Amoskeag Manufacturing Company experienced extraordinary growth following its founding in 1831. The complex company developed land and water power and produced rifle muskets for the Union army during the Civil War. America fell in love with the beautiful, long-lasting colors and quality of Amoskeag's iconic gingham. The company's history is one of engineering genius and invention, enlightened city planning and visionary leadership. It is also the story of the workers, including thousands of eager immigrants who came to Manchester seeking economic opportunity and personal freedom. The company struggled through labor disputes and conflicts between economics and altruism. When the doors finally closed in 1936, local business leaders saved the property from abandonment and extended the Amoskeag legacy through a new wave of prosperity. Author Aurore Eaton explores this revolutionary industry and its lasting significance in Manchester.

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How manufacturing textiles and guns transformed the United States from colonial dependent to military power. In 1783, the Revolutionary War drew to a close, but America was still threatened by enemies at home and abroad. The emerging nation faced tax rebellions, Indian warfare, and hostilities with France and England. Its arsenal—a collection of hand-me-down and beat-up firearms—was woefully inadequate, and its manufacturing sector was weak. In an era when armies literally froze in the field, military preparedness depended on blankets and jackets, the importation of which the British Empire had coordinated for over 200 years. Without a ready supply of guns, the new nation could not defend itself; without its own textiles, it was at the economic mercy of the British. Domestic industry offered the best solution for true economic and military independence. In Manufacturing Advantage, Lindsay Schakenbach Regele shows how the US government promoted the industrial development of textiles and weapons to defend the country from hostile armies—and hostile imports. Moving from the late 1700s through the Mexican-American War, Schakenbach Regele argues that both industries developed as a result of what she calls “national security capitalism”: a mixed enterprise system in which government agents and private producers brokered solutions to the problems of war and international economic disparities. War and State Department officials played particularly key roles in the emergence of American industry, facilitating arms makers and power loom weavers in the quest to develop industrial resources. And this defensive strategy, Schakenbach Regele reveals, eventually evolved to promote westward expansion, as well as America’s growing commercial and territorial empire. Examining these issues through the lens of geopolitics, Manufacturing Advantage places the rise of industry in the United States in the context of territorial expansion, diplomacy, and warfare. Ultimately, the book reveals the complex link between government intervention and private initiative in a country struggling to create a political economy that balanced military competence with commercial needs.