PREFACE
1. Fortune, April 5, 2004, p. F1.
2. David P. Billington, The Innovators: The Engineering Pioneers Who Made America Modern (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1996).
3. Harold Evans, with Gail Buckland and David Lefer, They Made America: From the Steam Engine to the Search Engine: Two Centuries of Innovators (New York: Little, Brown, 2004).
4. Pauline Maier, Merritt Roe Smith, Alexander Keyssar, and Daniel J. Kevles, Inventing America (New York: W. W. Norton, 2002).
5. Scholars have long recognized the independence of engineering innovation. See the symposium papers collected in Technology and Culture 17, no.4 (October 1976). Many engineering fields employ people trained primarily in the sciences and their contribution is enormously important. But what matters is what researchers and practitioners do, whether they are engaged primarily in discovery or primarily in design.
6. Walter G. Vincenti, What Engineers Know and How They Know It: Analytical Studies from Aeronautical History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), pp. 6–9.
7. Evidence for these statements may be gathered from the experience of the senior author over a quarter century of teaching, and from the experiences of a growing number of younger faculty at public and private institutions around the United States who are adapting the approach to their needs.
CHAPTER ONE
The World’s Fairs of 1876 and 1939
1. On the New York fair, see Helen A. Harrison, guest curator, Dawn of a New Day: The New York World’s Fair, 1939/40 (New York: Queens Museum/New York University Press, 1980).
2. For a description of the Philadelphia fair, see Phillip T. Sandhurst, The Great Centennial Exhibition, 1876 (Philadelphia: P. W. Ziegler, 1876). For the first century of American engineering, see David P. Billington, The Innovators: The Engineering Pioneers Who Made America Modern (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1996).
CHAPTER TWO
Edison, Westinghouse, and Electric Power
1. For the early gaslight industry, see Louis Stotz, with Alexander Jamison, History of the Gas Industry (New York: Stettiner Brothers, 1938).
2. For an overview of early electrical discoveries, see Malcolm MacLaren, The Rise of the Electrical Industry during the Nineteenth Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1943), pp. 1–33.
3. On early arc and incandescent light experiments, see Brian Bowers, A History of Electric Light and Power (London: Peter Peregrinus, 1992), pp. 64–65.
4. On Faraday’s generator, see James Hamilton, Faraday: The Life (London: HarperCollins, 2002), pp. 245–51. For the principles of direct-current generators, see Arthur L. Cook and Clifford C. Carr, Elements of Electrical Engineering: A Textbook of Principles and Practice (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1947), pp. 100–153.
5. On the Gramme generator and early arc lighting systems, see MacLaren, The Rise of the Electrical Industry, pp. 68–70, 114–20.
6. For Edison’s biography, see Paul Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1998). On Menlo Park, see ibid., pp. 119–66, and on the great breakthrough of electric light, pp. 167–90. For a firsthand account, see Francis Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, 3 vols. (Dearborn, MI: Edison Institute, 1936–41). Thomas P. Hughes, in Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880–1930 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), pp. 1–46, brings out Edison’s integrated approach to the problem of power and light. Israel, Edison, pp. 188–90, notes that Edison arrived at a complete system only gradually.
7. On arc light, see Harold C. Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers: 1875–1900 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1953), pp. 78–83. Through the use of a shunt wire that provided a backup connection, current could flow around an arc light that went out, but the lights on a circuit could not be turned on and off individually.
8. For the opposition to subdividing electricity for light by figures such as Professor Silvanus Thompson and Sir William Preece, see Harold C. Passer, “Electrical Science and the Early Development of the Electrical Manufacturing Industry in the United States,” Annals of Science (London) 7, no. 4 (December 28, 1951): 383–92.
9. For Edison’s power calculations using Ohm’s and Joule’s laws, see Menlo Park Notebook, No. 10, p. 3, Thomas Edison Papers, Edison National Historic Site, West Orange, New Jersey. For his cost estimates, see Menlo Park Notebook, No. 172, p. 71.
10. The resistance of arc lamps can be calculated from the example of voltage and current given by Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, p. 81.
11. On the availability of a vacuum pump, see ibid., pp. 75–77. For the chemical research that led to a working light bulb, see Byron M. Vanderbilt, Thomas Edison, Chemist (Washington, DC: American Chemical Society, 1971), pp. 29–67. For a contemporary report of the breakthrough, see the New York Herald, December 21, 1879, pp. 5–6; and for the duration of the bulb, see Israel, Edison, p. 186. For his patent, see T. A. Edison, “Electric-Lamp,” No. 223,898, United States Patent Office, issued January 27, 1880. Units of candlepower are now called candelas.
12. On the different approaches of Edison and Swan, see George Wise, “Swan’s Way: A Study in Style,” IEEE Spectrum 19, no. 4 (April 1982): 66–70.
13. For an overview of the Edison system, see L. H. Latimer, Incandescent Electric Lighting: A Practical Description of the Edison System (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1890). The son of a fugitive slave, Lewis Latimer (1848–1928) drafted the telephone patent illustrations for Alexander Graham Bell and joined Edison in 1884 as an engineer and patent adviser. For Edison’s use of feeders and mains and the copper it saved, see Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, 2: 820–22. The mains and lamp circuits operated within 2 percent of 110 volts, an acceptable margin.
14. For the Edison generator, see T. A. Edison and Charles T. Porter, “Description of the Edison Steam Dynamo,” Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers 3 (1882): 218–25; and Charles L. Clarke, “Edison ‘Jumbo’ Steam Dynamo,” in “Edisonia”: A Brief History of the Early Edison Electric Lighting System (New York: Association of Edison Illuminating Companies, 1904), pp. 27–59. The armature resistance of Jumbo No. 3, the model used at Pearl Street, was 0.0039 ohms; see Clarke, “Edison ‘Jumbo Steam Dynamo,” p. 41. On the innovation of low resistance in the dynamo, see Passer, “Electrical Science,” pp. 388–91. For expert doubts, see also our appendix.
15. For Edison’s cost estimates, see again Menlo Park Notebook, No. 172, p. 71. The actual cost of installing the Pearl Street system was $302,491, of which $151,386 was for the underground conductors. See Edison Electric Illuminating Company, “Total Cost of Pearl Street Station as Installed,” microfilm reel 66, frame 700, Thomas A. Edison Papers Microfilm Edition (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1985–). For the voltage and current of the Pearl Street network, see Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, 3: 1077–78. Clarke, “Edison ‘Jumbo’ Steam Dynamo,” pp. 39–41, gives figures for voltage and power that differ only slightly. For Edison’s implementation of the system, see Israel, Edison, pp. 191–207, and for the funding of Edison’s work, see ibid., pp. 173–74, 206. The watt as a unit of power began to be used in 1882; Edison in his calculations used the term energy. He used the term webers to refer to amperes.
16. For Edison’s career as an entrepreneur, see André Millard, Edison and the Business of Innovation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990).
17. On early electric motors, see MacLaren, The Rise of the Electrical Industry, pp. 82–106. For the principles of direct-current electric motors, see Cook and Carr, Elements of Electrical Engineering, pp. 158–81. For the use of electric power in industry, see Louis C. Hunter and Lynwood Bryant, A History of Industrial Power in the United States, 1780–1930 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991), 3:217–37.
