“The great glory of the Americans is in their wondrous contrivances—in their patent remedies for the usually troublous operations of life.” Anthony Trollope, North America 1863 (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1863), p. 127.
“So I suppose all those great works built themselves!” Francis Ellington Leupp, George Westinghouse: His Life and Achievements (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1918), p. 274.
“The Scrap Heap—that inarticulate witness of our blunders, and the sepulchre of our blasted hopes.” “Memoir of Don Juan Whittemore,” Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers (New York: ASME), Vol. 82, 1918, p. 1658.
“. . . every single great idea that has marked the twenty-first century, the twentieth century and the nineteenth century has required government vision and government incentive.” Matt Welch, “Biden: Every Great American Idea ‘has required government vision and government incentive,” Reason.com blog, October 27, 2010, accessed May 14, 2014, http://reason.com/blog/2010/10/27/biden-every-great-american-ide, and Tad DeHaven, “It Ain’t So, Joe,” Cato.org blog, October 27, 201, accessed May 14, 2014, http://www.cato.org/blog/it-aint-so-joe.
“. . . the core responsibilities of the financial system to help grow our economy.” Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President on Wall Street Reform in Quincy, Illinois,” White House transcript, April 28, 2010, accessed May 14, 2014, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-wall-street-reform-quincy-illinois.
“. . . at a certain point you have made enough money.” Ibid.
“If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” Jake Tapper, “Did Obama say, ‘If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that’?” ABC News, July 16, 2012, accessed May 14, 2014, http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/07/did-obama-say-if-youve-got-a-business-you-didnt-build-that/.
“The Obama campaign and its media defenders argued that his remarks were taken ‘out of context’.” Glenn Kessler, “An unoriginal Obama quote, taken out of context,” Washington Post, July 23, 2014, accessed May 14, 2014, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/an-unoriginal-obama-quote-taken-out-of-context/2012/07/20/gJQAdG7hyW_blog.html.
“. . . straight from the White House transcript.” Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President at a Campaign Event in Roanoke, Virginia,” White House transcript, July 13, 2012, accessed May 15, 2014, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/07/13/remarks-president-campaign-event-roanoke-virginia.
“. . . Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, of our Constitution.” U.S. Constitution, art. I, sec. 8, cl. 8, accessed May 14, 2014, http://www.constitution.org/js/js_319.htm.
“. . . candidates and operatives in both political parties derided private equity and venture capitalism as ‘vulture capitalism.’ ” See, for example, Felicia Sonmez, “Rick Perry doubles down on ‘vulture capitalist’ criticism of Romney,” Washington Post, January 11, 2012, accessed May 14, 2014, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/post/rick-perry-doubles-down-on-vulture-capitalist-criticism-of-mitt-romney/2012/01/11/gIQAziWqqP_blog.html, and John Nichols, “Romney still reaps huge profits from Bain’s vulture capitalism,” The Nation, July 16, 2012, accessed May 14, 2014, http://www.thenation.com/blog/168899/romney-still-reaps-huge-profits-bains-vulture-capitalism.
“President Obama routinely indicted ‘millionaires and billionaires.’ ” Jeanne Sahadi, “Billionaires with 1% tax rates,” CNN.com, accessed May 15, 2014, http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/07/news/economy/obama_taxes/.
“Anticapitalism saboteurs organized wealth-shaming protests at corporate CEOs’ private homes.” Mark Trumbull, “Occupy Wall Street: Who are the targets of millionaires’ march?” Christian Science Monitor, October 11, 2011, accessed May 15, 2014, http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2011/1011/Occupy-Wall-Street-Who-are-targets-of-millionaires-march.
“Paul Krugman (a former high-paid adviser to corrupt energy company Enron) whipped up hatred against the ‘plutocrats.’ ” Paul Krugman, “Plutocrats feeling persecuted,” New York Times, September 27, 2013, accessed May 14, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/27/opinion/krugman-plutocrats-feeling-persecuted.html?_r=0.
“Democratic strategist Donna Brazile publicly endorsed an incendiary protest slogan embraced by so-called progressives.” “Eliminationist retweet by Donna Brazile: ‘Prune the top 1$,’ ” Twitchy.com, accessed May 14, 2014, http://twitchy.com/2014/04/24/eliminationist-retweet-by-donna-brazile-prune-the-top-1/.
“New York State lawmakers received threatening mail saying it was ‘time to kill the wealthy.’ ” Tim Mak, “E-mail: ‘Time to kill the wealthy,’ ” Politico.com, October 6, 2011, accessed May 15, 2014, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/65307.html.
“. . . from a disgruntled state government worker.” Nicholas Confessore, “State police investigating e-mail to lawmakers,” April 1, 2011, accessed December 25, 2014, http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/01/state-police-investigating-e-mail-to-lawmaker/?_r=0.
“. . . even as private venture capital has grown from ‘the pilot light of American industry’ to its ‘roaring glass furnace.’ ” Rushworth M. Kidder, “Venture capital: fuel for new inventions,” Christian Science Monitor, January 13, 1983, accessed May 15, 2014, http://www.csmonitor.com/1983/0113/011337.html.
“In The Money of Invention, business professors Paul Gompers and Josh Lerner noted.” Paul Gompers and Josh Lerner, The Money of Invention: How Venture Capital Creates New Wealth (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2001), p. 67.
“Kleiner Perkins ‘made more than 475 investments, generating $90 billion in revenue and creating 275,000 jobs.’ ” Maggy Bruzelius, “Venture Capitalist Launches a Superyacht—and a Novel,” MIT Alumni Association Infinite Connection News & Views, Alumni Profiles, 2006, accessed May 15, 2014, https://alum.mit.edu/news/AlumniProfiles/Archive/Tom_Perkins_-2753.
“In January 2014, Tom Perkins wrote a passionate letter to the Wall Street Journal.” Thomas Perkins, “Progressive Kristallnacht coming?” Wall Street Journal, January 24, 2014, accessed May 15, 2014, http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304549504579316913982034286.
“. . . eighteenth-century philosopher and political economist Adam Smith’s famous free-market theory.” Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (London: Methuen & Co., Ltd.), 5th edition, Edwin Cannan, ed., 1904, Section IV.2.9., available online through the Library of Economics and Liberty, accessed May 14, 2014, http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN.html.
“We had faith and enthusiasm in our enterprise, with loyalty to each other and to a common cause.” Margaret Ingels, Willis Haviland Carrier: Father of Air Conditioning (Garden City, N.Y.: Country Life Press, 1952), p. 47.
All details about the Maglica and Jurcan families’ lives on Zlarin come from The Winds of Ruza and Borovica: A story about the Zlarin Families—Jurcan and Maglica.
“compensated instead with a bit of fish for lunch or a small carafe of wine.” Dusko Dean, The Winds of Ruza and Borovica: A Story About the Zlarin Families—Jurcan and Maglica (self-published, 1993).
“Irving Berlin and Albert Einstein.” “Home,” Red Star Line Museum, accessed May 7, 2014, http://www.redstarline.be/en; “A Philadelphia Quaker and Fabric Row,” The PhillyHistory Blog, March 21, 2013, accessed May 7, 014, http://www.phillyhistory.org/blog/index.php/2013/03/a-philadephia-quaker-and-fabric-row/.
“desperately selling apples for a nickel apiece.” “Timeline of the Great Depression,” Public Broadcasting Service, accessed May 7, 2014, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/timeline/rails-timeline/.
“Germans executed nearly 270 Croats in the village of Lipa.” John Peter Kraljic, “Croatian Inmates in German Concentration Camps,” Croatian World Network, accessed May 7, 2014, http://www.croatia.org/crown/articles/6261/1/E-Croatian-Inmates-in-German-Concentration-Camps.html.
“ ‘amazing stories’ the company has collected from first responders, soldiers, sportsmen, and ordinary housewives.” All the letters come from Maglite archives. I’ve edited the text only for spelling and grammar.
“atomic bomb project parts during World War II.” “Mag Instrument, Inc. Business Information, Profile, and History,” JRank Articles, accessed May 7, 2014, http://companies.jrank.org/pages/2592/Mag-Instrument-Inc.html; “History Milestones,” A. O. Smith, accessed May 7, 2014, http://www.aosmith.com/About/Detail.aspx?id=130.
“I modified the machines I had.” Kemp Powers, “Anthony Maglica,” CNN Money, September 1, 2004, accessed May 7, 2014, http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fsb/fsb_archive/2004/09/01/8184669/index.htm.
“bulbs were inefficient and could not produce a steady stream of light.” “Flashlight Museum,” Wordcraft.net, accessed May 7, 2014, http://www.wordcraft.net/flashlight.html.
“establishing the famous Lionel Train Company in 1902.” “Lionel And Railroads In America,” Lionel, accessed May 7, 2014, http://www.lionel.com/CentralStation/LionelPastAndPresent/.
“torches became a national sensation.” Invention Geek, “Let There Be Light!—Invention of the Flashlight,” Patent Plaques, March 8, 2011, accessed May 7, 2014, http://www.patentplaques.com/blog/?p=2071.
“advertised the flashlights using the biblical phrase, ‘Let There Be Light.’ ” “Flashlights 101: Flashlight History,” Energizer, accessed May 7, 2014, http://www.energizer.com/learning-center/Pages/flashlight-history.aspx.
“so you get a better connection.” Powers, “Anthony Maglica: Mag Instrument.”
“Tony put it bluntly.” Paul B. Brown, “Magnificent Obsession,” Inc., August 1, 1989, accessed May 7, 2014, http://www.inc.com/magazine/19890801/5754.html.
“essentially the Maglite® of computers.” “The Mag Instrument Story,” Maglite, accessed May 7, 2014, http://www.maglite.com/history.asp.
“We have worked hard to earn our reputation.” “Mag Instrument Inc. Prevails In Patent Infringement Lawsuit,” PR Newswire, August 12, 1999.
“selling Maglite look-alikes,” Mag Instrument Inc. Major Historical Events, Maglite, accessed May 7, 2014, http://www.maglite.com/eventtimeline.asp.
“products that embody those technologies and bear those marks.” “Strengthening American Manufacturing,” Maglite, accessed May 7, 2014, http://www.maglite.com/strengthen.asp.
“unabashedly ‘Made in America.’ ” W. Lidwell and G. Manacsa, Deconstructing Product Design: Exploring the Form, Function, Usability, Sustainability, and Commercial Success of 100 Amazing Products (Minneapolis: Rockport Publishers, 2011), pp. 115–16.
“If I can do it, anyone can! This is America!” Peter Whoriskey, “Lightbulb factory closes: End of an era for U.S. means more jobs overseas,” Washington Post, September 8, 2010, accessed May 7, 2014, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/07/AR2010090706933.html.
“the atmosphere exerts a pressure of about fifteen pounds per square inch.” Margaret Ingels, Willis Haviland Carrier: Father of Air Conditioning (Garden City, N.Y.: Country Life Press, 1952), p. 4.
“My mother told me to go to the cellar and bring up a pan of apples.” Ibid, p. 3.
“Lyle played varsity football for the school and joined Sigma Chi (the social fraternity) and Tau Beta Pi (the honor society for engineers).” University of Kentucky College of Engineering, Engineering Alumni Association, “Joel Irvine Lyle,” accessed May 12, 2014, https://www.engr.uky.edu/alumni/hod/joel-irvine-lyle/.
“After he researched electricity and magnetism at the U.S. Patent Office and Library of Congress, Cornell concluded that he needed to fix faulty cable insulation problems.” Corey Ryan Earle, “Ezra Cornell’s legacy of innovation and entrepreneurship lives on,” Ezra: Cornell’s Quarterly Magazine, Volume IV, Number 3, Spring 2012, accessed May 12, 2014, http://ezramagazine.cornell.edu/SPRING12/CornellHistory.html.
“Morse hired him to string up the overhead line between Washington and Baltimore, through which the inventor delivered his famous ‘What hath God wrought?’ message.” Cornell University, “I Would Found an Institution”; The Ezra Cornell Bicentennial, “The Telegraph,” accessed May 12, 2014, http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/ezra/exhibition/telegraph/.
“An intrepid capitalist, Cornell took a large part of his pay in stock and became Western Union’s largest stockholder.” The Business of the Telegraph; Ezra Cornell: A Nineteenth-Century Life, accessed May 12, 2014, http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/Ezra-exhibit/EC-life/EC-life-6.html.
“Buffalo Forge, cofounded by a Cornell grad, made blacksmith’s forges, upright drills, steam engines, heaters, dust collectors, blowers, and bandsaws.” VintageMachinery.org, “Buffalo Forgo Co.,” accessed May 12, 2014, http://vintagemachinery.org/mfgindex/detail.aspx?id=129.
“The ‘catch’ must be edible or I don’t try for it. I only fish for edible fish and test for useful data.” WillisCarrier.com, “The Launch of Carrier Air Conditioning Company,” accessed May 12, 2014, http://www.williscarrier.com/m/1903-1914.php.
“ ‘MANY ARE HEAT STRICKEN IN SUDDEN TORRID WAVE,’ the Brooklyn (N.Y.) Daily Eagle reported in late May of that year.” “MANY ARE HEAT STRICKEN IN SUDDEN TORRID WAVE,” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Volume 62, Number 144, May 25, 1902, p. 58, accessed May 12, 2014, http://reference.insulators.info/publications/view/?id=4978.
“President Theodore Roosevelt escaped from the sweltering Washington, D.C., swamp to the cooler confines of his Sagamore Hill beach home on Oyster Bay, New York.” Lawrence L. Knutson, Theodore Roosevelt’s Summer White House (Washington, D.C.: White House Historical Association, 2011), accessed May 12, 2014, http://www.whitehousehistory.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/theodore-roosevelt-summer-white-house.pdf.
“A team of thirty-five employees operated the plant’s twenty-five steam-power presses and forty hand presses at all hours to meet grueling deadlines.” History and Commerce of New York, 1891, Second Edition (New York: American Publishing and Engraving Co., 1891), p. 115.
“The magazine’s most famous cartoonist: Theodor ‘Dr. Seuss’ Geisel, who was hired at age twenty-three as a writer and artist in the late 1920s. Another famous Judge alumnus, Harold Ross, left in 1925 to found The New Yorker.” Thomas Fensch, The Man Who Was Dr. Seuss: The Life and Work of Theodor Geisel (New Century Exceptional Lives Series) (Sharon’s Books), December 1, 2001.
“By July 17, 1902, as New York sweated out the heat wave, Carrier had drawn up plans for what would be the world’s first scientific air-conditioning system.” Margaret Ingels, Willis Haviland Carrier: Father of Air Conditioning, op. cit., p. 17. The term was first coined by textile engineer Stuart Cramer, who invented special humidifiers in North Carolina to keep yarn fibers moist in dry factory air. He dubbed the humidity control process “air-conditioning”; later, the term incorporated temperature control as well.
“The air is cooled by blowing it over a set of cold pipes called an evaporator coil.” Ashrae.org, “Top Ten Things About Air Conditioning,” accessed May 12, 2014, https://www.ashrae.org/resources—publications/free-resources/top-ten-things-about-air-conditioning.
“Carrier engineer Margaret Ingels marveled at the scope of her bosses’ breakthroughs.” Margaret Ingels, Willis Haviland Carrier: Father of Air Conditioning, op. cit., p. 18.
“Those in a position to know give to J. I. Lyle the credit for a large measure of the commercial success of the Carrier Air Conditioning Company.” “Organization of Carrier Engineering Corporation,” The Heating and Ventilating Magazine, Volume 12, 1915, p. 51.
“He once jetted off on a business trip only to discover that his suitcase contained nothing but a handkerchief.” Margaret Ingels, Willis Haviland Carrier: Father of Air Conditioning, op. cit., pp. 35–36.
“Here is air approximately 100 percent saturated with moisture.” Ibid., p. 21.
“Carrier realized in that foggy moment that he could dry air by wetting it—passing it through water and using the spray as the condensing surface.” WillisCarrier.com, “The Launch of Carrier Air Conditioning Company,” op. cit.
“The mist also helped cleanse and purify the air of dust.” T. A. Heppenheimer, “Cold Comfort,” American Heritage, Spring 2005, Volume 20, Issue 4, accessed May 12, 2014, http://archive.today/iEMad#selection-1203.341-1207.
“Carrier’s relentless theoretical research affected not only air-conditioning, but also agriculture, aeronautics, food engineering, pharmaceuticals, meteorology, weather reporting, and more.” Donald P. Gatley, “Psychrometric Chart Celebrates 100th Anniversary,” ASHRAE Journal, Vol. 46, No. 12, November 2004, pp. 16–20.
