Although he submitted it in December of 1791, Hamilton's Report on Manufactures had its origins much earlier in the administration. Like his two previous reports, it was written in response to an order of the House of Representatives. On January 15, 1790 the House had sought the secretary of the treasury's advice on “the subject of manufactures,” and “particularly” the “means of promoting such as” would “tend to render” America “independent on foreign nations for military and other essential supplies.” The House's order in turn followed upon Washington's January 8 speech to Congress, in which the president had observed that one of the best ways to preserve peace was to prepare for war, and that a free people should promote such “manufactories as would tend to “render them independent on others for essential” and “particularly for military supplies.” Hamilton took immediate steps to comply with the wishes of the House. As early as January 25 he prepared a letter seeking information on the current condition of manufacturing in the various states. Nevertheless, where the earlier reports on public credit and the bank had taken only a few months to complete, almost two years elapsed between the House's order and Hamilton's submission of the Report on Manufactures.

The amount of time it took Hamilton to produce the Report on Manufactures was perhaps due not only to his need to devise the earlier steps in his program and shepherd them through Congress but also to the sheer size of the report itself: it is more than twice as long as either the Report on Public Credit or the Report on a National Bank. Much of its bulk derives from its extensive account of the existing state of manufactures– which includes discussions of American facilities for producing iron, lead, copper, wood, skins, and other articles – as well as its detailed policy recommendations. Of greater interest for the present study, however, is the Report's general argument for special government support for manufacturing. Unlike the earlier reports, the policy proposals of which could more easily be presented as generally benefitting the American economy, here Hamilton had to make the case for government's special solicitude toward a particular sector of the economy. He had to show why steps to nurture this part would in fact benefit the whole.