Full text of DOI:10.1111/1468-0289.00168

Economic History Review, LIII, 3 (2000), pp. 493–516
Manufacturing quality in the
pre-industrial age: finding value in
diversity1
By PIERRE CLAUDE REYNARD
arly in 1732, a dynamic administrator, hoping to revive the fortunes
E
of the small paper-making centre of Chamalie`res, near Clermont-
Ferrand in France, facilitated the placing of an exceptional order by a
Parisian printer. The contract was not large, but the high quality required
for a luxury edition of the works of the great Molie`re offered a unique
chance for Chamalie`res paper makers to display their skills and renew
their links with the capital’s profitable markets. The mill owners readily
set to work, but they also immediately and repeatedly asked their protector
to find an outlet for the paper that would inevitably remain after the
best reams had left for Paris.2 The claim was legitimate not only because
these paper makers were in need of assistance, but because it was
impossible for anyone engaged in that business to limit production to
the finest paper only. Papers of different qualities inevitably accumulated
on their sorting tables.
Recent revisions to our understanding of the industrial revolution as
well as investigations of the rise of consumption have come to agree on
the dynamism of West European manufactures on the eve of industrializ-
ation.3 While much growth in output was achieved through the multipli-
cation of workshops and, to a lesser degree, through new-found
efficiencies, many producers answered demand by an acceleration and
intensification of existing work processes often rooted in medieval inno-
vations. This article investigates the tensions inherent in the ‘speeding
up’ of methods of manufacturing paper by hand. It suggests that the
high proportion of imperfect output resulting from this acceleration of
traditional production methods called for a ‘proto-industrial’ definition
of quality that shaped sorting and marketing strategies to link the available
technology effectively to the social structure of the markets it served.
Perhaps surprisingly, the ‘management’, measurement, and implications
of the quality of manufactured goods have only recently received sustained
1 The author wishes to acknowledge helpful comments received from Profs. P. A. McDonough,
I. K. Steele, K. Harley, J. K. Brown, and from anonymous referees.
2 The fine paper they produced proved, in the end, below the expectations of the printer, who
flatly rejected the stock. See the letters exchanged from 21 May 1731 to 31 Aug. 1732 (Archives
de´partementales (henceforth AD) Puy-de-Doˆme, 1 C 492).
3 The greater availability of sources cannot alone account for evidence of an abundance of
commodities in eighteenth-century records: Jeannin, ‘Distinction des compe´tences’, p. 370; Brewer
and Porter, eds., Consumption and the world of goods; Stearns, ‘Stages of consumerism’; Berg, Age
of manufacture.
Economic History Society 2000. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden,
MA 02148, USA.

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attention. Works directly linked to the needs of the business world have
multiplied rapidly, but economists are only starting to account for the
place of quality changes in consumer behaviour patterns, levels of econ-
omic activity, and even price indexes. These efforts expose the com-
plexities of all definitions and evaluations of quality, which depend on
the contexts of production, exchange, and observation. The few works
which have considered the historical evolution of the concept of quality
draw a simple sketch. In a first, long period, quality is seen as the quest
for excellence through the application of skills and the use of fine
materials within the regulated confines of medieval and early modern craft
shops. With the advent of large-scale, mechanized production, attention to
quality gave way to a search for cheaper output, until challenges to
Western industrial supremacy refocused management efforts on quality
controls and, lately, on comprehensive organizational procedures designed
to reconcile productivity and perfection. Awareness of the role of product
improvements in market exchanges has grown in parallel with this.4
For their part, historians interested in the early modern economy have
articulated several lines of enquiry suggesting that the quality of pro-
duction on the eve of industrialization deserves attention. A first group
of studies noted the wide diversity of manufactured goods characteristic
of the period. Jeannin, for instance, observed how the lack of standardized
output multiplied the types and grades of goods traded and raised the
information needs of early modern merchants. In turn, these information
requirements, part of ‘the mystery of trade’, shaped the extensive networks
of early modern commerce.5 The uneven quality of goods has also helped
to justify the economic regulations characteristic of a period when access
to information, substitutes, and redress was difficult.6
A generation ago, Thirsk linked the diversity of early modern goods
to the expansion of manufacturing output. She suggested that the seeds
of a ‘mass-market for consumer goods’ were planted, in part, through a
widening of the quality range of the commodities offered by a growing
number of producers operating under varied circumstances. A French
parallel to this expansion of the market through a cheapening of output
is found in the study by Fairchilds of ‘populuxe goods’ in eighteenth-
century Paris.7 For his part, Styles has underlined the importance of
design alterations in the strategies of early modern manufacturers and,
at the same time, the difficulties they encountered in trying consistently
to meet the specifications of a given order.8 The high level of attention
given by producers and inventors to ‘output diversification and quality
improvements’ has been confirmed by a fresh analysis of inventions in
4 Illustrations of these trends are found in Bowbrick, Economics of quality; Juran, History of managing
for quality; Gordon, Measurement of durable goods prices; Berg, ‘Product innovation’, p. 142.
5 Jeannin, ‘Distinction des compe´tences’. For references to the information needs of merchants,
see the articles in Janzen, ed., Merchant organizations and maritime trade, notably pp. 54-5 and n. 7.
6 Grenier, L’economie d’Ancien Regime, ch. 12.
´
´
7 The ‘magnificent range of choice available to the customer in seventeenth-century England’
issued from a series of projects to substitute domestic production for imports: Thirsk, Economic
policy and projects, ch. V; Fairchilds, ‘Production and marketing of populuxe goods’.
8 Styles, ‘Manufacturing, consumption, and design’.
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manufacturing quality in the pre-industrial age
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the eighteenth-century British textile industry. Only in the last decade of
the century was it superseded by a rising wave of process innovations.9
Finally, very recently, and in the hope of bridging the gap between
supply-side and demand-side approaches, Berg has suggested that the
industrial revolution may best be studied through the ‘proliferation of
. . . new products’ which made the use of new techniques viable, while
noting that product differentiation through quality changes remains poorly
understood.10 This article links heterogeneity of output to the techniques
and strategies deployed in the large-scale production of goods to stan-
dardized specifications.
Quality has also been an issue in comparisons between hand and
machine output. Early in the nineteenth century, investigators of the
‘American system’ of manufacture exchanged arguments on uniformity
of output, the ‘unerring precision’ of machines, or the indispensable
finishing touch of highly skilled hands. However, a consensus on the
definition of manufacturing quality proved as elusive then as it did
following the 1851 Crystal Palace exhibition in London. Once again, the
contrast between hand and machine work, evident for instance in differ-
ences between French and British goods, called for evaluations of quality.
And once again, social, economic, and political choices shaped distinct
definitions of quality.11 Two or three generations later, the craft movement
still located quality in the judgment, dexterity, and care which the maker
exercised. The respective qualities of hand and machine production have
been articulated only slowly, for instance through Pye’s distinction
between ‘workmanship of risk’ and ‘workmanship of certainty’.12 This
study examines how a number of manufacturers managed the risks
associated with the use of skilled workmanship within a context of large-
scale production.
Finally, the attitudes towards quality examined here may also be related
to another concern of economic historians, the distinction between batch
production and specialization. Originally considered to be a minor and
often doomed alternative to the irresistible rise of Fordist specialization,
batch production—defined by frequent changes of specifications resulting
in a diverse output—is at present seen as a central path to modern
manufacturing success and the dominant mode in eighteenth-century
production of non-luxury items.13 This article shows that the limitations
of accelerated hand methods of production added a substantial component
of ‘diversity by necessity’ to the ‘diversity by design’ characteristic of
batch production.
The evolution of the relation between production and consumption
defies linear analysis. Diversity of output and diversity in buyer prefer-
ences have always co-existed with the gains to be expected from specializa-
tion, and the attention and care devoted to a manufacturing process have
9 Griffiths et al., ‘Inventive activity’.
10 Berg, ‘Product innovation’.
11 Hounshell, From the American system; Walton, France at the Crystal Palace.
12 Pye, Nature of workmanship; Forty, Objects of desire.
13 Sabel and Zeitlin, World of possibilities; Scranton, Proprietary capitalism.
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always been measured in time and cost, albeit to varying standards. The
manner in which producers have approached the articulation between
output and market has changed over time. This article charts shifts in
the definition of quality, an important dimension of the control that a
producer may exert over this difficult process of meeting the market’s
expectations. It exposes a proto-industrial understanding of the quality
of manufactured goods distinct from that likely to exist in a world of
scarcity or one supported, later, by large-scale mechanized production.
