18.292
 Line your men up.
 
 00:11:18.471 --> 00:11:19.373
 You shoot.
 
 00:11:19.972 --> 00:11:20.373
 No, no, no.
 
 00:11:20.413 --> 00:11:22.033
 These people are too good to waste.
 
 00:11:23.014 --> 00:11:27.597
 you bring them in and they may not
 
 00:11:27.658 --> 00:11:28.697
 know.
 
 00:11:28.719 --> 00:11:31.799
 These blacksmiths may not know how to make
 
 00:11:32.581 --> 00:11:33.400
 the furniture,
 
 00:11:33.561 --> 00:11:35.282
 the small pieces that hold a weapon
 
 00:11:35.302 --> 00:11:35.682
 together.
 
 00:11:35.702 --> 00:11:39.504
 They may not know how to make bayonets
 
 00:11:39.985 --> 00:11:42.267
 or ramrods or things like that,
 
 00:11:42.307 --> 00:11:44.368
 but you can train them for those things
 
 00:11:44.408 --> 00:11:46.489
 because they have the innate skills to do
 
 00:11:46.509 --> 00:11:46.749
 that.
 
 00:11:47.210 --> 00:11:47.610
 Then of course,
 
 00:11:47.649 --> 00:11:48.971
 the more important part is
 
 00:11:49.892 --> 00:11:51.272
 You have a blacksmith that has his own
 
 00:11:51.312 --> 00:11:51.792
 shop.
 
 00:11:52.532 --> 00:11:56.832
 He's not necessarily working side by side
 
 00:11:56.873 --> 00:11:58.134
 with a carpenter all the time.
 
 00:11:59.774 --> 00:12:03.114
 They may exchange their products and help
 
 00:12:03.153 --> 00:12:03.595
 each other,
 
 00:12:04.274 --> 00:12:06.355
 but being coordinated is a new thing.
 
 00:12:06.674 --> 00:12:08.514
 And so you get kind of two issues
 
 00:12:08.554 --> 00:12:08.794
 there.
 
 00:12:08.956 --> 00:12:10.775
 One is you teach them how to make
 
 00:12:11.475 --> 00:12:12.436
 military equipment,
 
 00:12:13.076 --> 00:12:15.277
 but you also teach them how to coordinate
 
 00:12:15.297 --> 00:12:15.677
 their work.
 
 00:12:17.879 --> 00:12:19.520
 there any uh women involved in this
 
 00:12:19.561 --> 00:12:21.721
 process rolling cartridges doing other
 
 00:12:21.763 --> 00:12:23.844
 kinds of work like that there might have
 
 00:12:23.864 --> 00:12:25.785
 been on the home front there are and
 
 00:12:25.826 --> 00:12:27.386
 that's kind of the exciting part is to
 
 00:12:27.508 --> 00:12:32.111
 see how um the process expands because it
 
 00:12:32.131 --> 00:12:35.534
 will start with these small operations in
 
 00:12:35.575 --> 00:12:36.855
 philadelphia and carlisle
 
 00:12:38.125 --> 00:12:41.008
 in seventeen seventy seven and then by
 
 00:12:41.067 --> 00:12:42.028
 seventeen seventy nine.
 
 00:12:42.107 --> 00:12:45.750
 It's this huge operation with four hundred
 
 00:12:45.950 --> 00:12:50.552
 government employees and then thousands of
 
 00:12:50.633 --> 00:12:54.875
 workers spread across different types of
 
 00:12:54.914 --> 00:12:58.876
 manufacturers, iron furnaces, gunsmiths.
 
 00:13:02.113 --> 00:13:04.214
 charcoal makers, miners,
 
 00:13:04.615 --> 00:13:06.395
 all kinds of private operations.
 
 00:13:06.995 --> 00:13:07.875
 And so within that,
 
 00:13:07.917 --> 00:13:11.599
 you have different groups.
 
 00:13:11.678 --> 00:13:13.259
 And again,
 
 00:13:13.320 --> 00:13:15.561
 one of the fun stories is the women
 
 00:13:15.581 --> 00:13:21.004
 that work at the Philadelphia Arsenal.
 
 00:13:21.724 --> 00:13:24.485
 So they are hired to make gun cartridges.
 
 00:13:25.692 --> 00:13:27.033
 at the Fifth Street Laboratory.
 
 00:13:29.514 --> 00:13:32.437
 And they are the most prolific producers
 
 00:13:33.298 --> 00:13:36.840
 of ammunition.
 
 00:13:37.120 --> 00:13:38.302
 And so at that laboratory,
 
 00:13:38.322 --> 00:13:41.283
 what they'll do is they'll bring in the
 
 00:13:42.345 --> 00:13:44.525
 separate pieces of the gunpowder and the
 
 00:13:44.566 --> 00:13:45.067
 bullets.
 
 00:13:45.206 --> 00:13:48.649
 They make the bullets at a furnace on
 
 00:13:48.688 --> 00:13:49.629
 the other side of town.
 
 00:13:50.311 --> 00:13:51.932
 They bring in the pre-cut paper.
 
 00:13:53.136 --> 00:13:55.758
 the papers cut at the ordinance yard and
 
 00:13:55.837 --> 00:13:59.958
 they'll supply it to women at rolling
 
 00:13:59.999 --> 00:14:02.259
 tables and the women will roll these
 
 00:14:03.240 --> 00:14:07.100
 cartridges and several men will pack them
 
 00:14:07.160 --> 00:14:09.561
 up and ship them off to the front.
 
 00:14:10.001 --> 00:14:11.942
 And of course, again,
 
 00:14:12.001 --> 00:14:13.903
 one of the fun things as I was
 
 00:14:13.982 --> 00:14:14.962
 going through all of this,
 
 00:14:16.248 --> 00:14:18.808
 uh the original research is finding betsy
 
 00:14:18.849 --> 00:14:22.149
 ross was employed for at least a time
 
 00:14:22.210 --> 00:14:24.169
 she made a couple hundred she wasn't
 
 00:14:24.190 --> 00:14:27.350
 employed there very long but she was at
 
 00:14:27.370 --> 00:14:31.331
 the fifth street laboratory um and helped
 
 00:14:31.392 --> 00:14:34.293
 make cartridges and then the most prolific
 
 00:14:34.673 --> 00:14:38.453
 manufacturer was um a young woman she made
 
 00:14:38.734 --> 00:14:40.554
 out of eleven million cartridges made by
 
 00:14:40.634 --> 00:14:41.794
 the um
 
 00:14:43.506 --> 00:14:45.467
 uh by the continental establishment she
 
 00:14:45.508 --> 00:14:47.009
 made two hundred and fifty thousand of
 
 00:14:47.048 --> 00:14:51.652
 them wow that's amazing do you remember
 
 00:14:51.692 --> 00:14:55.072
 her name i don't i should i have
 
 00:14:55.092 --> 00:14:58.375
 to yeah that's great we're talking with
 
 00:14:58.414 --> 00:15:00.456
 bob smith whose book is manufacturing
 
 00:15:00.515 --> 00:15:02.977
 independence industrial innovation in the
 
 00:15:03.018 --> 00:15:05.078
 american revolution now
 
 00:15:05.663 --> 00:15:07.825
 You mentioned that the Americans kind of
 
 00:15:07.904 --> 00:15:10.667
 model their establishment on Woolwich and
 
 00:15:10.706 --> 00:15:11.307
 the British,
 
 00:15:11.648 --> 00:15:13.610
 but then their chief allies here are the
 
 00:15:13.649 --> 00:15:13.990
 French.
 
