Factory (Civ6)/Civilopedia

The Industrial Revolution came upon civilization, and all those things once made by hand are soon made in factories… and in great quantities. The workshops, where master craftsmen proudly made things by hand, gave way to the assembly line and the mass production of standardized products. The Englishman Richard Arkwright is credited with creating the prototype for the modern factory; in 1769 he patented the “water frame,” a water-powered spinning device, and built Cromford Mill in Derbyshire. In the process, he replaced skilled workers (on spinning wheels) with unskilled migrants who could produce more yarn quicker (albeit of poorer quality); in effect, Arkwright made workers a replaceable commodity in his plant. Soon enough, others copied the formula, and it was applied to other industries as technology brought steam, and then electricity, to the workshops. The final step in the industrialization of the workplace: Henry Ford revolutionized factory production with the first assembly line in 1913, capable of producing a Model T Ford using interchangeable parts in 93 minutes.