Within the context of concentrated production of finished or semi-finished
goods to fixed specifications, the eighteenth-century acceleration of work
under yet little changed hand-manufacturing circumstances led producers
to seek value in the irreducible heterogeneity of their output through
post-production sorting, an ordering process suited to the segmented
nature of the society of the Ancien Re´gime. Section I contains an
introduction to the paper-making industry intended to convey an
impression of its high level of output and the high level of skills it
demanded. The quality of early modern paper is then assessed, and the
ways in which paper makers addressed the ‘quality challenges’ facing
them are considered.
I
The paper-making techniques adapted to European needs and resources
in thirteenth-century Italy endured for five centuries. Fermented linen,
hemp, and cotton rags provided the constitutive element of paper, cellu-
lose. After shredding, cleaning, and fermenting, the rags were crushed by
a series of stampers, and the resulting pulp was diluted in a large vat. A
sheet of paper was formed by dipping a flat metallic screen, the mould,
into this vat. The sheets were then laid between layers of felt, pressed,
and hung to dry. Eventually, they were sized in a gelatine bath, pressed
and dried again, and finally polished and sorted.14
By the eighteenth century, the mills of France, Italy, England, the Low
Countries, and Spain dominated European markets. Some rare aggregate
figures reveal an important industry, the value of its output ranking
between that of the linen and the soap-making sectors in France.15 It
was supported by broad literary, administrative, and commercial growth.
The intense publishing and epistolary trade characteristic of the Enlighten-
ment had deep roots. Since the sixteenth century at least, expanding
postal services, networks of peddlers selling cheap editions of popular
texts and illustrations, the posting of news on the walls of growing cities,
14 Desmarest, ‘L’art de fabriquer le papier’.
15 Arnould, De la balance du commerce, p. 221. Estimates of the output of the 900 to 1,000 vats
at work in France on the eve of the revolution vary from 11,500 tonnes to 20,000 tonnes: Chevallier,
‘La matie`re premie`re: le papier’; Markovitch, ‘L’industrie franc¸aise de 1789 a` 1964’. English
production approached 5,000 tonnes at the end of the eighteenth century, when per caput consump-
tion of white and coarse paper reached 2.5 lbs. (from 0.25 lb. c. 1600 and 1.5 lb. in 1715: Coleman,
British paper industry, pp. 15, 105. The output of Dutch mills may have reached 2,000-3,000 tonnes
a few decades earlier: Duplessis, ‘Capital and finance’.
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497
and the circulation of personal messages, had multiplied the volume of
information reaching an ever-wider public, on paper.16 Yet writing and
printing reached beyond these areas. All levels of administrations culti-
vated a taste for paperwork, finding in written records the bases of
accountability and cumulative experience indispensable to the reforming
ambitions that came to characterize the period. Commerce itself, an even
wider sphere of human intercourse, floated on a sea of paper. It naturally
relied on paper to steady its grasp of production and sales, but also
attempted to shape markets through a rising tide of advertisements.17
Paper was also put to a surprising number of uses beyond printing and
writing. Sheets wrapped a wide range of goods ranging from delicate
fruits to gunpowder, from pins to retail amounts of sugar. Paper also
served to make playing-cards, pasteboards, fans, and a multitude of
decorative objects (often in imitation of more expensive materials). It
gave lustre to textiles through the work of cloth pressers, decorated
furniture and walls, offered cheap protection from the elements when
oiled, and assisted hairdressers in their art. Some enterprising manufac-
turers even envisioned the use of paper boards for house and ship
building!18 In the absence of data that would quantify the growth of the
market, this list has the merit of underlining the diversity of usages of
paper. Hidden behind the primacy of literary exchange, this diversity
proved crucial to the viability of an industry that could never confine
production to only one type of paper.
A majority of mills employed fewer than a dozen people around one
vat although, by the eighteenth century, multiple holdings and larger
units were not rare. All housed a substantial degree of mechanization,
an advanced division of labour, and qualified hands. Each vat occupied
four or five highly skilled workers: the beaterman, in charge of pulp
preparation (and sizing in small mills); the vatman who ‘formed’ the
sheet on the mould; the coucher who deposited it on a layer of felt; the
layer who carefully lifted it off its felt support; and the sizeman, in charge
of sizing. All accounts suggest that an average team produced between
five and 12 reams a day (2,500 to 6,000 sheets, or 50 to 80 kg.),
depending on the type of paper made. For instance, all Montgolfier
teams (in Annonay, France) consistently produced over 5,000 sheets per
day late in the eighteenth century. Regulations set the daily workload at
16 There are recent surveys of the early modern European book trade in Barbier et al., eds.,
L’Europe et le livre, and Le Roy Ladurie, ‘Une histoire se´rielle du livre’. For the blossoming of
literary exchange before the revolution, see Goodman, Republic of letters, ch. 4.
17 For examples of non-literary printing, see Feyel, ‘Ne´goce et presse provinciale’, and Michel,
‘L’imprimerie a` Pe´zenas’. The revolutionary burst of communications is charted in Popkin, Revolution-
ary news, and Patrick, ‘Paper, posters and people’. This voracious appetite for paper may be
illustrated by the quest for a method to duplicate handwriting: Desmarest, ‘L’art de fabriquer le
papier, p. 594. In numerous studies of the industry, the growing affordability of paper is documented
piecemeal rather than in systematic fashion.
18 Various usages of paper are illustrated in Vidalenc, La petite metallurgie rurale, pp. 224 ff.;
´
Reynaud, Les moulins a papier d’Annonay, p. 90; Krill, English artists paper, p. 101 and passim; Doizy
and Ipert, Le papier marbre´, pp. 1-24.
`
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just below such numbers, but all left room for piece-rate supplements.19
Such figures imply the formation of a sheet every five to 10 seconds.
During that brief time, the vatman fitted the deckle on a mould, plunged
it partly into the warm cellulose solution, pulled it out, ‘shut’ the fibres
through the shaking of the dripping mould, and slid it towards the
coucher while retrieving the deckle. While handing back an empty mould
to the vatman, the coucher grabbed the newly loaded mould and laid it
to drain on the horn. He then laid a new felt on his ‘post’ (a pile of
alternating sheets of paper and felt), on which he carefully placed the
fresh sheet of paper. He finally turned back to the vat to exchange
moulds again, until a post was ready for pressing.
Other tasks demanded skill and experience, if less coordination of
movements. The retting and pulping of rags required sharp visual and
tactile monitoring, while the handling of humid and fragile sheets after
the first pressing called for light fingers. Their gelatine sizing needed a
rapid but even leafing movement, as well as a keen awareness of atmos-
pheric conditions and knowledge of the animal by-products used. The
polishing of dry sheets may have caused little risk to their structure, but
it conditioned their receptivity to ink, and the final inspection that
followed entailed another rapid handling of each sheet. In the eighteenth
century, the practice known as echange called for a series of light pressings
´
between which individual sheets were rotated. Varying the areas of contact
between adjacent sheets before the initial drying delivered a more uniform
grain, yet such handling of fresh sheets at great speed could only be
done by steady hands.
Available data cannot provide a measure of productivity gains in paper
mills, but still reveal a pattern of incremental improvements characteristic
of early modern technological complexes. Examinations of early sheets
document the refining of the mould’s chain and laid wires to maximize
support and draining, their eventual use in pairs, and the late appearance
of a two-sheet mould for smaller formats. A sparse iconography records
improvements to the bridge where the hands of vatman and coucher
met, the heating of the pulp to ease its draining, and attempts to refill
and stir the vat without interrupting work. Mechanical rag cutting, trip
hammers, glazing rolls, and friction calenders accelerated the first and
last stages of paper making, while alum helped to control sizing. The
shape and number of stampers, their mallets, and their metal-studded
heads had frequently been amended before the arrival of the hollander.
This Dutch invention eliminated the retting stage and shortened pulping
time, but enhanced the skills of the beaterman. The introduction of
steam drying, hydraulic presses, iron water wheels, vat agitators, and the
bleaching of rags attest to the continuing pursuit of efficiency just before
19 Rosenband, ‘Work and management’; Desmarest, ‘L’art de fabriquer le papier’, p. 511. Examples
of regional ‘negotiations’ appear in Delaˆge, Moulins a papier d’Angoumois, pp. 97-9, and on the 1688
`
ruling for the Auvergne (AD Puy-de-Doˆme, 1C 485).