 00:15:14.029 --> 00:15:16.633
 I'm wondering if there's any either
 
 00:15:16.832 --> 00:15:20.076
 tension or collaboration with the French
 
 00:15:20.296 --> 00:15:21.917
 in building these arsenals, because they,
 
 00:15:21.956 --> 00:15:22.258
 of course,
 
 00:15:22.317 --> 00:15:25.461
 also had a long experience in creating
 
 00:15:25.541 --> 00:15:25.961
 armaments.
 
 00:15:27.096 --> 00:15:29.136
 Yes, so there is some exchange.
 
 00:15:29.797 --> 00:15:32.336
 The French do not get heavily involved,
 
 00:15:33.577 --> 00:15:37.178
 not for any specific reason.
 
 00:15:39.500 --> 00:15:41.679
 They are, at the time,
 
 00:15:42.980 --> 00:15:45.841
 they are redeveloping their own government
 
 00:15:45.860 --> 00:15:47.922
 manufacturing or military manufacturing.
 
 00:15:48.788 --> 00:15:50.870
 element and so part of why they're willing
 
 00:15:50.909 --> 00:15:53.591
 to give us equipment is because they want
 
 00:15:53.611 --> 00:15:55.273
 to get rid of it they're trying to
 
 00:15:55.312 --> 00:15:56.894
 get rid of some of their old equipment
 
 00:15:58.014 --> 00:16:00.155
 um and so they're really focused on
 
 00:16:00.176 --> 00:16:02.477
 themselves they're not really too worried
 
 00:16:02.498 --> 00:16:05.200
 about us they can give us items that's
 
 00:16:05.259 --> 00:16:07.821
 all well and good and that's of course
 
 00:16:07.860 --> 00:16:10.363
 then the premise of how we end up
 
 00:16:10.383 --> 00:16:14.706
 with this process is we say that again
 
 00:16:14.725 --> 00:16:16.047
 historically we say that the french
 
 00:16:17.028 --> 00:16:19.552
 provide us with all of this equipment for
 
 00:16:19.591 --> 00:16:20.312
 the war effort,
 
 00:16:21.214 --> 00:16:23.037
 the majority of what the French give us
 
 00:16:23.076 --> 00:16:26.743
 is unusable, which I can come back to.
 
 00:16:27.344 --> 00:16:28.404
 For your specific question,
 
 00:16:29.166 --> 00:16:30.488
 we do get influences.
 
 00:16:32.330 --> 00:16:35.611
 a gentleman named Louis de Portal.
 
 00:16:37.032 --> 00:16:40.453
 He is an engineer that had worked with
 
 00:16:40.634 --> 00:16:44.475
 the French system of patterns and
 
 00:16:44.995 --> 00:16:48.756
 interchangeable parts that Groubeval was
 
 00:16:48.837 --> 00:16:49.337
 creating.
 
 00:16:51.278 --> 00:16:51.538
 But
 
 00:16:52.509 --> 00:16:54.149
 Does he have a huge influence?
 
 00:16:54.789 --> 00:16:55.471
 Not really.
 
 00:16:55.530 --> 00:16:58.332
 He probably does exchange.
 
 00:16:58.373 --> 00:17:00.014
 We know that he meets with men like
 
 00:17:00.774 --> 00:17:03.176
 Henry Knox and with George Washington.
 
 00:17:03.875 --> 00:17:06.377
 But the real influence is what the
 
 00:17:06.417 --> 00:17:09.338
 Americans know about the British system,
 
 00:17:09.779 --> 00:17:12.461
 which they get from a gentleman named John
 
 00:17:12.500 --> 00:17:12.862
 Mueller.
 
 00:17:13.662 --> 00:17:18.542
 who was chief mathematics professor at
 
 00:17:18.603 --> 00:17:19.002
 Woolwich.
 
 00:17:19.182 --> 00:17:20.864
 So he was the man that was teaching
 
 00:17:21.604 --> 00:17:24.444
 the British gunners how to operate the
 
 00:17:24.484 --> 00:17:24.944
 cannons.
 
 00:17:24.984 --> 00:17:27.424
 And then he was telling the Woolwich
 
 00:17:28.226 --> 00:17:31.125
 manufacturers how to make the cannons that
 
 00:17:31.165 --> 00:17:32.346
 could be most effective.
 
 00:17:32.707 --> 00:17:34.426
 And he was trying to make the processes
 
 00:17:34.507 --> 00:17:34.826
 better.
 
 00:17:35.326 --> 00:17:37.587
 And the Americans get his book, books.
 
 00:17:39.347 --> 00:17:41.009
 And that's really...
 
 00:17:42.509 --> 00:17:46.191
 where the influences come from that's it's
 
 00:17:46.290 --> 00:17:49.752
 interesting so then um how big is this
 
 00:17:49.913 --> 00:17:53.154
 establishment by the time say by seventeen
 
 00:17:53.174 --> 00:17:55.155
 eighty one seventy eighty two I mean the
 
 00:17:55.256 --> 00:17:58.196
 you mentioned you know thousands of these
 
 00:17:58.596 --> 00:18:00.897
 guy met people working and four hundred
 
 00:18:00.938 --> 00:18:03.640
 government employees all at work in these
 
 00:18:03.700 --> 00:18:04.160
 arsenals
 
 00:18:05.854 --> 00:18:07.575
 Yeah, it's pretty extensive.
 
 00:18:07.714 --> 00:18:10.057
 So the high point is really in the
 
 00:18:10.076 --> 00:18:11.478
 beginning of the year.
 
 00:18:13.519 --> 00:18:15.119
 You've got the three main arsenals,
 
 00:18:15.259 --> 00:18:18.843
 Philadelphia, Carlisle, and Springfield.
 
 00:18:18.923 --> 00:18:21.944
 You've got two minor arsenals.
 
 00:18:22.265 --> 00:18:24.405
 One is at Albany in New York,
 
 00:18:24.425 --> 00:18:28.249
 and the other is at West Ham in
 
 00:18:28.269 --> 00:18:30.651
 Virginia, just outside of Richmond.
 
 00:18:31.230 --> 00:18:32.531
 It's actually not at West Ham at that
 
 00:18:32.571 --> 00:18:32.832
 point.
 
 00:18:32.892 --> 00:18:33.992
 It's still moving around.
 
 00:18:36.535 --> 00:18:38.876
 But then in association with that,
 
 00:18:38.916 --> 00:18:40.018
 you have contractors.
 
 00:18:40.239 --> 00:18:45.163
 So at the major urban areas and then
 
 00:18:45.284 --> 00:18:46.404
 at the arsenals themselves,
 
 00:18:46.424 --> 00:18:48.106
 you have these commissaries.
 
 00:18:49.268 --> 00:18:52.892
 And these military stores commissaries are
 
 00:18:52.932 --> 00:18:55.013
 purchasers, essentially.
 
 00:18:55.173 --> 00:18:56.695
 Right.
 
 00:18:59.113 --> 00:19:02.415
 they will make contracts for items that
 
 00:19:03.036 --> 00:19:05.238
 the military establishment itself can't
 
 00:19:05.298 --> 00:19:05.557
 make.
 
 00:19:05.637 --> 00:19:10.181
 And so the real big one is cannons.
 
 00:19:10.922 --> 00:19:12.823
 The government never creates,
 
 00:19:12.843 --> 00:19:16.665
 never builds, never buys a blast furnace.
 
 00:19:16.685 --> 00:19:19.689
 There's too much expense that goes into
 
 00:19:19.729 --> 00:19:19.828
 it.
 
 00:19:20.528 --> 00:19:23.550
 And so they will contract with Hopewell
 
 00:19:23.570 --> 00:19:25.333
 Furnace, with Cornwall Furnace.
 