“The application of this new art to many varied industries has been demonstrated to be of greatest economic importance.” Willis H. Carrier, “Rational Psychrometric Formulae,” Journal of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Volume 33, July 1911, pp. 1311–49.
“Workers flocked to the stemming room for relief from the humidity, heat, and dirt.” Margaret Ingels, Willis Haviland Carrier: Father of Air Conditioning, op. cit., pp. 37–39.
“During World War II, the military took advantage of Carrier’s top engineering talent and produced classified machinery and parts, including airplane engine mounts, sight hoods for guns, tank adapters, and antisubmarine bomb dischargers.” WillisCarrier.com, “The Launch of Carrier Air Conditioning Company,” op. cit.
“Zukor served as treasurer for Loew’s Inc., which later became the parent company of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures.” Albin Krebs, “Adolph Zukor Is Dead at 103; Built Paramount Movie Empire,” New York Times, June 11, 1976, accessed May 12, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0107.html.
“The budding showman wanted to produce movies with glamorous celebrities and lasting artistic value beyond the short one-reel features then in vogue. In 1912, he established his own production company. Among his founding partners: feature-length film pioneer Jesse Lasky and director Cecil B. DeMille.” Bernard F. Dick, Engulfed: The Death of Paramount Pictures and the Birth of Corporate Hollywood (Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, 2001).
“Among the most famously luxe entertainment edifices of the time: the Chicago Theater in Illinois, Loew’s Penn in Pittsburgh, and impresario Sid Grauman’s Chinese and Egyptian theaters in Los Angeles.” Lucy Fischer, ed., American Cinema of the 1920s: Themes and Variations (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 2009).
“Enter the entrepreneurial engineers. Inventor Walter Fleisher attempted to cool the Folies-Bergère theater in New York City with a primitive air washer, but lack of mechanical refrigeration doomed it.” “The Story of Comfort Air Conditioning,” accessed May 12, 2014, http://www.hevac-heritage.org/electronic_books/comfort_AC/8-CAC2.pdf.
“At Chicago’s Central Park and Riviera Theaters, impresarios Barney and Abe Balaban and Sam and Maurice Katz unveiled a new, carbon dioxide–based cooling system devised by Frederick Wittenmeier that blew chilled air out of ‘mushroom’ vents at the feet of moviegoers.” David Balaban, The Chicago Movie Palaces of Balaban and Katz (Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 2006).
“Carrier engineers were initially mocked by theater snobs for their ‘upside down system.’ ” “The Story of Comfort Air Conditioning,” op. cit.
“This sophisticated machinery was the first practical means of cooling large spaces.” WillisCarrier.com, “The Launch of Carrier Air Conditioning Company,” op. cit.
“Traditional ‘reciprocal compressor’ devices were large units that operated like back-and-forth pistons on a locomotive.” T. A. Heppenheimer, “Cold Comfort,” op. cit.
“The entire system of electric transmission has been developed from nothing to an enormous industry with relatively simple motors that are high-speed rotative equipment.” Margaret Ingels, Willis Haviland Carrier: Father of Air Conditioning, op. cit., p. 55.
“It takes time to pull down the temperature in a quickly filled theater on a hot day, and a still longer time for a packed house.” Ibid., pp. 64–67.
“The Rivoli’s main marquee blared ‘REFRIGERATING PLANT’ and the doorway entrance sign boasted ‘COOLED BY REFRIGERATION.’ ” Mark H. Huston, “Brief History of Centrifugal Chillers,” ASHRAE Journal, Vol. 47, No. 12, December 2005, p. 25.
“The theater was more than just a picture palace. It had become an ‘ideal summer resort.’ ” “Rivoli Air Conditioning Advertisement, 1925,” New York Times, accessed May 12, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/09/02/nyregion/a-history-of-new-york-in-50-objects.html?src=se&_r=0#/?gridItem=02-fifty-objects-slide-DC1Y.
“. . . generating year-round profits and patrons thanks to the ‘marvelous equipment which absolutely assures a temperature that is just right.’ ” WillisCarrier.com, “The Launch of Carrier Air Conditioning Company,” op. cit.
“The company also installed its system at the famed Roxy theater in New York, a fifty-nine-hundred-seat palace billed as ‘the cathedral of the motion picture.’ ” Matthew Steigbigel, “ ‘Playing the Palace’: A History of Motion Picture Palaces,” April 15, 2013, accessed May 12, 2014, http://www.thecredits.org/2013/04/playing-the-palace-a-history-of-motion-picture-palaces/.
“By 1930, Carrier had installed three hundred air-conditioning systems in movie theaters across the country.” Margaret Ingels, Willis Haviland Carrier: Father of Air Conditioning, op. cit., p. 68.
“The inventive genius and capitalist ambition of Carrier, Lyle, and their crew transformed summertime, once a box-office bomb, into Hollywood’s most profitable season.” Seth Abramovitch, “Forever 74 Degrees: How Movie Theaters Keep Cool During Summer’s Scorching Months,” The Hollywood Reporter, July 1, 2013, accessed May 12, 2014, http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/forever-74-degrees-how-movie-578120.
“Dr. Couney, who did not charge parents for his medical services, took the show on the road, treating babies at World’s Fairs and European expositions, the Atlantic City Boardwalk.” Fans of the HBO television show Boardwalk Empire will remember the scene featuring baby incubators from the premiere episode. See more at: pressofAtlanticCity.com, “For ‘Boardwalk Empire’-era Atlantic City, babies in incubators were a sideshow attraction,” accessed May 12, 2014, http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/blogs/scott_cronick/for-boardwalk-empire-era-atlantic-city-babies-in-incubators-were/article_89b9eb56-d992-11df-bdf7-001cc4c03286.html.
“San Francisco, Omaha, Chicago, Denver, Rio de Janeiro, and Mexico City.” Neonatology on the Web, “Coney Island Sideshows,” accessed May 12, 2014, http://www.neonatology.org/pinups/coneyislandnurses.html.
“As Carrier Air Conditioning Company of America engineer T. A. Weager explained in 1916, this ‘sort of oven’ was ‘kept at a uniform temperature.’ ” T. A. Weager, “Successful Baby Incubator Installation,” Hospital Management, Volume 1, February 1916, p. 9.
“Carrier used the same downdraft distribution and bypass techniques it applied in theaters . . .” Ibid.
“He received a patent in 1851 for the ‘first machine ever to be used for mechanical refrigeration and air conditioning,’ but was unable to create a viable business out of the invention.” John Gladstone, “John Gorrie, the Visionary,” ASHRAE Journal, December 1998, accessed May 12, 2014, https://www.ashrae.org/File%20Library/docLib/Public/200362795143_326.pdf.
“Gorrie’s ice maker ‘made enough ice to chill bottles of champagne for a party but could not get the financial support he needed to develop his idea commercially,’ American Heritage magazine observed.” T. A. Heppenheimer, “Cold Comfort,” op. cit.
“By the late 1950s virtually all new hospitals were installing air-conditioning.” Raymond Arsenault, “The End of the Long Hot Summer: The Air Conditioner and Southern Culture,” The Journal of Southern History, Volume 50, Number 4, November 1984, pp. 597–628.
“Keeping the test tubes alone sealed tightly against contaminating bacteria, yeast and mold found in ordinary air would have slowed down their work considerably.” “Air Conditioners Vital to Salk Vaccine Output,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, May 15, 1955.
“Temperature and humidity controls were the most important factors in rearing mosquitos successfully.” Manual for Mosquito Rearing and Experimental Techniques, published by the American Mosquito Control Association, Inc., AMCA Bulletin Number 5, January 1979, accessed May 12, 2014, http://www.mosquitocatalog.org/files/pdfs/048499-0.pdf.
“A few years later, Carrier engineers traveled to Rome, Italy, to install a centrifugal chiller at Laboratori Palma, a subsidiary of American pharmaceutical company Squibb.” Mauro Capocci, “ ‘A chain is gonna come.’ Building a penicillin production plant in post-war Italy,” Dynamis, Volume 31, Number 2, 2011.
“By 1927, they had turned their initial investment into a $1.35 million business.” Margaret Ingels, Willis Haviland Carrier: Father of Air Conditioning, op. cit., p. 47.
“We had faith and enthusiasm in our enterprise, with loyalty to each other and to a common cause.” Ibid.
“Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice.” “Reader, if you are seeking his monument, look around you.” The Latin inscription is carved on famed architect Christopher Wren’s tomb beneath the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral. The British Museum, “Christopher Wren, Design for the Dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral, a drawing in brown ink over pencil,” accessed May 13, 2014, http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pd/c/christopher_wren,_st_pauls.aspx. See also: Merriam-Webster’s dictionary: “The phrase is generally used to describe a person’s legacy—and can be taken to mean that what we leave behind (including intangible things like relationships) best represents our life.” See Merriam-Webster, “Top 10 Latin Words to Live By: #9: Si Monumentum Requiris, Circumspice,” accessed May 13, 2014, http://www.merriam-webster.com/top-ten-lists/top-10-latin-words-to-live-by/si-monumentum-requiris,-circumspice.html.
“Have you ever tried building a popsicle stick truss bridge?” See Garrett’s Bridges for great tutorials on how to build truss bridges: http://www.garrettsbridges.com/.
“The drawing depicts two rope-makers spread apart, facing each other while twisting stretched yarns, with a third in the middle regulating the tension of the final twist.” Emily Teeter, “Techniques and Terminology of Rope-Making in Ancient Egypt,” Journal of Egyptian Archeology, Volume 73, 1987, pp. 71–77.
“Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.” BibleGateway, Ecclesiastes 4:12 (New International Version), accessed May 13, 2014, http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes%204:12.
“In China, ingenious workers made cable out of bamboo, which they used to tow boats up the Yangtze River and construct the world’s first suspension bridges.” Guadua Bamboo, “Bamboo Cables,” accessed May 13, 2014, http://www.guaduabamboo.com/bamboo-cables/.
“Before you conjure up images of the Founding Fathers rolling doobies with parchment paper.” North American Industrial Hemp Council, Inc., “Distinguishing Hemp from its cousin?” accessed May 13, 2014, http://naihc.org/hemp_information/content/hempCharacter.html.
“Virginia’s colonial leaders required each family to grow one hundred plants for cordage; the governor himself grew five thousand plants.” Manufactures of the United States in 1860; Compiled From the Original Returns of The Eighth Census under the Direction of the Secretary of the Interior (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1865).
“At present we are like separate filaments of flax before the thread is formed, without strength because without connection. But union would make us strong.” Benjamin Franklin, The Works of Benjamin Franklin, L.L.D., Vol. 3 (London: Macmillan Company, 1905).
“It took a 1,000-foot-long path to produce a 100-fathom (600-foot) rope.” Mystic Seaport: The Museum of America and the Sea, “Plymouth Cordage Company Ropewalk,” accessed May 13, 2014, http://www.mysticseaport.org/locations/village/ropewalk/.
“By the end of the eighteenth century, there were 14 major rope walks in Boston; by 1810, 173 rope walks were in operation from Maine to Kentucky.” The Story of Rope: The History and the Modern Development of Rope-Making (North Plymouth, Mass.: Plymouth Cordage Company, 1916).
“Then a school-boy, with his kite/Gleaming in a sky of light.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, With Bibliographical and Critical Notes In Six Volumes, Volume III (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1886).
“In the long building, a roper spun hemp, backing slowly away from a revolving hook turned by an apprentice manning a crank.” Edward Tunis, Colonial Craftsmen: And the Beginnings of American Industry (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), pp. 114–15.
“The roper wrapped a bundle of hackled.” A “hackle” was a board with sharp steel teeth, which was used to comb out the “tow,” or matted fiber, from the hemp.
“To make a yard for each yarn in a one-inch-diameter rope the length of a football field, spinners would have to walk several miles backward.” Bill Hagenbuch, “The Story of Rope,” ropecordNEWS, Volume VX, Number 1, Spring 2006, accessed May 13, 2014, http://www.ropecord.com/cordage/publications/cordage_news/Spring2006.pdf.
“But guild workers ‘resented the employment of any hands who had not served a regular apprenticeship at the trade, and there was bitter opposition to the introduction of machinery.’ ” Frederick Converse Beach, ed., The Encyclopedia Americana (New York: The Americana Company, 1904).
“By the mid-1790s, George Parkinson and John Pittman had filed the first U.S. patents for flax- and hemp-spinning machines to manufacture cordage.” Manufactures of the United States in 1860, op. cit.
“These were literally historic steps forward, because the new machinery replaced backward-walking spinners with upright, rotating devices that could spin several thousand feet of rope in just a few square feet of space.” Frederick Converse Beach, ed., The Encyclopedia Americana, op. cit.
“Kentucky led domestic production of hemp by the 1850s, with a peak of forty thousand tons produced annually.” Kentucky Department of Agriculture, “History of hemp in Kentucky,” accessed May 13, 2014, http://www.kyagr.com/marketing/history-of-hemp-in-Kentucky.html.
“Johann Sebastian Bach served there briefly as an organist at age twenty-three, composing his first cantata.” Daniel R. Melamed, “The text of ‘Gott ist mein König,’ ” Bach, Volume 32, Number 1, 2001, pp. 1–16.
“But mother Friederike, a natural go-getter and domestic CEO—who ‘made everybody work, managed her household, family, the business and her quarter of town besides.’ ” Donald Sayenga, ed., Washington Roebling’s Father: A Memoir of John A. Roebling (Reston, Va.: American Society of Civil Engineers, 2009).
“There, professors nurtured his passions for algebra and geometry, architecture, bridge and building construction, and hydraulics.” Kathryn E. Harrod, Master Bridge Builders: The Story of the Roeblings (New York: Julian Messner, Inc., 1958), pp. 26–27.
“On the bank of the Regnitz River, young Röbling squatted with notebook and drafting pencil in hand as he sketched the iron bar chains, stone towers, and majestic arc of this “miracle bridge.” Ibid.
“No decisions could be made, no actions taken.” Johann August Roebling, Diary of My Journey to American in the Year 1831 (Trenton, N.J.: Roebling Press, 1931), p. 113.
“Should he remain in the fatherland, tied down to the strict rules of semi official life.” Donald Sayenga, ed., Washington Roebling’s Father: A Memoir of John A. Roebling, op. cit.
“All of the German immigrants survived the seventy-eight-day journey except a one-year-old girl, who died after contracting a cold and diarrhea and was buried at sea in a box weighted with iron.” Robert W. Grosse, ImmigrantShips.net, accessed May 13, 2014, http://www.immigrantships.net/v6/1800v6/augustedward18310808.html#Robbling. See also: Roebling, Diary of My Journey to American in the Year 1831, op. cit., p. 85.
“When the waters were calm.” Donald Sayenga, ed., Washington Roebling’s Father: A Memoir of John A. Roebling, op. cit.
“Röbling also helped build safer and more humane restroom facilities on board the ship.” Roebling, Diary of My Journey to American in the Year 1831, op. cit. pp. 18–19.
“In his diary, the business-minded Röbling frequently noted that such disputes could have been minimized by a clearly defined, thorough contract.” Ibid., pp. 36–37.
“How long have we not been without the sight of land and vegetation!” Ibid., p. 98.
“After undergoing mandatory health inspections at the Lazaretto quarantine station, where immigrants with infectious diseases were detained.” ExplorePAhistory.com, “Lazaretto Quarantine Station Historical Marker,” accessed May 13, 2014, http://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php?markerId=1-A-302.
“The numerous hindrances, restrictions, and obstacles, which are set up by timid governments and countless hosts of functionaries against every endeavor in Germany, are not to be found here.” Roebling, Diary of My Journey to American in the Year 1831, op. cit., p. 112.
“But there was no going back or looking back. Johann Röbling was exactly where his mother had sacrificed everything for him to be—in the land of the free, home of the brave.” Donald Sayenga, ed., Washington Roebling’s Father: A Memoir of John A. Roebling, op. cit.
“He, his brother, and another Mühlhausen family traveled by wagon over the Appalachian Mountains to western Pennsylvania.” Roebling, Diary of My Journey to American in the Year 1831, op. cit.
“He and his fellow immigrants were ‘frightened away from the South by the universally prevailing system of slavery.’ ” Ibid., pp. 117–19.
“He expressed hope for slavery’s eventual abolition.” Ibid.
“We now live as free men . . . we live in a section of the country where nature is beautiful and where every diligent person can easily earn a livelihood.” John A. Roebling, “Opportunities for immigrants in Western Pennsylvania in 1831,” The Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine, Vol. 18, No. 2, June 1935, p 75.