18. For Edison’s effort to extend his network using a “three-wire” system, see Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, 2:825–27. For the limits of direct-current power transmission, see Cook and Carr, Elements of Electrical Engineering, pp. 247–57.
19. For Westinghouse, see Francis E. Leupp, George Westinghouse: His Life and Achievements (Boston: Little Brown, 1918). See also the chapters on Westinghouse in Jill Jonnes, Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse and the Race to Electrify the World (New York: Random House, 2003).
20. The article, on the Gaulard and Gibbs alternating-current system, appeared in Engineering (London) 39 (May 1, 1885): 158–59. For the analogy of electric transmission to gas pipelines and for the stimulus of the Gaulard and Gibbs system to Westinghouse, see Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, pp. 130–35.
21. For the transformer and alternating-current power transmission, see Cook and Carr, Elements of Electrical Engineering, pp. 382–410, 528–37. With alternating current, volt-amps are used instead of watts to denote units of power.
22. See William Stanley, “Alternating-Current Development in America,” Journal of the Franklin Institute 173 (January–June 1912): 561–80; and on Stanley, see Laurence A. Hawkins, William Stanley (1858–1916)—His Life and Work (New York: Newcomen Society, 1951). On the Westinghouse light and power system, see Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, pp. 137–39. In the Lawrenceville test, we assume that Westinghouse used the 50 volt, 2 amp bulbs that he marketed after the test. We also assume that he sent some additional power to offset line loss during the test, which we and Passer neglect in the calculations given.
23. For the number of A.C. and D.C. central stations in 1890, see Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, p. 150.
24. On the current war, see Jonnes, Empires of Light, pp. 141–245. See also Richard Moran, Executioner’s Current: Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and the Invention of the Electric Chair (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002).
25. On the merger of Edison General Electric and Thomson-Houston, see Israel, Edison, pp. 332–37.
26. On the Chicago Fair, see Jonnes, Empires of Light, pp. 247–75. On the patent-sharing agreement and consolidation of the electrical industry, see Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, pp. 151–64.
27. For case studies of early electric and gas use, see Mark H. Rose, Cities of Light and Heat: Domesticating Gas and Electricity in Urban America (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995).
28. For the wider influence of electricity in American life, see David E. Nye, Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology, 1880–1940 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990).
29. On Tesla, see Margaret Cheney, Tesla: Man Out of Time (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1981). His United States Patent, No. 381,968, was granted on May 1, 1888. For the principle of the induction motor, see Cook and Carr, Elements of Electrical Engineering, pp. 415–20.
30. On Steinmetz, see Ronald R. Kline, Steinmetz: Engineer and Socialist (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992). Born with curvature of the spine, Steinmetz overcame great personal as well as professional challenges in his life. For his work on reducing magnetic or “hysteresis” losses, see ibid., pp. 46–52.
31. On Steinmetz’s work on alternating-current circuits, see ibid., pp. 77–91.
32. On the tension between Steinmetz and academic engineering, see ibid., pp. 53–61, 105–20. See also Ronald Kline, “Science and Engineering Theory in the Invention and Development of the Induction Motor, 1880–1900,” Technology and Culture 28, no. 2 (April 1987): 283–313.
33. For the General Electric Laboratory and the work of Coolidge and Langmuir, see Leonard S. Reich, The Making of Industrial Research: Science and Business at GE and Bell, 1876–1926 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 62–128.
Bell and the Telephone
1. For Bell’s life, see Robert V. Bruce, Bell: Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude (Boston: Little, Brown, 1973).
2. See Alexander Melville Bell, Visible Speech (London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1867).
3. For Bell’s early interest in electricity and sound, see Bruce, Bell, pp. 45–46, 50–51.
4. For Bell’s life and work in Boston to 1874, see ibid., pp. 71–103. An invitation to lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a tour of the laboratories there stimulated Bell’s own interest in research. See ibid., pp. 102–3.
5. For Henry’s demonstration, see Joseph Henry, The Scientific Writings of Joseph Henry, 2 vols. (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1886), 2:434. On Henry’s work with electromagnets, see also Albert E. Moyer, Joseph Henry: The Rise of an American Scientist (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997), pp. 61–77.
6. On Morse and telegraphy, see Carleton Mabee, The American Leonardo: A Life of Samuel F. Morse (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1943). On the spread of the telegraph, see Robert Luther Thompson, Wiring a Continent: The History of the Telegraph Industry in the United States, 1832–1866 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1947). With the fortune he made, Cornell founded Cornell University.
7. For the working of simple and multiple telegraphy, see M. D. Fagen, ed., A History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System, vol. 1: The Early Years (1875–1925) (Basking Ridge, NJ: Bell Telephone Laboratories, 1975), pp. 717–24. On the maturing of the telegraph industry, see also Paul Israel, From Machine Shop to Industrial Laboratory: Telegraphy and the Changing Context of American Invention, 1830–1920 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992).
8. For an account of how his ideas evolved from the harmonic telegraph to the telephone, see Bell’s London lecture, October 31, 1877, reproduced in George B. Prescott, Bell’s Electric Speaking Telephone (New York: D. Appleton, 1884; repr., New York: Arno Press, 1972), pp. 50–82. See also Bruce, Bell, pp. 104–11, 120–24; and Michael E. Gorman, Matthew M. Mehalik, W. Bernard Carlson, and Michael Oblon, “Alexander Graham Bell, Elisha Gray and the Speaking Telegraph: A Cognitive Comparison,” History of Technology 15 (1993): 1–56. Bell’s harmonic telegraph patents were No. 161,739 in 1875 and No. 174,465 in 1876.
9. On Hubbard and his aims, see W. Bernard Carlson, “The Telephone as Political Instrument: Gardiner Hubbard and the Formation of the Middle Class in America, 1875–1880,” in Michael Thad Allen and Gabrielle Hecht, eds., Technologies of Power: Essays in Honor of Thomas Parke Hughes and Agatha Chipley Hughes (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001), pp. 25–55.
10. For Bell’s partnership with Hubbard and Sanders, see Bruce, Bell, pp. 125–29. For his work with Thomas Watson, see ibid., pp. 132–35.
11. For the Reis telephone and telephone research before Bell, see ibid., pp. 117–18.
12. For Bell’s meeting with Joseph Henry, see ibid., pp. 139–40.
13. For the breakthrough of June 2, 1875, see ibid., pp. 145–49.
14. On Bell’s feelings for Mabel Hubbard and confrontation with her father, see ibid., pp. 151–61.
15. Alexander Graham Bell, “Improvement in Telegraphy,” Letters Patent No. 174,465, March 7, 1876, United States Patent Office, Washington, DC.
16. On Elisha Gray and his telephone, see David A. Hounshell, “Elisha Gray and the Telephone: On the Disadvantages of Being an Expert,” Technology and Culture 16, no. 2 (April 1975): 133–61; and Gorman et al., “Alexander Graham Bell, Elisha Gray and the Speaking Telegraph: A Cognitive Comparison,” pp. 1–56.
17. For Bell’s knowledge of variable resistance, see Bruce, Bell, pp. 144–45. Questions later arose over whether the inclusion of variable resistance in Bell’s patent claim was the result of his attorneys having obtained advance knowledge of Gray’s caveat and whether Bell’s patent application was moved ahead of Gray’s caveat on the day that both were filed in Washington. See A. Edward Evenson, The Telephone Patent Conspiracy of 1876: The Elisha Gray–Alexander Bell Controversy and Its Many Players (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2000). These charges have never been proved. See Bruce, Bell, pp. 167–73.