 00:19:28.134 --> 00:19:30.537
 Salisbury furnace in Connecticut,
 
 00:19:31.557 --> 00:19:34.861
 Batstow furnace in New Jersey,
 
 00:19:37.222 --> 00:19:37.943
 and several others.
 
 00:19:39.721 --> 00:19:41.863
 And so you have all the workers that
 
 00:19:41.903 --> 00:19:42.343
 are there.
 
 00:19:43.002 --> 00:19:45.243
 And then you have contractors in
 
 00:19:45.463 --> 00:19:48.285
 Springfield, Massachusetts, in Hartford,
 
 00:19:48.345 --> 00:19:52.567
 throughout the Connecticut River Valley.
 
 00:19:53.166 --> 00:19:57.229
 You've got dozens of contractors in
 
 00:19:57.269 --> 00:19:57.868
 Philadelphia.
 
 00:19:57.949 --> 00:20:00.809
 You've got contractors in Western
 
 00:20:00.849 --> 00:20:01.450
 Pennsylvania.
 
 00:20:01.470 --> 00:20:03.151
 So not just Carlisle, but Lancaster.
 
 00:20:03.691 --> 00:20:06.071
 And so all of their manufacturers are also
 
 00:20:06.832 --> 00:20:07.712
 employing people.
 
 00:20:10.753 --> 00:20:12.315
 And then aside from that,
 
 00:20:12.375 --> 00:20:16.657
 you just have your purchases that the
 
 00:20:16.798 --> 00:20:17.597
 commissaries make.
 
 00:20:18.338 --> 00:20:20.079
 And so they're just going out to
 
 00:20:21.079 --> 00:20:24.001
 manufacturers that aren't being contracted
 
 00:20:24.021 --> 00:20:25.603
 with and they're buying coal,
 
 00:20:25.643 --> 00:20:26.983
 they're buying charcoal,
 
 00:20:27.003 --> 00:20:33.468
 they're buying steel for bayonets.
 
 00:20:34.469 --> 00:20:36.269
 Are the Americans manufacturing steel at
 
 00:20:36.289 --> 00:20:37.351
 this time or does that have to be
 
 00:20:37.371 --> 00:20:37.770
 important?
 
 00:20:38.857 --> 00:20:39.238
 They are.
 
 00:20:39.419 --> 00:20:40.699
 It's a difficult process.
 
 00:20:42.320 --> 00:20:42.681
 I mean,
 
 00:20:42.760 --> 00:20:44.382
 it's nowhere near as easy as it's going
 
 00:20:44.402 --> 00:20:47.723
 to be at the end of the nineteenth
 
 00:20:47.763 --> 00:20:48.184
 century.
 
 00:20:49.484 --> 00:20:51.166
 And that's why they have to buy it
 
 00:20:51.406 --> 00:20:52.528
 in small quantities.
 
 00:20:54.659 --> 00:20:55.500
 And again,
 
 00:20:55.519 --> 00:20:58.342
 think about a place where you have the
 
 00:20:58.442 --> 00:20:58.843
 arsenal.
 
 00:20:58.883 --> 00:20:59.083
 I mean,
 
 00:20:59.202 --> 00:21:00.964
 all of these materials and all of these
 
 00:21:01.005 --> 00:21:02.586
 goods aren't necessarily there.
 
 00:21:02.605 --> 00:21:04.748
 So this also involves creating kind of a
 
 00:21:04.788 --> 00:21:06.849
 supply line to bring things to the place
 
 00:21:06.869 --> 00:21:09.112
 where the thing can be manufactured.
 
 00:21:09.132 --> 00:21:09.673
 That's correct.
 
 00:21:09.772 --> 00:21:11.534
 And that plays into...
 
 00:21:12.807 --> 00:21:14.249
 So,
 
 00:21:14.828 --> 00:21:17.029
 part of why the department reaches its
 
 00:21:17.049 --> 00:21:19.711
 high point is then, after that,
 
 00:21:19.730 --> 00:21:22.071
 the government starts cutting funding.
 
 00:21:22.951 --> 00:21:23.491
 And so,
 
 00:21:23.952 --> 00:21:25.153
 the government essentially declares
 
 00:21:25.192 --> 00:21:27.134
 bankruptcy, it refunds its debt,
 
 00:21:29.134 --> 00:21:30.295
 stops printing money,
 
 00:21:31.036 --> 00:21:33.215
 it tries to rely on taxes,
 
 00:21:33.676 --> 00:21:33.896
 which
 
 00:21:34.923 --> 00:21:38.426
 are unreliable, state grants, can't do it.
 
 00:21:39.126 --> 00:21:42.509
 And so the military stores department is
 
 00:21:42.568 --> 00:21:43.789
 kind of stuck in this lurch.
 
 00:21:45.191 --> 00:21:47.413
 And one of the kind of amazing things
 
 00:21:48.294 --> 00:21:49.453
 is how they overcome this.
 
 00:21:49.513 --> 00:21:50.914
 And if you look at like the quartermaster
 
 00:21:50.934 --> 00:21:52.375
 department, the commissary department,
 
 00:21:53.116 --> 00:21:54.198
 they don't do these things.
 
 00:21:56.439 --> 00:21:58.099
 They don't figure out a way to overcome
 
 00:21:58.140 --> 00:21:59.000
 not having money.
 
 00:21:59.381 --> 00:22:00.761
 What happens in the military stores
 
 00:22:00.781 --> 00:22:03.584
 department is that they have these
 
 00:22:03.624 --> 00:22:04.005
 workers.
 
 00:22:04.998 --> 00:22:09.020
 and so they can make stuff and this
 
 00:22:09.280 --> 00:22:12.143
 these items they can then trade and one
 
 00:22:12.182 --> 00:22:14.744
 of those as you point out is transport
 
 00:22:15.286 --> 00:22:19.669
 so what you see the department do is
 
 00:22:20.009 --> 00:22:23.551
 the craftsmen will make wagons wagons
 
 00:22:23.592 --> 00:22:26.193
 especially at carlisle and springfield
 
 00:22:27.314 --> 00:22:28.894
 They will make ammunition wagons.
 
 00:22:29.734 --> 00:22:33.017
 And I say that typically we have the
 
 00:22:33.057 --> 00:22:35.738
 Conestoga wagon in our minds when we think
 
 00:22:35.778 --> 00:22:36.858
 about early America.
 
 00:22:38.019 --> 00:22:40.019
 And we're not thinking about those big,
 
 00:22:40.079 --> 00:22:41.661
 heavy wagons.
 
 00:22:41.681 --> 00:22:44.961
 We're thinking that are carrying people's
 
 00:22:45.021 --> 00:22:46.442
 lives as they're traveling west.
 
 00:22:47.042 --> 00:22:49.503
 We're talking about simple transport.
 
 00:22:49.523 --> 00:22:52.665
 So just these big open wagons that can
 
 00:22:52.705 --> 00:22:54.747
 carry lots of boxes and equipment.
 
 00:22:55.547 --> 00:22:59.710
 And they will build those at those two
 
 00:22:59.851 --> 00:23:04.673
 outlying arsenals and then ship things to
 
 00:23:04.713 --> 00:23:07.336
 the center, to Philadelphia, to Richmond,
 
 00:23:08.297 --> 00:23:10.259
 to the front, to Washington's army.
 
 00:23:11.530 --> 00:23:12.311
 in New Jersey.
 
 00:23:12.692 --> 00:23:13.894
 And as they're moving through those
 
 00:23:13.933 --> 00:23:17.558
 places, they can pick up supplies,
 
 00:23:17.598 --> 00:23:20.402
 they can pick up contracted products,
 
 00:23:21.022 --> 00:23:21.983
 and you can write that,
 
 00:23:22.003 --> 00:23:23.625
 you can build that into the contract.
 
