The Birmingham Gun Trade and The American System of Manufactures

changes in product technology and the manufacturing process changes required to achieve them. This paper describes the changes in the Birmingham industry, its products, processes and machinery suppliers, and the precision required and examines the Birmingham Gun trade as a manufacturing cluster. It is important to recognise that the processes and traditions of the eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century gun trade were maintained through the 1950s and in some cases still exist. The photographs in this paper therefore capture the processes of the earlier period and allow them to be compared with factory based approaches.