“So much remains correct and always true: the Americans now are the most enterprising people on earth and in time will become the most powerful and the most wealthy.” Karl Arndt and Patrick Brostowin, “Pragmatists and prophets: George Rapp and J. A. Roebling versus J. A. Etzler and Count Leon,” The Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine, Vol. 52, No. 1, January 1969, p. 180.
“If one plan won’t do, then another must.” David McCullough, The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972).
“Drawn back to Philadelphia and the waters around it, Roebling patented an improved boiler for steamships and a safety gauge for a steam-boiler flue.” Andreas Kahlow, “Johann August Röbling (1806–1869): Early Projects in Context,” accessed May 13, 2014, http://www.arct.cam.ac.uk/Downloads/ichs/vol-2-1755-1776-kahlow.pdf, p. 1761.
“The latter journal was edited by Dr. Thomas Jones, a physician, engineer, and patent solicitor for the U.S. Patent Office, who later served as Roebling’s patent agent.” Donald Sayenga, ed., Washington Roebling’s Father: A Memoir of John A. Roebling, op. cit., see note 27 on p. 37.
“Two years later, when Roebling aligned himself with another engineer.” Clifford W. Zink, The Roebling Legacy (Princeton Landmark Publication), 2011, pp. 30–31.
“English inventors Andrew Smith and Robert Newall were separately testing their own wire rope designs and machinery in London.” Donald Sayenga, “Modern History of Wire Rope,” accessed May 13, 2014, http://atlantic-cable.com/Article/WireRope/Sayenga/wirerope4.htm.
“My mother fed them; they commenced work in summer at 5 a.m., came to breakfast at 6:30 . . .” Donald Sayenga, ed., Washington Roebling’s Father: A Memoir of John A. Roebling, op. cit., p. 75.
“Townsend’s Quaker ancestors sailed to America from England with William Penn on the good ship Welcome in 1682.” History of Beaver County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: A. Warner & Co., 1888).
“The Townsend company manufactured rivets, nails, fasteners, and telegraph wire, in addition to supplying Roebling with wire for his early experiments and projects.” J. M. Townshend, “The Townshend Company,” Milestones, Volume 25, Number 1, May 1919, accessed May 13, 2014, http://www.bchistory.org/beavercounty/BeaverCountyTopical/Industry/TownsendCompany/Townsendcompany.html.
“And the Sligo Iron Works made charcoal ‘blooms’ for Roebling wire—large blocks cast from molten iron and later steel.” The American Engineer, Volume V, 1883, p. 308.
“He secured U.S. Patent 2,720A in July 1842 for ‘A Method of and Machine for Manufacturing Wire Ropes,’ which described his plan for spinning wire rope while maintaining uniform tension on all of its strands.” U.S. Patent Office, “Method of and machine for manufacturing wire ropes,” patent number US 2720 A (July 16, 1842).
“(It’s housed today at the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History.)” National Museum of American History, “Machine for Wrapping Wire-Rope, Patent Model,” accessed May 13, 2014, http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1403809.
“with tears of joy rolling down his cheeks, his only reply was ‘God is good!’ ” “How John A. Roebling’s Wire Rope Got Its Start,” The Bulletin of the American Iron and Steel Association, Volume 20, Number 1, January 6, 1886, p. 275.
“My father often told me when referring to the [Pittsburgh] Suspension aquaduct [sic] that he never would have been allowed to build such a structure in Prussia . . .” Donald Sayenga, ed., Washington Roebling’s Father: A Memoir of John A. Roebling, op. cit.
“The Pittsburgh Daily Gazette praised the ‘noble structure’ and effused.” Gibbon, “How Roebling Did It,” JOM, op. cit.
“The spans were supported by two four-and-one-half-inch cables made on land separately for each span; they were hoisted in place from flatboats.” Niagra Falls info, “John Augustus Roebling,” accessed May 14, 2014, http://www.niagarafallsinfo.com/history-item.php?entry_id=1406¤t_category_id=219.
“Cooper was an extraordinary manufacturer and inventor in his own right.” Debbie Sniderman, “Peter Cooper,” ASME.org, accessed May 14, 2014, https://www.asme.org/career-education/articles/entrepreneurship/peter-cooper.
“The Roeblings’ ethos and ubiquity inspired their newly adopted hometown’s motto: ‘Trenton makes, the world takes.’ ” Delaware River Heritage Trail, “The Roebling Company’s Kinkora Works,” accessed May 14, 2014, http://www.delrivgreenway.org/heritagetrail/Roebling-Companys-Kinkora-Works.html.
“When Roebling was well enough to travel again.” Donald Sayenga, ed., Washington Roebling’s Father: A Memoir of John A. Roebling, op. cit.
“Roebling and his workers finished them all in two years’ time by 1850.” Ibid.
“Currier & Ives, the famed nineteenth-century ‘printmakers to the American people,’ celebrated the scenic wonder in a series of lithographs depicting the falls from various vantage points.” SpringfieldMusuems, “Niagara Falls, From Goat Island,” undated, accessed May 14, 2014, http://www.springfieldmuseums.org/the_museums/fine_arts/collection/view/7-niagara_falls_from_goat_island.
“Roebling’s old nemesis, Charles Ellet, boasted he could build a suspension bridge ‘safe for the passage of locomotives and freight trains, and adapted for any purpose for which it is likely to be applied.’ ” Pierre Berton, Niagara: A History of the Falls (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1992), p. 81.
“Ellet lost his job when the thievery was discovered. He then lost a bid to sue the bridge sponsors, who paid him a five-figure sum to go take a hike off a short bridge.” Pierre Berton, Niagara: A History of the Falls, op. cit., pp. 46–47.
“He eagerly drew up plans to improve on Ellet’s flawed design . . .” American Society of Civil Engineers, “Roebling, John Augustus,” accessed May 14, 2014, http://www.asce.org/PPLContent.aspx?id=2147487354.
“ ‘You say in your last’ communication, he wrote to his close friend and factory manager Charles Swan, that ‘Mrs. Roebling and the child are pretty well. This takes me by surprise, not having been informed at all . . . what do you mean?’ ” Aymar Embury II, “An American ‘Forsyte Saga,’ ” The Princeton Alumni Weekly, Volume 32, Number 10, pp. 206–7.
“When his Niagara Bridge opened in 1855, Roebling attained international fame.” American Society of Civil Engineers, “Roebling, John Augustus,” op. cit.
“I shall do all that may be in my power to promote a peaceful settlement of all our difficulties. The man does not live who is more devoted to peace than I am.” “The Receptions at Trenton; Speech of Mr. Lincoln in the Senate. Speech in the Assembly. Speech to the People.” New York Times, February 22, 1861.
“In Fredericksburg, Maryland, Washington rebuilt a strategic bridge destroyed by a flood in two weeks’ time. His father helped supply maps to Union generals and donated $100,000 to support the cause.” Donald Sayenga, ed., Washington Roebling’s Father: A Memoir of John A. Roebling, op. cit., p. 192.
“a striking example of what can be accomplished by one man overcoming great difficulties.” Ibid., p. 210.
“The span . . . was renamed in his father’s honor in 1983.” Covington-Cincinnati Suspension Bridge Committee, “A Quick History of the Roebling Suspension Bridge,” June 2004, accessed May 14, 2014, http://roeblingbridge.org/content/quick-history-roebling-suspension-bridge.
“He worked hard all day out in the winter weather, losing a meal now and then.” Donald Sayenga, ed., Washington Roebling’s Father: A Memoir of John A. Roebling, op. cit.
“She died of a protracted illness in Trenton while he was working in Cincinnati in 1864.” David McCullough, The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge, op. cit.
“The massive device was designated a national historic mechanical engineering landmark in 1981.” The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Greater Trenton Section, Roebling 80-Ton Wire Rope Machine, October 21, 1989, accessed May 14, 2014, https://www.asme.org/getmedia/7ff4baee-6655-4ca7-afab-867080380992/139-Roebling-80-ton-Wire-Rope-Machine.aspx.
“Washington and Charles both studied engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Ferdinand studied at Columbian College (now George Washington University) and Polytechnic College of Philadelphia.” RoeblingMuseum.org, “Ferdinand Roebling,” accessed May 14, 2014, http://roeblingmuseum.org/about-us/ferdinand-roebling/. See also: David McCullough, The Great Bridge, op. cit.
“More than science, more than art, Roebling proclaimed, the bridge would stand as a patriotic symbol and structural tribute ‘to the energy, enterprise and wealth of that community which shall secure its erection.’ ” Charles Beebe Stuart, Lives and Works of Civil and Military Engineers of America (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1871).
“As he had been when he was a child, faithful eldest son Washington was at his father’s side when disaster struck.” Donald Sayenga, ed., Washington Roebling’s Father: A Memoir of John A. Roebling, op. cit.
“One of his sketches dated March 1857 depicts a hulking Egyptian pylon with a winged lion’s head looming over the roadway entrance to his Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridge.” Mary J. Shapiro, A Picture History of the Brooklyn Bridge with 167 Prints and Photographs (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1983).
“The New York Times obituary reported that up until three o’clock in the morning before the day he died, Roebling had ‘continued to direct his attendants.’ ” “OBITUARY: John A. Roebling, the Engineer,” New York Times, July 23, 1869.
“Roebling’s deathbed condition was a horrifying seizure known as ‘opisthotonos,’ in which the patient leaps from the mattress, shoulder blades drawn back with the body contorted.” John L. Phillips, The Bends: Compressed Air in the History of Science, Diving, and Engineering (Chelsea, Mich.: BookCrafters, 1998).
“Daily and hourly, I was the miserable witness of the most horrible titanic convulsions . . .” Donald Sayenga, ed., Washington Roebling’s Father: A Memoir of John A. Roebling, op. cit.
“ ‘Here I was at the age of 32,’ Washington later recounted, ‘suddenly put in charge of the most stupendous engineering structure of the age! The prop on which I had hitherto leaned had fallen.’ ” Donald Sayenga, ed., Washington Roebling’s Father: A Memoir of John A. Roebling, op. cit., p. 232.
“Several shafts in the roofs of the caissons, equipped with iron hatches, would allow passage of workers and materials.” “Building Bridge Caissons,” New York Times, March 28, 1897.
“ ‘She has very much captured your brother Washy’s heart at last,’ he confessed in a giddy letter to his sister Emily. ‘It was a real attack in force.’ ” Clifford W. Zink, The Roebling Legacy (Princeton Landmark Publication, 2011), p. 62.
“Emily came from a prominent Mayflower-descended family that was socially connected, though not wealthy. She was polished, patriotic, and educated in rhetoric and grammar, algebra, French, and piano.” Roebling Museum, “Emily Warren Roebling,” accessed May 14, 2014, http://roeblingmuseum.org/about-us/emily-warren-roebling/.
“Again, Washington had to tweak his father’s plans by enlarging them.” “The East River Bridge,” New York Times, December 16, 1879.
“In the bare shed where we got ready, the men told me no one could do the work for long without getting the ‘bends.’ ” EyeWitness to History, “Sandhog: Building the Brooklyn Bridge, 1871” (2005), accessed May 14, 2014, http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/brooklynbridge.htm.
“During the sinking of the caissons, ‘he never left Brooklyn, not even for an hour,’ the American Engineer reported, ‘and at all hours of the day and night, he visited the work going on under the water.’ ” American Engineer, Volume V, 1883, op. cit.
“The know-nothings in the media had the chutzpah to accuse Roebling of ‘stupidity.’ ” Donald Langmead, Icons of American Architecture: From the Alamo to the World Trade Center (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2009).
“They derided him for being an inferior engineer . . .” Ibid.
“In December 1870, a careless workman held a candle too close to the oakum caulking of a wooden seam inside the Brooklyn caisson.” “The Caisson of the East River Bridge on Fire—The Works Damaged to the Extent of $20,000,” New York Times, December 3, 1870.
“He labored with the crew for twelve hours straight through the night, then came down with a painful case of the bends as he ascended.” W. P. Butler, “Caisson disease during the construction of the Eads and Brooklyn bridges: A review,” Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society, Volume 31, Number 4, 2004.
“Three other bridge workers died of the awful disease and more than one hundred others suffered nonfatal occurrences of the decompression syndrome as caisson work continued.” Ibid.
“the emotional pain caused by ignorant criticism, fraudulent contractors, the virulent opposition of the press, and interference by trustees with neither ability nor vision, hurt him far more.” Donald Langmead, Icons of American Architecture: From the Alamo to the World Trade Center, op. cit.
“ ‘I thought I would succumb to disease,’ Washington later wrote in his memoirs, ‘but I had a strong tower to lean upon, my wife, a woman of infinite tact and wisest counsel.’ ” Donald Sayenga, ed., Washington Roebling’s Father: A Memoir of John A. Roebling, op. cit.
“it was common gossip that hers was the great mind behind the great work.” David McCullough, The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge, op. cit.
“When bids for the steel and iron work for the structure were advertised for three or four years ago, it was found that entirely new shapes would be required.” “Mrs. Roebling’s Skill,” New York Times, May 23, 1883.
“Schemers spread false rumors that Washington was paralyzed or ‘really as one dead.’ ” David McCullough, The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge, op. cit.
“I think it can be said of us in this time, our time, whatever may have been the subjection and insignificance of women in other days.” “Mrs. Washington Augustus Roebling”; In: . . .” Elroy M. Avery, ed., Daughters of the American Revolution Magazine, Volume 18, July–December 1900, pp. 246–50.
“enfranching cable, silvered by the sea.” Marianne Moore, “Granite and Steel,” The New Yorker, July 9, 1966, p. 32.
“Poet Walt Whitman ‘returned to his beloved city and saw the nearly complete bridge,’ the Academy of American Poets noted . . .” “Poetry Landmark: The Brooklyn Bridge in New York City,” accessed May 14, 2014, http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/poetry-landmark-brooklyn-bridge-new-york-city.
“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” Walt Whitman, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” accessed May 14, 2014, http://www.bartleby.com/142/86.html.
“He spent the next two years laboring on his ambitious, modernist epic tribute of fifteen lyric poems, ‘The Bridge.’ ” “Hart Cranes The Bridge: A Digital Resource,” accessed May 14, 2014, http://sites.jmu.edu/thebridge/. See also: Lawrence Kramer, “Hart Crane’s ‘The Bridge,’ ” accessed May 14, 2014, https://muse.jhu.edu/books/9780823248735.
“Complex, sweeping, and controversial, it was Crane’s attempt to connect the Roeblings’ monument to his own metaphysical ‘bridgeship.’ ” John T. Irwin, Hart Crane’s Poetry: “Appollinaire lived in Paris, I live in Cleveland, Ohio” (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011).
“To Brooklyn Bridge.” Hart Crane, “To Brooklyn Bridge,” accessed May 14, 2014, http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/brooklyn-bridge.
“Upon publication of his book-length series, Crane discovered that he had been living in the same apartment building at 100 Columbia Heights where Washington Roebling supervised the span’s construction from his bed.” Clive Fisher, Hart Crane: A Life (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2002).
“He built a fine mansion with his wife, traveled with her when his health permitted, and amassed a fortune estimated at $29 million.” David McCullough, The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge, op. cit.
“ ‘bridge builder in petticoats.’ ” Carol Simon Levin, “Bridge Builder in Petticoats: Emily Warren Roebling,” accessed May 14, 2014, http://bridgebuilderinpetticoats.com/.
“She was one of forty-eight women pioneers who earned a law degree from New York University in 1899.” “The Woman’s Law Class,” New York Times, March 31, 1899.
“She penned a biography of her husband, historical essays on the Brooklyn Bridge construction, legal papers on giving money to charity and the ‘value of being your own executor.’ ” Elroy M. Avery, ed., Daughters of the American Revolution Magazine, op. cit.
“And though the years aiding her husband had taken a physical toll, Emily traveled to Russia, shared tea with Queen Victoria, and organized relief efforts for U.S. troops returning from the Spanish-American War.” Bernardsville Public Library, “Bridge Builder in Petticoats: Emily Warren Roebling & the Brooklyn Bridge,” nj.com, February 5, 2014, accessed May 14, 2014, http://blog.nj.com/somerset_county_announcements/2014/02/bridge_builder_in_petticoats_e.html.
“Alexis de Tocqueville,” Democracy in America and Two Essays on America (London: Penguin Books, 2003), p. 644.
This chapter was inspired by Foundation for Economic Education founder Leonard Read’s classic essay “I, Pencil,” first published in 1958.