 00:23:23.767 --> 00:23:25.909
 And so instead of having to pay a
 
 00:23:25.949 --> 00:23:27.191
 manufacturer for
 
 00:23:29.653 --> 00:23:30.712
 all of that overhead.
 
 00:23:31.113 --> 00:23:32.212
 If you provide the overhead,
 
 00:23:32.272 --> 00:23:35.074
 you just have to pay the manufacturer for
 
 00:23:36.335 --> 00:23:39.516
 his profit because aside from transport,
 
 00:23:40.076 --> 00:23:41.977
 you can provide them with the raw
 
 00:23:42.017 --> 00:23:43.477
 materials because you can send your
 
 00:23:43.517 --> 00:23:45.738
 soldiers out to, which they do,
 
 00:23:45.857 --> 00:23:47.919
 they send their soldiers out to Wyoming
 
 00:23:47.959 --> 00:23:50.038
 Valley and out to Pittsburgh to mine coal,
 
 00:23:51.759 --> 00:23:53.579
 out to central Pennsylvania to get lead.
 
 00:23:55.921 --> 00:24:01.042
 they will purchase iron from furnaces.
 
 00:24:01.083 --> 00:24:03.784
 Or if a furnace gets a bad batch
 
 00:24:04.003 --> 00:24:05.565
 of cannons that burst,
 
 00:24:05.944 --> 00:24:07.345
 they can take all of that iron and
 
 00:24:07.384 --> 00:24:09.185
 give it to blacksmiths and pay them in
 
 00:24:09.486 --> 00:24:09.746
 iron.
 
 00:24:09.786 --> 00:24:12.586
 And that saves them actual cash.
 
 00:24:13.207 --> 00:24:14.988
 And so then they can create this entire
 
 00:24:15.048 --> 00:24:17.189
 network of trade.
 
 00:24:19.416 --> 00:24:20.357
 That's interesting.
 
 00:24:20.377 --> 00:24:21.498
 We're talking with Bob Smith,
 
 00:24:21.577 --> 00:24:23.500
 author of Manufacturing Independence,
 
 00:24:23.539 --> 00:24:25.201
 Industrial Innovation in the American
 
 00:24:25.260 --> 00:24:25.820
 Revolution.
 
 00:24:26.480 --> 00:24:27.942
 And we're being sponsored today by the
 
 00:24:27.981 --> 00:24:30.183
 Richard Lounsbury Foundation to have this
 
 00:24:30.243 --> 00:24:33.005
 conversation about industrial innovation
 
 00:24:33.185 --> 00:24:34.465
 in the American Revolution.
 
 00:24:35.247 --> 00:24:37.208
 That's interesting the way they then use
 
 00:24:37.248 --> 00:24:39.128
 these things they're making actually to
 
 00:24:39.189 --> 00:24:42.111
 decrease the overhead of the contractors,
 
 00:24:42.131 --> 00:24:43.352
 the manufacturers and all.
 
 00:24:44.102 --> 00:24:45.724
 Does this have an effect then after the
 
 00:24:45.744 --> 00:24:45.964
 war?
 
 00:24:46.005 --> 00:24:46.144
 I mean,
 
 00:24:46.164 --> 00:24:47.887
 you've created these networks and you've
 
 00:24:47.907 --> 00:24:50.653
 had these craftsmen in Springfield and
 
 00:24:50.692 --> 00:24:51.314
 Carlisle,
 
 00:24:51.334 --> 00:24:53.517
 these other places after the war.
 
 00:24:53.557 --> 00:24:55.460
 Does it all shut down or what happens
 
 00:24:55.500 --> 00:24:56.321
 to all of these guys?
 
 00:24:57.289 --> 00:24:59.392
 So there's a struggle that happens.
 
 00:24:59.731 --> 00:25:00.952
 So there's kind of two sides of the
 
 00:25:00.972 --> 00:25:01.273
 story.
 
 00:25:01.453 --> 00:25:03.174
 One is the struggle that happens within
 
 00:25:03.194 --> 00:25:05.156
 the Continental government and then
 
 00:25:05.196 --> 00:25:08.500
 ultimately the federal government with
 
 00:25:08.539 --> 00:25:09.760
 what to do with all of this.
 
 00:25:10.261 --> 00:25:13.223
 Because Congress and especially
 
 00:25:15.486 --> 00:25:17.988
 the major leaders of the war effort.
 
 00:25:18.107 --> 00:25:20.329
 And so by the end of the war,
 
 00:25:20.730 --> 00:25:22.851
 it's specifically Benjamin Lincoln.
 
 00:25:22.990 --> 00:25:25.413
 Benjamin Lincoln becomes the first
 
 00:25:25.432 --> 00:25:29.056
 Secretary of War in a reorganized
 
 00:25:29.276 --> 00:25:30.957
 bureaucracy within the Continental
 
 00:25:30.977 --> 00:25:31.356
 Government.
 
 00:25:31.777 --> 00:25:33.598
 And he's followed by Henry Knox.
 
 00:25:35.119 --> 00:25:37.401
 And Henry Knox had helped create this
 
 00:25:37.441 --> 00:25:38.561
 system in the first place.
 
 00:25:38.602 --> 00:25:40.903
 And so both of these men recognize
 
 00:25:41.896 --> 00:25:43.077
 we put a lot of effort,
 
 00:25:43.278 --> 00:25:45.599
 a lot of money in building this thing
 
 00:25:45.619 --> 00:25:46.260
 from scratch.
 
 00:25:47.442 --> 00:25:50.744
 And they recognized also that it took us
 
 00:25:50.805 --> 00:25:51.184
 time.
 
 00:25:51.785 --> 00:25:55.048
 So the war begins in April of seventeen
 
 00:25:55.107 --> 00:25:55.868
 seventy seven.
 
 00:25:56.368 --> 00:25:59.811
 We don't have this process in place until
 
 00:26:00.792 --> 00:26:01.554
 seventy five.
 
 00:26:01.953 --> 00:26:06.076
 I said I'm sorry until seventy seven.
 
 00:26:07.038 --> 00:26:08.480
 And really, you know,
 
 00:26:08.519 --> 00:26:10.482
 it's not really functioning efficiently
 
 00:26:10.583 --> 00:26:11.525
 until seventy nine.
 
 00:26:11.605 --> 00:26:15.190
 And so why would we dismantle it and
 
 00:26:15.809 --> 00:26:17.792
 have to do it again when we're going
 
 00:26:17.813 --> 00:26:18.815
 to go to war again?
 
 00:26:18.835 --> 00:26:19.154
 I mean,
 
 00:26:19.434 --> 00:26:22.740
 it's a function of a government in their
 
 00:26:22.779 --> 00:26:23.059
 minds.
 
 00:26:24.300 --> 00:26:26.041
 and so to go to war but to
 
 00:26:26.461 --> 00:26:28.742
 fight one if one if correct correct yeah
 
 00:26:29.542 --> 00:26:32.824
 and so there's this big push among these
 
 00:26:32.884 --> 00:26:35.105
 men to keep this going we can't let
 
 00:26:35.144 --> 00:26:37.645
 this fall apart we can't let what we've
 
 00:26:37.685 --> 00:26:39.386
 learned and so um
 
 00:26:40.567 --> 00:26:42.428
 Benjamin Lincoln writes this huge report
 
 00:26:42.448 --> 00:26:43.188
 to Congress,
 
 00:26:43.969 --> 00:26:48.990
 which down the road becomes Alexander
 
 00:26:49.010 --> 00:26:52.992
 Hamilton's report on manufacturers that we
 
 00:26:53.032 --> 00:26:56.795
 can't ignore the resources we have and
 
 00:26:57.075 --> 00:26:59.736
 trust that if and when we go to
 
 00:26:59.776 --> 00:27:00.175
 war,
 
 00:27:01.176 --> 00:27:04.137
 our allies or our trading partners are
 
 00:27:04.157 --> 00:27:05.199
 going to be able to
 
 00:27:06.327 --> 00:27:07.588
 provide us.
 