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manufacturing quality in the pre-industrial age
499
the paper machine recast the craft.20 The productivity gains related to
these initiatives could only magnify tensions around the crucial tasks that
remained entirely dependent on human skills. The resulting imperfections
have left numerous traces.
II
Once experience had alleviated initial fears about the fragility of paper,
consumers learned to look for a thickness and opacity appropriate to
intended use; resistance to tears, scratches, and folding; whiteness, or a
bluish or creamy tint; the absence of foreign particles, stains or discolour-
ation, air bubbles or water drops, ripples, fingerprints, holes or stretch
marks; uniformity of grain (of a size suited to intended use); appropriate-
ness of sizing; fulness of sheet and clean edges; and uniformity of these
characteristics within and between batches, particularly for paper destined
to be bound in volumes. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries witnessed
considerable improvements in all these areas, reflecting the maturation
of the methods pioneered in Italy which were well suited to European
resources. The record of the following two centuries is, in contrast, most
often seen as one of erosion of quality, generally attributed to the
multiplication of mills fostered partly by the printing industry. The wealth
of evidence available for the eighteenth century reveals an intermediate
position, where both good and bad papers abound.21
The correspondence of de Canson, a leading French manufacturer in
the early nineteenth century, registered the incessant complaints of his
customers. Printers, in particular, denounced the lack of consistency of
his shipments. His predecessors, the Montgolfiers, had rarely argued with
customers voicing similar charges, tacitly acknowledging the reality of the
problem by readily granting them a rebate. An educated comparison was
made in the second half of the nineteenth century by a manufacturer
turned historian of the Angouleˆme paper industry. Lacroix observed that
early modern Angouleˆme paper—ranked among the best in France—was
less pure, less white, and had a rougher surface than even fairly common
sheets of his own mills. Early modern sales contracts from this same
region attest to the expectations of unsatisfactory deliveries held by all
parties. They included a sample sheet, the name of a colleague to act as
arbiter in disputes, and a scale of the discounts to be granted. In spite
20 There are mentions of innovations in Hills, Papermaking in Britain, pp. 56-9, 61-2, 66-8; Hunter,
Papermaking, pp. 177, 186; Thomson, Paper industry in Scotland, pp. 37, 43-5, 50-1; de la Lande,
Art de faire le papier, pp. 27-40; Bibliothe`que nationale, Manuscrits franc¸ais 22188, fos. 311, 314-66.
21 See chart in Reevink, Old and rare, p. 24. Comments on quality are found in Desmarest, ‘L’art
de fabriquer le papier’, passim; de la Lande, Art de faire le papier, pp. 55-76; Hills, Papermaking in
Britain, pp. 6-7, 18-25; Hunter, Papermaking, pp. 194, 224-6, 457; Bower, Turner’s papers, p. 27;
Heller, Paper-making, pp. 103-11. The best-known exception to the downward trend that
accompanied expansion is that of Dutch paper, but other regional industries, including those of
Alsace, Genoa, and Angoumois, witnessed a renaissance.
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of such precautions, merchants ‘not infrequently’ refused a delivery of
paper because of its poor quality.22
The correspondence between a small Lyon paper retailer and his
suppliers offers a lively record of such disputes. Andre´ Charmette opened
his store in 1726 and received paper from several regional mills during
the following two decades. While courteous, the exchanges with his
suppliers leave no doubt as to the irritants of this trade. Although such
letters may overstate the difficulties arising between a supplier and a
customer, perhaps in the context of a pricing argument, the explanations
offered by paper makers lend credibility to Charmette’s reproaches.23
Suppliers could rarely deliver on time the type and amount of paper
ordered. They frequently substituted one type of paper for another, and
yet, upon arrival, the reams were most often found wanting.24 A similar
if shorter record of dissatisfaction is found among the papers of Joannin,
a Lyon merchant selling on commission for many paper makers. Of note,
among strongly worded reprimands from his clients, are denunciations
of disparities between samples and deliveries. One customer took advan-
tage of a shipping mistake to compare his purchase unfavourably with
that of a local rival. Barely a month later, however, the latter also rejected
much of the very same (redirected) delivery!25
Similar quarrels occurred between celebrated producers and some of
their important clients. After having sent samples to the offices of the
Montpellier intendant (the king’s representative in the Languedoc), the
brother of an Annonay supplier of Charmette, Jean Johannot, received
an order for 26 reams of his best paper. Upon delivery, it was judged
to be so much below expectations that the intendant himself penned
his displeasure. A generation later, the same family anticipated similar
disappointments. When Mathieu Johannot planned to have Arnoult, a
22 Andre´, ‘La papeterie en France’, p. 22; Reynaud, Les moulins a papier d’Annonay, p. 200;
`
Lacroix, Historique de la papeterie d’Angouleˆme, p. 29; Delaˆge, Moulins a papier d’Angoumois, pp. 22-9.
`
23 AD Rhoˆne, ‘fonds de la Conservation des Foires de Lyon’, ‘papiers Charmette’, 1726-44 (se´rie
8B; henceforth papiers Charmette); 145 letters to and from mills. Not counted here are direct pleas
for better prices not accompanied by references to specific product shortcomings.
24 AD Rhoˆne, papiers Charmette. The letters (arranged in three categories) in which such problems
are denounced are dated: Quality problems 31 May 1726, 20 Sept. 1726, 10 June 1727, 31 Aug.
1728, 19 Nov. 1728, 29 March 1729, 7 Oct. 1730, 20 Oct. 1730, 10 Nov. 1730, 9 Dec. 1732, 3
Feb. 1733, 4 Feb. 1733, 8 May 1734, 11 May 1734, 30 March 1735, 2 Sept. 1735, 29 Jan. 1736,
23 Sept. 1736, 13 June 1738, 17 June 1738, 24 June 1738, 27 July 1738, 1 Sept. 1738, 29 Oct.
1738, 14 Dec. 1739. Delays and incomplete deliveries: 2 July 1726, 15 July 1726, 10 Aug. 1727,
4 Jan. 1728, 29 Feb. 1728, 9 Jan. 1729, 7 April 1731, 9 Jan. 1733, 7 May 1733, 20 June 1733,
1 Aug. 1733, 2 Aug. 1733, 21 Aug. 1733, 28 April 1737, 25 March 1738, 2 May 1738, 20 May
1738, 4 June 1738, 13 June 1738, 14 Dec. 1739, 17 Jan. 1740, 25 March 1740, 16 Sept. 1740, 5
July 1742, 21 Aug. 1742, 6 Feb. 1743, 15 April 1744. Substitutions (announced or unexpected):
13 Aug. 1726, 8 Feb. 1728, 30 Nov. 1728, 9 Jan. 1729, 18 Nov. 1732, 26 Aug. 1736, 2 Sept.
1736, 30 Sept. 1736, 8 Sept. 1737, 17 Sept. 1737, 14, 16, and 28 Feb. 1738, 2 May 1738, 17
June 1738, 6 July 1738, 22 July 1738, 4 Jan. 1739.
25 AD Rhoˆne, ‘fonds de la Conservation des Foires de Lyon’, ‘papiers Joannin’, 8 B 971, letters
dated 9 June 1779, 16 Feb. 1780, 22 Feb. 1780, 23 Feb. 1780, 24 Feb. 1780, Feb. 1780, 21
March 1780, 3 May 1780, 5 May 1780, 17 May 1780, June 1780, 19 July 1780, 16 Aug. 1780,
22 Oct. 1780, 23 Oct. 1780, 7 Dec. 1780, 24 Dec. 1780, 13 April 1781, 26 May, 1781, 18 July
1781, 25 Jan. 1782, 29 Jan. 1782, 7 May 1782. See also the papers of Genevet, also a paper seller
at Lyon (AD Rhoˆne, ‘fonds de la Conservation des Foires de Lyon’, ‘papiers Genevet’, 8 B 919,
letters dated 2 July and 20 Nov. 1778).
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manufacturing quality in the pre-industrial age
501
Paris merchant, act as his main wholesaler in the capital, the contract
obliged him to receive all paper rejected by the region’s buyers. He was
to try to sell it in the best possible fashion.26 A final confirmation of
dissatisfaction is found in Darnton’s probe of The business of Enlightenment.
