ABSTRACT
This article aims to analyze the formal and historical congruence between, in one hand, the textile sector as a machine system (or large industry) in Brazil and the United States and Taylorism as a method of increasing productivity by intensifying work in the transition between the 19th and 20th centuries, in the other. In order to carry out the analysis, we differentiated manufacture and large industry (machine system), showing the most adherent productivity expansion methods. Methodologically the research was carried out by a qualitative historical study regarding the approach of the data collected for the period between 1842 and 1946. The central conclusion points to the low adherence between Taylorism and the textile sector as a large industry in which other predominant methods of expansion were developed productivity, such as the largest number of machines per worker, in the United States, and the extension of the working day, in Brazil. The main contribution points to the importance of the precise delimitation of Taylorism as a method of intensification and of concrete research by sector instead of an abstract conceptualization and abusive generalization.
Keywords:
Taylorism; Textile sector; Large industry; Productivity; Labor intensification