Route 128 and the Birth of the Age of High Tech

Route 128 and the Birth of the Age of High Tech PDF Author: Alan R. Earls
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 9780738510767
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
From the invention of ether and the telephone in the nineteenth century to the birth of radar and the computer in the twentieth century, Greater Boston has been a hotbed for creating and nurturing new ideas. In the early years of the century, the ground was being sown for a new economy to supplant the slowly declining shoe and textile manufacturing industries that had long dominated the region. After World War II, Route 128, dubbed by critics "the road to nowhere," became the locus of this high-tech development. Although originally intended to ease gridlock and provide an avenue to recreational opportunities, by the late 1950s, Route 128 was dotted with industrial parks and new subdivisions. It was soon known as the Golden Crescent, in recognition of the prosperity it brought to the whole region. Route 128 and the Birth of the Age of High Tech tells the intertwining stories of the construction of the nation's first circumferential beltway and the burgeoning high-tech industries of Massachusetts, which helped spawn the modern age of personal computers, the Internet, and biotechnology.

Route 128 and the Birth of the Age of High Tech

Route 128 and the Birth of the Age of High Tech PDF Author: Alan R. Earls
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 9780738510767
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 132

Get Book Here

Book Description
From the invention of ether and the telephone in the nineteenth century to the birth of radar and the computer in the twentieth century, Greater Boston has been a hotbed for creating and nurturing new ideas. In the early years of the century, the ground was being sown for a new economy to supplant the slowly declining shoe and textile manufacturing industries that had long dominated the region. After World War II, Route 128, dubbed by critics "the road to nowhere," became the locus of this high-tech development. Although originally intended to ease gridlock and provide an avenue to recreational opportunities, by the late 1950s, Route 128 was dotted with industrial parks and new subdivisions. It was soon known as the Golden Crescent, in recognition of the prosperity it brought to the whole region. Route 128 and the Birth of the Age of High Tech tells the intertwining stories of the construction of the nation's first circumferential beltway and the burgeoning high-tech industries of Massachusetts, which helped spawn the modern age of personal computers, the Internet, and biotechnology.

The Yankee Road

The Yankee Road PDF Author: James D. McNiven
Publisher: Wheatmark, Inc.
ISBN: 1627871411
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 579

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Book Description


Boston Made

Boston Made PDF Author: Dr. Robert M. Krim
Publisher: Charlesbridge Publishing
ISBN: 1632892251
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 163

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Book Description
A fascinating look at how Boston became and remains a global center for innovation--told through 50 world-changing inventions. “Robert Krim is a long-time champion of the Boston area’s history of innovation, finding remarkable examples of ingenuity and creativity going back centuries and continuing today. He shows how a culture of innovation can make a small place a beacon of hope for the world, by developing the fresh ideas and useful discoveries that make a difference in every part of life.” —Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School professor and author of Think Outside the Building: How Advanced Leaders Can Change the World One Smart Innovation at a Time Since the 1600s, Boston has been at the forefront of world-changing innovation from starting the country's first public school to becoming the first state to end slavery and giving birth to the telephone. Boston was the site of the first organ transplant and more recent medical and biotech breakthroughs that have saved the lives of thousands. That's not to mention pioneering advances in everything from rockets to robotics. In total, Boston-area inventors have contributed more than four hundred stand-out social, scientific, and commercial innovations and uncounted numbers that are less well known. Boston Made tells the absorbing stories of 50 of these - and why they are no accident. In fact, fresh waves of innovation have brought the city back from four major economic collapses. Dr. Robert Krim lays out a set of "innovation drivers," including strong entrepreneurship, local funding, and networking. From boom to decline and back to boom, Boston has maintained an ability to reinvent, and build anew. Dr. Krim with technologist Alan Earls have developed and outlined a new interpretation of how a resilient city has flourished. At a time when the national and global economy is reeling from pandemic shockwaves, the authors have laid out what a dynamic world-class city has done in the face of adversity to find a fresh and successful path forward.

Polaroid

Polaroid PDF Author: Alan R. Earls
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 9780738536996
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 134

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Book Description
Edwin Land and Polaroid, the company he created in the 1930s, have spawned many bold scientific innovations over the years. Most of them led quickly to unique commercial products. Best known for revolutionary instant photography systems, Land and Polaroid also achieved miracles in light-polarizing technology that is embedded in many of today's consumer products. During World War II, Polaroid manufactured and created a large array of products for the U.S. military; later, Land's top-secret cold war initiatives led to crucial intelligence breakthroughs. Polaroid features images of signature innovations, scientists, and photographers who pioneered the use of Polaroid film.

Happier?

Happier? PDF Author: Daniel Horowitz
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190655658
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
When a cultural movement that began to take shape in the mid-twentieth century erupted into mainstream American culture in the late 1990s, it brought to the fore the idea that it is as important to improve one's own sense of pleasure as it is to manage depression and anxiety. Cultural historian Daniel Horowitz's research reveals that this change happened in the context of key events. World War II, the Holocaust, post-war prosperity, the rise of counter-culture, the crises of the 1970s, the presidency of Ronald Reagan, and the prime ministerships of Margaret Thatcher and David Cameron provided the important context for the development of the field today known as positive psychology. Happier? provides the first history of the origins, development, and impact of the way Americans -- and now many around the world -- shifted from mental illness to well-being as they pondered the human condition. This change, which came about from the fusing of knowledge drawn from Eastern spiritual traditions, behavioral economics, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and cognitive psychology, has been led by scholars and academic entrepreneurs, as they wrestled with the implications of political events and forces such as neoliberalism and cultural conservatism, and a public eager for self-improvement. Linking the development of happiness studies and positive psychology with a broad series of social changes, including the emergence of new media and technologies like TED talks, blogs, web sites, and neuroscience, as well as the role of evangelical ministers, Oprah Winfrey's enterprises, and funding from government agencies and private foundations, Horowitz highlights the transfer of specialized knowledge into popular arenas. Along the way he shows how marketing triumphed, transforming academic disciplines and spirituality into saleable products. Ultimately, Happier? illuminates how positive psychology, one of the most influential academic fields of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, infused American culture with captivating promises for a happier society.

