Abstract
This paper explores and analyzes the article Capitalism, Industrialization, and the Factory written by Jonathan Purdue discussing the definition of factories in the early republic. Purdue expresses the need to look beyond the common definition of factories, which focuses on big machinery and increasing numbers of workforce, to the distinguishing key elements of production and increasing output and profits (Purdue, 2006). This paper discusses how modern day conceptions of factories and industrialization affect the interpretation of historical industrialization and provides thoughts on whether the development of factories represents positive progress in the transition to capitalism.

Modern Day Conceptions of Early American Factories & Industrialization

One of the earliest symbols that man recognizes as a representation of economic change and industrialization in the early republic is the factory (Purdue, 2006). Conceptions of the modern day factory have influenced the oversimplification of the complex nature of what factories in the early republic actually were (Purdue, 2006). When the 21st century American thinks of a factory we immediately think of large concrete buildings filled with machinery and huge clouds of black smoke emitting from tall smoke stacks. This notion of vast centralized technologically-driven structures filled with large numbers of underpaid workers is one stereotypically pictured when imagining what the first factories were like in early America (Purdue, 2006). In the early republic the definition of factory represented a contraction of manufactory which encompassed a varied selection of arenas of production (Purdue, 2006). In fact, the factories of the early republic varied from large mechanized “Lowell”-style plants to smaller “country” mills (Purdue, 2006). While mechanized factories did