 00:27:08.028 --> 00:27:09.410
 So that's one.
 
 00:27:09.529 --> 00:27:10.211
 And ultimately,
 
 00:27:11.510 --> 00:27:13.893
 the government does agree to keep it open.
 
 00:27:14.993 --> 00:27:15.973
 Funding is minimal,
 
 00:27:16.575 --> 00:27:19.096
 but it survives the Confederation period.
 
 00:27:19.135 --> 00:27:22.317
 And then Henry Knox,
 
 00:27:22.337 --> 00:27:24.220
 when he's become Secretary of War in
 
 00:27:24.259 --> 00:27:24.839
 Washington,
 
 00:27:25.480 --> 00:27:27.922
 he helps rebuild the system in the way
 
 00:27:27.961 --> 00:27:29.462
 he really wanted it from the beginning.
 
 00:27:34.056 --> 00:27:36.416
 And the fun continuity on both sides,
 
 00:27:36.616 --> 00:27:39.799
 one is that Springfield becomes the armory
 
 00:27:41.500 --> 00:27:43.461
 that it eventually develops into.
 
 00:27:45.442 --> 00:27:49.365
 And the commanders at the armory,
 
 00:27:49.665 --> 00:27:51.467
 when it's created under Knox,
 
 00:27:52.748 --> 00:27:55.150
 are holdovers from the Arsenal period
 
 00:27:55.170 --> 00:27:55.809
 during the war.
 
 00:27:56.490 --> 00:28:00.252
 The same thing is true with the armory
 
 00:28:00.272 --> 00:28:02.454
 that's built at Harpers Ferry.
 
 00:28:03.315 --> 00:28:05.136
 Harper's Ferry is going to be managed,
 
 00:28:05.176 --> 00:28:07.137
 the first manager of the Harper's Ferry
 
 00:28:07.198 --> 00:28:10.921
 Armory when it starts in seventeen ninety
 
 00:28:10.980 --> 00:28:16.265
 seven is the commander of the armory in
 
 00:28:16.325 --> 00:28:18.205
 Philadelphia during the war.
 
 00:28:18.886 --> 00:28:20.948
 And so it's a direct connection.
 
 00:28:21.429 --> 00:28:24.851
 The other major development is just the
 
 00:28:24.891 --> 00:28:26.432
 manufacturing base that's created.
 
 00:28:26.692 --> 00:28:27.973
 And so, I mean, it's no
 
 00:28:29.875 --> 00:28:31.717
 it shouldn't be a surprise that
 
 00:28:31.797 --> 00:28:33.679
 Philadelphia is the workshop of the world
 
 00:28:36.101 --> 00:28:40.984
 develops in the period after you have this
 
 00:28:41.125 --> 00:28:43.248
 manufacturing boom during the war.
 
 00:28:43.988 --> 00:28:45.229
 And these men
 
 00:28:47.397 --> 00:28:48.679
 who had been contractors.
 
 00:28:49.199 --> 00:28:52.300
 They have learned how to manufacture based
 
 00:28:52.340 --> 00:28:54.001
 on what the government had done with its
 
 00:28:54.622 --> 00:28:56.542
 organized operations in Philadelphia.
 
 00:28:58.104 --> 00:28:59.424
 They've sold their products to the
 
 00:28:59.464 --> 00:28:59.904
 government.
 
 00:29:00.444 --> 00:29:02.346
 They have been part of this system.
 
 00:29:02.445 --> 00:29:04.748
 And then they apply these lessons after
 
 00:29:04.788 --> 00:29:05.228
 the war.
 
 00:29:06.808 --> 00:29:12.571
 And you've really built a proletarian
 
 00:29:12.612 --> 00:29:15.733
 workforce, this unskilled workforce.
 
 00:29:16.637 --> 00:29:18.117
 that is able to find jobs.
 
 00:29:18.157 --> 00:29:22.680
 And that's a huge difference post-war from
 
 00:29:22.720 --> 00:29:23.660
 the pre-war era.
 
 00:29:24.279 --> 00:29:25.220
 During the colonial period,
 
 00:29:25.240 --> 00:29:26.800
 the United States does not have the
 
 00:29:27.800 --> 00:29:28.861
 population base,
 
 00:29:29.281 --> 00:29:32.061
 the consumer base to buy the products that
 
 00:29:32.261 --> 00:29:34.663
 we manufacture in large numbers, clothing,
 
 00:29:35.063 --> 00:29:35.623
 weapons,
 
 00:29:37.344 --> 00:29:39.723
 anything metal that blacksmiths make.
 
 00:29:39.923 --> 00:29:41.265
 After the war, that changes.
 
 00:29:41.724 --> 00:29:44.226
 Americans are opened up to these products.
 
 00:29:45.705 --> 00:29:47.307
 As you asked the question earlier about
 
 00:29:47.326 --> 00:29:48.468
 the transport networks,
 
 00:29:49.009 --> 00:29:51.730
 suddenly manufacturers recognize what's
 
 00:29:51.770 --> 00:29:52.211
 available.
 
 00:29:52.491 --> 00:29:52.632
 Oh,
 
 00:29:52.711 --> 00:29:55.554
 we can get lead and charcoal and coal
 
 00:29:55.574 --> 00:29:58.175
 from the frontier and it's easily
 
 00:29:58.215 --> 00:29:59.176
 accessible.
 
 00:30:01.301 --> 00:30:03.064
 because we've built these networks during
 
 00:30:03.084 --> 00:30:05.806
 the war itself.
 
 00:30:05.826 --> 00:30:07.208
 So those are the two ways that really
 
 00:30:07.468 --> 00:30:08.969
 it does continue after the war.
 
 00:30:09.249 --> 00:30:10.069
 That's interesting.
 
 00:30:10.089 --> 00:30:11.290
 We're talking with Bob Smith,
 
 00:30:11.330 --> 00:30:13.413
 who is the provost and chief academic
 
 00:30:13.512 --> 00:30:15.714
 officer at Valley Forge College in Valley
 
 00:30:15.755 --> 00:30:16.796
 Forge, Pennsylvania,
 
 00:30:17.316 --> 00:30:18.998
 and also the author of Manufacturing
 
 00:30:19.057 --> 00:30:20.859
 Independence, Industrial Innovation,
 
 00:30:20.900 --> 00:30:22.141
 and the American Revolution.
 
 00:30:22.641 --> 00:30:24.702
 And our conversation today is sponsored by
 
 00:30:24.742 --> 00:30:26.364
 the Richard Lounsbury Foundation.
 
 00:30:27.874 --> 00:30:30.797
 So, Bob, I also am thinking in our,
 
 00:30:30.957 --> 00:30:32.617
 the way, at the beginning,
 
 00:30:32.637 --> 00:30:34.200
 you talked about kind of the mythology and
 
 00:30:34.220 --> 00:30:36.240
 part of the mythology of American
 
 00:30:36.561 --> 00:30:38.542
 inventiveness are people like the
 
 00:30:38.563 --> 00:30:40.904
 character, Eli Whitney or Robert Fulton.
 