18. On Bell’s liquid telephone experiments, see Bruce, Bell, pp. 177–81. Bell’s own patent was not for a liquid telephone. He built and tested one after his attorneys in Washington obtained a copy of Gray’s caveat.
19. Alexander Graham Bell, “Telephone,” Letters Patent No. 186,787, January 30, 1877, United States Patent Office, Washington, DC.
20. On Edison’s telephone work, see Paul Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1998), pp. 130–41. Carbon granules later replaced solid carbon.
21. On the Western Union litigation, see Bruce, Bell, pp. 260–80.
22. On Bell’s later life, see ibid., esp. p. 231.
23. On the networking of early telephones, see A History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System, 1:468–73. AT&T absorbed American Bell on December 30, 1899; see ibid., pp. 34–35. See also George David Smith, Anatomy of a Business Strategy: Bell, Western Electric, and the Origins of the American Telephone Industry (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985). On Vail, see John Brooks, Telephone: The First Hundred Years (New York: Harper & Row, 1976), pp. 74–85.
24. On the technical problems of long-distance transmission, see A History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System, 1:233–34. Copper costs for exposed wire lines increased as the square of distance and for cable (covered) lines increased as the cube of distance.
25. On the Bell System’s reliance on engineers with more advanced training, see Leonard S. Reich, The Making of American Industrial Research: Science and Industry at GE and Bell, 1876–1926 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 142–50. See also Neil H. Wasserman, From Invention to Innovation: Long-Distance Telephone Transmission at the Turn of the Century (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), pp. 20–33. The new theoretical research was the work of James Clerk Maxwell and Oliver Heaviside.
26. On the development of inductive loading and its results, see A History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System, 1:241–53; and for Campbell’s role, see Wasserman, From Invention to Innovation, pp. 40–53, 67–90. Campbell spaced the coils at distances determined by the average wavelength of voice frequencies.
27. On Pupin and the patents, see Wasserman, From Invention to Innovation, pp. 90–100; and James E. Brittain, “The Introduction of the Loading Coil: George A. Campbell and Michael I. Pupin,” Technology and Culture 11, no. 1 (January 1970): 36–57.
28. For the development of amplification and transcontinental telephony, see A History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System, 1:252–77. See also Lillian Hoddeson, “The Emergence of Basic Research in the Bell Telephone System, 1875–1915,” Technology and Culture 22, no. 3 (July 1981): 512–44. For the call by Bell and Watson, see Bruce, Bell, p. 482.
29. On frequency multiplexing in telephony and Campbell’s invention of the wave filter, see A History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System, 1:277–90, 899.
30. For the growth of the telephone network and its impact and interaction with society, see again, Brooks, Telephone; and Claude S. Fischer, America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992). For its international influence, see Peter Young, Person to Person: The International Impact of the Telephone (Cambridge: Granta Editions, 1991). For AT&T’s 1913 divestiture of Western Union and agreement with the federal government, see Brooks, Telephone, pp. 132–37.
31. For Bell’s involvement with science and scientists, see Bruce, Bell, pp. 369–78.
32. See Hounshell, “Elisha Gray and the Telephone,” pp. 152–61.
Burton, Houdry, and the Refining of Oil
1. For the American steel industry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, see Thomas J. Misa, A Nation of Steel (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995). On the decline of the industry, see ibid., pp. 253–82.
2. On early illuminants, see Harold F. Williamson and Arnold R. Daum, The American Petroleum Industry: The Age of Illumination, 1859–1899 (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1959), pp. 27–60. This book, together with its companion volume, Harold F. Williamson, Ralph L. Andreano, Arnold R. Daum, and Gilbert C. Klose, The American Petroleum Industry: The Age of Energy, 1899–1959 (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1959), provides a technical history of the oil industry. For a more recent account that places the industry in a larger historical context, see Daniel Yergin, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991). For a description of refining processes, see also William L. Leffler, Petroleum Refining in Nontechnical Language, 3rd ed. (Tulsa, OK: PennWell, 2000).
3. B. Silliman Jr., Report on the Rock Oil, or Petroleum, from Venango Co., Pennsylvania, with Special Reference to Its Use for Illumination and Other Purposes (New Haven, CT: J. H. Benham’s Steam Power Press, 1855), p. 15.
4. On Drake and the early oil industry in Pennsylvania, see Williamson and Daum, The Age of Illumination, pp. 63–114.
5. On early refining, see ibid., pp. 202–27. See also James G. Speight, The Chemistry and Technology of Petroleum (New York: Marcel Dekker, 1991), pp. 314, 506–10. Earlier sources give the boiling range of kerosene as 350 to 525 degrees Fahrenheit (175–275 degrees Celsius). See William A. Gruse and Donald R. Stevens, Chemical Technology of Petroleum (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1960), p. 487. The description of refining is simplified here.
6. On Rockefeller’s life, see Ron Chernow, Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. (New York: Random House, 1998).
7. On the consolidation of the oil refining industry under Standard Oil, see Williamson and Daum, The Age of Illumination, pp. 301–8, 343–462. Production data are from ibid., pp. 471, 485. On the consolidation of Standard Oil, see also Chernow, Titan, pp. 129–82, 197–215.
8. For the retail prices of kerosene, see Williamson and Daum, The Age of Illumination, pp. 247, 680.
9. On the 1882 trust agreement and subsequent use of Standard of New Jersey as a holding company, see ibid., pp. 466–70, 715; and Chernow, Titan, pp. 224–29, 429–30.
10. Tarbell’s articles were published in book form as Ida Tarbell, The History of the Standard Oil Company, 2 vols. (New York: McClure, Phillips, 1904–5).
11. On the circumstances and litigation leading to the 1911 breakup of Standard Oil, see Williamson et al., The Age of Energy, 1899–1959, pp. 4–14; and Chernow, Titan, pp. 537–59. Williamson emphasizes changes in the industry that lessened Standard Oil’s market dominance before 1911, while Chernow underlines how the company’s arrogance and miscalculations contributed to its breakup.
12. For the discovery and problems of Lima-Indiana oil, see Williamson and Daum, The Age of Illumination, pp. 589–613. The Rockefeller quotation is from Nevins, John D. Rockefeller: The Heroic Age of American Enterprise, vol. 2 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1940), p. 7.
13. For information on Herman Frasch, see his entry in the National Cyclopaedia of American Biography (New York: James T. White, 1926), 19:347–48. On the Frasch process, see also Chernow, Titan, pp. 284–88.
14. For oil production data to 1899, see Williamson and Daum, The Age of Illumination, pp. 614–15. The figure for 1885 may be a yearly average for 1883–85.
15. On the kerosene yield of crude oil, see ibid., p. 208; and William M. Burton, “Medal Address: Chemistry in the Petroleum Industry,” Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry 10, no. 6 (June 1918): 485. For the percentage of gasoline produced by simple distillation, see Paul H. Giddens, Standard Oil Company (Indiana): Oil Pioneer of the Middle West (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1955), p. 140; and Speight, Chemistry and Technology of Petroleum, p. 529.
16. On Burton’s life, see his entry in the National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 41:41. Biographical notices on Humphreys and Rogers have not been found.
