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Author: Martha Trescott
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 472
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Book Description
Author: Martha Trescott
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 472
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Book Description
Author: Ann R. Markusen
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195066480
Category : Defense contracts
Languages : en
Pages : 358
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Book Description
Index and bibliographical references included.
Author: George Wise
Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 296
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Book Description
Born in Jamestown, New York, Willis R. Whitney (1868-1958) was the longtime director of General Electric’s Research Laboratory and is widely considered one of the fathers of industrial research. He graduated from MIT in 1890 to become assistant professor of chemistry there. In 1896, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Leipzig under Wilhelm Ostwald. Having grown dissatisfied with purely academic work, he jumped at the opportunity, provided by Elihu Thompson in 1900, to become director of the newly created GE Research Laboratory. The laboratory was “to be devoted exclusively to original research.” “It is hoped,” a 1902 report stated, “that many profitable fields may be discovered” and so it was: when Whitney took over, GE needed more economical lamp filaments and the laboratory developed a new form of “metallized” carbon which gave 25% more light for the same wattage, the first radical improvement in Edison’s incandescent carbon filament. Millions of the new lamps were sold in a single year. The laboratory’s many other contributions include the tungsten lamp, several applications for wrought tungsten (replacing platinum targets in X-ray tubes and platinum contacts in spark coils, magnetos and relays) and the Coolidge X-ray tube in a wide range of sizes. Whitney’s broad scientific knowledge, ability as a chemist and resourcefulness as an experimenter lay the basis for all the work of the laboratory. He stepped down as director in 1932. He was a member of numerous institutions including the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, American Society of Electrochemical Engineers, National Academy of Sciences, British Institute of Metals, and National Research Council, and he received many honors, such as the Willard Gibbs Medal in 1920, the Perkin Medal in 1921, the Gold Medal of the National Institute of Social Sciences in 1928, and the AIEE Edison Medal in 1934 for “his contributions to electrical science, his pioneer inventions, and his inspiring leadership in research.” “Whitney invented modern industrial research... George Wise re-creates much of the anxiety and excitement of the decades when business discovered science and vice versa.” — David Diamond, The New York Times “Wise has not simply written biography and a story of the research laboratory at General Electric but also a great deal of General Electric history and history of technology as well... The author’s technical and scientific presentations are generally lucid and accessible to the layperson.” — Martha M. Trescott, Journal of Economic History “[A] book of many strengths. Most immediately apparent is the very high quality of the writing. As a skilled biographer, Wise succeeds in bringing the reader into the life of an interesting and important individual... Wise does not neglect the personal side of Whitney’s life, including his unhappy family situation and his personal illnesses... The primary focus, however, is on his work at GE, work the author expertly fits into broader patterns of science, industry and society in early twentieth-century America.” — James H. Madison, Journal of American History “[A] thoroughly researched and lucidly written book... Wise’s book makes important contributions to the understanding of the origins of industrial research and the development of science in the American context.” — John K. Smith, Technology and Culture “George Wise effectively develops the foundation for an interesting and in-depth view of a man who made an outstanding contribution to industrial research, while at the same time suffering personal disappointments and fighting a continuing battle with recurring mental depression... Wise’s book is warm, personal, and rich in historical background; it provides a view into the life of the individual who set the stage for industrial research in America.” — Alfred A. Bolton, Academy of Management Review “[An] important book... Wise’s portrayal of Whitney is acute and sensitive. Moreover, it demonstrates that the depiction of industrial scientists as either alienated and unhappy academics-in-exile or mindless minions of the giant corporation is overly simple... Wise has produced a first-rate study of a pioneering establishment that should be read by anyone interested in the crucial relationships between science and modern industry.” — Larry Owens, Business History Review “[A] turning point in the long-neglected history of industrial research. [N]ot merely outstanding... [a] definitive work that establish[es] critical standards for future research in this field... beautifully crafted... a sensitive and insightful biography of Willis R. Whitney.” — Edwin T. Lawton, Jr., Isis “Wise has accomplished perhaps the most difficult task before any biographer — successfully connecting his subject’s historical significance with the deeper elements of his humanity. This humanity is described with a biographer’s sympathy and a historian’s sophistication... Wise writes with sympathy and often charm, drawing not only from substantial archival records but also from dozens of interviews carried out with Whitney’s associates and workers... This biography will not only be the standard study of Whitney, but it will also provide a useful model and guide for all students of the key institutions of modern science.” — Robert Friedel, British Journal for the History of Science
Author: Kathryn Steen
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469612909
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 418
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Book Description
American Synthetic Organic Chemicals Industry: War and Politics, 1910-1930
Author: Peter J. Ramberg
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350251542
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289
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Book Description
A Cultural History of Chemistry in the Nineteenth Century covers the period from 1815 to 1914 and the birth of modern chemistry. The elaboration of atomic theory - and new ideas of periodicity, structure, bonding, and equilibrium - emerged in tandem with new instruments and practices. The chemical industry expanded exponentially, fuelled by an increasing demand for steel, aluminium, dyestuffs, pharmaceuticals, and consumer goods. And the chemical laboratory became established in its two distinct modern settings of the university and industry. At the turn of the century, the discovery of radioactivity took hold of the public imagination, drawing chemistry closer to physics, even as it threatened to undermine the whole concept of atomism. The 6 volume set of the Cultural History of Chemistry presents the first comprehensive history from the Bronze Age to today, covering all forms and aspects of chemistry and its ever-changing social context. The themes covered in each volume are theory and concepts; practice and experiment; laboratories and technology; culture and science; society and environment; trade and industry; learning and institutions; art and representation. Peter J. Ramberg is Professor of the History of Science at Truman State University, USA. Volume 5 in the Cultural History of Chemistry set. General Editors: Peter J. T. Morris, University College London, UK, and Alan Rocke, Case Western Reserve University, USA.
