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The 19th Century: Machine-Assisted Manufacturing |
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Eli Whitney's proposal for a simplification and standardization of component parts marked a further milestone in the advance of the  automation of work processes. In 1797 he suggested the manufacture of muskets with completely interchangeable parts. As opposed to the older method under which each gun was the individual product of a highly skilled gunsmith and each part hand-fitted, his method permitted large production runs of parts that were readily fitted to other parts without adjustment and could relatively easy be performed by machines.
By the middle of the 19th century the general concepts of division of labor, assembly of standardized parts and machine-assisted manufacture were well established. On both sides of the Atlantic large factories were in operation, which used specialized machines to improve costs, quality and quantity of their products.
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United Brands Company
American corporation formed in 1970 in the merger of United Fruit Company and AMK Corporation. United Fruit Company, the main company, was founded in 1899 producing and marketing bananas grown in the Caribbean islands, Central America, and Colombia. The principal founder was Minor C. Keith, who had begun to acquire banana plantations and to build a railroad in Costa Rica as early as 1872. In 1884 he contracted with the Costa Rican government to fund the national debt and to lay about 50 more miles of track. In return he received, for 99 years, full rights to these rail lines and 800,000 acres of virgin land, tax exempt for 20 years. By 1930 it had absorbed 20 rival firms and became the largest employer in Central America. As a foreign corporation of conspicuous size, United Fruit sometimes became the target of popular attacks. The Latin-American press often referred to it as el pulpo ("the octopus"), accusing it of exploiting labourers, bribing officials, and influencing governments during the period of Yankee "dollar diplomacy" in the first decades of the 20th century.
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