17. On the development and results of the Burton process, see John Lawrence Enos, Petroleum Progress and Profits: A History of Process Innovation (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1962), pp. 1–59. On thermal cracking, see also Speight, Chemistry and Technology of Petroleum, pp. 529–44.
18. Burton, “Medal Address,” p. 485.
19. Ibid.
20. On the efficiency of thermal cracking, raising production of gasoline per barrel of crude oil to about 40 percent, see Giddens, Standard Oil Company (Indiana), pp. 140, 146, 148.
21. Quotation is from ibid., p. 149.
22. W. M. Burton, “Manufacture of Gasolene,” United States Patent No. 1,049,667, January 7, 1913. The patent was owned by the company and taken in Burton’s name.
23. Burton, “Medal Address,” p. 485.
24. Walter G. Vincenti, “Control Volume Analysis: A Difference in Thinking between Engineering and Physics,” Technology and Culture 23, no. 2 (April 1982): 145–74. Quotation is from p. 166.
25. Burton, “Medal Address,” p. 485.
26. For gasoline demand in 1899 and 1919, and the proportions of refined oil and cracked gasoline from 1913 to 1929, see Williamson et al., The Age of Energy, pp. 146, 192–95, and 395.
27. For the rival processes, see Williamson et al., The Age of Energy, pp. 159–62, 376–85. On the Dubbs process, see ibid., pp. 154–59.
28. On knocking and antiknock additives, see Gruse and Stevens, Chemical Technology of Petroleum, pp. 439–69. On Thomas Midgely, see G. B. Kauffman, “Midgely: Saint or Serpent?” Chemtech 19, no. 12 (December, 1989): 717–25. Lead was removed in the 1970s because it interfered with catalytic converters, which were installed to control automobile emissions.
29. On octane ratings, see Burnett, Gasoline: From Unwanted By-product to Essential Fuel for the Twentieth Century (Stony Brook, NY: NLA Monograph Series, 1991), pp. 66–69. The proper name for iso-octane is 2,2,4-trimethylpentane. The term iso-octane is used here for simplicity. The octane rating was the average of two numbers: the motor octane number (MON) and the research octane number (RON), obtained from tests.
30. For the octane of gasoline in 1930, see Gruse and Stevens, Chemical Technology of Petroleum, p. 438.
31. On Houdry’s life, see Alex G. Oblad, “The Contributions of Eugene J. Houdry to the Development of Catalytic Cracking,” in Burton H. Davis and William P. Hettinger Jr., eds., Heterogeneous Catalysis: Selected American Histories, ACS Symposium Series 222 (Washington, DC, American Chemical Society, 1983), pp. 612–20.
32. On Houdry’s work in catalytic cracking, see ibid., and Enos, Petroleum Progress and Profits, pp. 131–62. On catalytic cracking, see also Speight, Chemistry and Technology of Petroleum, pp. 545–51.
33. On the efficiency of catalytic cracking, see Gruse and Stevens, Chemical Technology of Petroleum, pp. 373–75.
34. For example, among the hexanes produced by straight-run, thermal cracking, and catalytic cracking, the proportions of branched hexane molecules were 49, 37, and 91 percent, respectively. See ibid., p. 77. By 1944, there were twenty-nine catalytic cracking units in the United States that produced almost all of the aviation fuel used by the Allies in World War II. See Williamson et al., The Age of Energy, p. 620.
35. On the different processes of catalytic cracking, see Williamson et al., The Age of Energy, pp. 620–26. On reforming and alkylation, see ibid., pp. 626–33.
Ford, Sloan, and the Automobile
1. For automobile registrations in 1900 and 1939, see Automobile Facts and Figures, 1940 (Detroit: Automobile Manufacturers Association, 1940), p. 11. These numbers do not include trucks.
2. On the Otto engine, see Lynwood Bryant, “The Silent Otto,” Technology and Culture 7, no. 2 (1966): 184–200; and “Origin of the Four-Stroke Cycle,” Technology and Culture 8, no. 2 (1967): 178–98.
3. For the European origins of automobile engineering, see James M. Laux, The European Auto Industry (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1992), pp. 1–50. On the Duryea car, see Richard P. Scharchburg, Carriages without Horses: J. Frank Duryea and the Birth of the American Automobile Industry (Warrendale, PA: Society of Automotive Engineers, 1993).
4. On early steam cars, see George S. May, “Stanley Motor Carriage Company,” and James M. Laux, “Steam Cars” and “White Motor Company,” in George S. May, ed., Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography: The Automobile Industry, 1896–1920 (New York: Bruccoli Clark Layman and Facts on File, 1990), pp. 423–27, 452–57. For engineering arguments on behalf of steam cars, see the papers by Abner Doble, John Sturgess, and Prescott Warren, together with discussion by others, in Transactions of the Society of Automotive Engineers 13, part 1 (1918): 338–86.
5. For the engineering of early electrics, see C. E. Woods, The Electric Automobile: Its Construction, Care, and Operation (Chicago: Herbert S. Stone, 1900). For a comparison of steam, electric, and gasoline car performance, see Ernest Henry Wakefield, History of the Electric Automobile: Battery-Only Powered Cars (Warrendale, PA: Society of Automotive Engineers, 1994), p. 37. For the social history of electric cars, see Michael Brian Schiffer, Taking Charge: The Electric Automobile in America (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994); and on the electric self-starter, see Stuart Leslie, Boss Kettering (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), pp. 46–50.
6. On early European luxury cars, see Laux, The European Auto Industry, pp. 1–50. On the Pierce-Arrow company, see Beverly Rae Kimes, “The Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company,” in May, Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography: The Automobile Industry, 1896–1920, pp. 389–91.
7. The classic biography of Henry Ford is Allan Nevins with Frank Ernest Hill, Ford: The Times, the Man, the Company; Allan Nevins and Frank Ernest Hill, Ford: Expansion and Challenge 1915–1933; and Allan Nevins and Frank Ernest Hill, Ford: Decline and Rebirth 1933–1962 (New York: Charles Scribner’s and Sons, 1954–63). For a recent biography, see Douglas Brinkley, Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, His Company, and a Century of Progress (New York: Viking Books, 2003). On Ford’s early life, the quadricycle, his meeting with Edison, and his first company, see Brinkley, Wheels for the World, pp. 1–37.
8. For an account of the Fulton race, see David P. Billington, The Innovators: The Engineering Pioneers Who Made America Modern (New York: John W. Wiley and Sons, 1996), pp. 42–44. On the Duryea race, see Scharchburg, Carriages without Horses, pp. 121–25.
9. On Ford’s racing career and second company, see Nevins, Ford: The Times, the Man, the Company, pp. 192–219; and Brinkley, Wheels for the World, pp. 37–48.
10. On Ford’s third company, see Nevins, Ford: The Times, the Man, the Company, pp. 213–332; and Brinkley, Wheels for the World, pp. 49–89.
11. On the Ford Model N, see Nevins, Ford: The Times, the Man, the Company, pp. 323–38. The Ford 1906–7 figures included Models R, S, and K.
12. On the Ford Model T, see Nevins, Ford: The Times, the Man, the Company, pp. 387–93; and Brinkley, Wheels for the World, pp. 99–106. Henry Ford gives his business and engineering reasons for developing the Model T in his book, My Life and Work (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page, 1922), pp. 33–76. The book was written in collaboration with Samuel Crowther.