“I, Toilet Paper.” Leonard E. Read, “I, Pencil: My Family Tree as told to Leonard E. Read,” Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc., 1999, Library of Economics and Liberty, accessed May 1, 2014, http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html.
“8.6 sheets of me per restroom visit.” “The Toilet Paper Encyclopedia,” Consumers Interstate Corporation, Norwich, Conn., accessed May 1, 2014, http://encyclopedia.toiletpaperworld.com/toilet-paper-facts/toilet-paper-quick-facts.
“$8 billion per year.” Richard Smyth, Bum Fodder: An Absorbing History of Toilet Paper (Souvenir Publishing, October 2012), p. 1.
“mashed-up mulberries, old rags, and hemp fibers,” “The Toilet Paper Encyclopedia,” Consumers Interstate Corporation, Norwich, Conn., accessed May 1, 2014, http://encyclopedia.toiletpaperworld.com/toilet-paper-history/complete-historical-timeline.
“Inventive great grandson David Rittenhouse constructed a model watermill.” “University of Pennsylvania University Archives and Records Center,” Penn Biographies, David Rittenhouse, accessed May 1, 2014, http://www.archives.upenn.edu/people/1700s/rittenhouse_david.html.
“eight generations of the Rittenhouse family.” “William Rittenhouse,” Paper Discovery Center, accessed May 1, 2014, http://www.paperdiscoverycenter.org/williamrittenhouse/.
“RittenhouseTown.” James Green, The Rittenhouse Mill and the Beginnings of Papermaking in America (The Library Company of Philadelphia and Friends of Historic RittenhouseTown, 1990).
“only active printer south of Boston.” Green, The Rittenhouse Mill and the Beginnings of Papermaking in America, p. 5.
“brown paper for wrapping at two shillings a ream,” Edward Tunis, Colonial Craftsmen: And the Beginnings of American Industry (Johns Hopkins University Press; reprint edition, June 17, 1999), p. 132.
“journalist who partnered with Benjamin Franklin.” “Benjamin Franklin: Writer and Printer,” The Library Company of Philadelphia, accessed May 1, 2014, http://www.librarycompany.org/bfwriter/publisher.htm.
“to publish books.” “William Bradford, Colonial Printer Tercentenary Review,” American Antiquarian Society, accessed May 1, 2014, http://www.americanantiquarian.org/proceedings/44604985.pdf.
“mill outside Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania.” “William Rittenhouse 1644–1708,” Immigrant Entrepreneurship, accessed May 1, 2014, http://www.immigrantentrepreneurship.org/entry.php?rec=9.
“excellent commercial facilities, and optimum manufacturing conditions.” “William Rittenhouse 1644–1708,” accessed May 1, 2014, http://www.immigrantentrepreneurship.org/entry.php?rec=9.
“eighteen of these early American paper mills.” F. C. Huyck & Sons and Perry Walton, Two Related Industries (Albany, N.Y.: F. C. Huyck & Sons, 1920), p. 17.
“Franklins also ran their own lucrative wholesale paper business.” John Bidwell, American Paper Mills, 1690–1832: A Directory of the Paper Trade with Notes on Products, Watermarks, Distribution Methods, and Manufacturing Techniques (Hanover, N.H.: Dartmouth College Press, 2012), accessed May 2, 2014, https://muse.jhu.edu/books/9781611683165; “Benjamin Franklin, Entrepreneur,” The Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary, accessed May 2, 2014, http://www.benfranklin300.org/etc_article_entrepreneur.htm.
“Revere even stabled his horses at the Crane mill.” “History of Crane Paper Company,” Crane & Co., accessed May 2, 2014, http://www.crane.com/about-us/learn-more/history.
“Crane’s sons and grandsons.” J. T. White and Company, The National Cyclopedia of American Biography, 1906, p. 69.
“internationally renowned fine stationery.” “About Us,” Crane & Co., accessed May 2, 2014, http://www.crane.com/about-us.
“leading pioneer in currency security technology.” Ylan Q. Mui, “Crane Has Provided the Paper for U.S. Money for Centuries; Now It’s Going Global,” Washington Post, December 13, 2013, accessed May 2, 2014, http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/crane-has-provided-the-paper-for-us-money-for-centuries-now-its-going-global/2013/12/13/9aa4190a-5c39-11e3-be07-006c776266ed_story.html.
“patent for preventing the paper pulp from becoming burned or discolored by adding calcium to the mixture.” Charles W. Carey, Jr., and Ian C. Friedman, Tilghman, Benjamin and Richard, American Inventors, Entrepreneurs, and Business Visionaries, Revised Edition, American Biographies. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2011, American History Online, accessed February 24, 2014, http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE52&iPin=AIE0237&SingleRecord=True.
“Wood pulp mills sprouted up in poplar-abundant Maine.” “History of Papermaking,” Maine Pulp and Paper Association, accessed May 2, 2014, http://www.pulpandpaper.org/history.shtml.
“$30,000 to establish a paper mill in Neenah, Wisconsin, in 1872.” “Kimberly-Clark Corporation,” Harvard Business School Historical Collections, accessed May 2, 2014, http://www.library.hbs.edu/hc/lehman/company.html?company=kimberly_clark_corporation; “Product Evolution,” Kimberly-Clark Corporation, accessed May 2, 2014, https://www.kimberly-clark.com/ourcompany/innovations/product_evolution.aspx.
“two of the Fortune 500 company’s billion-dollar brands.” “Kimberly-Clark’s Kotex Brand Achieves Billion-dollar Status,” Kimberly-Clark Corporation, accessed May 2, 2014, http://investor.kimberly-clark.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=649875.
“Hoberg died in a tragic machinery accident at the factory.” “Procter & Gamble History,” Southeast Missourian, September 4, 2009, accessed May 2, 2014, http://www.semissourian.com/story/1567637.html.
“tearing off a considerable part of the contiguous sheet.” “Toilet-paper Roll,” All Over Albany, accessed May 2, 2014, http://alloveralbany.com/images/1891patent.pdf; “Toilet Paper Was Invented In {Albany},” All Over Albany, accessed May 2, 2014, http://alloveralbany.com/archive/2010/03/15/toilet-paper-invented-in-yep-albany.
“Clogged pipes with consequent impure air and disease prevented.” “Perforated Paper The Standard,” The Virtual Toilet Paper Museum, accessed May 2, 2014, http://nobodys-perfect.com/vtpm/exhibithall/informational/1886_APW_ad.jpg.
“morphed into cart-pushing delivery boy by afternoon.” M. E. Dixon, The Hidden History of Delaware County: Untold Tales from Cobb’s Creek (History Press, 2010), pp. 64–65.
“executive at the Curtis Publishing Company (publisher of the Ladies’ Home Journal).” Sons of the Revolution, Pennsylvania Society, Annual Proceedings (The Society, 1901), p. 39.
“James Hoyt, inspired them with his patented.” US333073 A, December 22, 1885, Google Patents, accessed May 3, 2014, http://www.google.com/patents/US333073.
“enclosed bathroom tissue container in 1885.” “Manufacturing: Tissue Issue,” Time, August 22, 1938, accessed May 4, 2014, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,788421-1,00.html. Here’s a photo of the Hoyt holder: “Tagyerit.com,” accessed May 4, 2014, http://www.tagyerit.com/images/tp/1885hoytholder1.jpg.
“roll of toilet paper!” Jenny Knodell, “The Bathroom Was an Uncomfortable Place before Cardboard Tubes,” IQS Newsroom, accessed May 4, 2014, http://blog.iqsdirectory.com/packaging/the-bathroom-was-an-uncomfortable-place-before-cardboard-tubes/.
“packaged for either commercial or residential sale.” “Toilet Paper,” How Products Are Made, accessed May 4, 2014, http://www.madehow.com/Volume-6/Toilet-Paper.html.
“merchants wouldn’t display it and publications wouldn’t advertise it.” “The Roll That Changed History: Disposable Toilet Tissue Story,” Kimberly-Clark Corporation, accessed May 4, 2014, http://www.cms.kimberly-clark.com/umbracoimages/UmbracoFileMedia/ProductEvol_ToiletTissue_umbracoFile.pdf.
“company’s first branded product.” Catherine Earley, “The Greatest Missed Luxury,” The Pennsylvania Center For the Book, Fall 2010, accessed May 4, 2014, http://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/TP.html.
“a small, single picture.” Bernice Kanner, “The Soft Sell,” New York, Vol. 15, No. 38, September 27, 1982, p. 14.
“machine for tightening rolls of paper.” “Machine For Tightening Rolls of Paper,” US806847 A, December 12, 1905, Google Patents, accessed May 4, 2014, https://www.google.com/patents/US806847?dq=ininventor:%22Arthur+H+Scott%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=-qUGU9XqHoXaoASMvYDwAQ&ved=0CE4Q6AEwBQ.
“supporting device for toilet paper packages.” “Supporting Device For Toilet Paper Packages,” US865436 A, September 10, 1907, Google Patents, accessed May 4, 2014, https://www.google.com/patents/US865436?dq=ininventor:%22Arthur+H+Scott%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=mgQMU5-pCInlyQH6h4GIBw&ved=0CEkQ6AEwBA.
“several toilet paper cabinets.” “Ininventor: ‘Arthur H. Scott,’ ” Google Search, accessed May 4, 2014, https://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=pts&hl=en&q=ininventor:%22Arthur+H+Scott%22.
“cheap towel formed from paper and adapted for all general uses.” “Paper Towel,” US 1141495 A, June 1, 1915, Google Patents, May 4, 2014, http://www.google.com/patents/US1141495.
“prevent students from infecting each other.” “One Teacher’s Fight Against Germs: The Disposable Paper Towels Story,” Kimberly-Clark Corporation, accessed May 4, 2014, http://www.cms.kimberly-clark.com/umbracoimages/UmbracoFileMedia/ProductEvol_PaperTowel_umbracoFile.pdf.
“In 1995, Kimberly-Clark bought Scott Paper for $9.4 billion,” Glenn Collins, “Kimberly-Clark to Buy Scott Paper, Challenging P.& G.” New York Times, July 18, 1995, accessed May 4, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/18/business/kimberly-clark-to-buy-scott-paper-challenging-p-g.html.
“and in the absence of any human master-minding!” Leonard E. Read, “I, Pencil: My Family Tree as told to Leonard E. Read” (Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc., 1999), Library of Economics and Liberty, accessed 4 May 2014, http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html.
“the brainchild of William Painter.” “Hall of Fame: Inventor Profile,” National Inventors Hall of Fame, accessed April 23, 2014, http://www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/292.html. The only material difference now is that the cork liner has been replaced with modern plastic, the corrugated teeth cut from twenty-four to twenty-one, and the cap’s skirt shortened in height.
“boyhood aspiration always and ever had been to ‘make something.’ ” From William Lewis’s tribute to Painter in Orrin Chalfant Painter, William Painter And His Father Dr. Edward Painter: Sketches and Reminiscences (Baltimore: The Arundel Press, John S. Bridges Td Co., 1914), p. 53.
“discharged by a piston operated by the thumb, upon unsuspecting observers.” Ibid., p. 14.
“Whoopee Cushion.” The Whoopee Cushion was invented by a Canadian rubber firm in the 1930s and sold by the American novelty mail-order giant Johnson Smith Company.
“Son Orrin joked that Painter earned his degree from the ‘University of Hard Knocks.’ ” Painter, William Painter And His Father Dr. Edward Painter: Sketches and Reminiscences, op. cit., p. 28.
“patent leather.” Is defined as “a type of leather that has a hard and shiny surface,” “Patent Leather,” Merriam-Webster.com, accessed May 12, 2014, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/patent_leather.
“manufacturing shop of Pyle, Wilson & Pyle.” J. T. Scharf, History of Delaware: 1609–1888: Local history (Philadelphia: L.J. Richards & Co., 1888), p. 793.
“reportedly appropriated the device (along with the financial rewards) as his own.” Ibid. Schar credits Pyle—Painter’s own uncle—as the “inventor of the invaluable ‘softening’ machine now in use at the factory.” See also “U.S. Patent 15816 A,” Google Patents, accessed May 12, 2014, http://www.google.com/patents/US15816.
“Nobody should ever get the best of him again by putting clothes on the children of his brain and endowing them with his or her name.” Painter, William Painter And His Father Dr. Edward Painter: Sketches and Reminiscences, op. cit., p. 54.
“Painter would surely have been an enthusiastic user of Post-it Notes, invented by 3M engineers in the 1970s.” Nick Glass and Tim Hume, “The ‘Hallelujah Moment’ Behind Invention of the Post-it Note,” CNN, April 4, 2013, accessed May 12, 2014, http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/04/tech/post-it-note-history/.
“he would rise, dust off his pants, and walk on, oblivious of everything and everyone around him.” Painter, William Painter And His Father Dr. Edward Painter: Sketches and Reminiscences, op. cit. p.31.
“he’d walk several blocks past his downtown Baltimore mansion on Calvert Street.” Jacques Kelly, “The Ivy hotel was once home to prominent city businessman,” Baltimore Sun, December 13, 2013, accessed May 12, 2014, http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-kelly-column-ivy-hotel—20131213,0,6940720.column.
“Add sixteen pounds of sugar, and ten ounces of tartaric acid.” “Miss Beecher’s Domestic Receipt Book,” Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free Books, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine, accessed May 12, 2014, http://archive.org/stream/missbeechersdome01beec/missbeechersdome01beec_djvu.txt.
“is a most valuable agent for checking nausea and vomiting.” Ibid.
“John Mathews and his namesake son, quickly went to work manufacturing commercial soda fountain equipment.” C. M. Depew, 1795–1895: One Hundred Years of American Commerce . . . a History of American Commerce by One Hundred Americans, with a Chronological Table of the Important Events of American Commerce and Invention Within the Past One Hundred Years (D. O. Haynes & Company, 1895), p. 470.
“patent medicine.” Defined as “a packaged nonprescription drug which is protected by a trademark and whose contents are incompletely disclosed,” “Patent Medicine,” Merriam-Webster.com, accessed May 12, 2014, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/patent_medicine.
“a woodsy medicinal syrup.” “Charles E. Hires Company 1870–present Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,” Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors, accessed May 12, 2014, http://www.fohbc.org/PDF_Files/HiresRootBeer_DonYates.pdf.
“marketed as ‘root beer’ at the 1876 Philadelphia Exposition.” Eileen Bennett, “Local historians argue over the root of the story of how Hires first brewed beer that made millions,” Press of Atlantic City (N.J.), June 28, 1998, cited on Cumberland County, New Jersey, website, accessed May 12, 2014, http://www.co.cumberland.nj.us/content/163/241/597.aspx.
“Pemberton famously introduced Coca-Cola to customers at an Atlanta, Georgia, drugstore in 1886.” Joe Nickell, “ ‘Pop’ Culture: Patent Medicines Become Soda Drinks,” Committee For Skeptical Inquiry, January/February 2011, accessed May 12, 2014, http://www.csicop.org/si/show/pop_culture_patent_medicines_become_soda_drinks/.
“Paris-based Compagnie de Limonadiers served up a lemonade-flavored syrupy beverage in the seventeenth century.” “Soft drink,” Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed May 12, 2014, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/552397/soft-drink.
“aciduous soda water . . . prepared and sold in London by a Mr Schweppe,” “American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record” (American Druggist Publishing Company, 1903), Vol. 42, p. 258.
“the same Schweppe whose name you still see on your ginger ale can.” Schweppe’s, the very same maker of tonic water and ginger ale, is now part of the Plano, Texas–based Dr Pepper Snapple Group.
“he invented the national beverage.” J. Parton, Life of Thomas Jefferson: Third President of the United States” (J. R. Osgood, 1874), p. 498.
“should be stored upside down, ‘well corked, and cemented.’ ” “Impregnating Water with Fixed Air,” Today In Science History, accessed May 12, 2014, http://www.todayinsci.com/P/Priestley_Joseph/PriestleyJoseph-MakingCarbonatedWater1772.htm.
“rubber gasket held between two metal plates attached to a wire spring loop.” “Bottle Closures,” Antique Soda & Beer Bottles, accessed May 12, 2014, http://mysite.verizon.net/vonmechow/closures.htm. See also “Bottle Finishes & Closures,” Society for Historical Archaeology, accessed May 13, 2014, http://www.sha.org/bottle/closures.htm#Hutchinson_Spring_Stopper.