The publication of the third edition of the Encyclopedie (1777-81) entailed
´
strict quality and timetable standards. Delays multiplied and the printer,
the Socie´te´ Typographique de Neuchaˆtel (STN), ‘almost systematically’
asked for a discount upon receipt of a shipment, citing its disappointment
at the quality of the paper. The STN was justifiably worried since
subscribers rarely found that the volumes matched the advertising sampl-
es.27
Much of this evidence speaks, admittedly, of the tenacity with which
paper buyers tried to secure a better deal from their suppliers. Yet, in
their answers, paper makers never denied the presence in their shipments
of below-grade paper. Instead, they tried to justify it through references
to difficulties beyond their control, or argue that their treatment of the
customer in question did not fall below that accorded to other clients (a
significantly indirect way of claiming that the lot in question fitted
within customary standards, suggesting a reluctance even to consider
such material standards). Quality fluctuations and price challenges are
naturally not mutually exclusive and in a pre-industrial context the former
will regularly sustain the latter, possibly to the point of customary hag-
gling. In paper making, as in many other industries, these endless dis-
cussions also called for a precise, original, and picturesque vocabulary.
Paper makers were well aware of the uncertain results of their methods.
That is why they granted to those who sorted the finished sheets in
several categories as much time to examine each sheet as had been taken
to form or couch it.28 The records of the Montgolfiers offer still more
direct evidence. As they embarked on the modernization drive that
brought them national attention, they set aside one of their six vats to
record its expenses and output, as well as the proportion of paper deemed
below grade.29 Sheets that had to be re-beaten (casse´ or broken) were
weighed and, for accounting purposes, allocated a price comparable to
that of rags ready for the stampers. Sheets deemed inferieures were to be
´
sold at 30 per cent discount. Finally, moitiees were discounted more
´
heavily than inferior paper but less than broken sheets. In their summary
of the 1779-80 campaigns, the Montgolfiers acknowledged that an average
daily production of eight reams, including two unsatisfactory reams, met
the team’s obligations.
Less than 100 miles from Annonay, another paper maker engaged in
26 AD He´rault, C 2674: 22 June 1743, 18 March 1744, 26 July 1744; Creveaux, ‘Evolution de
l’industrie papetie`re’, pp. 290-3. In an earlier letter, Johannot himself acknowledged that some of
the samples he had sent to Paris were ‘peu unis’, others ‘rusty’, etc.
27 Darnton, Business of Enlightenment, pp. 185-96.
28 De la Lande, Art de faire le papier, pp. 75-7.
29 See two comments, dated 31 July 1780, titled ‘compte mensuel’ and ‘compte de la depense de
´
Nizier . . . depuis le 17 mars dernier jusqu’a ce jour’, Archives nationales (AN) 131 MI 53 AQ, 102.
`
A copy of this document was generously supplied by Dr L. N. Rosenband.
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a related exercise. In 1784, Jacques Berger started to record his impression
of the paper sent to his warehouse by Claude Arthaud, tenant of his La
Chatte mill in Thiers. Upon reception of these reams, Berger made a
note of the need to discount some of them and penalize his tenant.
Among the 16,310 reams delivered in six years, over 2,400 reams were
deemed of questionable weight, while some 2,000 reams exhibited signs
of poor sizing, poor beating, and so on. Over 20 per cent of this
production was earmarked for a potential discount because of one or
both types of problems, by an admittedly inquisitive receiver.30 Again, it
may be noted that the growing irritation felt by Berger at the work of
his tenant did not lead him to terminate this lease. Here, there is a
degree of acceptance of uneven production similar to that exhibited by
paper makers in the face of recriminations by the buyers of paper (both
to be corrected by financial adjustments). Finally, to this evidence may
be added the testimony of the last generation of traditional paper makers
of the Auvergne who, early in the twentieth century, regularly discarded
one-fifth of their output.31 How did paper makers face this substantial
challenge?
III
To reduce the percentage of discounted and wasted sheets, paper makers
could follow several strategies. They could first supply their teams with
better working conditions and materials. They knew the importance as
well as the costs of repairs and renovations to tools, machines, and
buildings, clean and well-sorted rags, proper lighting, a clean mill, draught
control in the drying lofts, pure water for the vat, quality size, clean felts,
and even good food for their staff. Paper makers could also select and
train their workers carefully, monitor their work attentively, and stimulate
them by means of an appropriate compensation package. The state of
the labour market in a given area fixed the cost and effectiveness of such
efforts.32 Paper makers operating more than one vat also learned to create
a hierarchy, gathering their most skilled workers around a leading vat to
produce the better grades of paper with some consistency.33
Finally, paper makers could monitor the evolution of their trade in
search of technological solutions to their quality worries. For instance,
late in the eighteenth century, the bleaching of rags promised more
30 A further 408 reams marked as imperfect ‘in part’ without further qualification have been
omitted from this count. Arthaud took over the mill late in 1782, and Berger started recording such
evidence in April 1784 (no such record is found for the previous tenant, 1767-82); Arthaud was
still at work early in 1789 when the surviving account book ends (AD Puy-de-Doˆme, 3 J 42).
31 Dravaine, ‘Les moulins a` papier d’Ambert’, p. 82.
32 In France, wages (and piece-rate compensation for overtime) appear to have been carefully
calibrated and higher than in many other occupations: AN 131 MI 53 AQ, 102, 31 July 1780;
Reynaud, Les moulins a papier d’Annonay, ch. 3; Rosenband, ‘Work and management’.
`
33 Such a strategy is most evident among the vats of the Montgolfiers late in the eighteenth
century, but is also seen in smaller enterprises: Rosenband, ‘Work and management’, ch. 5; Audebert,
‘Conditions ouvrie`re’, p. 23; Isnard, ‘Les papeteries de Provence’, pp. 53-4; Onfroy, Histoire des
papeteries a` la cuve; Saint Eloy, ‘Vie et mort d’une industrie nivernaise,’ p. 347.
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uniform sheets, just as the hollander had slowly offered a finer pulp.
However, no radical technological answer to the problem of quality
emerged until the paper machine was fully operational, at a date well
into the nineteenth century. Naturally, the paper machine took a long
time to become a reliable producer. However, it opened the way to such
a vast range of incremental improvements to both speed and quality of
production that it changed the nature of the problem. In their quest for
quality and speed, the owners of a paper machine focussed on design
modifications or adjustments to its settings. Slowly, the most demanding
markets came within their reach.34
In contrast, pre-machine producers faced a more rigid limit set by the
skills of their key workers. Although human talents are presumably
infinitely capable of improvement, within a given set of circumstances
ranging from the level of their investment to the characteristics of their
labour pool, a point came where paper makers could only increase the
speed of their production at the expense of its quality and vice versa.
And what paper makers judged to be an optimal combination of speed
and care delivered a sizable and irreducible burden of ‘below-grade’
paper. The profitability of their mills depended on their ability to find
value in this stack of imperfect paper accumulating beside their sorting
tables. To that end, they multiplied the categories of paper they sold.
Most evident is the great range of formats produced in early modern
paper mills. The attempt made in 1739-41 to standardize output in
France officially recognized 57 formats differing in weight and size.
Exceptions to this standard were numerous, while the dimensions of
exported paper as well as of most small and rough sheets remained
undefined.35 Paper makers could further segment their output by increas-
ing the number of grades they offered. While many smaller mills dis-
tinguished only between fine, medium, and wrapping grades of paper, the
Montgolfiers made six different qualities (formats and grades combined, in
this case, to offer some 90 product lines). The better mills of the
Auvergne and Dauphine´, as well as those of Arches in the Vosges, chosen
by Beaumarchais for his fine edition of Voltaire’s work, distinguished up
to seven classes of paper.36 Further distinctions were based on the degree,
or even absence, of sizing, blueing, polishing, trimming, and so on.
In itself, this diversity could not answer the quality concerns of paper
makers, since each production run yielded its percentage of imperfect
sheets. None the less, short batches were less revealing of the unreliability
of hand production methods than large lots, because they limited buyers’
expectations of the number of identical items. Moreover, the multiplicity
of products invited a careful definition of users’ needs and, if possible,
34 Andre´, ‘La papeterie en France’, passim, and in particular chs. 1 and 6, 2nd part, and ch. 1,
3rd part; McGaw, Most wonderful machine, pp. 98-100.