13. For the engineering of the Model T, see the Ford Manual: For Owners and Operators of Ford Cars (Detroit: Ford Motor Company, 1914).
14. For Watt’s horsepower formula, see John Farey, A Treatise on the Steam Engine: Historical Practical and Descriptive (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1827), pp. 438–40. Watt estimated that a horse could lift 330 pounds 100 feet in one minute, or 33,000 foot-pounds per minute. He divided PLAN by 33,000 to calculate the indicated horsepower of a reciprocating engine. For measurements of engine power at the time, see Robert L. Streeter, Internal Combustion Engines (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1923), pp. 247–60. These formulas are still employed today. See John B. Heywood, Internal Combustion Engine Fundamentals (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988), pp. 49–51. The values of LAN and Hp are drawn from Nevins, Ford: The Times, the Man, the Company, pp. 387–93; and Floyd Clymer, Henry’s Wonderful Model T, 1908–1927 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1955), p. 127 (fig. 20). Average pressure P is inferred. Ford’s method of calculating horsepower in the Model T was D2n/2.5, where D is the diameter of the wheel in feet, n is the number of crankshaft revolutions per minute, and 2.5 was an empirical number. See the Ford Manual, p. 30. With D = 3.75 and n = 4, Ford’s formula gave the Model T a horsepower of 22.5.
15. To calculate brake horsepower, engineers multiply the speed of the crankshaft (NC), in revolutions per minute, by the turning force or torque (TQ) of the crankshaft, measured in foot-pounds using a meter called a brake (brake horsepower is named for this kind of brake, not for the car’s brakes). This result is multiplied by 2π and divided by 33,000 foot-pounds per minute. For the Model T at about 37 miles per hour, brake hp (PB) = TQNC2π/33,000 = (70)(1500)(6.28)/33,000 = 19.98 Hp. Brake hp was thus 85 percent of indicated hp. Traction horsepower (PT) in the model T was about 60 percent of brake hp, or PT = PB(0.60) = 12 hp.
16. Engineers today also refer to traction horsepower as the road-load power.
17. On gearing systems in cars, see Philip G. Gott, Changing Gears: The Development of the Automotive Transmission (Warrendale, PA: Society of Automotive Engineers, 1991).
18. For a description of Ford mass production, see Horace Lucien Arnold and Fay Leone Faurote, Ford Methods and the Ford Shops (New York: Engineering Magazine Company, 1915). See also David A. Hounshell, From the American System to Mass Production, 1800–1932: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984), pp. 217–61.
19. For the prices of Ford cars from 1908/9–1916/17, see Clymer, Henry’s Wonderful Model T, pp. 109–21. For Model T production figures, see ibid., p. 134. Ford sales data were based on a fiscal year, not a calendar year, but Ford’s share of the market may be estimated from these figures, using for comparison the historical data for annual U.S. automobile production in Automobile Facts and Figures, 1940, p. 5.
20. On the Selden patent controversy, see William Greenleaf, Monopoly on Wheels: Henry Ford and the Selden Automobile Patent (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1961).
21. On the five-dollar day and Ford’s relations with labor, see Stephen Meyer, The Five Dollar Day: Labor Management and Social Control in the Ford Motor Company, 1908–1921 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1981). Ford tried to regulate the private lives of his workers through his company’s Sociological Department. These efforts helped some but were regarded by many as intrusive. Ford’s hostility to labor unions was shared by other manufacturers of his time, and Ford was the last of the big three automakers to accept unionization of his work force, after a strike, in 1941.
22. On Durant and the early history of General Motors, see Bernard A. Weisberger, The Dream Maker: William C. Durant, Founder of General Motors (Boston: Little Brown, 1979); and Axel Madsen, The Deal Maker: How William C. Durant Made General Motors (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1999).
23. On Sloan’s management of General Motors, see Alfred P. Sloan Jr., My Years with General Motors, ed. John McDonald with Catherine Stevens (New York: Doubleday, 1964), pp. 45–70, 149–68, 238–47. See also Arthur J. Kuhn, GM Passes Ford, 1918–1938: Designing the General Motors Performance-Control System (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1986); and David R. Farber, Sloan Rules: Alfred P. Sloan and the Triumph of General Motors (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).
24. On the decline of the Model T in the 1920s, see Nevins and Hill, Ford: Expansion and Challenge, 1915–1933, pp. 379–436; and Sloan, My Years with General Motors, pp. 158–62.
25. On Ford’s view of business, see Ford, My Life and Work, pp. 37–39.
26. On Ford’s view of history, see John B. Rae, Great Lives Observed: Henry Ford (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1969), pp. 53–54. For his anti-Semitism, see Albert Lee, Henry Ford and the Jews (New York: Stein and Day, 1980). On the Ford Foundation, see Richard Magat, The Ford Foundation at Work: Philanthropic Choices, Methods, and Styles (New York: Plenum Press, 1979).
27. On the air-cooled car (also called copper-cooled, since copper plating inside cooled the engine), see Stuart W. Leslie, “Charles F. Kettering and the Copper-Cooled Engine,” Technology and Culture 20, no. 4 (October 1979): 752–76.
28. Sloan, My Years with General Motors, pp. 71–96.
29. On the adding of lead to gasoline, see Herbert L. Needleman, “Clamped in a Straitjacket: The Insertion of Lead into Gasoline,” Environmental Research 74, no. 2 (August 1997): 95–103; and Farber, Sloan Rules, pp. 81–86.
30. Frederick Winslow Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1911). For Taylor and his influence, see Robert Kanigel, The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency (New York: 1997). For the misguided idea that modern technology is a system crushing everything into a “one best way,” see Jacques Ellul, The Technological System (New York: Knopf, 1964).
31. On the difference between Taylor and Ford, see Hounshell, From the American System to Mass Production, pp. 249–53.
32. See Hounshell, From the American System to Mass Production, pp. 252–53. Recent scholarship has questioned whether technology prescribed a single predetermined path for the automobile industry. See Michel Freyssenet et al., One Best Way? Trajectories and Industrial Models of the World’s Automobile Producers (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).
33. For the impact of the automobile, see James J. Flink, The Automobile Age (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988); Rudi Volti, “A Century of Automobility,” and Ronald R. Kline and Trevor J. Pinch, “Users as Agents of Technological Change: The Social Construction of the Automobile in the Rural United States,” both in Technology and Culture 37, no. 4 (October 1996): 663–85, and 763–95.
CHAPTER SIX
The Wright Brothers and the Airplane
1. On early aviation, see John D. Anderson Jr., A History of Aerodynamics and Its Impact on Flying Machines (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 14–62. For the change brought by the industrial revolution, see Tom D. Crouch, “Aeronautics in the Pre-Wright Era: Engineers and the Airplane,” in Richard P. Hallion, ed., The Wright Brothers: Heirs of Prometheus (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985), pp. 3–19.
2. For Cayley’s work, see Charles H. Gibbs-Smith, Sir George Cayley’s Aeronautics, 1796–1855 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1962); and Anderson, A History of Aerodynamics, pp. 62–80. On the basic principles of aerodynamics, see Anderson, A History of Aerodynamics, pp. 3–11. The direction of lift is relative to the direction of the wind.