 00:30:41.705 --> 00:30:46.150
 And this seems to be a bit different,
 
 00:30:46.170 --> 00:30:47.030
 but I want to ask first,
 
 00:30:47.131 --> 00:30:49.772
 are there any individuals who stand out
 
 00:30:49.813 --> 00:30:50.534
 here as like,
 
 00:30:50.614 --> 00:30:52.734
 this is the central character in the
 
 00:30:52.776 --> 00:30:53.135
 story?
 
 00:30:54.829 --> 00:30:56.431
 So my favorite,
 
 00:30:56.451 --> 00:30:58.192
 and I think one of my heroes,
 
 00:30:58.732 --> 00:30:59.673
 is Samuel Hodgdon.
 
 00:31:02.174 --> 00:31:03.435
 He's not really an innovator.
 
 00:31:05.737 --> 00:31:06.798
 He's really a manager.
 
 00:31:08.638 --> 00:31:09.980
 Before I talk about him, I mean,
 
 00:31:11.520 --> 00:31:16.924
 specific to men like Fulton and Eli
 
 00:31:16.944 --> 00:31:18.685
 Whitney, you know,
 
 00:31:18.925 --> 00:31:22.667
 these great dreamers that have these...
 
 00:31:24.917 --> 00:31:25.818
 Grand ideas.
 
 00:31:26.239 --> 00:31:27.519
 There's really nobody like that.
 
 00:31:29.882 --> 00:31:30.821
 Maybe Henry Knox.
 
 00:31:30.902 --> 00:31:32.222
 I'm not a huge fan of Henry Knox.
 
 00:31:32.242 --> 00:31:34.244
 You're not a huge fan of Henry Knox.
 
 00:31:34.625 --> 00:31:35.025
 I'm not.
 
 00:31:36.826 --> 00:31:42.451
 That'll be another episode.
 
 00:31:42.530 --> 00:31:43.652
 And only in this context.
 
 00:31:43.692 --> 00:31:45.452
 Not generally.
 
 00:31:47.453 --> 00:31:49.895
 Because I think his vision for what's
 
 00:31:49.935 --> 00:31:52.617
 possible with this is somewhat limited.
 
 00:31:52.657 --> 00:31:53.558
 But
 
 00:31:56.472 --> 00:31:59.978
 he he does see the the value of
 
 00:32:00.198 --> 00:32:06.747
 manufacturing um but do they change the
 
 00:32:06.847 --> 00:32:10.732
 nature of of work no um
 
 00:32:11.703 --> 00:32:13.526
 Do they change the nature of the
 
 00:32:13.605 --> 00:32:15.488
 relationship between government and
 
 00:32:15.628 --> 00:32:16.328
 manufacturers?
 
 00:32:16.390 --> 00:32:16.809
 Yes.
 
 00:32:17.611 --> 00:32:19.373
 And that's really where Samuel Hodgson
 
 00:32:19.413 --> 00:32:19.913
 comes in.
 
 00:32:21.935 --> 00:32:25.440
 Whitney makes his fortune as a government
 
 00:32:25.480 --> 00:32:27.663
 contractor.
 
 00:32:27.682 --> 00:32:29.545
 That's more important for him than the
 
 00:32:29.625 --> 00:32:30.105
 cotton gin.
 
 00:32:30.925 --> 00:32:31.446
 Personally.
 
 00:32:31.967 --> 00:32:32.247
 Right.
 
 00:32:32.326 --> 00:32:36.770
 But Samuel Hodgdon recognizes that if you
 
 00:32:36.790 --> 00:32:39.192
 can build this network of manufacturers
 
 00:32:39.512 --> 00:32:42.414
 and you can trade produce,
 
 00:32:42.474 --> 00:32:45.837
 you can build a commercial market that can
 
 00:32:45.857 --> 00:32:47.900
 then support what's going on.
 
 00:32:47.920 --> 00:32:50.240
 And he's he's the second manufacturer.
 
 00:32:52.762 --> 00:32:54.463
 Commissary General of Military Stores.
 
 00:32:54.503 --> 00:32:56.065
 The first one is Benjamin Flower,
 
 00:32:57.244 --> 00:32:59.165
 who is a great motivator.
 
 00:33:00.727 --> 00:33:02.647
 He recognizes that the government has to
 
 00:33:02.688 --> 00:33:03.147
 do this.
 
 00:33:04.288 --> 00:33:06.930
 It can't rely on individual producers
 
 00:33:06.970 --> 00:33:08.590
 because they just don't have the capacity.
 
 00:33:11.471 --> 00:33:13.353
 But it's really Samuel Hodgdon that
 
 00:33:13.393 --> 00:33:14.874
 understands process.
 
 00:33:15.775 --> 00:33:16.414
 Where is he from?
 
 00:33:18.227 --> 00:33:19.930
 He is from Pennsylvania.
 
 00:33:21.152 --> 00:33:22.554
 Not too much is known about him.
 
 00:33:22.634 --> 00:33:24.316
 I have seen some
 
 00:33:26.169 --> 00:33:27.069
 research recently,
 
 00:33:28.029 --> 00:33:29.571
 learning more about where he came from,
 
 00:33:29.672 --> 00:33:31.992
 but I'm not overly familiar with that.
 
 00:33:32.032 --> 00:33:32.093
 OK.
 
 00:33:35.695 --> 00:33:36.517
 I think, Jonathan,
 
 00:33:36.576 --> 00:33:39.638
 just as we are here in the great
 
 00:33:39.778 --> 00:33:41.200
 Commonwealth of Massachusetts,
 
 00:33:41.220 --> 00:33:42.881
 and Jonathan asked about Paul Revere,
 
 00:33:42.902 --> 00:33:45.103
 who also sets up a manufacturing,
 
 00:33:45.844 --> 00:33:48.385
 actually to roll copper for the hull of
 
 00:33:48.465 --> 00:33:49.226
 old Ironsides.
 
 00:33:50.646 --> 00:33:51.228
 So Jonathan,
 
 00:33:51.688 --> 00:33:53.328
 I guess after you knocked Henry Knox,
 
 00:33:53.368 --> 00:33:55.009
 Jonathan said, what about Paul Revere?
 
 00:33:57.500 --> 00:33:59.788
 No, Revere is a great example.
 
 00:34:02.770 --> 00:34:04.531
 He learns from the war effort,
 
 00:34:05.413 --> 00:34:06.573
 the value of manufacturing,
 
 00:34:06.593 --> 00:34:09.094
 and he changes his mindset.
 
 00:34:09.135 --> 00:34:13.858
 The war has a huge impact on what
 
 00:34:13.918 --> 00:34:20.202
 he recognizes as economical.
 
 00:34:20.222 --> 00:34:21.561
 What's the right word?
 
 00:34:21.822 --> 00:34:22.603
 It's a business model.
 
 00:34:22.983 --> 00:34:26.105
 He recognizes the business model because
 
 00:34:26.144 --> 00:34:28.487
 before the war, he is a craftsman.
 
 00:34:29.146 --> 00:34:30.748
 After the war, he is a manufacturer.
 
 00:34:31.963 --> 00:34:32.864
 Right, right.
 
 00:34:33.523 --> 00:34:35.706
 And that really is a tremendous change,
 
 00:34:35.766 --> 00:34:37.969
 which your book argues really comes about
 
 00:34:38.048 --> 00:34:40.690
 as a result of this building of this
 
 00:34:40.831 --> 00:34:41.692
 infrastructure,
 
 00:34:41.731 --> 00:34:43.833
 building of these bigger manufacturing
 
 00:34:43.873 --> 00:34:46.617
 establishments in places like Springfield,
 
 00:34:46.657 --> 00:34:48.077
 Carlisle, Philadelphia,
 
 00:34:48.097 --> 00:34:50.599
 that really are going to have this effect
 
 00:34:50.780 --> 00:34:51.621
 afterward,
 
 00:34:51.681 --> 00:34:56.606
 which turning the craftsmen into part of
 
 00:34:56.626 --> 00:34:57.746
 an industrial process.
 