35 De la Lande, Art de faire le papier, pp. 89-102. Some paper makers went to the trouble of
asking for an exemption from the 1739-41 formats: AD Puy-de-Doˆme, 1 C 500, 505, 511; although
many did not: Desmarest, ‘L’art de fabriquer le papier’, p. 548.
36 Reynaud, Les moulins a papier d’Annonay, p. 241; Onfroy, Histoire des papeteries a la cuve, p. 23;
`
`
Desmarest, ‘L’art de fabriquer le papier’, pp. 483-4.
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the substitution of one type of paper for another. In a mechanized
environment, long production runs deliver a small number of distinct
product lines. In each line, patrons expect large numbers of items to
meet specifications and answer their needs. Early modern paper mills,
however, delivered a vast array of papers of distinct formats, each in
limited quantities. In response, consumers defined their needs narrowly
and searched for lesser quantities of the matching product among a
greater diversity of offerings. The process is readily identifiable in the
case of printers. Whereas modern printers will print large numbers of
many different books on paper produced to reliable standards in endless
lots, their early modern counterparts printed each text on a short batch
of paper (a practice naturally suited to the diminutive runs of pre-
industrial publishing). In effect, the diversification of marketed products
transferred some of the ‘quality burden’ on to customers who had to
define their needs more precisely and shop more attentively than their
modern counterparts.
Paper makers also had to choose the degree to which they would
eliminate blemished sheets from their shipments. Mid-eighteenth-century
French commercial standards considered marketable a ream that included
eight quires of paper free of defect, eight of ‘re-trie’ paper (lightly
´
blemished), and four quires of chantonne paper (more seriously defective,
´
and put on the outside to protect the ream). Customers could expect as
little as 40 per cent of a shipment to be of first grade, although this
sorting process naturally varied according to the client. Many paper
makers failed to match this goal, and even this rather lax standard
imposed the rejection of many sheets, which would be cut and further
sorted. If half a sheet could be salvaged, it was used for writing pads.
Smaller sections became papier a poulet, little note-pads. Yet rougher
`
sheets could go to grocers for wrapping small orders. Finally, after all
efforts had been made to find a use for imperfect sheets, even the better
mills still had to reject one-tenth of the paper reaching their sorting
tables. Part of this contingent found its way to the cartonniers who
pasted remnants into various sorts of cardboard, but most of it awaited
re-pulping.37
Decisions regarding formats, grades, and sorting were partly undertaken
within a collective frame, for instance that of the officially sanctioned
French standards or local customs. Consequently, such segmentation of
output may be seen as a normative, often region-wide effort to serve
markets that were growing in size and diversity. However, paper makers
remained free to modulate these efforts and thereby distinguish their
production from that of their competitors. The reputation of mill owners
37 De la Lande, Art de faire le papier, pp. 78, 84; Desmarest, ‘L’art de fabriquer le papier’, p. 524.
The Montgolfier record analysed above shows close to 1 tonne of casses after the making of about
´
1,000 reams (some 10 tonnes). Buges stored 17,000 lbs. of rejected output (casses de vente, casses
´
´
de refonte, paper trims, and unusable pasteboard) next to some 100,000 lbs. of ready-to-ship paper:
Gerbaux, ‘La papeterie de Buges’. For stocks of casse at smaller mills see AD Puy-de-Doˆme,
´
inventory C. Sauvade, B AM 86, 6 and 7 Nov. 1756 (400 lbs.); inventory C. Chapon, notary
Journet, 14 Jan. 1772 (540 lbs.) (recycled pulp delivered less than white paper).
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would have been closely linked to their willingness to divide their pro-
duction finely and design their marketing strategies accordingly.38 No
direct comment on the question has survived, but inventories of ready-
to-ship paper at various mills suggest a proportionality between the range
of product lines and the size and renown of enterprises. Small or medium-
sized mills in Ambert often had between eight and 15 distinct product
lines in stock at the time of inventories. The slightly more important mill
of la Combe-basse, also in Ambert, was equipped with 26 sets of moulds,
suggesting a more varied output. A comparable mill in the Beaujolais
(Ardillats) held 18 distinct types of paper and several piles of ‘varied
paper’ upon the death of its owner. The very large mill of Buges stocked
44 distinct product lines.39 Production records uphold the trend. From
1767 to 1789, the tenants of J. Berger delivered 47 types of paper. A
century earlier, the Colombier brothers of Ambert, owners of a much
larger operation, shipped over 4,300 reams of 36 different types of paper
in one season.40
Enhanced by the use of proprietary watermarks, the heterogeneity of
the paper leaving early modern mills was naturally reflected in the large
and carefully itemized stocks of paper sellers, who could not expect easily
to re-order paper that would match a depleted line. The 1732 inventory
of Antoine Flachon, a Lyon paper seller, counted 554 reams of paper,
valued at over 3,600 lt. and comprising 49 types of paper. His clients
obviously appreciated the choice: between August 1778 and October
1779, Ducrest, a grocer for whom paper was a minor item, purchased
nine sorts of paper in 13 small orders (amounting to only 197 lt.). More
than a generation later, 69 qualities of paper made up the 808 reams
(valued at over 5,200 lt.) found in the storerooms of Joannin, a Lyon
paper merchant mentioned above. A nearby confrere, Genevet, deployed
`
a similar strategy. Between June 1778 and January 1779, he ordered 200
reams of 36 distinct types of paper, at a total value of 1,421 lt. Not
surprisingly, an advertisement for his store, like many others, consisted
simply of an impressively long list of types of paper and related objects
offered ‘at the right price’.41 Consumers entering these shops expected a
vast array of papers of differing quality rather than a limited range of
perfect sheets. Printers held similar, if slightly more homogeneous, stocks
38 In the Saint-Etienne armament industry, higher standards translated directly into higher rejection
rates: Alder, Engineering the revolution, p. 200.
39 The small or medium-sized Ambert mills inventoried are: Lagat-le-haut (C. Be´gon, 193 reams,
8 categories of paper), Crottes and Escalon (C. Sauvade, 617 reams, 11 categories), la Boule and
Tranchecotie´ (P. Favier, 172 reams, 9 categories), Boule-basse (C. Be´gon, distinct from previous of
same name, over 200 reams, 8 categories), Fre´die`re-basse (P. Artaud, 800 reams, 8 categories) (AD
Puy-de-Doˆme: notary J. Gladel, 27 Feb. 1719; notary B Collangette, 16 Sept. 1726, and 12 May
1727; notary E. Maignet, 24 Dec. 1761; notary P. Mathias, 10 April 1767; notary A. Journet, 19,
21 May and 10, 12 June 1779). Inventories of la Combe-basse, AD Puy-de-Doˆme, B AM 86, 6
and 7 Nov. 1756; les Ardillats (AD Rhoˆne, 4B202, 5 Sept. 1788); Buges (Gerbaux, ‘La papeterie
de Buges’, pp. 25-83).
40 AD Puy-de-Doˆme, 3 J 42; AD Puy-de-Doˆme, 2E518, 8 April 1687 to 7 Feb. 1688.
41 AD Rhoˆne: inventory A. Flachon, BP 2127, 16 March 1732; ‘Papiers Joannin’, 8 B 971:
inventory Joannin, 19 June 1779; purchases by Ducrest, 14 Aug. 1778; ‘Papiers Genevel’, 8 B 919,
‘livre d’achats, commenc¸e´ le 4-6-1778’ and advertisement.
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of paper. J. J. Vatard, for instance, had some 910 reams of 22 types at
his disposal in 1777. Almost a century earlier, 457 reams in 10 qualities
awaited the presses of the Paris Imprimerie royale.42
Sales records and inventories disclose one or more of several identifying
parameters, but rarely all of them: the name of the paper and its grade,
the name of the producer, the number of reams, their price and weight,
the weight of the shipment, and, occasionally, further qualifiers relative
to a derivative format (such as double) or the degree of sizing, colouring,
and so on. Yet, the fact that several of these parameters are usually
missing, the disputes that accompany paper transactions, and frequent
price variations between nominally identical reams, suggest that this
nomenclature hides the true diversity of most lots. For instance, the
actual weight of each ream (as opposed to a formal figure drawn from
official schedules) is rarely available, and mentions of below-grade reams
are altogether scarce. Such records do not reveal the full extent of the
knowledge necessary for this trade. Paper buyers would have known how
the features of a given type of paper varied from mill to mill, and how
shipments from the same mill could vary over time. Paper makers would
have sent paper nominally identical, yet of different calibre, to fashionable
Parisian stationery retailers and their provincial or colonial colleagues.
