Für diesen Artikel ist leider kein Bild verfügbar.

Structures of Change in the Mechanical Age

Technological Innovation in the United States, 1790–1865

Ross Thomson (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

448 Seiten

2009
Johns Hopkins University Press (Verlag)
978-0-8018-9141-0 (ISBN)

Titel z.Zt. nicht lieferbar
Versandkostenfrei
Auch auf Rechnung

Artikel merken

The United States registered phenomenal economic growth between the establishment of the new republic and the end of the Civil War. Ross Thomson's fresh study accounts for the unprecedented technological innovations that helped propel antebellum growth. Thomson argues that the transition of the United States from an agrarian economy in 1790 to an industrial leader in 1865 relied fundamentally on the spread of technological knowledge within and across industries. Essential to this spread was a dense web of knowledge-diffusing institutions-new occupations and industries, the patent office, machine shops, mechanics' associations, scientific societies, public colleges, and the civil engineering profession. Together they composed an integrated innovation system that generated, disseminated, and employed new technical knowledge across ever-widening ranges of the economy. To trace technological change in fourteen major industries and the economy as a whole, Thomson analyzes 14,000 patents, the records of two dozen machinery firms, census data for 1,800 companies, and hundreds of business directories.
This exhaustive research leads to his interesting interpretation of technological diffusion and development. Thomson's impressive study of the infrastructure that fueled and supported the young country's economic and industrial successes will interest students of economic, technological, and business history.

Ross Thomson is an associate professor of economics at the University of Vermont and author of The Path to Mechanized Shoe Production in the United States and editor of Learning and Technological Change.

List of Figures
List of Tables
Acknowledgments
1. Structure and Change
Part I: Multiple Paths of Innovation
2. Paths of Initial Mechanization, 1790–1835
3. Ongoing Mechanization, 1836–1865
4. Contours of Innovation
Part II: Technological Centers
5. Machinists as a Technological Center
6. Science, Mechanicians, and Invention
7. The Patent System and the Inventive Community
Part III: Interlinking Innovations
8. The Social Basis of Innovation
9. Technological Leadership
10. Fruition
11. The First Innovation System
Appendix: Selected Primary Sources and Data Sets
Notes
Works Cited
Index

Erscheint lt. Verlag	3.7.2009
Reihe/Serie	Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology
Zusatzinfo	6 Line drawings, black and white
Verlagsort	Baltimore, MD
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Gewicht	726 g
Themenwelt	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Technikgeschichte
ISBN-10	0-8018-9141-8 / 0801891418
ISBN-13	978-0-8018-9141-0 / 9780801891410
Zustand	Neuware