The Yankee Road: Tracing the Journey of the New England Tribe That Created Modern America

The Yankee Road: Tracing the Journey of the New England Tribe That Created Modern America PDF Author: James D. McNiven
Publisher: Wheatmark, Inc.
ISBN: 162787142X
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 498

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Book Description
Who is a Yankee and where did the term come from? Though shrouded in myth and routinely used as a substitute for American, the achievements of the Yankees have influenced nearly every facet of our modern way of life. Join author Jim McNiven as he explores the emergence and influence of Yankee culture while traversing an old transcontinental highway reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific -- US 20, which he nicknames "The Yankee Road." The Yankee Road: Tracing the Journey of the New England Tribe that Created Modern America combines fascinating history with a travel narrative, taking the reader on a journey through the places Yankees and their descendants settled as they expanded westward. Using a physical road to connect locations important to the Yankee cultural "road," McNiven takes us on twenty-two side trips into individual stories, introducing readers to the origins of such large-scale and diverse ideas as conservation, public education, telegraphy, mass production, religion, and labor reform. See familiar places and stories in a Yankee light, such as the fight for women's rights in Seneca Falls and Walden Pond that Thoreau made famous. Learn about less familiar venues like Route 128's technology companies that led to the creation of the computer industry (and incidentally, the Internet), and to the Worcester suburb of Shrewsbury, where two old women changed the world by making possible the birth control pill. McNiven's first tour goes as far west as the Pennsylvania-New York border, with more stories to come. As we travel The Yankee Road, we will meet some of the men and women who made these ideas happen. Harry Truman once said, "I like roads. I like to move." This is a road book. Come on along.

U.S. Army Natick Laboratories

U.S. Army Natick Laboratories PDF Author: Alan R. Earls
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 9780738537290
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
The U.S. Army Natick Laboratories, dedicated in 1953 under the aegis of the Quartermaster Corps, was an important part of the revolution in military science brought to a head by the fevered pace of developments in military technology during World War II. The laboratory, now known as the Soldier Systems Center and including facilities run by the U.S. Army, Navy, and Coast Guard, focuses entirely on research associated with helping soldiers to be healthier and more effective. U.S. Army Natick Laboratories: The Science behind the Soldier features nearly two hundred historic images depicting the projects and accomplishments of the laboratories, including the development of food irradiation, the freeze-drying technique, meals-ready-to-eat (MREs), body armor, new parachute technology, and clothing for every environment imaginable.

Raytheon Company

Raytheon Company PDF Author: Alan R. Earls
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 9780738537474
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
Raytheon's history is one of the great American success stories. Launched in 1922, the Cambridge-based company quickly moved to the forefront of innovation in the electronics industry. During World War II, thousands of Raytheon workers contributed to the war effort, supplying eighty percent of the magnetron tubes (vital components for U.S. and British radars), developing miniature tubes for the crucial proximity fuse in antiaircraft shells, and providing entire radar systems. Although government contracts slowed after World War II, Raytheon continued to develop military components, including leading-edge radars and missiles for America's defenses in the Cold War, but it also began to offer a host of civilian products: the famous RadaRange (the world's first microwave oven), televisions, marine radars, transistors, miniature hearing aids, and medical equipment.

How Growth Really Happens

How Growth Really Happens PDF Author: Michael Best
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069122725X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Achieving economic growth is one of today's key challenges. In this groundbreaking book, Michael Best argues that to understand how successful growth happens we need an economic framework that focuses on production, governance, and skills. This production-centric framework is the culmination of three simultaneous journeys. The first has been Best's visits to hundreds of factories worldwide, starting early as the son of a labor organiser and continuing through his work as an academic and industrial consultant. The second is a survey of two hundred years of economic thought from Babbage to Krugman, with stops along the way for Marx, Marshall, Young, Penrose, Richardson, Schumpeter, Kuznets, Abramovitz, Keynes, and Jacobs. The third is a tour of historical episodes of successful and failed transformations, focusing sharply on three core elements -- the production system, business organisation, and skill formation -- and their interconnections. Best makes the case that government should create the institutional infrastructures needed to support these elements and their interconnections rather than subsidise individual enterprises.

Digital Equipment Corporation

Digital Equipment Corporation PDF Author: Alan R. Earls
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 9780738535876
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
From its inception in 1957, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), headquartered in Maynard, Massachusetts, carved itself a role in American business unlike any other company. Launched by Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineer Ken Olsen with a $70,000 investment from the country's first venture capital firm, DEC rapidly became a pioneer in computer technology. In its heyday, DEC had a valuation of more than $12 billion and employed approximately one hundred twenty thousand people worldwide, making it second only to IBM. Its people and technology contributed to making computers increasingly affordable, which led directly to the advent of the personal computer, the first computer games, and computer networks. DEC was also a leader in the Internet revolution, claiming the dubious distinction of launching the first spam mailing and registering one of the first commercial domain names. Through photographs of people, events, and machines, Digital Equipment Corporation tells the story of the unassuming computer revolutionaries who reshaped the technological world. It is written for anyone who is interested in how the present era of computing ubiquity has evolved since the 1940s, when IBM chairman Thomas Watson predicted that the whole world might need no more than five computers.