Young Blonde Girl In Front Of The Old Factory

British colonies in the late 18th century built factories simply as buildings where a large number of laborers gathered to perform hand labor, usually in textile production. This proved more efficient—for administration and for the distribution of raw materials to individual laborers—than earlier methods of manufacturing such as cottage industries or the putting-out system.
Cotton mills used inventions such as the steam engine and the power loom to pioneer the industrial factory of the 19th century, where precision machine tools and replaceable parts allowed greater efficiency and less waste.
Between 1820 and 1850, the non-mechanized factories supplanted the traditional artisan shops as the predominant form of manufacturing institution. Even though the theory on why and how the non-mechanized factories gradually replaced the small artisan shops is still ambiguous, what is apparent is that the larger-scale factories enjoyed technological gains and advance in efficiency over the small artisan shops. In fact, the larger scale forms of factory establishments were more favorable and advantageous over the small artisan shops in terms of competition for survival.
Henry Ford further revolutionized the factory concept in the early 20th century, with the innovation of mass production. Highly specialized laborers situated alongside a series of rolling ramps would build up a product such as (in Ford's case) an automobile. This concept dramatically decreased production costs for virtually all manufactured goods and brought about the age of consumerism.