Today, we look back at the development of mass manufacturing from a historical perspective, there are entire museums dedicated to nothing but preserving and educating people about this technological transformation...and we still learn modern lessons from it every day.
For example, you can go to Harpers Ferry, WV and see a small museum with a working workshop that's capable of converting nothing more than raw materials and river power to guns.
To wit, an impressive amount of my career has been about nothing more than applying mass manufacturing techniques to previously bespoke work, and I'm proud to say that it has transformed the way some organizations approach certain classes of problems. And it's often nothing more than me coming into a workplace and saying "let's see if we can get this problem up-to-speed with the industrial revolution"
These manuals are not so much about how an individual can operate outdated equipment as that they capture how humans dealt with complex technical challenges over decades. In a hundred years, historians looking at the digital scans of this archive might find a "first of" known process or technology that turns into a later technological revolution that we might not even be aware that we're part of right now that could transform all of humanity.
Astonishing work and well done.