 00:34:59.177 --> 00:34:59.478
 Yes,
 
 00:34:59.597 --> 00:35:03.199
 and if you look at the progress of
 
 00:35:03.219 --> 00:35:04.219
 the Industrial Revolution,
 
 00:35:05.940 --> 00:35:11.402
 David Hounsell talks about it in his great
 
 00:35:11.442 --> 00:35:11.722
 work.
 
 00:35:12.782 --> 00:35:13.963
 They start with,
 
 00:35:13.983 --> 00:35:16.543
 all historians and him in particular,
 
 00:35:16.923 --> 00:35:19.905
 they start with Samuel Slater.
 
 00:35:19.925 --> 00:35:21.565
 They start with the seventeen nineties.
 
 00:35:22.405 --> 00:35:25.407
 And I really got into this project because
 
 00:35:25.447 --> 00:35:27.168
 I wanted to see what happens before that.
 
 00:35:29.273 --> 00:35:30.554
 I refuse to believe, I mean,
 
 00:35:30.715 --> 00:35:31.936
 maybe that my own bias,
 
 00:35:33.416 --> 00:35:37.639
 I refuse to believe that just, you know,
 
 00:35:37.679 --> 00:35:39.099
 this one guy popping up,
 
 00:35:39.820 --> 00:35:41.221
 I believe that there was a process.
 
 00:35:42.322 --> 00:35:46.123
 And as transformationary, transformative,
 
 00:35:46.543 --> 00:35:49.485
 there's my PhD coming in,
 
 00:35:49.505 --> 00:35:51.487
 coming into play there with my grammar
 
 00:35:51.507 --> 00:35:51.847
 skills.
 
 00:35:52.827 --> 00:35:55.429
 As transformative as the American
 
 00:35:55.469 --> 00:35:56.829
 Revolution was politically,
 
 00:36:00.190 --> 00:36:02.210
 I believed that it had to have the
 
 00:36:02.251 --> 00:36:03.791
 same impact economically.
 
 00:36:04.130 --> 00:36:07.692
 And we weren't really looking at that as
 
 00:36:07.731 --> 00:36:08.431
 historians.
 
 00:36:08.692 --> 00:36:11.932
 And I think that's a huge deal for
 
 00:36:11.992 --> 00:36:13.773
 understanding the United States,
 
 00:36:14.032 --> 00:36:17.634
 because we do come to rely on this
 
 00:36:17.693 --> 00:36:18.934
 banking infrastructure and this
 
 00:36:18.994 --> 00:36:20.554
 manufacturing infrastructure.
 
 00:36:21.315 --> 00:36:22.494
 And there's a reason why,
 
 00:36:23.394 --> 00:36:25.295
 because we recognized during the war that
 
 00:36:25.456 --> 00:36:26.976
 we needed it for our independence.
 
 00:36:28.251 --> 00:36:29.032
 Right.
 
 00:36:29.092 --> 00:36:30.713
 And we certainly see that after other
 
 00:36:30.793 --> 00:36:32.914
 wars, War of eighteen twelve and then,
 
 00:36:32.954 --> 00:36:33.293
 of course,
 
 00:36:33.313 --> 00:36:36.396
 the Civil War and then the World Wars
 
 00:36:36.436 --> 00:36:38.538
 of the twentieth century kind of we see
 
 00:36:38.577 --> 00:36:39.097
 that.
 
 00:36:39.237 --> 00:36:42.701
 And so here it's fascinating that we
 
 00:36:42.740 --> 00:36:44.641
 hadn't really looked at this happening at
 
 00:36:44.661 --> 00:36:46.503
 the time of the revolution until
 
 00:36:48.043 --> 00:36:48.304
 I mean,
 
 00:36:48.344 --> 00:36:49.704
 there are a couple of other books that
 
 00:36:49.724 --> 00:36:51.224
 kind of mention this happening,
 
 00:36:51.344 --> 00:36:54.326
 but we don't really see the overall
 
 00:36:54.405 --> 00:36:55.907
 network that's created here.
 
 00:36:55.947 --> 00:36:58.407
 This industrial network being created is
 
 00:36:58.447 --> 00:37:00.168
 going to have a long impact.
 
 00:37:00.827 --> 00:37:02.048
 And I will point out,
 
 00:37:02.088 --> 00:37:05.030
 so I think this is a good spot.
 
 00:37:05.570 --> 00:37:07.331
 So it's actually Valley Forge Military
 
 00:37:07.371 --> 00:37:07.731
 College.
 
 00:37:08.791 --> 00:37:09.391
 I apologize.
 
 00:37:09.431 --> 00:37:10.434
 We went over that earlier.
 
 00:37:11.934 --> 00:37:13.317
 I just mentioned the college part,
 
 00:37:14.197 --> 00:37:16.099
 but I got to stress the military part.
 
 00:37:17.161 --> 00:37:19.043
 And I say that now because that is
 
 00:37:19.063 --> 00:37:23.307
 something we talk about in our military
 
 00:37:23.347 --> 00:37:25.510
 history courses and what our students are
 
 00:37:25.550 --> 00:37:27.954
 learning in our ROTC program.
 
 00:37:32.085 --> 00:37:32.985
 about the battlefield.
 
 00:37:34.246 --> 00:37:37.969
 It's about everything that surrounds that.
 
 00:37:38.168 --> 00:37:42.952
 And I think this story about the American
 
 00:37:42.992 --> 00:37:43.532
 Revolution,
 
 00:37:44.032 --> 00:37:45.233
 as we've talked about it so far,
 
 00:37:46.534 --> 00:37:49.175
 fits with what we know about later wars.
 
 00:37:51.356 --> 00:37:52.056
 Rich Atkinson,
 
 00:37:53.717 --> 00:37:55.018
 in his books about World War II,
 
 00:37:57.500 --> 00:37:58.661
 has pointed out,
 
 00:37:58.902 --> 00:38:01.626
 eighty percent of the armed forces were
 
 00:38:01.666 --> 00:38:03.889
 there to support the twenty percent that
 
 00:38:03.929 --> 00:38:04.269
 fought.
 
 00:38:07.695 --> 00:38:09.538
 And so war making is much more than
 
 00:38:09.597 --> 00:38:09.938
 just
 
 00:38:11.155 --> 00:38:12.775
 you know, the battlefields we learn about.
 
 00:38:13.135 --> 00:38:16.338
 What makes it possible for Washington to
 
 00:38:16.699 --> 00:38:17.659
 win Yorktown?
 
 00:38:17.699 --> 00:38:19.981
 Well, the cannons that this department,
 
 00:38:20.021 --> 00:38:21.643
 the military storage department creates,
 
 00:38:22.322 --> 00:38:23.903
 the ammunition that this department
 
 00:38:23.943 --> 00:38:24.525
 creates,
 
 00:38:24.565 --> 00:38:27.126
 the tools that this department creates,
 
 00:38:27.686 --> 00:38:30.588
 the money that the treasury department is
 
 00:38:30.668 --> 00:38:32.811
 able to organize,
 
 00:38:33.210 --> 00:38:35.192
 the transport that the quartermaster is
 
 00:38:35.211 --> 00:38:36.032
 able to organize.
 
 00:38:36.413 --> 00:38:36.913
 None of that
 
 00:38:37.893 --> 00:38:38.655
 Without any of that,
 
 00:38:38.715 --> 00:38:41.576
 he's not moving his army and laying siege
 
 00:38:41.596 --> 00:38:43.958
 to Cornwallis at Yorktown.
 