3. Clement Ader of France, Sir Hiram Maxim of England, and others made hops in the late nineteenth century with airplanes powered by steam engines but did not achieve steady level flight. See Charles H. Gibbs-Smith, Aviation: An Historical Survey from Its Origins to the End of World War II (London: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1985), pp. 59–63. On the failure of aerodynamic theory to inform practical efforts to fly in the second half of the nineteenth century, see Anderson, A History of Aerodynamics, pp. 114–19.
4. See Otto Lilienthal, Birdflight as the Basis of Aviation, trans. A. W. Isenthal (New York: Longmans Green, 1911; repr., Hummelstown, PA: Markowski International, 2001); and Anderson, A History of Aerodynamics, pp. 138–64. For Lilienthal’s influence on American aviation, see Tom D. Crouch, A Dream of Wings: Americans and the Airplane, 1875–1905 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989), pp. 157–74.
5. For an account of Langley’s research and model test flights through 1896, with Bell’s testimony, see S. P. Langley, “The ‘Flying Machine,’ ” McClure’s Magazine 9, no. 2 (June 1897): 647–60.
6. For a review of Langley’s work, completed by Manly, see Samuel P. Langley and Charles M. Manly, Langley Memoir on Mechanical Flight, Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, vol. 27, no. 3 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1911). See also Anderson, A History of Aerodynamics, pp. 164–92.
7. For a biography of the Wright brothers, see Tom Crouch, The Bishop’s Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright (New York: W. W. Norton, 1989).
8. Octave Chanute, Progress in Flying Machines (New York: M. N. Forney, 1894; repr. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1997). On Chanute and his research, see Crouch, A Dream of Wings, pp. 175–202.
9. The Wright brothers explained their basic ideas in Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright, “The Wright Brothers’ Aëroplane,” Century Magazine 76, no. 5 (September 1908): 641–50. For an examination of their work, see Anderson, A History of Aerodynamics, pp. 201–43. On their early interest in aviation, see Crouch, The Bishop’s Boys, pp. 157–80.
10. See again the basic principles of flight in Anderson, A History of Aerodynamics, pp. 3–11.
11. On Alphonse Pénaud, see Gibbs-Smith, Aviation, pp. 43–44.
12. For the influence of bicycles in the thinking of the Wright brothers, see Tom Crouch, “How the Bicycle Took Wings,” American Heritage of Invention and Technology 2, no. 1 (Summer 1986): 11–16. For the 1899 kite experiments, see Orville Wright’s account in Marvin W. McFarland, ed., The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, 2 vols. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1953), 1: 5–12.
13. For a report on their glider tests, see Wilbur Wright, “Experiments and Observation in Soaring Flight,” Journal of the Western Society of Engineers 8 (August 1908): 400–417. On the 1900 glider tests at Kitty Hawk, see also Crouch, The Bishop’s Boys, pp. 181–99; and Peter L. Jakab, Visions of a Flying Machine: The Wright Brothers and the Process of Innovation (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990), pp. 83–101.
14. For the dimensions and construction of the first glider, see Jakab, Visions of a Flying Machine, pp. 93–94. The highest point of curvature on the top surface was close to the front edge, which helped stabilize the wing against shifts in the center of pressure underneath. See ibid., pp. 67–68. The camber ratio of the 1900 glider wing was 1:22. In a stall, an airplane with main and tail wings would lose lift in the main wings slightly before losing it in the tail wings. Placing the tail wings in front of the main wings caused the former to stall first. The main wings still had some lift, giving the plane a flatter descent, like a parachute. See ibid., pp. 68–72. At the higher speeds achieved by later aircraft, this “canard” configuration proved impractical.
15. On these troubling results, see ibid., pp. 100–101.
16. For the second glider and its difficulties, see ibid., pp. 102–14. On the 1901 tests, see also Crouch, The Bishop’s Boys, pp. 200–213. The 1901 plane had a camber ratio of 1:12 to start, which the Wrights reduced to 1:19 after the trouble with pitch became apparent.
17. For the published version of his presentation, see Wilbur Wright, “Some Aeronautical Experiments,” Journal of the Western Society of Engineers 6 (December 1901): 489–510.
18. For the formulas and numbers used by the Wright brothers to design their gliders, see Mc-Farland, The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, 1: 572–77. The term k is obtained from the formula kV2 = 1/2ρV2, where ρ is the density of air at sea level in pounds-seconds squared per foot to the fourth power, and V is in feet per second. For k where V is in miles per hour, we multiply 1/2ρV2 by (5280/3600)2 = (1.47)2. Since the air density at sea level is 0.002377, the correct value for k there is 1/2(0.002377)(1.47)2 = 0.00257, not the 0.005 value of Smeaton’s coefficient.
19. On the wind tunnel tests, see ibid., 1:577–93. See also Anderson, History of Aerodynamics, pp. 216–35; and Jakab, Visions of a Flying Machine, pp. 115–59.
20. See Anderson, History of Aerodynamics, pp. 168–69, 209–10. In 1891 Langley realized that Smeaton’s coefficient was inaccurate and gave it a value of 0.0033. The Wrights seem to have arrived at their number independently.
21. On the the improved wing design, see Jakab, Visions of a Flying Machine, pp. 150–54, 158–59.
22. For the successful 1902 glider tests, see ibid., pp. 163–82; and Crouch, The Bishop’s Boys, pp. 229–41.
23. For the lift and drag coefficients of wing surface no. 12, the shape chosen by the Wright brothers for their wings, see McFarland, ed., The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, 1:579, 583. On the design specifications of the 1903 Wright Flyer, see Howard S. Wolko, “Structural Design of the 1903 Wright Flyer,” in Howard S. Wolko, ed., The Wright Flyer: An Engineering Perspective (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1987), pp. 97–106.
24. On the Wright engine, see Harvey H. Lippincott, “Propulsion Systems of the Wright Brothers,” in Wolko, The Wright Flyer, pp. 82–95. The engine weight is unclear but was between 140 and 179 pounds. See Jakab, Visions of a Flying Machine, p. 192.
25. Wright and Wright, “The Wright Brothers’ Aëroplane,” p. 648.
26. On the propeller research of the Wright brothers, see McFarland, ed., The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, 1:594–640; and Lippincott, “Propulsion Systems of the Wright Brothers,” pp. 79–82. The brothers positioned two propeller blades behind the wings and had the blades rotate in opposite directions to prevent them from turning the plane left or right on its yaw axis. It is not clear that the Wrights realized, after estimating the power loss in the propellers, that their original engine power estimate of 8.4 horsepower was insufficient for the worst case of having to fly at thirty-five miles per hour.
27. For the final success at Kitty Hawk in 1903, see Crouch, The Bishop’s Boys, pp. 253–61, 263–72; and Jakab, Visions of a Flying Machine, pp. 183–212.
28. Langley and Manly, Langley Memoir on Mechanical Flight, pp. 207–17. Langley and Manly relied on a dihedral or slight upward angle of the wing tips to afford some stability against unwanted roll. The Wright Flyer’s wing tips actually drooped slightly but the Wrights relied on manual controls (wing warping) to stabilize the plane in roll.
29. On Langley’s climactic failure, see ibid., pp. 255–81; and Crouch, A Dream of Wings, pp. 255–93. Langley insisted on launching over water out of concern for pilot safety. Unwilling to allow his airplane to be patented for private profit, Langley refused offers of private funding to carry on his work.
