This book began as a series of lecture notes for a course begun by the senior author in 1985, now entitled “Engineering in the Modern World,” that is taught at Princeton University every year, primarily to first-year undergraduate engineering students and liberal arts undergraduates. The course originated in the “New Liberal Arts” program begun by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in the early 1980s under its president Albert Rees. Financial support from the Sloan Foundation began and sustained the research and writing that led to this book. For Sloan support in recent years, the authors are indebted to Doron Weber. They are also grateful to the National Science Foundation’s Division of Undergraduate Education, and to Norman Fortenberry and William Wulf of the National Academy of Engineering, for support of the teaching and research on which this book is based.
“Engineering in the Modern World” was fortunate in its early years to have the backing of colleagues of the senior author, including Bradley Dickinson and Paul Prucnel in electrical engineering; John Gillham, Roy Jackson, and Richard Golden in chemical engineering, and Frediano Bracco and H. C. Curtis in mechanical and aerospace engineering. Three non-technical colleagues, Hal McCulloch, Peter Bogucki, and Tom Roddenbery, joined later as preceptors and contributed a liberal arts perspective that has helped make the content more accessible to all students. As the present volume neared completion, Roland Heck, a chemical engineer, began to teach in the course and made a vital contribution to our chapter on petroleum refining.
Introductory engineering courses have been difficult to sustain in most schools, mainly because they are conceived and conducted as experimental rather than permanent courses. To become permanent, they must find a place in the core curriculum of their institution, to fulfill either an engineering requirement or an undergraduate requirement in science and technology. The support of Princeton president Harold Shapiro and the faculty Council on Science and Technology, led first by the late David Wilkinson and then by Shirley Tilghman, now president of the University, proved critical to achieving this recognition for “Engineering in the Modern World” and to giving the course its unique foundation in research and strength in teaching. The course is now a way for undergraduates to meet the university laboratory requirement in science or technology, and as a result it is one of the most heavily enrolled at Princeton. Deans James Wei and Maria Klawe of the School of Engineering and Applied Science have helped the course and its associated scholarship make the contribution we intend to the goal of transforming the nation’s engineering education and attracting and graduating new kinds of engineers from Princeton and other engineering schools.
Since 1996 the senior author has co-taught the course on a regular basis with Michael Littman, a colleague in mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton, whose innovation of teaching laboratories for the course was pivotal to its recognition as a science and technology laboratory course. In addition to stimulating us to think about new and engaging ways to explain engineering, Mike has patiently reviewed successive versions of the manuscript for this book and has greatly improved its accuracy in the fields least familiar to the authors. The two authors have benefited as well from a number of outside scholars. Terry Reynolds of Michigan Technological University kindly read an earlier draft of this book and offered very helpful comments. Paul Israel, editor of the Thomas Edison Papers at Rutgers University, read two of our chapters twice and gave vital insight into the work of Edison, Bell, and other electrical engineers. David Wunsch of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell reviewed two versions of the chapter on radio and gave invaluable knowledge and advice, and William Case of Grinnell College also provided vital assistance on our radio chapter.
Philip Felton gave essential help understanding the modern automobile engine, and H. C. “Pat” Curtiss shared his experience and insight in aerodynamics and the work of early aviators and aeronautical engineers. The chapter on Othmar Ammann and the George Washington bridge grows out of an article written by the senior author with Jameson Doig, former chair of the Politics Department at Princeton, that received the Usher Prize from the Society for the History of Technology. Dr. Margot Ammann Durer generously provided knowledge of her father. Donald C. Jackson of Lafayette College brought the extraordinary work of John Eastwood to our attention and also gave this book a valued review, and the material on Tedesko was greatly helped by joint research with Eric Hines and with Edmond Saliklis of the California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo. Although these individuals have been generous in giving us their assistance, any errors and faults that remain are our own and not theirs.
Former colleagues at Princeton whose support for the senior author’s teaching made this book possible include Norman J. Sollenberger, Joseph Elgin, Robert Mark, John Abel, Ahmet Cakmak, and Peter Jaffe. Colleagues at other schools whose work has contributed include John Truxal, Marian Visich Jr., Alfonso Albano, J. Nicholas Burnett, Newton Copp, Andrew Zanella, and Atle Gjelsvik. The historians Carl Condit, Edwin T. Layton Jr., Merritt Roe Smith, Robert Vogel, and George Wise have also provided valuable assistance. We would also like to thank Professor Andrew Wood of San Jose State University for his help, and King Harris and Ann Richardson for information about their father, King Harris, and uncle, Lawrence Harris.
The senior and junior author are deeply grateful to our editor, Sam Elworthy, and to Deborah Tegarden, Pamela Schnitter, Dmitri Karetnikov, Brian MacDonald, Alycia Somers, Shani Berezin, and Maria denBoer for their assistance and support in bringing this book to publication.