Similarly, a printer may have kept a slightly defective but cheap lot of
paper for the rushed production of a controversial pamphlet likely to
circulate clandestinely. The fine distinctions inherent in this professional
knowledge are visible in the particularly detailed shipping records of a
French mill.
IV
The shipping log of the paper mill at Arcier (Doubs) shows that the
making of a large batch of paper was accompanied by the production of
several secondary lots of slightly different paper. In effect, the irreducible
uncertainties of accelerated hand production added several smaller ‘echos’
to each principal call for production. In the middle of the eighteenth
century, this medium-sized mill came to be owned by two paper
sellers/printers from nearby Besancon. Tensions between the two families
¸
led to the precise recording of the features of the output, shipped directly
to the owners’ warehouses from 1743 to 1757. This allowed for a detailed
analysis of the structure of production and sorting (archival references
are listed in the appendix).
The first evidence of the packaging of imperfect sheets comes from
entries of reams labelled ‘retrie’, ‘de rebut’, and ‘de reste’. A lease signed
´
in 1740 explicitly permitted such shipments of remnants. It also suggested
a second way of disposing of flawed paper through the bundling of some
‘reams small’ alongside shipments of ‘reams large’. The latter contained
42 AD Rhoˆne: inventory J.-J. Vatar, BP 2266, 10 July 1777 (value: 6,130 lt.). Inventory of the
Imprimerie royale (457 reams, 10 distinct qualities), Bibliothe`que nationale, Nouvelles acquisitions
franc¸aises 2611, 15 Feb. 1691.
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manufacturing quality in the pre-industrial age
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sheets meeting the order’s specifications and the former partially blem-
ished sheets trimmed to yield smaller paper. Throughout the period,
various types of paper left the mill in a large quantity of ‘rames grandes’
and a smaller number of ‘rames petites’. For instance, on 1 April 1744,
the owners received 499 lbs. of grand raisin in 18 ‘reams large’ and two
‘reams small’; months later, 747 lbs. of batard lisse´ came in 14 reams
large and three reams small, and so on.
A third category of shipments testifies to the careful selection that
followed production. Over time, most of the reams of a given type of
paper were shipped at a weight per ream close to the official standard
weight. Over the same period, the remaining paper of the same type was
shipped in reams of various and distinct, although not unrelated, weight.
Thus, while 29 deliveries of couronne were recorded at 12 lbs./ream (the
prescribed weight), the owners also received, at intervals, 16 batches of
the same paper weighing between 10 and 14 lbs./ream. The random
assembling of several scores of reams for a shipment would have yielded
an average weight close to 12 lbs./ream, and regulations did not call for
such distinctions since they tolerated deviations from the standard of 10
to 20 per cent. Yet, this mill chose to sort its production and ship lighter
and heavier reams as separate lots for all its main products. Table A1
distinguishes ‘core’ from ‘secondary’ shipments for eight products adding
up to 95 per cent of the mill’s production between 1743 and 1757.
This sketch of the output of a paper mill calls for some immediate
remarks. Admittedly, it could be that secondary batches were made
intentionally to a format different from that of most reams of the same
name, and there is no evidence of the owners’ intentions to sell them
separately. However, several arguments may be advanced to support this
interpretation. First, it is known that the tenants were aware of standard
weights for each category of paper, and that these weights were spelled
out in their lease. Second, it appears that secondary lots are consistently
smaller than their core counterparts, even when the paper does not fit
official measurements and could thus have been manufactured according
to demand (such as in the cases of croix de malte or these). Had these
`
reams been the product of special orders, at least some of them would
be expected to appear in substantial quantities. Third, it is also unlikely
that these secondary batches could have been made expressly at a weight
differing by only a small margin from the usual figure. Fourth, it appears
that not all products were sorted to the same extent. The proportion of
output shipped at the core weight varies from 65 to 99 per cent (see
table A1). Since there is no reason to believe that papers such as
catechisme or heures could be manufactured in more uniform batches than
´
a comparable couronne, it has to be assumed that their intended uses did
not demand as rigorous a sorting. Finally, it must be noted that the
categories discussed here are not consistently related to other dis-
tinguishing characters, such as polishing, sizing, or pulp grade.
Overall, the structure of the output of Arcier suggests the following
practice. Paper was manufactured according to prescribed or traditional
measurements. The weights of the sheets were distributed around the
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target weight in a pattern dependent on the skills of the team at work
and the pace of work. A fine process of sorting assembled a large core
of reams close to the standard weight for the type of paper under
consideration as well as several, smaller, secondary lots of reams of
different weights, different sizes, and sheets sufficiently damaged to
deserve the label of remnants. This selection defined the homogeneity of
the reams.
V
To position themselves in the market place, paper makers could modulate
their investments in mills, raw materials, and labour. Beyond that, they
could vary the format and grade of their paper, as well as the degree of
several secondary preparations. Finally, sorting eliminated the worst sheets
and ordered the remaining diversity to suit a fragmented market. The
technical and economic determinants of the quality of early modern paper
were complemented by a social process designed to meet customers’
expectations through the creation of layers of forms and qualities intended
to profit from the hierarchical, corporative, and occupational divisions of
early modern society.43 The resulting product lines were shaped by
technical constraints as well as the understanding paper makers had of
the market place, in an admittedly indeterminate proportion, since it is
unlikely now to be possible to distinguish reams made to particular
specifications from others assembled through the sorting of a larger
output.44 However, it is possible to say that, as the speed at which skilled
hands worked increased, control over marketing categories shifted to the
post-production sorting tables.
Several costs and benefits are hidden in this process. The completion
of an order entailed expenses which exceeded the strict cost of the order
itself, since a sizable contingent of other papers were being produced at
the same time. These also had to be handled, stored, and marketed
separately. On the other hand, this added production may have attracted
a wider range of customers, a potential asset in an age of notoriously
slow payments, particularly on the part of large customers. An acceleration
of the rhythm of production before mechanization could only increase
the size and cost of these ‘side effects’. At the limit, they could deter
manufacturers from pursuing inordinately large orders of a single type of
paper if doubts surfaced regarding the marketing of ‘by-products’, as
seen in the discussion of the mills of Chamalie`res above. The eventually
more regular output of paper machines no doubt seemed both attractive
and disturbing. It slowly made possible a more targeted production, but
also called for new marketing strategies. Customers had to get used to
43 Among recent works on the social construction of technology, see Bijker, Of bicycles, bakelites,
and bulbs. The complexities of the social relations involved in the production and commercialization
of textiles have been explored by Roche, Culture des apparences.
44 It is known, for instance, that a variation in the weight of a ream of ‘batard moyen’ of less
than 20% changed its destined use from music paper to plain writing paper, but no record mentions
the origin of each such ream: Rosenband, ‘Work and management’, p. 27.
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narrower selections and paper makers needed to become accustomed to
the risks associated with larger orders. Until then, batch production
remained less a strategy than a managed response to the unavoidable
fragmentation of output and markets, and specialization more of a
compromise between markets and technology than a sweeping imperative.
The diversity of the output of early modern paper mills can easily be
linked to comparable evidence in other manufacturing contexts. An almost
transparent comment on the matter came in an attack against the grant
in the mid-eighteenth century of a monopoly to a silk manufacturer of
Le Puy-en-Velay, in central France. At a time when the monopolies
traditionally bestowed by the French Crown were starting to be contested,
a slighted competitor demonstrated that the shortage of the type of silk
for which the privilege was being granted could not be used as a valid
`
justification, when in fact overproduction in several other categories
accompanied this illusory need. He called attention to the ‘annual sacri-
fices’ of certain types of merchandise (inferior, blemished, or simply not
wanted) that manufacturers were forced to concede. This secondary trade
constituted a large part of the commerce conducted by Jews in southern
France, and yet consumption never absorbed the diversity of fabrics
offered by manufacturers. Fashion, he acknowledged, was undoubtedly
to blame for such problems, but the unavoidable range of silk products
precluded any hope of satisfying this fickle market through the licensing
of further manufacturers. Ad hoc importation licences were, to his mind,
a better way to answer occasional extra demand.45 Variations in quality
may also explain many of the price differences between nominally identical
products of the same maker, noted, for instance, in the wares of seven-
teenth-century English chapmen or in the Lyon silk trade. Similarly, a
substantial proportion of the ‘babylonic variety of types and models’ put
out by the Solingen cutlery industry may have been selected through a
post-production sorting process rather than created through intentional
design changes.46
Eighteenth-century observers were aware of the unreliability of the
production methods surrounding them. A mid-eighteenth-century report
on French metal working and, in particular, knife making, stressed the
lack of rigour of the processes in use and their unpredictable results.