“U.S. Patent Office had approved an estimated fifteen hundred bottle stopper patents.” “The Crown Cork Cap and Crown Soda Machine 1892 and 1888,” The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, May 25, 1994, accessed May 12, 2014, https://www.asme.org/getmedia/917b2933-3e75-4207-b26e-ca0f62b41644/174-Crown-Cork-Soda-Filling-Machine.aspx; “Who Invented the Crown Cap Lifter?” Bullworks.net Virtual Corkscrew Museum and Flower Frog Gazette, accessed May 12, 2014, http://www.bullworks.net/virtual/infopages/crowncork.htm.
“the closures (for either carbonated or fermented, ‘still’ drinks) could be manufactured cheaply and economically.” The disks cost only twenty-five cents per gross versus two dollars or more for the Hutchison closures. Riley, 1958, “Bottle Finishes & Closures.”
“the Bottle Seal sold at twenty-five cents per gross.” Painter, William Painter And His Father Dr. Edward Painter: Sketches and Reminiscences, op. cit., p. 57.
“the makers of a New England soft drink called ‘Moxie.’ ” Jim Baumer, “A Somewhat Brief History of Moxie,” I Am Jim Baumer, January 25, 2010, accessed May 13, 2014, http://www.jimbaumer.com/2010/01/25/a-somewhat-brief-history-of-moxie/. According to Merrill Lewis, president of the New England Moxie Congress, and Wayne T. Mitchell, Penobscot Nation representative to the Maine state legislature, the word “moxie” comes from the Wabanaki Algonquin dialect and means “dark water.” See “A Brief History of ‘Moxie,’ Esquire, May 6, 2010, accessed December 29, 2014, http://www.esquire.com/style/answer-fella/define-moxie-0510.
“this health-and-vigor beverage gave rise to the familiar expression, ‘You’ve got a lot of Moxie.’ ” “The History of Moxie,” Moxie Beverage Company, accessed May 13, 2014, http://www.drinkmoxie.com/history.php, and Nickell, op. cit.
“summed up the selling points in five words: ‘Pure, clean, neat, tight, cheap.’ ” “William Painter Bottle Stopper,” Hutchinson Bottle Collectors’ Association, accessed May 13, 2014, http://www.hutchbook.com/Painter%2009-29-1885/default.htm.
“I have devised metallic sealing-caps embodying certain novel characteristics which render them highly effective and so inexpensive as to warrant throwing them away after a single use thereof, even when forcible displacement, as in opening bottles, has resulted in no material injury to the caps.” “Bottle-sealing Device,” US Patent 468258 A, Google Patents, accessed May 13, 2014, http://www.google.us/patents/US468258.
“restless energy and indomitable perseverance.” Painter, William Painter And His Father Dr. Edward Painter: Sketches and Reminiscences, op. cit., p. 44.
“send a cargo of crown-capped beer to South America and bring it back.” S. Van Dulken, Inventing the 19th Century: 100 Inventions That Shaped the Victorian Age from Aspirin to the Zeppelin (New York University Press, 2001), p. 68.
“threw a welcome back party and invited Charm City reporters to witness the taste tests.” News Staff, “Crown Cork CEO explains cutbacks,” Reading Eagle, June 19, 2000, A13.
“Jefferson built two of his own vineyards.” “The Vineyards,” Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, accessed May 13, 2014, http://www.monticello.org/site/house-and-gardens/vineyards.
“patented a synthetic cork product dubbed ‘Nepro.’ ” “McManus v. Margetts,” Leagle Inc., accessed May 13, 2014, http://www.leagle.com/decision/19501286NJSuper122_1104.
“saved money by allowing crown caps to be made shallower and with less tin metal.” “CrownCappers’ Club,” Crown Cap Collectors Society International, accessed May 13, 2014, http://www.bottlecapclub.org/docs/magazine/pdfs/ccsi2000_02.pdf.
“bought up cork companies on both coasts and built export facilities in Europe and North Africa.” David Taylor, “The Great Cork Experiment,” Chesapeake Bay Magazine’s Chesapeake Boating.net, March 2008, accessed May 13, 2014, http://www.chesapeakeboating.net/Publications/Chesapeake-Bay-Magazine/2008/March-2008/The-Great-Cork-Experiment.aspx.
“By 1937, the company was producing more than 103 million bottle tops a day.” “The Crown Cork Cap and Crown Soda Machine 1892 and 1888,” op. cit.
“to provide in the United States a source for at least a part of the nation’s cork requirement.” William H. Brooks, “A Literature Review of California Domestic Cork Production,” USDA U.S. Forest Service Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-160, 1997, p. 480, accessed May 13, 2014, http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/publications/documents/psw_gtr160/psw_gtr160_04e_brooks.pdf.
“McManus successfully consolidated Crown’s operations and boosted sales to $11 million.” “Crown History,” Crown Holdings, Inc., accessed May 13, 2014, http://www.crowncork.com/about/about_history.php.
“Painter’s successors now manufacture high-speed stainless steel bottle- and can-filling machines that can fill two thousand cans or twelve hundred bottles per minute.” “The Crown Cork Cap and Crown Soda Machine 1892 and 1888,” op. cit., p. 4.
“continued to tinker on the side with his brothers on various improvements to barrels.” Tim Dowling, Inventor of the Disposable Culture, King Camp Gillette 1855–1932 (London: Short Books, 2001), p. 16.
“You’ll hit upon something that a lot of people want.” Walter Monfried, “Millionaire Ten Years Ago, He is Broke Now,” Milwaukee Journal, August 15, 1942, A1.
“It was at [Painter’s] solicitation that I joined the company.” King Camp Gillette, “Origin of the Gillette Razor,” Gillette Blade, Vol. 1, No. 4, February 1918, p. 4.
“Mr. Painter was a very interesting talker.” Ibid.
“[Y]ou are always thinking and inventing something.” Ibid.
“Why don’t you try to think of something like a crown cork.” Ibid.
“but it won’t do any harm to think about it.” Ibid.
“[W]hen I started to shave, I found my razor dull.” Ibid., p. 6.
“was looked upon as a joke by all my friends.” Ibid., p. 7.
“The only way to do a thing is to do it.” Painter, William Painter And His Father Dr. Edward Painter: Sketches and Reminiscences, op. cit., p. 28.
“But whatever you do, don’t let it get away from you.” King Camp Gillette, “Origin of the Gillette Razor,” op. cit., p. 4.
“He is an inventor by nature.” “Mr. William Emergy Nickerson,” Electricity, Vol. V., No. 6, August 23, 1893, p. 70.
“I was a dreamer who believed in the ‘gold at the foot of the rainbow’ promise.” King Camp Gillette, “Origin of the Gillette Razor,” op. cit., p. 7.
“I am confident that I have grasped the situation and can guarantee, as far as such a thing can be guaranteed, a successful outcome.” William E. Nickerson, “The Development of the Gillette Safety Razor,” Gillette Blade, Vol 2., No. 2, December 1918, p. 7.
“so crooked and crumpled as to be wholly useless.” Ibid.
“ ‘airtight instrument against infringers.’ ” Russell Adams, King Gillette: The Man and His Wonderful Shaving Device (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1978), p. 39.
“In 1904, Gillette received his breakthrough patent.” “Razor,” King C. Gillette, U.S. Patent 775134 A, Nov. 15, 1904, Google Patents, accessed May 13, 2014, http://www.google.com/patents/US775134.
“ ‘Smoothing’ was the euphemism of choice.” Russell Adams, King Gillette: The Man and His Wonderful Shaving Device, op. cit., p. 92.
“The fourteen-karat gold-plated razor came encased in a ‘velvet and satin-lined French ivory case’ of ‘dainty size.’ ” “Milady Decollete Gillette,” Spokesman-Review, July 18, 1915, A7.
“now employs nearly thirty thousand with sales topping $10 billion.” “P&G Agrees to Buy Gillette In a $54 Billion Stock Deal,” Wall Street Journal, January 30, 2005, accessed May 13, 2014, http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB110693197048439468.
“It is often true that invention involves underlying principles, purposes and questions of utility.” Russell Adams, King Gillette: The Man and His Wonderful Shaving Device, op. cit., pp. 49–50.
“I was not interested in farming and wanted to make my own way.” Edna Marks, “Hires, Root Beer King, Comes to City to Fish,” Evening Independent, February 2, 1929, A1.
“sweeping floors, cleaning out spittoons, polishing mirrors, cleaning mortars, and delivering medicines.” For a description of the general duties of a drug-store boy, see The Pharmaceutical Era (New York), Vol. 17, May 13, 1897, p. 565.
“he attended open lectures and night classes at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy.” For more on the growth of the American pharmaceutical industry in the nineteenth century, see Glenn Sonnedeker, Kremers and Urdang’s History of Pharmacy (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1963), p. 181, and Gregory J. Higby, “Chemistry and the 19th-Century American Pharmacist,” Bull. Hist. Chem., Volume 28, Number 1, 2003.
“Laundries, dry goods, and other retail shops rose near churches, hospitals, medical publishing firms, tanneries, libraries, and homes.” George R. Fisher, “Sixth and Walnut to Broad and Samson,” Philadelphia Reflections, accessed May 13, 2014, http://www.philadelphia-reflections.com/blog/1222.htm.
“One day while walking out on Spruce Street, I noticed a cellar being dug.” Charles Hires, “Seeing Opportunities,” Charles Hires, “Seeing Opportunities,” American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record (New York), Vol. 61, October 1913, p. 28.
“the brick clay was deposited in the region at the end of the last glacial period.” Henry Carvill Lewis, “The Trenton Gravel and Its Relation to the Antiquity of Man,” Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Volume 32, 1880, p. 297.
“The clay was also handy as a component in pharmaceuticals.” “History of Fuller’s Earth,” HRP Industries, accessed May 14, 2014, http://www.fullersearth.com/about_fullers_earth/.
“Manufacturers also used the clay to bleach edible oils and decolorize petroleum used in medicinal products (such as Vaseline oils).” Charles L. Parsons, “Fuller’s Earth,” Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1913), p. 19.
“It occurred to me that I might put up potter’s clay in convenient-sized cakes that would be handy to retail and more convenient for people to use.” Charles Hires, “Seeing Opportunities,” op. cit., p. 28.
“Smith, Kline & Co., founded in Philadelphia in 1830 as an apothecary.” Mark Meltzer, “A Time-released Capsule How Small Phila. Shop Grew Into Pharmaceutical Giant,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 28, 1988, accessed May 14, 2014, http://articles.philly.com/1988-09-28/business/26229960_1_drug-store-product-line-kline-family.
“The side business made $5,000, which provided the starting capital for the root beer project that would bring him worldwide fame and fortune.” Don Yates, “Charles E. Hires Company, 1870–present, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,” Bottles and Extras, Summer 2005, p. 50.
“doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark: you know what you are doing, but nobody else does.” “Our History,” Dr Pepper Snapple Group, accessed May 14, 2014, http://www.drpeppersnapplegroup.com/brands/hires/.
“He used his fuller’s earth profits to fund his research and development over the next five years.” Don Yates, op. cit.
“You advertise in the Ledger, beginning right away, and I’ll tell the bookkeeper not to send you any bills unless you ask for them.” Charles E. Hires, “Some Advertising Reminiscences,” Simmons’ Spice Mill, February 1915, p. 194.
“Over fifty thousand pounds of barks, roots, berries, and flowers went into the composition of Hires Root Beer Extract made last year.” The Illustrated American (New York), Volume 7, August 15, 1891, p. 629.
“His personal and business motto was simply: ‘Merit will win.’ ” Ibid.
“I have often thought when I have heard of the difficulties of a young man in getting along.” Charles Hires, “Seeing Opportunities,” op. cit., p. 28.
“SERVE.” Ibid.
“But just buckle in with a bit of a grin.” Edgar Albert Guest, “It Couldn’t Be Done,” Poetry Foundation, accessed May 11, 2014, http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173579.
“Together, they created or fueled more than two hundred companies.” Alan Schoedel, “Owens Centennial Observances Planned in 34 Cities to Honor Unschooled Genius of U.S. Glass Industry,” Toledo Blade, August 30, 1959, p. 2.
“Owens’s mechanical genius paved the way for lower production costs, higher output, and unprecedented uniformity of product quality and size.” Quentin Skrabec, Jr., Michael Owens and the Glass Industry (Gretna, La.: Pelican Publishing, January 31, 2007), p. 203.
“During the reign of Tiberius Caesar, unsurprisingly, the troubled emperor descended into depression, sexual debauchery, and vengeance.” Classical Weekly, Volume VI, Number 20, March 29, 1913, p. 165.
“The very first glass-makers came from ancient Egypt, Syria, and Palestine, but Roman conquerors and traders get the credit for adopting, adapting, and spreading early glass technology across Western Europe and the Mediterranean.” “Wondrous Glass: Reflections on the World of Rome,” accessed May 10, 2014, http://www.umich.edu/~kelseydb/Exhibits/WondrousGlass/MainGlass.html. See also House of Glass, “History of Glassblowing,” accessed May 10, 2014, http://www.thehouseofglassinc.com/glasshistory.htm.
“ ‘Glass was present in nearly every aspect of daily life,’ a Roman art history specialist noted, ‘from a lady’s morning toilette to a merchant’s afternoon business dealings to the evening cena, or dinner.’ ” Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Roman Glass,” accessed May 10, 2014, http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/rgls/hd_rgls.htm.
“The impact left nothing more than a small dent, which the emperor’s guest miraculously repaired with a hammer (matriolum) he had brought along for the sales pitch.” Classical Weekly, Volume VI, Number 20, March 29, 1913, op. cit., p. 102.
“If the invention were known, Tiberius feared, ‘gold would become as cheap as mud.’ ” M. P. E. Berthelot, “Ancient and Mediaeval Chemistry,” Popular Science Monthly, Volume 45, p. 117.
“Venice’s secret police would be dispatched to hunt down escapees to the ends of the earth.” Madeline Anne Wallace-Dunlop, Glass in the Old World, (Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger Publishing, 2010 [1882]) op. cit. See also: thecultureconcept circle, “Glass a Magic Material—Pt 2 Venice, Verzelini & Vauxhall,” accessed May 10, 2014, http://www.thecultureconcept.com/circle/glass-a-magic-material-pt-2-venice-verzelini-vauxhall.
“Many of the workers successfully escaped to Vienna, Belgium, France, and England.” House of Glass, “History of Glassblowing,” op. cit.
“ ‘aboard moonlit gondolas by secret agents’ to work for Colbert’s Royal Company of Glass and Mirrors.” Heyl and Gregorin, op. cit.
“Colbert and his operatives had gathered enough intelligence to continue mirror production on their own.” Mark Pendergrast, Mirror Mirror: A History of the Human Love Affair with Reflection (New York: Basic Books, 2003). See also Melchior-Bonnet, The Mirror: A History, op. cit.
“The Liberty Song.” Lydia Bolles Newcomb, “Songs and Ballads of the Revolution,” New England Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly, Volume 13, Number 1, September 1895, p. 503.
“Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend (Britain’s Chief Bagman), crusaded for a new set of onerous import duties and the creation of a tax compliance police squad headquartered in Boston—where resistance to the Stamp Act had been most virulent.” USHistory.org, “The Townshend Acts,” accessed May 10, 2014, http://www.ushistory.org/us/9d.asp. See also: Stamp Act, “1767—Townshend Acts,” accessed May 10, 2014, http://www.stamp-act-history.com/townshend-act/townshend-acts/.
“Parliament enacted a package of four laws in Townshend’s name in 1767.” Massachusetts Historical Society, “The Townshend Acts,” accessed May 10, 2014, http://www.masshist.org/revolution/townshend.php.
“The Boston selectmen, including John Hancock and Samuel Adams, added their clarion voices after a historic town hall meeting in October 1767 at Faneuil Hall.” Historic Printed Letter Signed “Joseph Jackson,” “Samuel Sewall,” “John Ruddock,” “Wm Phillips,” “Tim. Newell,” and “John Rowe” as Select Men of Boston, dated October 31, 1767. “To the Gentlemen Select-Men of Eastown,” accessed from University Archives on May 10, 2014, http://www.universityarchives.com/Find-an-Item/Results-List/Item-Detail.aspx?ItemID=51597.
“The patriots drew up a target list of British goods.” Ibid.
“The Boston leaders also agreed ‘to promote Industry, Economy, and Manufactures’ domestically.” Ibid.
“British exports plunged from 2,378,000 pounds in 1768 to 1,634,000 in 1769.” William R. Nester, The Frontier War for American Independence (Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 2004), p. 33.
“Defiant Americans, men and women alike, tarred and feathered the British tax collection squad.” R. S. Longley, “Mob activities in revolutionary Massachusetts,” New England Quarterly, Vol. 6, No. 1, March 1933, pp. 98–130.
