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The Product Cycle and New England Textiles

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  • John S. Hekman

Abstract

Technological change and product life cycle concepts can be used to explain the concentration of cotton textile production in Southeastern New England during the industry's period of rapid innovation in machinery and machine tool design. Boston was the center for an agglomeration of high technology industries that were attracted by each other and the local resource pool of skilled mechanics and entrepreneurs. The movement of the textile industry to the Southeast, which took place after 1880, is linked to technological change in the product cycle that substituted unskilled labor for skilled labor and high technology inputs. The phrase "Yankee ingenuity" has become a part of the English language. If New England no longer holds all the good mechanics in the United States, there was a time when she came so near it that the term "New England mechanic" had a very definite meaning over the whole country [Roe, 1916, p. 109].

Suggested Citation

  • John S. Hekman, 1980. "The Product Cycle and New England Textiles," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 94(4), pages 697-717.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:qjecon:v:94:y:1980:i:4:p:697-717.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.2307/1885664
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    Cited by:

    1. Peter B. Doeringer & David G. Terkla, 1990. "Turning around local economies: Managerial strategies and community assets," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 9(4), pages 487-506.
    2. Nijkamp, P., 1990. "Regional economic growth and regional policy : a European perspective," Serie Research Memoranda 0076, VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Econometrics.
    3. Claudia Rei, 2014. "Comment on "Corporate Governance and the Development of Manufacturing Enterprises in Nineteenth-Century Massachusetts"," NBER Chapters, in: Enterprising America: Businesses, Banks, and Credit Markets in Historical Perspective, pages 102-106, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Charles W. Calomiris & Christopher Hanes, 1994. "Historical Macroeconomics and American Macroeconomic History," NBER Working Papers 4935, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Holmes, Thomas J., 1999. "How Industries Migrate When Agglomeration Economies Are Important," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 240-263, March.
    6. Naomi R. Lamoreaux, 1991. "Information Problems and Banks' Specialization in Short-Term Commercial Lending: New England in the Nineteenth Century," NBER Chapters, in: Inside the Business Enterprise: Historical Perspectives on the Use of Information, pages 161-204, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Kelly L. Kinahan, 2016. "Design-Based Economic Development," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 30(4), pages 329-341, November.
    8. Kamann, D.J. & Nijkamp, P., 1988. "Technogenesis : incubation and diffusion," Serie Research Memoranda 0024, VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Econometrics.
    9. Davelaar, E.J. & Nijkamp, P., 1986. "The urban incubator hypothesis : old wine in new bottles?," Serie Research Memoranda 0039, VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Econometrics.
    10. Edward J. Malecki, 1983. "Technology and Regional Development: A Survey," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 8(2), pages 89-125, October.

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