One thing: Americans are culturally “jacks of all trades – and masters of none”. From the early days, when the farm family was expected to construct implements from what could be found or grown on the farm (homespun, wooden shovels, even homes) right down to the “do it yourself” movement that blossomed with the suburban life-styles of the 1950’s. This creates a society where expertise is viewed as something that can be “picked up along the way”.
The apprenticeship/craft system of Europe and Britain developed along different lines.
Second thing: This is a great cultural divide was between the craftsperson working to make a “master-piece” and the large-scale production that is necessary to provide objects for the greatest number of consumers.
From “Machines That Built America” by Roger Burlingame:
Writing about the “Great Exhibition in London 1851”:
"One of the officers looked at his catalog and read aloud a paragraph at the head of the American list.
‘This,’ he said, ‘is impressive.’
The expenditure of months or years of labour [ the statement read ] upon a single article, not to increase its intrinsic value, but solely to augment its cost or its estimation as a object of virtu, is not common in the United States. On the contrary, both manual and mechanical labour are applied with direct reference to increasing the number or the quantity of articles suited to the wants of the whole people, and adapted to promote the enjoyment of that moderate competency which prevails among them."
…‘I assume,’ said a captain 'that it means they are trying to manufacture enough for everybody."