“But it was too late and too little. The Revolutionary War die had been cast.” Historic Printed Letter Signed “Joseph Jackson,” “Samuel Sewall,” “John Ruddock,” “Wm Phillips,” “Tim. Newell,” and “John Rowe” as Select Men of Boston, dated October 31, 1767, op. cit. See also “Colonists Respond to the Townshend Acts,” Making the Revolution: America, 1763–1791, America In Class, accessed May 12, 2014, http://americainclass.org/sources/makingrevolution/crisis/text4/townshendactsresponse1767.pdf.
“the glass armonica.” “Franklin’s Glass Armonica,” History of Science and Technology, The Franklin Institute, accessed May 14, 2014, http://learn.fi.edu/learn/sci-tech/armonica/armonica.php?cts=benfranklin-recreation.
“pulse glass.” Joyce Chaplin, The First Scientific American: Benjamin Franklin and the Pursuit of Genius (Basic Books, 2006), p. 204.
“The industrious soap merchant-turned-forge owner had founded America’s first profitable glass factory in the 1730s in Salem County, New Jersey.” “Buttons to Bottles, Hadrosaurs to Rats, There’s a Wistar,” July 13, 2010, accessed May 10, 2014, http://footnotessincethewilderness.wordpress.com/2010/07/13/buttons-to-bottles-hadrosaurs-to-rats-there%E2%80%99s-a-wistar/.
“produced glass for the lab instruments of colonial Philadelphia mathematician, astronomer, and inventor David Rittenhouse.” Mark Haberlein, “Glassmaking,” in Thomas Adam, ed., Germany and the Americas: O-Z (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO Inc., 2005), p. 452. See also William Barton, Memoirs of the life of David Rittenhouse, LLD. F.R.S., late president of the American philosophical society, interspersed with various notices of many distinguished men: with an appendix, containing sundry philosophical and other papers, most of which have not hitherto been published (Philadelphia: Edward Parker, 1813).
“As early American beer and whiskey makers multiplied, the demand for glass bottles grew. Beer-brewer and vineyard owner Thomas Jefferson courted glassmakers.” Quentin Skrabec, Jr., Michael Owens and the Glass Industry, op. cit., p. 50.
“it is Jarves who ‘is due the credit for perfecting and putting into practical use the art of pressing glass.’ ” Ruth Webb Lee, Sandwich Glass (Wellesley Hills, Mass., 1939), p. 91.
“Like other glass innovators before him, Jarves faced violent threats.” Quentin R. Skrabec, Jr., Edward Drummond Libbey, American Glassmaker (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2011), p. 20.
“The glass blowers on discovery that I had succeeded in pressing a piece of glass, were so enraged for fear their business would be ruined by the new discovery.” Antiques, October 1931, cited in Ruth Webb Lee, Sandwich Glass, op. cit.
“ ‘I was born in Mason County, West Virginia,’ in 1859, he recounted.” Keene Sumner, “Don’t Try to Carry the Whole World on Your Shoulders!” American Magazine, Volume 94, July 1922.
“Hobbs also brought in William Leighton, son of NEGC’s Thomas Leighton, who had patented the ‘Boston silvered door knob’ made of mercury glass for NEGC.” U.S. Patent US 12265 A, accessed May 11, 2014, http://www.google.nl/patents/US12265. See also: Franklin Pierce Hall, “The American Doorknob,” Antique Homes, accessed May 11, 2014, http://www.antiquehomesmagazine.com/Articles.php?id=14.
“Hobbs’s son, John H., also joined the company and succeeded his father upon his retirement in 1867.” Gordon Campbell, ed., The Grove Encyclopedia of Decorative Arts, Volume 1 (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 481.
“The company won industry renown for its perfection of lime glass.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, In Pursuit of Beauty: Americans and the Aesthetic Movement (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1986), p. 440.
“Child labor was a staple of the glass industry. Girls worked in the packing rooms, polishing and wrapping glass products.” “Batch, Blow, and Boys: The Glass Industry in the United States, 1820s–1900,” last updated January 3, 2012, accessed May 11, 2014, http://www.utoledo.edu/library/canaday/exhibits/oi/OIExhibit/Batch,Blow.htm.
“A shop of three skilled blowers and finishers would need three or four young boys.” Ibid.
“The ‘holding-mold boy’ opened and closed iron molds for the glassblower.” E. N. Clopper, National Child Labor Committee, “Child Labor in West Virginia,” Pamphlet No. 86, 1908, accessed May 11, 2014, http://www.wvculture.org/history/labor/childlabor05.html.
“At that time, bottles were made by hand. The workman would blow a bottle.” Keene Sumner, “Don’t Try to Carry the Whole World on Your Shoulders!” op. cit.
“By 1880, some six thousand boys between the ages of ten and fifteen (one-quarter of the glassmaking workforce) were putting in ten-hour days, six days a week, for as little as thirty cents a day.” The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Designates the Owens “AR” Bottle Machine As An International Historic Engineering Landmark, May 17, 1983, accessed May 11, 2014, http://www.utoledo.edu/library/canaday/exhibits/oi/oiexhibit/5612.pdf.
“ ‘Work never hurt anyone!’ he scoffed to a reporter.” Keene Sumner, “Don’t Try to Carry the Whole World on Your Shoulders!,” op. cit.
“Five years older than Owens, Edward D. Libbey got his first taste of the glass life as a ‘chore boy’ at the Cambridge, Massachusetts, headquarters of Deming Jarves’s New England Glass Company.” Jack Sullivan, “When Mr. Libbey Went to the Fair,” Bottles and Extras, March–April 2010, p. 44, accessed May 11, 2014, http://www.fohbc.org/PDF_Files/When%20MrLibby%20Went%20to%20the%20Fair.pdf.
“He studied Greek and Latin, poetry, rhetoric, philosophy, and business.” Quentin Skrabec, Jr., Edward Drummond Libbey, American Glassmaker, op. cit., pp. 31–32. See also “ ‘Go West, Young Man,’ The Early Years of Libbey Leadership, 1872–1893,” p. 24, accessed May 14, 2014, http://libbeyhistory.com/files/Part_1.2.pdf.
“In 1874, as self-taught fifteen-year-old Mike embarked on his glass-blowing tenure at Hobbs, Brockunier, and Company, twenty-year-old Edward took a position as a clerk at the New England Glass Company.” Fauster, Libbey Glass Since 1818: Pictorial History & Collector’s Guide, op. cit.
“In 1883, his father died and Libbey inherited the company—along with its skyrocketing fuel, labor, and shipping costs.” Jack Paquette, The Glassmakers Revisited (Xlibris Corporation, 2011), p. 16.
“One day a batch of glass came through that was merely amber instead of ruby in color.” “How Toledo Became a City of Glass 100 Years Ago,” Toledo Blade, August 14, 1988.
“Libbey ‘created a market, and he had the genius to bring the market and the technology together.’ ” Quentin Skrabec, Jr., Edward Drummond Libbey, American Glassmaker, op. cit., p. 36.
“Libbey took out patents for other ornamental colored glass improvements and etched glass patterns as well” Ibid., p. 36.
“They enforced draconian employment rules to repress nonunionism ‘that were stricter than those of almost any other national organization.’ ” United States Industrial Commission, Reports of the Industrial Commission on Labor Organizations, Labor Disputes, and Arbitration, and on Railway Labor (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office), Volume XVII, 1901, p. 175.
“At its first convention in Pittsburgh in 1878, the AFGWU proposed uniform production rates based on the ‘output of the least productive plants and slowest workmen.’ ” Carroll D. Davidson Wright, U.S. Bureau of Labor, Regulation and restriction of output (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1904).
“Later, the union passed a radical resolution ‘call[ing] upon the workingmen of the world to unite under the banner of international socialism.’ ” Ibid. See also United States Industrial Commission, Reports of the Industrial Commission on Labor Organizations, Labor Disputes, and Arbitration, and on Railway Labor, op. cit.
“The glass industry, one Pittsburgh factory owner complained, was run by unions ‘trying to do what the almighty did not see fit to do—prevent one man from making more than another man.’ ” James L. Flannery, The Glass House Boys of Pittsburgh: Law, Technology, and Child Labor (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009), p.122.
“Owens’s biographer Quentin Skrabec, Jr., notes that his commitment to the union ‘seemed more pragmatic than philosophical.’ ” Skrabec, Jr., Michael Owens and the Glass Industry, op. cit., pp. 86–87.
“Libbey, under siege by these outside agitators infiltrating his factory, called the national committee ‘the wrecking squad.’ ” Skrabec, Jr., Edward Drummond Libbey, American Glassmaker, op. cit., p. 44.
“Mike Owens recounted when the industrialist came to town” Keene Sumner, “Don’t Try to Carry the Whole World on Your Shoulders!” op. cit.
“While he rejected him for the superintendent’s position, the New England capitalist took on the hot-tempered Flint as a glass-blower in 1888.” “And Now Their Cashier Carries a Colt,” American Magazine, Volume 94, January 1, 1922.
“The hard-driving Owens oversaw the seventeen-month, high-stakes job, which reaped life-saving profits for Libbey Glass.” Quentin R. Skrabec, Jr., Glass in Northwest Ohio (Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 2007), p. 43.
“Before the project, the firm ‘was suffering from a deficit of $3,000,’ glass historian Jack Pacquette found.” Jack Paquette, The Glassmakers Revisited (Xlibris Corporation), op. cit., p. 21.
“Modeling it after the Gillinder & Sons glass exhibit.” Gillinder & Sons was founded by English glass chemist, historian, and businessman William T. Gillinder, who originally had sailed to America to work for the New England Glass Company. After several failed ventures, he established a glass factory in Philadelphia with partner/investor Edwin Bennett. Sons James and Frederick took over when the elder Gillinder died in 1871. The brothers conceived the wildly popular glass house exhibit and paid a $3,000 concession fee to enter the fair; the annex building housing their display cost another $15,000. “Souvenir sales figures came to $96,000 with more than $14,000 paid to the Centennial Board of Finance as commission on the sales.” WheatonArts.org, “1994 Gillinder Glass: Story of a Company,” accessed May 11, 2014, http://www.wheatonarts.org/museumamericanglass/pastexhibitions/90-99/1994gillinderglass/.
“Attendance was poor at first, until an employee suggested charging ten cents for admission (later raised to a quarter) and handing out souvenir stickpins decorated with Libbey glass bows.” “How Toledo Became a City of Glass 100 Years Ago,” Toledo Blade, op. cit.
“One enraptured reporter described it as a ‘room lined with diamonds.’ ” Regina Lee Blaszcyk, Imagining Consumers: Design and Innovation from Wedgwood to Corning (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000).
“A brilliant gamble, the lavish exhibit of glass-making manned by Owens and his team created white-hot buzz about Libbey Glass and sparked a craze in fashionable crystal.” Jack Sullivan, “When Mr. Libbey Went to the Fair,” Bottles and Extras, op. cit.
“The firm’s cut-glass orders soared, as did its global reputation as the fair helped launch the ‘Brilliant Period’ of American cut glass.” “ ‘Go West, Young Man,’ The Early Years of Libbey Leadership, 1872–1893,” op. cit., p. 45.
“A poem by Edgar Albert Guest served as Mike Owens’s office motivational poster. Tacked to his wall, the paean to persistence was titled ‘It Couldn’t Be Done.’ ” Poetry Foundation, Edgar Albert Guest, “It Couldn’t Be Done,” accessed May 11, 2014, http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173579.
“Between 1811 and 1813, the so-called Luddites hacked away at thousands of wool-finishing machines.” Anthony M. Orum, John W. C. Johnstone, Stephanie Riger, eds., Changing Societies: Essential Sociology for Our Times (Lanham, Md.: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers Inc., 1999).
“Big Labor devised multiple “antimechanization” strategies.” James Flannery, The Glass House Boys of Pittsburgh, op. cit., p. 119.
“from about fifty cents.” Ron D. Katznelson and John Howells, “Inventing-around Edison’s incandescent lamp patent: evidence of patents’ role in stimulating downstream development,” May 26, 2012, accessed May 11, 2014, http://www.law.northwestern.edu/research-faculty/searlecenter/workingpapers/documents/Katznelson_Howells_Inventing_around_Edisons_patent_V17.pdf.
“He explained in his filing.” United States Patent Office, “Apparatus for blowing glass,” patent number US534840 A.
“It will be seen by the foregoing that in the use of mechanical means for carrying out the process of blowing glass the necessity of skilled labor is dispensed with.” United States Patent Office, “Mechanical glass-blower,” patent number US570879 A.
“A glob of molten glass would be picked up onto the pipe.” “Owens the Inventor,” last updated January 3, 2012; accessed May 11, 2014, http://www.utoledo.edu/library/canaday/exhibits/oi/oiexhibit/owens.htm.
By ‘means of the absolute control of the air-pressure,’ Owens wrote, ‘the quality of the work done by the machine is superior to that heretofore produced.’ ” United States Patent Office, “Owens X,” patent number US576074 A.
“Economists Naomi Lamoreaux and Kenneth Sokoloff point out.” Naomi R. Lamoreaux and Kenneth L. Sokoloff, “Market Trade in Patents and the Rise of a Class of Specialized Inventors in the 19th-Century United States,” The American Economic Review, Vol. 91, No. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Hundred Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association, May, 2001, p. 39.
“When the fantastic idea of a towering, fully automated contraption of iron and steel that could blow glass bottles at high speed came to him.” Alan Schoedel, “Owens Centennial Observances Planned in 34 Cities to Honor Unschooled Genius of U.S. Glass Industry,” op. cit.
“From what you’ve told me, I could go out and have this machine built.” Ibid.
“Team Owens built parts and prototypes whenever and wherever they could: at the office, in other Libbey-owned buildings, or in Bock’s basement all hours of the day and into the midnight shift.” Quentin Skrabec, Jr., Michael Owens and the Glass Industry, op. cit.
“You would laugh at the first device we made.” “And Now Their Cashier Carries a Colt,” American Magazine, op. cit.
“In 1904, Owens received his historic Patent No. 766,768.” M. J. Owens, “Glass Shaping Machine,” patented August 2, 1904; Patent No. 766,768, accessed online May 11, 2014, http://www.sha.org/bottle/pdffiles/Owens1904patent.pdf.
“The usual obstructionists tried to prevent the spread of this efficient and astonishing technology, which, as the National Child Labor Committee acknowledged, had done more than any government regulation to end child labor abuses.” Jack Paquette, The Glassmakers Revisited, op. cit.
“Union workers boycotted Toledo Glass and a new, Libbey-formed company, the Owens Bottle Company, which produced both the bottle-making machines and bottles.” Quentin Skrabec, Jr., Michael Owens and the Glass Industry, op. cit., p. 139.
“Libbey acquired scores of businesses ranging from glass container plants to mold makers, to sand, paper box, and melting pot firms.” Jack Paquette, The Glassmakers Revisited, op. cit.
“During the next decade, he would create adaptations to produce everything from glass prescription ware to gallon packers.” The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Designates the Owens “AR” Bottle Machine as An International Historic Engineering Landmark, op. cit.
“We are still finding new steps to be taken.” Keene Sumner, “Don’t Try to Carry the Whole World on Your Shoulders!” op. cit.
“While making profit for stockholders, the company’s product has reduced the price of bottles from twenty five to fifty per cent. The world as well the stockholders has profited.” “How the Bottle-Making Machine Came into Being,” Crockery and Glass Journal, Volume 90, Number 1, July 3, 1919.
“By 1923, just twenty years after the first successful trial of his original automatic machine, ninety-four of every hundred bottles manufactured in the U.S. were being produced mechanically—either by the Owens machinery or by semiautomatic equipment made by others.” Jack Paquette, The Glassmakers Revisited, op. cit.
“The extraordinary thing about it is that it does not break and fly to pieces like ordinary glass. Let me show you.” Keene Sumner, “Don’t Try to Carry the Whole World on Your Shoulders!” op. cit.
“Colburn’s inspiration came to him while eating pancakes.” “Syrup Off the Roller: The Libbey-Owens-Ford Company,” last updated January 3, 2012; accessed May 11, 2014, http://www.utoledo.edu/library/canaday/exhibits/oi/OIExhibit/Syrup.htm.
“Three years later, the company reported profits of $4.2 million and European sales exploded.” Quentin Skrabec, Jr., Michael Owens and the Glass Industry, op. cit., p. 284.
“Libbey paid generous tribute to his partner” “Owens the Innovator,” University of Toledo collections, accessed May 19, 2014, http://www.utoledo.edu/library/canaday/exhibits/oi/oiexhibit/owens.htm.
