Editing Matthias Baldwin (section)

== Industrial Giant ==

Baldwin Locomotive Works' growth made it the world's largest locomotive manufacturer, its products running on railroads throughout North America and eventually on every continent. The company's willingness to customize designs for specific railroad requirements, rather than producing standardized products, created locomotives suited to the varying conditions American railroads faced. The catalog of designs the company accumulated, each refined through experience, provided options that customers could select and modify.<ref name="brown"/>

The Broad Street facility's expansion consumed block after block of central Philadelphia, its smokestacks and noise defining the neighborhood's industrial character. The thousands of workers the factory employed created the industrial workforce that labor organization would eventually mobilize. The skilled trades the work required—patternmaking, molding, machining, assembly—created the technical culture that Philadelphia manufacturing prized.<ref name="white"/>

His personal involvement continued throughout his life, his engineering judgment and business decisions shaping the company even as its scale exceeded what any individual could directly manage. His partnerships with talented engineers, and his willingness to delegate while maintaining oversight, created the management structure that the company's growth required. His death in 1866 left the company to partners who would continue its expansion for another century.<ref name="brown"/>