The MIT Spectroscopy Laboratory in the 1930s is a very interesting place where routine works of physics laboratory can be revealed and where the influence of the Great Depression on the day-to-day work of a laboratory can be examined.From 1932, Professor George Russell Harrison, the director of the Laboratory invented automatic machines to measure, record and sort spectrum lines that would eventually replace laborious, tedious and time-consuming human works. This automation increased the speed of measurement enormously and made possible the mass production of spectrum lines. With his invention, Harrison launched the wavelength table project in 1935. Securing support from the Works Progress Administration, he employed 140 unskilled WPA workers for the project. In 1939, the Spectroscopy Laboratory published the MIT Wavelength Tables.This paper will examine Harrison’s laboratory work by using an analogy between laboratory and factory. The analogy implicates the concept of automation, division and systematic organization of labor, product marketing, and managerial ideals. It is a good example to illustrate how American physicists struggled to prove its utility during the Great Depression when physics was blamed as “the science of death” causing economic difficulty and unemployment. Harrison’s laboratory created jobs for unemployed laborers and its product, the MIT Wavelength Tables, was targeted for practical workers in industrial laboratories. In short, his ‘factory of spectroscopy’ was directed to prove physics as “the science of life.”