Most erratic were tempering and welding techniques, but many mechan-
ical trades would long remain similarly unregulated. On record are
denunciations of the costly irregularities in the weight and size of silver
and gold thread, as well as the rapid divergence of specifications of
Jacquard looms when their design came into the public domain. Tem-
plates and jigs could, to a certain extent, remedy such problems, parti-
cularly in the case of products that could quickly be adjusted, for instance,
through filing or sanding. However, many items could not be modified
45 Archives municipales de Lyon (henceforth AM Lyon), HH 213, file ‘Manufacture de soie au
Puy-en-Velay’, datable from the establishment of a ‘manufacture royale’ on 25 Sept. 1755.
46 Peyrot, ‘Les techniques du commerce des soies’; Spufford, Great reclothing; Boch, ‘Rise and
decline of flexible production’, p. 157.
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and not all parameters of quality could be put to the test of a jig. At
the aggregate level, the lack of regularity of the textile output of a whole
region, such as the Beaujolais, could be blamed for its loss of favour
among customers. Similarly, those who contested the worth of the inspecte-
urs des manufactures argued that the immense variability of manufactured
goods made a mockery of any attempt at gathering national data, one of
their important duties. Finally, a lack of control over iron-making tech-
niques is seen in the fact that the starting up of a new furnace resulted
in the production of what was, in effect, a ‘new’ product of partly
unexpected specifications.47
In turn, a greater regularity of output was often among the arguments
advanced by those proposing new machines or new manufacturing pro-
cesses. In most of the files submitted to the Lyon Acade´mie des Belles-
Lettres, Sciences et Arts, the regular movements of a machine were
contrasted with the lapses of even the most talented hands. The expected
gains could be even greater if the machine not only displaced some
workers but also simplified the tasks of those who remained: they could
now be asked to ‘measure’ their movements more regularly.48 Before
that, however, the diversity of output called for a multiplicity of labels
of origin and quality to inform customers of the choices confronting
them. The interests of producers joined the wishes of consumers to
defend the production and selection standards that stood behind such
labels, and assistance from local or national authorities was sought to
buttress the norms. This type of market categorization has survived most
generally in the agricultural, pastoral, and viticultural sectors where con-
trol of the characteristics of output remains poor, but similar structures
existed in all fields.49 The most frequently encountered is that which
differentiated hundreds of types of textiles, transforming the names of
regions and localities into common nouns of wide currency. Over time,
long associations between quality and regional appellations contributed
to the perpetuation of an industry in a given location by giving producers
of established regions a virtual geographical rent. Finally, it is possible
to suggest that the reputation for low quality of producers of certain
areas may reflect a will or the necessity to tap less differentiated markets.
Less precise sorting of output, rather than lack of skills and resources,
may have guided some producers towards the lower but broader strata
of consumers.
The diversity of pre-industrial output called for a final selection process
largely based on a careful examination of the physical properties of each
product. This favoured the existence of a multitude of places of exchange
47 AM Lyon, 3 wp 062, correspondence March-Oct. 1841. Acade´mie des Belles-Lettres, Sciences
et Arts de Lyon (henceforth Acade´mie de Lyon), MS. 182, fos. 154-63, 181-8; MS. 189, fos. 110-
16 (7 Jan. 1782); MS. 110, fos. 36-43 (no date). Comments by M. Abeille, inspecteur des manufactures,
papers of the abbe Morellet, Bibliothe`que municipale de Lyon, MS. 2519. Gordon, American iron,
´
ch. 9.
48 Acade´mie de Lyon, MSS. 110 (fos. 13-14, 62-75, 132-7), 189 (fos. 72-7, 173-81). AD Rhoˆne,
9 M 43, ‘Inventions’, letter dated 20 Mar. 1812 from M. Vigneron: Andre´, ‘La papeterie en France’,
ch. 3. See also MacLeod, Inventing the industrial revolution, pp. 172, 177-8.
49 Bowbrick, Economics of quality, p. 91; Jeannin, ‘Distinction des compe´tences’, pp. 370-1.
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manufacturing quality in the pre-industrial age
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and the display of large stocks. The valuable stocks of Paris marchands-
merciers illustrate the second of these requirements. Their shops were
filled with small groups or series of items slightly different from one
another.50 In turn, the attention of potential buyers focussed on quality
rather than price. Price could emerge as the main determinant of the
quality/price ratio only when more homogeneous product lines made rapid
comparisons possible. This focus on physical evidence also contributed to
the continuity of practices and techniques over centuries: the familiar
features that promised established performances seemed to call for tra-
ditional methods of production. Innovative speculations were discouraged
by the fact that the attachment to precisely defined features did not foster
the emergence of ‘generic objects’.51 Real, or more readily imaginary,
generic objects are stripped of particularities and reduced to their essential
functions, a process that facilitates the investigation of their manufactur-
ing. Conversely, early modern objects remained strongly defined by their
unique features and the social reality of production and consumption
that they embodied. These parameters were often conveyed in the long
and detailed descriptions of products found in all writings concerned
with commercial exchanges. From the correspondence flowing between
administrators to the multitude of volumes that proposed to help mer-
chants, these compilations further spread the value of established names
and practices just as they helped to spread the temptations of con-
sumerism.52
Consumers’ attachment to a large selection of goods survived the
spread of mechanization, sustaining the endurance of hand methods of
production and contributing to the success of small-batch strategies. In
the nineteenth century, while the machine displaced the making of paper
by hand, many traditional mills found solace in the manufacture of a
great variety of ‘artist paper’. Until then, artists had easily found the
diversity of paper they desired among the stocks of many retailers. Less
talented customers could also shop for many types of ‘papiers de fantais-
ie’.53 At a time when the advances of large-scale, mechanized production
were becoming evident, the French bourgeoisie continued to include
diversity in their definition of quality, thereby seeking to affirm their
social and political ambitions and to distance themselves from popular,
as well as aristocratic, consumption patterns.54 They were also doing
what came naturally: social groups with a history of developed consump-
tion were used to variety and choice. The purchase of commodities had
long demanded a careful, but also a rather public, definition of one’s
needs and abilities.
50 Sargentson, Merchants and luxury markets, pp. 23-6, 50-4, 144. Marinie`re, ‘Les marchands
d’e´toffes de Toulouse’.
51 Reddy sees in the shift of attention from categories and forms to production processes the
makings of a ‘cultural crisis’ contemporary with the French Revolution, when industrialization had
barely left its mark on the French economy: Reddy, ‘Structure of a cultural crisis’.
52 Rabuzzi, ‘Eighteenth-century commercial mentalities’.
53 Bower, Turner’s papers. The 1870 inventory of a Lyon paper seller illustrates the attempts of
paper makers to find speciality market niches: AD Rhoˆne, 3 E 25075, J.-N. Barjon, 23 May 1870.
54 Walton, France at the Crystal Palace; Sargentson, Merchants and luxury markets.
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VI
When deployed on a large and rational scale and committed to high
throughput levels, early modern manufacturing methods could not
approximate to mass production in its singularity of purpose, nor could
they replicate the kind of care traditionally associated with craft pro-
duction. On the eve of industrialization, the uncertainties of hand tech-
niques under demanding schedules forged an inevitably layered output.
A substantial proportion of non-standard and defective items emerged
from the making of each batch of commodities. An acceleration of the
pace of work could only increase this residual proportion, and invest-
ments, incentives, and supervision could only lower it to a degree which
remained dependent on the pace of production. Beyond some optimal
combination of care and speed, paper makers resorted to careful sorting
to facilitate the match between a buyer’s expectations and a manufac-
turer’s offering.