30. Orville Wright, “How We Made the First Flight,” in Hallion, The Wright Brothers, pp. 101–9. Quotation is from pp. 107–8. Originally printed in the magazine Flying (December 1913).
31. Estimates of windspeed that morning varied from twenty to twenty-seven miles per hour. See McFarland, The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, 1:395n. For Orville Wright’s diary entry that day, describing the flights, see ibid., pp. 394–97. For the Wright achievement, see Richard P. Hallion, “The Wright Brothers: How They Flew,” Invention and Technology 19, no. 2 (Fall 2003): 18–37. For technical studies of the 1903 Flyer, see F.E.C. Culick and Henry R. Jex, “Aerodynamics, Stability, and Control of the 1903 Wright Flyer,” and Frederick J. Hooven, “Longitudinal Dynamics of the Wright Brothers’ Early Flyers: A Study in Computer Simulation of Flight,” in Wolko, The Wright Flyer, pp. 19–77.
32. On the 1906 Wright patent in the United States, see Rodney K. Worrell, “The Wright Brothers Pioneer Patent,” American Bar Association Journal 65 (October 1979): 1512–18. For patent filings abroad, see Crouch, The Bishop’s Boys, p. 312.
33. For the difficulties of the Wright brothers in this period, see Crouch, The Bishop’s Boys, pp. 301–26. See also Phaedra Hise, “The Wright Brothers: How They Failed,” Invention and Technology 19, no. 2 (Fall 2003): 42–49. On European aviation at this time, see also Charles Gibbs-Smith, The Rebirth of European Aviation, 1902–1908: A Study of the Wright Brothers’ Influence (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1974).
34. For Bell’s research in aeronautics, see Alexander Graham Bell, “Aerial Locomotion,” National Geographic 18, no. 1 (January 1907): 1–34. See also Robert V. Bruce, Bell: Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1973), pp. 430–54.
35. On Curtiss, see C. R. Roseberry, Glenn Curtiss: Pioneer of Flight (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, 1972), pp. 48–162.
36. For Wilbur Wright’s public flights in 1908–9, and the 1908 tests by Orville Wright at Fort Myer, see Crouch, The Bishop’s Boys, pp. 360–78, 406–8. On the formation of the Wright company and its training of military pilots, see ibid., pp. 395–410, 435–36.
37. For the invention of stick control and its superiority to the Wright lever system, see Malcolm J. Abzug and E. Eugene Larrabee, Airplane Stability and Control: A History of the Technologies That Made Aviation Possible (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 5–6.
38. For the business and patent difficulties of the Wright brothers, see Crouch, The Bishop’s Boys, pp. 411–67.
39. On the Curtiss-Wright dispute and Ford’s involvement, see Roseberry, Glenn Curtiss, pp. 152–58, 257, 308–62; and Crouch, The Bishop’s Boys, pp. 402–15, 461–62. For Orville’s decision to sell the company, see Crouch, The Bishop’s Boys, pp. 464–67. The company merged with the Curtiss firm in 1929.
40. On the flight of the rebuilt Langley plane and the Smithsonian’s claim, see A. F. Zahm, “The First Man-Carrying Aeroplane Capable of Sustained Free Flight—Langley’s Success as a Pioneer in Aviation,” Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution … 1914 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1915), pp. 217–22. See also Tom Crouch, “The Feud between the Wright Brothers and the Smithsonian,” American Heritage of Invention and Technology 2, no. 3 (Spring 1987): pp. 34–46.
41. Crouch, The Bishop’s Boys, pp. 484–501, 526–29; and Jakab, Visions of a Flying Machine, pp. 220–21.
42. Anderson, A History of Aerodynamics, pp. 115 and 243. See also pp. 114–38, 192, 242–43.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Radio: From Hertz to Armstrong
1. For Maxwell’s theory, see James Clerk Maxwell, A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1873); and Paul J. Nahin, The Science of Radio (Woodbury, NY: American Institute of Physics Press, 1996), pp. 7–10.
2. For Hertz and his experimental work, see Heinrich Hertz, Electric Waves (1893; repr., New York: Dover Publications, 1962). For a description of Hertz’s experiments, see Hugh G. J. Aitken, Syntony and Spark: The Origins of Radio (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1976), pp. 48–79.
3. A standing wave forms when a transmitted wave and a reflected wave of the same amplitude and direction interact. For Hertz’s measurements, see Hertz, Electric Waves, pp. 132–33.
4. The formula for frequency shown here assumes that inductance L and capacitance C are the only impedances to the current. The formula neglects the usually negligible resistance (in ohms) that causes heating. Hertz designed his receiving loop to have the same resonance as his dipole transmitting antenna. But he calculated the resonant frequency of the dipole antenna using a half-period 
in which P is related to inductance, C is related to capacitance, and A is the speed of light. He got 
seconds, or a frequency of f = 1/2 T = 28.3 × 106 cycles per second or 28.3 MHz. Due to an error, C should have been 15/2 = 7.5 cm and hence f = 39.7 MHz. See Hertz, Electric Waves, pp. 50–51 and 271. Later, on p. 133, he states that T = 1.4 × 10−8 seconds or f = 35.6 MHz. He does not give the calculation for this figure.
5. On Marconi and his early radio research, see G. Marconi, “Wireless Telegraphy,” Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers 28 (1899): 273–97. See also Aitken, Syntony and Spark, pp. 179–297; and Sungook Hong, Wireless: From Marconi’s Black Box to the Audion (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2001), pp. 17–23. For a biography of Marconi, see W. P. Jolly, Marconi (New York: Stein and Day, 1972). For spark transmission and reception, see Nahin, Science of Radio, pp. 24–37. Marconi’s grounding of the transmitting antenna increased its capacitance.
6. On the dispute between Marconi and Lodge, see Hong, Wireless, pp. 25–51. Hong points out that before Marconi showed its usefulness for wireless telegraphy, some scientists tended to regard Hertzian waves in narrower terms as a substitute for optical signaling, for example, as a way to replace the light provided by coastal lighthouses.
7. On Marconi’s subsequent career, see Jolly, Marconi, esp. p. 31. On his firm, see W. J. Baker, A History of the Marconi Company (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1972).
8. For Fessenden’s life, see Frederick Seitz, The Cosmic Inventor: Reginald Aubrey Fessenden (1866–1932) (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1999).
9. On the Fessenden alternator, see James E. Brittain, Alexanderson: Pioneer in American Electrical Engineering (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), pp. 29–43.
10. On Fessenden’s radio work, see R. A. Fessenden, “Wireless Telephony,” Proceedings of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers 27 (1908): 1283–1358; and Hugh G. J. Aitken, The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900–1932 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), pp. 40–86. On early crystal rectifiers, see Desmond P. C. Thackeray, “When Tubes Beat Crystals: Early Radio Detectors,” IEEE Spectrum 20, no. 3 (March 1983): 64–69. Rectifiers are also called “detectors” in radio. For an overview of radio engineering without calculus, see Abraham Marcus and William Marcus, Elements of Radio (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1943).
11. For Fessenden’s Christmas 1906 radio broadcast, see Susan J. Douglas, Inventing American Broadcasting, 1899–1922 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), pp. 155–56. On amplitude modulation, see Marcus and Marcus, Elements of Radio, pp. 51–63, 605–18.