“That’s the protective, shatterproof glass used at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., to seal and protect original versions of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution . . .” Julie McKinnon, “Pilkington preserves U.S. heritage under glass,” Toledo Blade, July 27, 2001, accessed May 11, 2014, http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2001/07/27/Pilkington-preserves-U-S-heritage-under-glass.html. See also “Syrup Off the Roller: The Libbey-Owens-Ford Company,” op. cit.
“The ‘War of the Currents.’ ” See Glenn Beck, Miracle and Massacres: True and Untold Stories of the Making of America, “Chapter 5: Edison vs. Westinghouse” (New York: Threshold Editions, 2013); Jill Jonnes, Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World (New York: Random House, 2004); and Tom McNichol, AC/DC: The Savage Tale of the First Standards War (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2013).
“The first impressions are those to which we cling most in later life . . . . A powerful frame, well proportioned, with every joint in working order, an eye as clear as a crystal, a quick and springy step. . . . Not one word which would have been objectionable, not a gesture which might have offended.” “Death of Westinghouse,” Electrical World, Vol. 63, No. 12, March 21, 1914, p. 637.
“Westinghouse patented nearly forty products.” Quentin Skrabec, George Westinghouse: Gentle Genius (New York: Algora Publishing, 2006), pp. 68–75.
“The utility supplied power.” “Philadelphia Company: List of Deals,” Harvard Business School, Baker Library, Historical Collections: Lehman Brothers Collection—Contemporary Business Archives, accessed May 18, 2014, http://www.library.hbs.edu/hc/lehman/company.html?company=philadelphia_company.
“Leyden jar.” Make your own Leyden jar by following the instructions here: http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-A-Water-Leyden-Jar/, accessed May18,2014.
“electrocution studies on chickens and turkeys.” American Physical Society, “This Month in Physics History: December 23, 1750: Ben Franklin Attempts to Electrocute a Turkey,” accessed May 18, 2014, http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200612/history.cfm. Franklin got quite a shock in one of the failed turkey tests. He wrote: “I have lately made an experiment in electricity that I desire never to repeat. Two nights ago, being about to kill a turkey by the shock from two large glass jars, containing as much electrical fire as forty common phials, I inadvertently took the whole through my own arms and body, by receiving the fire from the united top wires with one hand, while the other held a chain connected with the outsides of both jars.”
“My early greatest capital.” Henry G. Prout, A Life of George Westinghouse (New York: The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 1921), p. 5.
“He drove others.” “Westinghouse, the Champion of Electrical Current,” Electrical World, Vol. 79, February 4, 1922, p. 229.
“He was a great pioneer and builder.” Nikola Tesla, “Tribute to George Westinghouse,” Electrical World & Engineer, Vol. 63, No. 12, March 21, 1914, pp. 637–38.
“And the company paid.” Gilbert King, “The Rise and Fall of Nikola Tesla and His Tower,” Smithsonian.com, February 4, 2013, accessed May 18, 2014, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-rise-and-fall-of-nikola-tesla-and-his-tower-11074324/.
“Like Westinghouse, Tesla started tinkering.” Nikola Tesla, “My Inventions,” Electrical Experimenter, Volume VI, No. 71, March 1919, p. 776.
“ ‘I have never since been able to touch a May-bug.’ ” Ibid.
“After seeing a photo of the famed Niagara Falls.” Marc Seifer, Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla, Biography of a Genius (New York: Citadel Press, 1996), p. 13.
“burst into tears.” Nikola Tesla, “My Inventions: III: My Later Endeavors,” Electrical Experimenter, Volume VI, No. 72, April 1919, pp. 864–65.
“persist despite all my efforts to banish it.” Nikola Tesla, “My Inventions: II,” Electrical Experimenter, Volume VI, No. 71, March 1919.
“the idea came like a flash of lightning.” Marc Seifer, Wizard, op. cit., p. 22.
“Its efficiency too is higher.” Nikola Tesla, “My Inventions: III: My Later Endeavors,” Electrical Experimenter, Volume VI, No. 72, April 1919, p. 865.
“turned out to be a practical joke.” Nikola Tesla, “My Inventions: IV: The Discovery of the Tesla Coil and Transformer,” Electrical Experimenter, Volume VII, No. 73, May 1919.
“We have no crown jewels to pawn.” “Tesla’s Egg of Columbus,” Electrical Experimenter, Volume VI, No. 71, March 1919, pp. 774–75.
“The egg represented the rotor.” The Franklin Institute explains: “ ‘Two-phase’ motors use two sets of coils placed perpendicular to each other surrounding the core. When alternating current is sent to the coils, they become electromagnets where polarity rapidly changes with each reversal of current flow. As the first coils are supplied with current, they create a magnetic field which starts the core turning. When the first coils’ current supply reverses, the second coil set is at its maximum supply point and creates its own magnetic field; the core spins on. In effect the ‘magnetization’ amount never varies and a rotating magnetic field is created. The result is a smooth-running, commutator-free motor with the rotor as its only moving part.” See The Franklin Institute, “Two-Phase Induction Motor,” accessed May 18, 2014, http://learn.fi.edu/learn/case-files/tesla/motor.html.
“wild man of electronics.” “Tesla Museum Campaign Exceeds Fund-raising target,” BBC News, August 22, 2012, accessed May 18, 2014, http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19343855.
“greatest electrician of the world.” Marc Seifer, Wizard, op. cit., p. 178. See also Niagara Falls in Miniature (Chicago: Rand, McNally & Co., 1890), p. 16.
“Tesla had harnessed months before him.” “Nikola Tesla Becomes the Recipient of the Edison Medal,” Electrical World, Volume 69, No. 20, May 19, 1917, pp. 980–81.
“$2.50 per horsepower on every motor.” Quentin Skrabec, Westinghouse, op. cit., p. 115.
“Tesla split the proceeds.” W. Bernard Carlson, Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2013), p. 112.
“It is the most valuable patent.” Quentin Skrabec, Westinghouse, op. cit., p. 125.
“that could be cast and machined efficiently.” W. Bernard Carlson, Tesla, op. cit.
“to pass electrical currents through his body.” See them online here: http://www.tfcbooks.com/tesla/1895-04-00.htm, accessed May 18, 2014.
“inspired the nickname ‘the White City.’ ” “Explore the White City with Lisa Synder and Tim Samuelson,” The Museum of Science and Industry, accessed May 19, 2014, http://www.msichicago.org/whats-here/events/explore-the-white-city/.
“As by a touch.” Appleton’s Annual Cyclopedia and Register of Important Events of the Year, Volume 18 (New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1878), p. 761.
“Westinghouse’s and Tesla’s breakthroughs firsthand.” Quentin Skrabec, Westinghouse, op. cit., p. 169.
“epoch in industrial history.” Henry G. Prout, A Life of George Westinghouse, op. cit., p. 193.
“Living on oatmeal.” Richard M. Patterson, Butch Cassidy: A Biography (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998), p. 21.
“first known heist.” Douglas MacGowan, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” crimelibrary.com, accessed May 19, 2014, http://www.crimelibrary.com/gangsters_outlaws/outlaws/cassidy/3.html. See also “A Bank Robbery in Colorado,” Salt Lake City Herald, June 25, 1889, A1.
“The mountain man’s daring offer.” Alan E. Drew, “Telluride Power Co.: Pioneering AC in the Rocky Mountains,” Power & Energy Magazine, January/February 2014, accessed May 19, 2014, http://magazine.ieee-pes.org/januaryfebruary-2014/history-11/.
“I’m willing to gamble that, gentlemen.” Richard L. Fetter and Suzanne C. Fetter, Telluride: From Pick to Powder (Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Press, 1979), p. 56.
“Three miles of bare copper wire.” Alan E. Drew, “Telluride Power Co.,” op. cit.
“for industrial use in the United States.” Ibid.
“A plaque erected at the site.” “Milestones: Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant, 1891,” IEEE Global History Network, accessed May 19, 2014, http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Milestones:Ames_Hydroelectric_Generating_Plant,_1891. The Ames Plant was also inducted into Hydro Review‘s “Hydro Hall of Fame.” See Alfred Huges and Richard Rudolph, “Ames Hydro: Making History Since 1891,” Hydro World, Vol. 32, Issue 7, August 27, 2013, accessed May 19, 2014, http://www.hydroworld.com/articles/hr/print/volume-32/issue-7/articles/ames-hydro-making-history-since-1891.html.
“safe maximum voltage of forty thousand volts.” “Provo High Voltage Insulators,” Journal of Electricity, Power, and Gas, Volume 13, No. 1, January 1903, p. 115.
“generating enough power for a town of four thousand.” “About Us,” Xcel Energy, accessed May 19, 2014, https://www.xcelenergy.com/About_Us/Our_Company/Power_Generation/Ames_Hydro_Generating_Station.
“Tesla apparently never visited the Ames plant.” Marc Seifer, Wizard, op. cit., pp. 214–19.
“thereby charging the earth with electricity.” “Nikola Tesla in Colorado Springs,” Denver Eye, September 17, 2012, accessed May 19, 2014, http://www.thedenvereye.com/nikola-tesla-in-colorado-springs/.
“Cripple Creek, nearly fifty miles away.” Ibid.
“After years of struggle.” Quentin Skrabec, Westinghouse, op. cit., p. 170.
“necessary for operation and power transmission.” “Electricity and Its Development at Niagara Falls,” University at Buffalo Libraries, “Pan-American Exposition of 1901,” accessed May 14, 2014, http://library.buffalo.edu/pan-am/exposition/electricity/development/.
“mighty power of the great cataract.” “What Modern Genius Has Accomplished,” Sacramento Daily Union, May 4, 1895, accessed May 9, 2014, http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SDU18950504.2.44#.
“personally supervised their installation.” Quentin Skrabec, The 100 Most Significant Events in American Business (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2012), p. 95.
“A diverse range of manufacturers.” Jack Foran, “Introduction: Niagara Falls and Electricity,” University at Buffalo Libraries, “Pan-American Exposition of 1901,” accessed May 19, 2014, http://library.buffalo.edu/pan-am/essays/foran.html.
“A convention attendee explained.” Journal of the Society of Automotive Engineers, Volume 20, 1927, p. 157.
“The success of Niagara Falls.” Nikola Tesla, “On Electricity,” Address on the Occasion of the Commemoration of the Introduction of Niagara Falls Power in Buffalo at the Ellicot Club, Electrical Review, January 27, 1897, accessed May 19, 2014, http://www.tfcbooks.com/tesla/1897-0127.htm.
“humanity owes an immense debt of gratitude.” Speech, Institute of Immigrant Welfare, Hotel Baltimore, New York, May 12, 1938, read in absentia, cited in James O’Neill, Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla (New York: Cosimo Classics, 2007), p. 83.
“payoff money to aldermen and regulators.” Margaret Cheney, Tesla: Man Out of Time (New York: Touchstone, 2001), pp. 71–72.
“Tesla agreed to tear up the royalty agreement.” Ibid., pp. 73–74.
“Wardenclyffe Tower in Long Island.” Gilbert King, “The Rise and Fall of Nikola Tesla and His Tower,” Smithsonian.com, February 4, 2013, accessed May 19, 2014, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-rise-and-fall-of-nikola-tesla-and-his-tower-11074324/.
“future ways Tesla could raise money.” Jonathan Eisen, Suppressed Inventions and Other Discoveries (New York: Perigee Books, 1998), p. 422.
“yield both food and shelter.” Goethe’s “Hope,” quoted in Nikola Tesla, “The Problem of Increasing Human Energy,” Century Illustrated Magazine, June 1900, accessed May 19, 2014, http://www.tfcbooks.com/tesla/1900-06-00.htm.
“useful and profitable employment.” Henry G. Prout, A Life of George Westinghouse, op. cit., p. 303.
“at a certain point you have made enough money.” Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President on Wall Street Reform in Quincy, Illinois,” April 28, 2010, accessed May 19, 2014, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-wall-street-reform-quincy-illinois.
“The very first official thing I did, in my administration—and it was on the very first day of it too—was to start a patent office.” Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1917), p. 68.
“He can walk and mingle with persons without betraying his loss; in fact he is restored to his former self for all practical purposes.” From the author’s collection of nineteenth-century newspaper advertisements.
“The company sold its patented products—which also included crutches and wheelchairs—by mail order.” “Manual of Artificial Limbs Lays Blueprint for A.A. Marks Company,” Healio Orthotics/Prosthetics Medblog, November 1, 2003, accessed May 16, 2014, http://www.healio.com/orthotics-prosthetics/prosthetics/news/online/%7B7226963c-d779-4273-a72e-efa65467cdd5%7D/manual-of-artificial-limbs-lays-blueprint-for-aa-marks-company.
“The company hailed the advent of indefatigable Charles Goodyear’s vulcanization.” “The Charles Goodyear story: The strange story of rubber,” Goodyear Corporate, reprinted from Reader’s Digest, January 1958, accessed May 16, 2014, http://www.goodyear.com/corporate/history/history_story.html.
“Goodyear probably never imagined.” Ibid.
“He patented six important improvements in the design and manufacture of artificial limbs.” A list of George E. Marks’s patents is available online at https://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=pts&hl=en&q=ininventor:%22George+E.+Marks%22, accessed May 16, 2014.
“the Manual of Artificial Limbs and A Treatise on Artificial Limbs.” George Edwin Marks, A Treatise on Artificial Limbs With Rubber Hands and Feet (New York: A.A. Marks, 1896).
“including a committee of the Franklin Institute, which honored the inventors with a prestigious medal.” Journal of the Franklin Institute, Vol. 127, No. 5, May 1889.
“no fewer than nine manufacturers of artificial limbs had assembled on this occasion to display their wares.” “Manual of Artificial Limbs Lays Blueprint for A.A. Marks Company,” Healio Orthotics/Prosthetics Medblog, op. cit.
“Given the advances of today’s prosthetics it might seem primitive, but was typical for the time.” Correspondence with the author, May 6, 2014.
“Winkley, now in its fifth generation of family ownership, is still in business today after more than 125 years.” Franklyn Curtiss-Wedge, ed., History of Rice and Steele Counties, Minnesota, Volume 2 (Chicago: H.C. Cooper, Jr. and Co., 1910), p. 1473.
“The overwhelming number of soldiers who lost limbs during the Civil War—thirty thousand Union and forty thousand Confederate.” Michael MacRae, “The Civil War and the Birth of the U.S. Prosthetics Industry,” ASME.org, June 2011, accessed May 16, 2014, https://www.asme.org/engineering-topics/articles/bioengineering/the-civil-war-and-birth-of-us-prosthetics-industry
“Engineering student James Edward Hanger led the pack.” See Bob O’Connor, The Amazing Legacy of James E. Hanger: Civil War Soldier (Infinity Publishing, 2014).
“The Union doctor and his assistants removed Hanger’s shredded limb from above the knee with dirty saws and knives, then transported him to a medical facility.” J. H. Beers, Commemorative biographical record of Wayne County, Ohio (Chicago: J.H. Beers, 1889), p. 47.
“No one can know what such a loss means unless he has suffered a similar catastrophe.” “The J. E. Hanger story,” Hanger.com, accessed May 16, 2014, http://www.hanger.com/history/Pages/The-J.E.-Hanger-Story.aspx.
“I am thankful for what seemed then to me nothing but a blunder of fate, but which was to prove instead a great opportunity.” Ibid.
“With venture capital funding, Hanger made nearly one hundred acquisitions.” “Ivan Sabel’s vision: Taking Hanger to new heights and frontiers,” Hanger.com, accessed May 16, 2014, http://www.hanger.com/history/Pages/Ivan-Sabel%27s-Vision.aspx.
“Thanks to Hanger’s purchase of Blanck’s patent rights . . .” “IDEO inventor joins Hanger Clinic,” The O&P Edge, OandP.com, October 8, 2013, accessed May 16, 2014, http://www.oandp.com/articles/NEWS_2013-10-08_01.asp.
“Within a decade, Martino had patented a cushioned socket for thigh legs using sponge rubber.” Phillip A. Martino, “Rubber-cushion socket for thigh legs,” U.S. Patent 1497219 A, June 10, 1924, Google Patents, accessed May 16, 2014, https://www.google.com/patents/US1497219?dq=martino+prosthetic&hl=en&sa=X&ei=wYJZU-R54c7JAYWYgPAJ&ved=0CDwQ6AEwAQ.