In a context of material scarcity and inexpensive labour, craft pro-
duction underlined the hierarchical nature of society through its limited
production aimed at narrow, privileged groups. Quality was then equated
with the highest possible input of skills and selected materials, a process
generous in time and labour. Much later, in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries, and in many but not all streams of production, mechanization
helped to supply ever larger volumes of progressively cheaper goods. The
relentless division of labour characteristic of the period crept into the
very heart of the search for quality, which today operates at three distinct
levels. Production managers monitor the output of their plants, striving
for conformity with a given set of norms. Engineering offices design
production lines and machines for greater reliability. Finally, company
strategists position the products along various scales of durability,
reliability, aesthetic qualities, market expectations, and so on. Quality is
now a decidedly multi-faceted concept, guiding a series of decisions
aimed at matching in the best manner possible the requirements of a
segment of the market. Its language is, to a great extent, that of prob-
abilities.55
Early modern manufacturers could not so forcefully break open the
production process to separate its design from its actual operations. Their
continued reliance on a core of highly skilled workers vulnerable to
constraints of time and costs led them to a series of compromises between
speed and attention that delivered a range of products. They regained a
degree of control over their marketing strategies through the more or less
rigorous sorting of this output, in a pattern suited to their markets. In
so doing, they forged a transitional definition of quality which moved
55 The inspection procedures that were cultivated to monitor production and inform remedial
actions benefited from and drove some of the advances made during what has been called the
‘probabilistic revolution’. Calculations of probabilities are well suited to the complexity, the speed,
and the high output of modern production lines, in effect transforming uncertainty into manageable
figures that inform the work dedicated to the pursuit of quality: see, for instance, Juran, ed., History
of managing for quality, chs. 17, 18.
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manufacturing quality in the pre-industrial age
513
away from the linear pursuit of excellence that motivated their prede-
cessors, towards a relative understanding of the needs of diverse groups
of buyers. Thus, paper makers participated in a growing appreciation of
the range of eighteenth-century consumers and the value of product
diversification, a prerequisite to the eventual perception of the virtues of
mechanization.56 In this, and no doubt in many other comparable trades,
the very nature of the output supplied by manufacturing methods
designed several centuries earlier facilitated this understanding.
University of Western Ontario
56 Berg, ‘Product innovation’; Griffiths et al., ‘Inventive activity’.
APPENDIX I: Paper shipments from the Arcier paper mill in Doubs
(Source: Archives de´partmentales du Doubs, Justice consulaire de Besanc¸on, B. J. C., 15 B
1306-1320)
A change of tenant and mill repairs divide this record into three campaigns: autumn
1743 to winter 1750, autumn 1751 to summer 1753, and autumn 1755 to spring 1757.
From 1743 to 1757, Arcier produced just under 220,000 lbs. (local unit) of paper for
writing, printing, and several other uses (medium grades dominated this output). Some
215,000 lbs. of paper are accounted for here.
Shipments of reams labelled ‘remnants’
Croix de Malte 6 lots: 95 reams Ȱ 14 lbs./ream
Batard
plus
1 lot: 6 reams Ȱ 16.5 lbs./ream
3 lots not identified
Shipments of reams ‘large’ and reams ‘small’
Raisin
Batard
Couronne
8 lots: 128 reams large + 12 reams small (total weight: 2961 lbs.)
3 lots: 75 reams large + 12 reams small (total weight: 1258 lbs.)
2 lots: 93 reams large + 21 reams small (total weight: 1332 lbs.)
Table A1. The layering of production at Arcier
Type of paper
Batard
Core shipments
Secondary shipments
2 lots: 42 reams Ȱ 8.5-8.6 lbs./ream (‘en petit’)
3 lots: 134 reams Ȱ 13.5-13.7 lbs./ream
1 lot: 9 reams Ȱ 14.8 lbs./ream
33 lots:
1634 reams Ȱ 17 lbs./ream 3 lots: 180 reams Ȱ 16 lbs./ream
3 lots: 104 reams Ȱ 16.5-16.7 lbs./ream
(65% of batard output)
8 lots: 223 reams Ȱ 18-18.1 lbs./ream
2 lots: 54 reams Ȱ 20 lbs./ream
(lease: 18 and 22 lbs./ream) 1 lot: 70 reams Ȱ 20.3 lbs./ream
(standard: 11-12 lbs./ream) 1 lot: 29 reams Ȱ 21 lbs./ream
1 lot: 10 reams Ȱ 22.6 lbs./ream
1 lot: 4 reams Ȱ 24.8 lbs./ream
1 lot: 5 reams Ȱ 25 lbs./ream
8 lots: 63 reams Ȱ 32 lbs./ream
These
`
‘commune’: 17 lots:
983 reams Ȱ 30 lbs./ream
‘grande’: 3 lots:
1 lot: 3 reams Ȱ 33.3 lbs./ream
1 lot: 30 reams Ȱ 34.5 lbs./ream
44 reams Ȱ 34 lbs./ream
(86% of these output)
table continues overleaf
`
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Table A1. Continued
Type of paper
Croix de Malte
Core shipments
Secondary shipments
1 lot: 60 reams Ȱ 5.3 lbs./ream
1 lot: 109 reams Ȱ 6 lbs./ream
136 lots:
4,734 reams Ȱ 7 lbs./ream 3 lots: 297 reams Ȱ 6.5 lbs./ream
1,398 reams Ȱ 14 lbs./ream 4 lots: 477 reams Ȱ 6.7-6.8 lbs./ream
1 lot: 41 reams Ȱ 8.2 lbs./ream
(86% of croix de malte
1 lot: 27 reams Ȱ 9.4 lbs./ream
output)
1 lot: 9 reams Ȱ 12 lbs./ream
(lease: 13 lbs./ream and ‘a`
proportion’)
1 lot: 10 reams Ȱ 12.8 lbs./ream
2 lot: 113 reams Ȱ 13 lbs./ream
1 lot: 36 reams Ȱ 13.4 lbs./ream
1 lot: 6 reams Ȱ 13.5 lbs./ream
Missel
6 lots:
185 reams Ȱ 15 lbs./ream 1 lot: 26 reams Ȱ 14 lbs./ream
(66% of missel output)
(lease and standard: 14
lbs./ream)
1 lot: 67 reams Ȱ 14.6 lbs./ream
Couronne
1 lot: 17 reams Ȱ 10 lbs./ream
5 lots: 152 reams Ȱ 11 lbs./ream
29 lots:
1401 reams Ȱ 12 lbs./ream 2 lots: 110 reams Ȱ 11.5 lbs./ream
1 lot: 14 reams Ȱ 11.85 lbs./ream
(70% of couronne output)
1 lot: 55 reams Ȱ 12.4 lbs./ream
1 lot: 50 reams Ȱ 12.6 lbs./ream
(lease: 12 and 13 lbs./ream) 2 lots: 68 reams Ȱ 13 lbs./ream
(standard: 12 lbs./ream)
1 lot: 88 reams Ȱ 13.8 lbs./ream
2 lots: 15 reams Ȱ 14 lbs./ream
1 lot: 2 reams Ȱ 20 lbs./ream
1 lot: 3 reams Ȱ 22 lbs./ream
1 lot: 6 reams Ȱ 22.8 lbs./ream
Raisin
7 lots:
376 reams Ȱ 30 lbs./ream 1 lot: 30 reams Ȱ 25.3 lbs./ream
1 lot: 16 reams Ȱ 26.6 lbs./ream
(67% of raisin output)
2 lots: 23 reams Ȱ 27 lbs./ream
1 lot: 2 reams Ȱ 28 lbs./ream
(lease: 24 and 31 lbs./ream) 1 lot: 2 reams Ȱ 28.5 lbs./ream
(standard: 25 and 29
lbs./ream)
1 lot: 75 reams Ȱ 29 lbs./ream
1 lot: 2 reams Ȱ 32 lbs./ream
1 lot: 30 reams Ȱ 35 lbs./ream
1 lot: 45 reams Ȱ 9.6 lbs./ream
Catechisme
´
11 lots:
846 reams Ȱ 10 lbs./ream 1 lot: 44 reams Ȱ 10.2 lbs./ream
(91% of cate´chisme output)
(lease: 10 lbs./ream)
Heures
9 lots:
1 lot: 3 reams Ȱ 16 lbs./ream
860 reams Ȱ 15 lbs./ream
(99% of heures output)
(lease: 15 lbs./ream)
Note: The ‘Core shipments’ column records, in parentheses, the weight specified in the 1740 lease and the official
standard (both only partly respected). Also in parentheses in the same column is the percentage of total output
(weight) of a given type of paper shipped at standard weight.
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