 00:38:43.978 --> 00:38:45.139
 Think about those eleven million
 
 00:38:45.199 --> 00:38:45.918
 cartridges.
 
 00:38:46.800 --> 00:38:47.139
 Also,
 
 00:38:47.159 --> 00:38:48.900
 it just occurs to me that Stalin at
 
 00:38:49.061 --> 00:38:53.623
 one of the closing months gatherings
 
 00:38:53.664 --> 00:38:55.445
 toasted American manufacturing,
 
 00:38:55.465 --> 00:38:56.965
 which made the victory possible.
 
 00:38:58.126 --> 00:39:00.967
 And so you have this creation here.
 
 00:39:01.527 --> 00:39:03.708
 We've been talking with Bob Smith from the
 
 00:39:03.768 --> 00:39:05.510
 Valley Forge Military College.
 
 00:39:06.670 --> 00:39:07.391
 Since you mentioned it,
 
 00:39:07.431 --> 00:39:08.411
 we want to tell us a little bit
 
 00:39:08.451 --> 00:39:09.992
 about Valley Forge Military College.
 
 00:39:10.632 --> 00:39:10.931
 Sure.
 
 00:39:11.211 --> 00:39:14.375
 So we are a small private institution.
 
 00:39:14.914 --> 00:39:15.815
 We're a junior college,
 
 00:39:16.715 --> 00:39:19.818
 meaning we have associate's degrees.
 
 00:39:21.039 --> 00:39:24.001
 But we prep students for what comes next
 
 00:39:24.041 --> 00:39:24.702
 in their lives.
 
 00:39:24.782 --> 00:39:28.344
 And so we've got three main programs.
 
 00:39:28.623 --> 00:39:30.505
 One is our early commissioning program,
 
 00:39:31.166 --> 00:39:33.668
 which is one of only four in the
 
 00:39:33.708 --> 00:39:36.168
 country where a student can complete their
 
 00:39:36.769 --> 00:39:38.971
 ROTC training in two years and earn a
 
 00:39:39.010 --> 00:39:39.411
 commission.
 
 00:39:40.893 --> 00:39:42.155
 uh before going on to finish their
 
 00:39:42.175 --> 00:39:45.856
 bachelor's degree um vice a traditional
 
 00:39:45.876 --> 00:39:51.400
 four-year rotc program at a larger type of
 
 00:39:51.460 --> 00:39:53.842
 school we also have a citizen leaders
 
 00:39:53.882 --> 00:39:56.945
 program where we teach what today is
 
 00:39:56.965 --> 00:40:01.788
 called soft skills so self-discipline
 
 00:40:01.947 --> 00:40:06.590
 self-motivation physical development moral
 
 00:40:06.831 --> 00:40:09.213
 ethical character development
 
 00:40:11.454 --> 00:40:11.735
 Really,
 
 00:40:11.775 --> 00:40:14.976
 it's a three-sixty model of building up
 
 00:40:15.315 --> 00:40:16.637
 students and then preparing them to
 
 00:40:16.677 --> 00:40:20.159
 transfer to their four-year institutions
 
 00:40:20.639 --> 00:40:22.420
 and finish their degrees.
 
 00:40:23.139 --> 00:40:25.081
 And then we have a Prepster program for
 
 00:40:25.141 --> 00:40:26.081
 the service academies.
 
 00:40:26.181 --> 00:40:28.402
 We're a partner with West Point,
 
 00:40:28.443 --> 00:40:32.885
 so any students that are looking to prep
 
 00:40:32.925 --> 00:40:35.847
 for a year to strengthen their candidacy
 
 00:40:35.867 --> 00:40:38.307
 to West Point can come to Valley Forge.
 
 00:40:39.041 --> 00:40:40.523
 So we're located right outside of
 
 00:40:40.563 --> 00:40:42.304
 Philadelphia in Wayne,
 
 00:40:44.005 --> 00:40:46.809
 right down the street from Valley Forge
 
 00:40:46.829 --> 00:40:47.469
 National Park.
 
 00:40:48.670 --> 00:40:51.072
 And yeah,
 
 00:40:51.253 --> 00:40:53.253
 we've sent students to some great follow
 
 00:40:53.295 --> 00:40:57.597
 on schools, to Baylor, to UNC,
 
 00:40:58.898 --> 00:41:02.563
 all of the Pennsylvania schools, Syracuse,
 
 00:41:03.163 --> 00:41:03.583
 Michigan.
 
 00:41:04.875 --> 00:41:05.615
 Just to name a few.
 
 00:41:06.155 --> 00:41:08.157
 I'm really proud of what our students have
 
 00:41:08.177 --> 00:41:10.798
 been able to go on and do.
 
 00:41:10.838 --> 00:41:11.259
 Very good.
 
 00:41:11.318 --> 00:41:11.679
 Thank you.
 
 00:41:12.519 --> 00:41:14.842
 So we've been talking with Bob Smith,
 
 00:41:14.862 --> 00:41:16.523
 who is the provost at Valley Forge
 
 00:41:16.663 --> 00:41:18.543
 Military College and the author of
 
 00:41:18.603 --> 00:41:20.144
 Manufacturing Independence,
 
 00:41:20.184 --> 00:41:21.226
 Industrial Innovation,
 
 00:41:21.266 --> 00:41:22.407
 and the American Revolution.
 
 00:41:22.947 --> 00:41:24.728
 And our conversation today is sponsored by
 
 00:41:24.748 --> 00:41:26.449
 the Richard Lounsbury Foundation.
 
 00:41:27.050 --> 00:41:27.971
 So thank you, Bob,
 
 00:41:28.010 --> 00:41:28.951
 so much for joining us.
 
 00:41:29.152 --> 00:41:31.132
 And we'll have to get you back on
 
 00:41:31.532 --> 00:41:32.994
 so we can defend Henry Knox.
 
 00:41:35.936 --> 00:41:37.817
 And I want to thank Jonathan Lane,
 
 00:41:37.896 --> 00:41:39.818
 our producer, the man behind the curtain.
 
 00:41:40.217 --> 00:41:40.998
 And every week, Bob,
 
 00:41:41.079 --> 00:41:43.320
 we thank folks who are regular listeners.
 
 00:41:43.619 --> 00:41:45.041
 And if you are in one of these
 
 00:41:45.081 --> 00:41:47.362
 places and want some of our Revolution two
 
 00:41:47.382 --> 00:41:49.722
 fifty stuff, send Jonathan an email.
 
 00:41:49.762 --> 00:41:52.005
 Jay Lane at Revolution two five zero dot
 
 00:41:52.125 --> 00:41:52.244
 org.
 
 00:41:53.092 --> 00:41:54.733
 and if you're not send him an email
 
 00:41:54.773 --> 00:41:56.474
 anyway he loves hearing from folks and
 
 00:41:56.494 --> 00:41:58.134
 this week i want to thank our listeners
 
 00:41:58.193 --> 00:42:01.135
 in laval and montreal in the province of
 
 00:42:01.195 --> 00:42:03.956
 quebec here in the bay state in hanover
 
 00:42:03.996 --> 00:42:07.018
 massachusetts in vestal new york barcelona
 
 00:42:07.759 --> 00:42:09.938
 and in summerfield north carolina thank
 
 00:42:09.958 --> 00:42:11.360
 you for joining us and thank you to
 
 00:42:11.420 --> 00:42:13.521
 all folks places between and beyond and
 
 00:42:13.601 --> 00:42:15.222
 now we will be piped out on the
 
 00:42:15.262 --> 00:42:15.742
 road to boston