The system of manufacture involving production of many identical parts and their assembly into finished products came to be called the American System, because it achieved its fullest maturity in the United States. Although Eli Whitney (1765-1825) has been given credit for this development, his ideas had appeared earlier in Sweden, France, and Britain and were being practiced in other arms factories in the United States. In 1798 Eli Whitney acquired the American government's support to fund him to mass produce 10,000 muskets using interchangeable parts. At this time war with France was a possibility, so the need for weaponry was in high demand.

In 1801, Whitney held a demonstration to show how he could fit ten different lock mechanisms into the same musket. Even though it was later discovered by historians that the demonstration was staged, he still paved the way for other engineers and inventors to improve on the concept. He demonstrated that machine tools - manned by workers who did not need the highly specialized skills of gunsmiths - could produce standardized parts to exact specifications, and that any part could be used as a component of any musket. The firearms factory he built in New Haven, Conn., was thus one of the first to use mass production methods. Principally, Whitney’s method broke down the traditional division of labor into discrete and separate steps accomplished by a worker who performed only that single job.

Eli Whitney’s commitment to interchangeable military musket production was recognized by the US Army Ordnance Department following the War of 1812. Not only was his opinion and support sought by the Ordnance Department for the goal of interchangeable musket production at the national armories, but also his simplified musket design greatly influenced the musket pattern chosen for future interchangeable production.

The Decision to Manufacture Muskets with Interchangeable Parts