Author: Sam H. Schurr
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 031303639X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 464
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Book Description
Electricity has penetrated deeply into virtually every aspect of American life, be it in industry, the home, or in the rapidly growing commercial and service sectors. This book documents and analyzes the existence of a strong, and growing, synergy between technological progress and the use of electrified production techniques in the United States during the twentieth century. The authors use two types of information in their work: case studies of the ways in which technological progress in particular industries and economic sectors has depended upon the adoption of electrified methods of production and aggregative long-term national economic statistics that measure the changing relationship over time between increases in the use of electricity and other factor inputs and the growth in industrial productivity. Eleven of the book's thirteen chapters cover the case studies, while the remaining two chapters and the statistical appendix contain the broad quantitative findings and supporting data. In their analysis, the authors address three inter-related questions from a long-term evolutionary perspective: Why has electricity's share of total energy risen so sharply over the years? How has this rise been related to productivity growth? and Why has the rise in electricity led to long-term improvements in the efficiency of overall energy use despite the thermal energy losses sustained when fuels are converted into electricity? The answer to these questions, they contend, is the technological progress represented by electrified production technologies, and in the new ways of organizing production that are now possible. The different ways in which electrical energy has been put to work, and with what results, are examined in the various case studies presented, and further documented in the aggregative statistical analysis. This study reveals the important role that the electrification of production operations has played in supporting productivity growth in manufacturing and other economic sectors in the past, and the important part that it can continue to play in the future. This book will appeal to a broad spectrum of readers; those interested in productivity issues, energy policy, electricity in general, historians of technology, economic historians, and those interested in current technological issues. It will be a necessary acquisition for college and university libraries, as well as those individuals interested in energy, technology, economic growth, history, and the interfaces among them.
Author: Maury Klein
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1596918349
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 538
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Book Description
Maury Klein is one of America's most acclaimed historians of business and society. In The Power Makers, he offers an epic narrative of his greatest subject yet - the "power revolution" that transformed American life in the course of the nineteenth century. The steam engine; the incandescent bulb; the electric motor-inventions such as these replaced backbreaking toil with machine labor and changed every aspect of daily life in the span of a few generations. The cast of characters includes inventors like James Watt, Elihu Thomson, and Nikola Tesla; entrepreneurs like George Westinghouse; savvy businessmen like J.P. Morgan, Samuel Insull, and Charles Coffin of General Electric. Striding among them like a colossus is the figure of Thomas Edison, who was creative genius and business visionary at once. With consummate skill, Klein recreates their discoveries, their stunning triumphs and frequent failures, and their unceasing, bare-knuckled battles in the marketplace. In Klein's hands, their personalities and discoveries leap off the page. The Power Makers is a dazzling saga of inspired invention, dogged persistence, and business competition at its most naked and cutthroat--a biography of America in its most astonishing decades.
Author: Anthony S. Travis
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319193570
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 169
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Book Description
This concise brief describes how the demands of World War I, often referred to as the Chemists’ War, led to the rapid emergence of a new key industry based on fixation of atmospheric nitrogen. Then, as now, nitrogen products, including nitric acid, and nitrates, were essential for both fertilizers and in the manufacture of modern explosives. During the first decade of the twentieth century, this stimulated research into and application of novel processes. This book illustrates how from late 1914 the relations and developments in the first modern military-industrial complex enabled the great capital expenditures and technological advances that accelerated massive expansion, particularly of the BASF Haber-Bosch high-pressure process, that determined the direction of the post-war chemical industry.
Author: Stanley L. Engerman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521553087
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 1206
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Book Description
Volume III surveys the economic history of the United States and Canada during the twentieth century.
Author: Seymour H. Mauskopf
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 151280441X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 440
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Book Description
It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of the chemical sciences to the modern world. In the last 150 years, they have transformed our physical environment, our material culture, our manner of living, and even our persons—and they are continuing to do so in profound ways. Yet the detailed and systematic study of the history of the modern chemical sciences has been relatively late in coming. This compilation of essays by leading scholars represents the first fruits of modern historical scholarship. The essays vary in form and content: some represent detailed, original research; others are cast as synoptic blueprints for future research in major domains of scholarship; still others are provocative reflections on the opportunities and challenges facing historians of chemical sciences and industries and their audiences. The essays in Part One deal with the experimental generation of new chemical knowledge, the nature of theories about chemical knowledge, and the reception of new knowledge by the chemical community. Part Two is devoted primarily to the development of modern industrial chemistry. Part Three is concerned with preserving archives and artifacts owned by public and private institutions, with making the history of chemistry accessible to persons interested but not trained in history, and with helping both policymakers and the general public to understand the policy issues involving the chemical sciences and industries trough the insights provided by historical research. Part Four, the concluding section, discusses future prospects for the history f the chemical sciences, addressing questions about methodology, audience, and new directions for research.