“Four generations of Martinos have worked in the business, now based in a two-story brick warehouse in Dorchester.” Bill Forry, “The Martinos of United Prosthetics embrace hope, and make it happen,” Dorchester Reporter, September 11, 2013, accessed May 16, 2014, http://www.dotnews.com/2013/martinos-united-prosthetics-embrace-hope-and-make-it-happen.
“Harries used his machines to manufacture Purple Heart ribbons and nearly six hundred other types of military decorations.” Dan Shope, “Bally Ribbon Mills has an innovative stripe,” Morning Call, September 28, 2003, accessed May 16, 2014, http://articles.mcall.com/2003-09-28/business/3481832_1_yellow-ribbons-bally-block-work-ethic.
“Bally workers spin nylon, polyester, aramid, graphite, glass, quartz, ceramic, and silicon carbide.” Diane Van Dyke, “Bally Ribbon Mills weaves past and future,” Berks-Mont News, February 3, 2006, accessed May 14, 2014, http://www.berksmontnews.com/article/BM/20060203/NEWS/302039991.
“Hundreds of employees use everything from original shuttle looms to the most advanced software.” Dan Shope, “Bally Ribbon Mills has an innovative stripe,” Morning Call, op. cit.
“Our willingness to work and our openness to everything.” Telephone interview with the author, May 9, 2014, and correspondence with the author, May 28, 2014.
“He spent 212 days in a hospital recovering.” Universal Service, “Arbogast has nerve of iron,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 27, 1933, p. 24.
“The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported at the time.” Ibid.
“Willow Wood made parts for the Navy’s PT boats and the Army’s B-17 bombers.” “Our history,” Willow Wood Company, accessed May 16, 2014, http://www.willowwoodco.com/about-willowwood/our-history.
“In addition to dozens of prosthetic sports attachments . . . such as well-known amputee and Boulder resident Aron Ralston, who made headlines after self-amputating one arm after a climbing accident in a slot canyon in Utah.” Heather McWilliams, “TRS devices help amputees reclaim work, play skills,” Boulder County Business Report, March 1, 2013, accessed May 16, 2014, http://www.bcbr.com/article/20130301/EDITION/130229930.
“He constructed an artificial leg of carbon graphite.” “Van Phillips,” Documenting Invention, Smithsonian.org, accessed May 16, 2014, http://invention.smithsonian.org/resources/popups/case_phillips.aspx.
“Anything you can think of, you can create.” Martha Davidson, “Artificial Parts: Van Phillips,” Innovative Lives, March 2005, accessed May 16, 2014, http://invention.smithsonian.org/centerpieces/ilives/van_phillips/van_phillips.html.
“One of them, tinkerpreneur Jeff Stibel, used money from the sale of his start-up Simpli.com.” “About Braingate,” Braingate.com, accessed May 16, 2014, http://www.braingate.com/intellectual_property.html.
“next generation of such key areas as auditory prosthesis, bladder control, pain, epilepsy, pharma research, and treatments for arrhythmia and heart failure.” Business Wire, “Blackrock Microsystems Celebrates Public Opening of Expansive New Headquarters Facility,” June 7, 2013.
“MIT described how his invention works.” Rob Matheson, “Bionic ankle emulates nature,” MIT News, April 17, 2014, accessed May 16, 2014, http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/hugh-herr-bionic-ankle-emulates-nature-0417.
“In 3.5 seconds, the criminals and cowards took Adrianne off the dance floor. In 200 days, we put her back.” “A 200-Day Return Journey from the Boston Marathon Bombing,” BIOM.com, accessed May 16, 2014, http://www.biom.com/about-us/company/.
“BiOm continues to develop new products with an estimated $50 million in grants and venture capital.” “About us,” BIOM.com, accessed May 16, 2014, http://www.biom.com/about-us/company/.
“I’m always thinking about minimizing the time and investment to get from bench to bedside.” Rob Matheson, “Bionic ankle emulates nature,” MIT News, op. cit.
“So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear: There is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people.” Travis Pantin, “Milton Friedman answers Phil Donahue’s charges,” New York Sun, November 12, 2007, accessed May 16, 2014, http://www.nysun.com/business/milton-friedman-answers-phil-donahues-charges/66258/.
“I started looking into what phantom pain was . . . I decided to do something about it.” “Recent Intel ISEF Alum Katherine Bomkamp Now CEO of Own Company,” Society for Science and the Public, November 8, 2012, accessed May 17, 2014, http://societyforscience.typepad.com/ssp/2012/11/recent-intel-isef-alum-katherine-bomkamp-now-ceo-of-own-company.html.
“Surround yourself with people who know more than you do.” Correspondence with the author, May 13, 2014.
“He started his own company, called ‘Re,’ to manufacture the low-cost devices he calls ‘ReHands.’ ” “About us,” Reprosthetics.com, accessed May 17, 2014, http://reprosthetics.com/about-us/.
“ ‘I think it would be cool if we had, like, our own company and then we made BOBs’ . . . ‘I hope to make lots of them’. . . . ‘It’s a really big deal to be getting a patent.’ ” John Donvan, Glen Dacy, and Enjoli Francis, “Girl Scouts’ Prosthetic Hand Device to Get Patent,” ABC News, June 16, 2011, accessed May 17, 2014, http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/girl-scout-team-patent-prosthetic-hand-device/story?id=13858959.
“based on the conviction that individual effort was stimulated by higher expected returns.” B. Zorina Khan, The Democratization of Invention: Patents and Copyrights in American Economic Development, 1790–1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, November 2013), p. 3.
“the ‘fuel of interest’ that stokes the ‘fire of genius.’ ” Abraham Lincoln, “Lectures on Discoveries and Inventions,” 1858, reprinted in Jason Emerson, Lincoln the Inventor (Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois Press, 2009), pp. 61–78 and also accessed May 17, 2014, http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/discoveries.htm.
“to promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, of U.S. Constitution, art. I, sec. 8, cl. 8, accessed May 17, 2014, http://www.constitution.org/js/js_319.htm.
“[t]he public good fully coincides . . . with the claims of individuals.” James Madison, “The Federalist No. 43,” Independent Journal, January 23, 1788, accessed May 17, 2014, http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa43.htm.
“Congress and the early courts provided for expansive and generous protection of inventors’ intellectual property rights.” Adam Mosoff, “Who cares what Thomas Jefferson thought about patents? Reevaluating the patent ‘privilege’ in historical context,” Cornell Law Review, Vol. 92, 2007, accessed May 17, 2014, http://cornelllawreview.org/files/2013/02/Mossoff.pdf.
“Primary historical sources, congressional documents, and colonial-era courts—as well as early patent statutes and nineteenth-century patent case law—reveal that patents have been construed as basic civil rights in property since America’s first days.” For an excellent overview of the debate, see Adam Mosoff, “Who cares what Thomas Jefferson thought about patents? Reevaluating the patent ‘privilege’ in historical context,” Cornell Law Review, op. cit.
“[T]he right of the inventor is a high property; it is the fruit of his mind.” Daniel Webster, House floor speech delivered January 5, 1824, reprinted in The Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster Hitherto Uncollected (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., Vol. 2, national edition, 1903), p. 79.
“more clear than that which a man can assert in almost any other kind of property.” Ibid., p. 438.
“the patent and copyright clause of the Constitution celebrates and encourages ‘individual effort by personal gain [as] the best way to advance public welfare through the talents of authors and inventors.’ ” Mazer v. Stein, 347 U.S. 201 (1954), accessed May 17, 2014, http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/347_US_201.htm.
“The miniature models, no larger than twelve inches by twelve inches by twelve inches, were required as part of the application process from 1790 to 1880.” Two devastating fires at Patent Office buildings in 1836 and 1877 destroyed an estimated eighty thousand patent models. In 1908, Congress moved a total of two hundred thousand surviving models into storage warehouses. The Smithsonian Institute selected a few thousand of what it considered the most historically significant, abandoning the rest to auctioneers. Some patent models can be found on sale on eBay. Several collectors, including Alan Rothschild, have launched their own museums. See http://www.patentmodel.org/about/history, accessed May 17, 2014, for more information.
“Popular Mechanics ran its own ‘Patent Bureau’ offering consultation and legal services to aspiring inventors.” A typical example of a Popular Mechanics patent bureau ad can be found in Popular Mechanics, Vol. 7, No. 5, May 1905, p. 498.
“President Lincoln not only defended the intellectual property rights of clients, but personally encouraged technological innovation.” See Jason Emerson, Lincoln the Inventor, op. cit., and also Owen Edwards, “Inventive Abe,” Smithsonian Magazine, October 2006, accessed May 17, 2014, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/history/inventive-abe-131184751/.
“The mechanically inclined pioneer was an early adopter of the telegraph.” See Tom Wheeler, Mr. Lincoln’s T-Mails: How Abraham Lincoln Used the Telegraph to Win the Civil War (New York: HarperBusiness, 2008).
“He tested the Henry and Spencer repeating rifles on the White House lawn.” Chris Kyle, American Gun: A History of the U.S. in Ten Firearms (New York: William Morrow, 2013), pp. 34–42.
“He assisted weapons inventors George H. Ferriss, James Holenshade, Isaac Diller, and James Woodruff.” Robert V. Bruce and Benjamin P. Thomas, Lincoln and the Tools of War (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1956), p. 208.
“Lincoln also delivered lectures on the history of discoveries, inventions, and patent laws.” Jason Emerson, Lincoln the Inventor, op. cit.
“He took his young son to visit the Patent Office in Washington.” Ibid., p. 9.
“He constructed a miniature model.” Emerson notes that a second patent model of his invention has gone missing and was apparently lost after being given to Southern Illinois University. Ibid., p. 33.
“the U.S. Patent Office approved his invention and issued Patent Number 6,469 for his ‘device for buoying vessels over shoals.’ ” Ibid., p. 18. See also Abraham Lincoln, U.S. Patent 6469 A, May 22, 1849, Google Patents, accessed May 17, 2014, https://www.google.com/patents/US6469.
“the president’s ideas ‘may have advanced the creation of modern ship salvaging and submarine construction.’ ” Jason Emerson, Lincoln the Inventor, op. cit., p. 18.
“The great American novelist Mark Twain—patent holder on three inventions.” “Patent files hold Mark Twain story,” New York Times, March 12, 1939, p. 58.
“The very first official thing I did, in my administration—and it was on the very first day of it too—was to start a patent office.” Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, op. cit., p. 68.
“the patent office stimulated Americans to ‘turn their thinking into things.’ ” “The Patent Centennial Celebration,” Scientific American, Vol. 64, April 18, 1891, p. 244.
“From 1863 to 1913, an estimated 800–1,200 patents were issued to black inventors.” Zorina Khan, The Democratization of Invention: Patents and Copyrights in American Economic Development, 1790–1920, op. cit., p. 125.
“Between 1790 and 1895, some 3,300 women secured more than 4,100 patents.” Ibid., p. 132.
“Between 1870 and 1930, economist B. Zorina Khan’s research shows.” Ibid., p. 214.
“Fending off intellectual property thieves was vital to a budding tinkerpreneur’s survival.” See Adam Mossoff, “Demand Letters and Consumer Protection: Examining Deceptive Practices by Patent Assertion Entities,” Statement before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Insurance, November 7, 2013, pp. 5–8, accessed May 17, 2014, http://cpip.gmu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Adam-Mossoff-Testimony-11.7.13.pdf.
“As part of his radical bid to ‘fundamentally transform’ America.” Hayley Tsukayama and Liz Lucas, “Thousands cheer Obama at rally for change,” Columbian Missourian, October 30, 2008, accessed January 8, 2014, http://www.columbiamissourian.com/a/107641/thousands-cheer-obama-at-rally-for-change/.
“the law was marketed as a job-creation vehicle that would relieve a backlog of an estimated seven hundred thousand patent applications and crack down on patent ‘trolls’ supposedly abusing the system through frivolous litigation against alleged infringers.” “President Obama Signs America Invents Act, Overhauling the Patent System to Stimulate Economic Growth, and Announces New Steps to Help Entrepreneurs Create Jobs,” White House press release, September 16, 2011, accessed January 8, 2014, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/09/16/president-obama-signs-america-invents-act-overhauling-patent-system-stim.
“These and other measures signed into law in 2011 by President Barack Obama threaten to drive garage tinkerers and small inventors.” See, for example, John Duffy, “The Big Government Patent Bill,” PatentlyO blog, June 23, 2011, accessed May 17, 2014, http://patentlyo.com/patent/2011/06/the-big-government-patent-bill-guest-essay-by-john-duffy.html; Dana Rohrabacher, “ ‘Patent reform’ will hurt innovation,” National Review Online, June 22, 2011, accessed May 17, 2014, http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/270193/patent-reform-will-hurt-innovation-dana-rohrabacher; Bernard Klosowski, “Will the new patent law kill the garage inventor and startup?” Entrepreneur, November 21, 2013, accessed May 17, 2014, http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/230034#; and Kelli Proia, “America Invents Act: Hurting startups, helping no one,” IP Made Simple, February 13, 2013, accessed May 17, 2014, http://ipmadesimple.com/america-invents-act-hurting-startups-helping-no-one/.
“The US gets ten times the angel and venture capital of Western Europe—which recently declared an ‘innovation emergency.’ ” Skip Kaltenheuser, “Patently ridiculous: Leahy Smith America Invents Act,” International Bar Association News, September 20, 2011, accessed January 9, 2015, http://www.ibanet.org/Article/Detail.aspx?ArticleUid=a9debe56-3464-47d4-a19a-1e3415b139bc.
“A large part of invention is trying out a vast number of ideas.” Steve Perlman, “Why ‘First-to-Invent’ is Essential for America’s Unique Process of Invention,” Letter to Senator Diane Feinstein, March 8, 2011, reprinted in State of Innovation, accessed January 9, 2015, http://hallingblog.com/inventor-on-why-first-to-file-is-bad-for-small-inventors/.
“It typically costs us $20,000–$30,000 to obtain a commercial-grade patent.” Ibid.
“University of Virginia law professor John Duffy points out that the law is 140 pages long, ‘more than twice the length of the entire federal patent statute’ since its last recodification in 1952.” John Duffy, “The Big Government Patent Bill,” PatentlyO blog, June 23, 2011, accessed January 10, 2015, http://patentlyo.com/patent/2011/06/the-big-government-patent-bill-guest-essay-by-john-duffy.html.
“Its sloppy drafting will result in ‘cases interpreting the law going to the courts for twenty years before lawyers really know how to advise clients,’ patent lawyer David Boundy predicts.” Skip Kaltenheuser, “Patently ridiculous: Leahy Smith America Invents Act,” op. cit.
“Also buried in the law: a new pay-for-play scheme, dubbed ‘Fast Track for Fat Cats’ by indie inventors, which allows large companies to expedite their applications by forking over a $4,800 fee.” Bruce Burdick, “Michelle Lee, what will you be?” America Invents IP Blog, December 12, 2014, accessed January 10, 2015, http://www.burdlaw.com/blog/?cat=26.
“Having to spend more money to speed up the process favors big companies, not small ones.” Eilene Zimmerman, “Business owners adjusting to overhaul of patent system,” New York Times, February 9, 2012, accessed January 10, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/09/business/smallbusiness/business-owners-adjusting-to-patent-system-overhaul.html?pagewanted=all.
“Kappos then resigned from the White House to take a cushy lobbying job with New York firm Cravath, Swaine, and Moore, which Kappos had worked closely with when his former employer IBM retained them.” Ashby Jones, “Cravath plucks former PTO chief David Kappos,” Wall Street Journal, February 6, 2013, accessed January 10, 2015, http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2013/02/06/cravath-plucks-former-pto-chief-david-kappos/.
“civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.” See Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History, Abridgement of Volumes 1-6 by D.C. Somervell (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1974).
“This revolutionary idea is a hallmark of American exceptionalism.” For a great primer, see Charles Murray, American Exceptionalism: An Experiment in History (Washington, D.C.: AEI Press, 2013).
“French historian Alexis de Tocqueville reported that the doctrine of enlightened ‘self-interest rightly understood.’ . . . ‘You may trace it at the bottom of all their actions, you will remark it in all they say. It is as often asserted by the poor man as the rich.’ ” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America and Two Essays on America, op. cit., p. 609.
“Author Charles Murray adds that the Founders promoted industriousness . . . ‘the bone-deep American assumption that life is to be spent getting ahead through hard work and thereby making a better life for oneself and one’s children.’ ” Charles Murray, American Exceptionalism: An Experiment in History, op. cit., p 18.
“He points to German social historian Francis Grund, a contemporary of de Tocqueville’s.” Ibid., p. 19.