The book could not have been produced without the teaching assistants who have made “Engineering in the Modern World” so successful at Princeton: Scott Hunter, Christopher Peck, Ronald Wakefield, Rosemary Secoda, John Matteo, Roger Haight, Karen Mielich, Susan Lyons, Nicholas Edwards, Daniel Chung, James Guest, Michael Tantala, Gayle Katzman, Nicolas Janberg, Moira Treacy, John Ochsendorf, Chelsea Honigmann, Ryan Woodward, Richard Ellis, Maria Janaro, David Wagner, Sinead Mac Namara, Gregory Hasbrouck, Nicole Leo, Kristi Miro, Powell Draper, Shawn Woodruff, Michael Bauer, Sarah Halsey, Rebecca Jones, David O’Connell, and Allison Schultz. The research and teaching of the course has also had the benefit of undergraduate research and archival assistants Michael Starc, Abbie Liel, Angela Ovecka, William Cooch, Taylor Greason, Jennifer Bennett, Eve Glazer, and Diana Zakem. Joseph Stencel and Joseph Vocaturo have been indispensable as course administrator and laboratory director respectively. Powell Draper, Sinead Mac Namara, Kristi Miro, Shawn Woodruff, and Jennifer Bennett provided special research assistance for this book.
“Engineering in the Modern World” owes a special debt to J. Wayman Williams for research and for the design of outstanding instructional materials. Kathy Posnett has given vital administrative support, and the librarians and library staff of Princeton University deserve special thanks for accommodating the needs of the course and the library research for this book. To the senior author’s brother, James H. Billington, the thirteenth Librarian of Congress, both authors are deeply indebted for essential counsel, guidance, and support.
After completing his doctorate in modern history from the University of Texas at Austin, the junior author accepted the senior author’s invitation to rewrite a first draft of this book. Through further research and rewriting, the junior author discovered that original engineering ideas could be grasped by someone with a liberal arts education and that history is central to an integrative understanding of modern engineering. The book has been a collaborative effort not only between the two authors but between them and the colleagues, students, and anonymous peer reviewers without whose crucial assistance the finished work would not have been possible.
The junior author’s scholarly vocation owes a special debt to the guidance of Professors Cyril Black and Julian Boyd of Princeton University and to Stephen C. Flanders of WCBS Radio in New York and Roswell B. Wing of the U.S. Department of Commerce in Washington, DC. The junior author is also deeply grateful to Neva Wing, Carol Flanders, Corinne Black, and Mary Laity for their encouragement and support.
The New York State Board of Regents External Degree Program (now Excelsior College) gave the junior author the chance to finish an undergraduate degree by examination during a convalescence. At the urging of Jay Bleiman of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton, and with the help of S. Frederick Starr, the junior author attended the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC. For a synoptic grounding in world affairs, he owes particular thanks to Bruce Parrott and Michael Vlahos, and to Michael Harrison, Kendall Myers, Charles Pearson, Stephen Szabo, and Nathaniel Bowman Thayer. To Marc Rothenberg and the staff of the Joseph Henry Papers at the Smithsonian Institution; and to the staff of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, particularly Zdenek David, Prosser Gifford, Ann Sheffield Roth, and George Liston Seay, he owes the unique opportunities to participate in scholarly work that motivated him to pursue advanced study in history. At the University of Texas at Austin, he owes an immense debt to W. Roger Louis, his adviser, and to Standish Meacham and the other members of his committee William Braisted, Robert Divine, and Robert Hardgrave, and to Nancy Barker, David Crew, Bruce Hunt, John Lamphear, Brian Levack, Howard Miller, Sidney Monas, Walt Rostow, Claudio Segré, and Philip White. The junior author could not have succeeded as a scholar and student without the generous friendship and support at U.T.-Austin of the many graduate students and spouses he came to know, who will be thanked properly in the published version of his doctoral dissertation. To Travis Hanes, Sharon Arnoult and Billy Branch, Peter and Lauren Austin, Aaron and Takako Forsberg, and Jennifer Loehlin he owes special thanks for their continuing interest.
The junior author is deeply grateful for the friendship and support over the years of the Flanders family—Stephen and Hedy, Jeff and Maisie, Tony and Bunny, Julie and Emil Adler, and Carl and Andrea; the Laity family—Jim and Mary Ann, Susan, Kate, Bill, and John; the Black family—Jim and Martha, and Christina; and of Orest Pelech, Tom Ruth, Glenn Speer, and Aaron Trehub.
For their love and support through many stages of life, the junior author owes a very deep and personal debt to Marjorie Billington, John and Lynn Billington, Dorothy Billington, Janet and John Fisher, and Arloa Bergquist, and to all of his Billington and Bergquist cousins.
The junior author’s sisters and brothers Elizabeth and Donald, Jane and Johnson, Philip and Ninik, Stephen and Miriam, and Sarah and Peter, and most especially his mother Phyllis, through their love helped sustain the years of effort that went directly or indirectly into this book. The junior author’s hope is that this book will join the contributions of faculty and scholars at other institutions in a continuing and widening effort to help improve the education of engineers and liberal arts students, and to bridge the divide in understanding that separates engineering from the society it serves.