12. On the near sale of Fessenden’s patents to AT&T, see Aitken, The Continuous Wave, pp. 76–79.
13. On Marconi’s efforts to improve spark transmission, see Hong, Wireless, pp. 62–63, 90–107.
14. On tuning circuits and the reproduction of sound in radios, see Marcus and Marcus, Elements of Radio, pp. 31–42, 443–73.
15. On de Forest, see James A. Hijiya, Lee de Forest and the Fatherhood of Radio (Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 1992); and Aitken, The Continuous Wave, pp. 162–249. On the collapse of de Forest’s company, see ibid., pp. 185–94. Fessenden sued de Forest for using a liquid rectifier without permission. The company continued under de Forest’s former partner under a new name. The firm collapsed after the former partner was convicted of mail fraud in 1910 and the American Marconi Company won a patent infringement suit a year later.
16. De Forest’s audion patent was U.S. Patent No. 879,532. On the Edison effect, see J. B. Johnson, “Contribution of Thomas A. Edison to Thermionics,” American Journal of Physics 28, no. 9 (December 1960): 763–73.
17. For the working of the Fleming diode, J. A. Fleming, The Thermionic Valve and Its Developments in Radio-Telegraphy and Telephony, 2nd ed. (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1924), pp. 46–97. See also Marcus and Marcus, Elements of Radio, pp. 97–103.
18. For the working of the triode, see Lee de Forest, “The Audion: A New Receiver for Wireless Telegraphy,” Transactions of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers 25 (1906): 735–79. See also Marcus and Marcus, Elements of Radio, pp. 105–19.
19. For an evaluation of de Forest’s contribution to radio, see Robert A. Chipman, “DeForest and the Triode Detector,” Scientific American 212, no. 3 (March 1965): 92–100.
20. On Armstrong, see Lawrence Lessing, Man of High Fidelity (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1956). For his early life, see also Tom Lewis, Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio (New York: Edward Burlingame Books, 1991), pp. 58–71.
21. The coiled section of the tuning circuit also had a greater number of turns that stepped up the voltage.
22. On the regenerative circuit, see E. H. Armstrong, “Some Recent Developments in the Audion Receiver,” Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers 3, no. 4 (September 1915): 215–46. See also Marcus and Marcus, Elements of Radio, pp. 121–29; and D. G. Tucker, “The History of Positive Feedback: The Oscillating Audion, the Regenerative Receiver, and other applications up to around 1923,” Radio and Electronic Engineer 42, no. 2 (February 1972): 69–80. Armstrong filed his patent on October 29, 1913. The patent, No. 1,113,149, was issued on October 6, 1914.
23. On the problem of howl in regenerative circuits and the solution of moving the plate coil, see Marcus and Marcus, Elements of Radio, pp. 123–25.
24. For Fessenden’s work on heterodyning, see Aitken, The Continuous Wave, pp. 58–60.
25. On the superheterodyne receiver, see E. H. Armstrong, “A Study of Heterodyne Amplification for the Electron Relay,” Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers 5, no. 2 (April 1917): 145–59; and “The Super-Heterodyne: Its Origin, Development, and Some Recent Improvements,” Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers 12, no. 5 (October 1924): 539–52. See also Marcus and Marcus, Elements of Radio, pp. 231–47; and Paul J. Nahin, The Science of Radio, pp. 178–89. Armstrong arranged the heterodyning frequency to maintain a fixed distance from the frequency selected for reception, so that the difference frequency would remain the same. This enabled the radio to be designed to amplify a single difference frequency.
26. Armstrong filed his superheterodyne patent in the United States from France on February 8, 1919. The patent was issued on June 8, 1920, as No. 1,342,885. According to their entries in The Dictionary of Scientific Biography (New York: Scribner, 1970), de Forest won the Medal of Honor in 1915 and Armstrong in 1918.
27. On the formation of RCA, see Aitken, The Continuous Wave, pp. 281–431.
28. On Sarnoff’s early life and career, see Lewis, Empire of the Air, pp. 89–117. See also Eugene Lyons, David Sarnoff (New York: Harper and Row, 1966); and Kenneth Bilby, The General: David Sarnoff and the Rise of the Communications Industry (New York: Harper and Row, 1986), pp. 9–67.
29. On Sarnoff’s memorandum, see Lyons, David Sarnoff, pp. 91–92. For its implementation, see ibid., pp. 92–103; and Bilby, The General, pp. 49–52.
30. On the growth of radio broadcasting, see the papers in Lawrence W. Lichty and Malachi C. Topping, eds., American Broadcasting: A Source Book on the History of Radio and Television (New York: Hastings House, 1975). See also Douglas, Inventing American Broadcasting, 1899–1922; and Christopher H. Sterling and John Michael Kittross, Stay Tuned: A Concise History of American Broadcasting, 3rd ed. (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002). For early radio stations and frequencies, see Tom Kneitel, Radio Station Treasury, 1900–1946 (Commack, NY: CRB Research, 1986). On improvements in radio technology during the 1920s, see David Rutland, Behind the Front Panel: The Design and Development of 1920s Radios (Philomath, OR: Wren Publishers, 1994).
31. On the shift from alternators to vacuum tubes for transmission, see Brittain, Alexanderson, pp. 176–78.
32. See Robert L. Hilliard, The Federal Communications Commission: A Primer (Boston: Focal Press, 1991), pp. 63–66. Station power determined the transmission range.
33. On the events leading up to the 1932 consent decree, see Aitken, The Continuous Wave, pp. 498–508.
34. On Armstrong’s relationship to RCA in the early 1920s, see Lewis, Empire of the Air, pp. 165–67.
35. E. H. Armstrong, “Some Recent Developments in the Audion Receiver,” Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers 3, no. 4 (September 1915): 215–46.
36. On the Armstrong–de Forest patent dispute from 1915 to 1928, see Lewis, Empire of the Air, pp. 189–204. For the refusal of the Institute of Radio Engineers to accept the return of Armstrong’s medal, see Tucker, “The History of Positive Feedback,” p. 71.
37. For Sarnoff’s position in the Armstrong–de Forest dispute, see Lewis, Empire of the Air, p. 204.
38. For the final 1934 Supreme Court decision, see ibid., pp. 204–14.
39. On the decision against Armstrong’s claim to the superheterodyne receiver, see ibid., pp. 204–5.
40. On FM, see E. H. Armstrong, “A Method of Reducing Disturbances in Radio Signaling by a System of Frequency Modulation,” Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers 24, no. 5 (May 1936): 689–740. This paper is reprinted with other papers on FM in Jacob Klapper, ed., Selected Papers on Frequency Modulation (New York: Dover Publications, 1970). For Armstrong’s development of FM, see Lewis, Empire of the Air, pp. 247–59.
41. For the conflict between Armstrong and Sarnoff over FM, see Lewis, Empire of the Air, pp. 260–68, 300–327. On Sarnoff’s support for television, see Lyons, David Sarnoff, pp. 212–14.
42. On the postwar litigation leading to Armstrong’s death, see Lewis, Empire of the Air, pp. 300–27.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Ammann and the George Washington Bridge
1. On Telford’s bridges, see David P. Billington, The Tower and the Bridge: The New Art of Structural Enginering (New York: Basic Books, 1984), pp. 27–44. (Note: The Tower and the Bridge is reprinted by Princeton University Press [1985], and page references to the original edition also apply to this paperback edition.)
2. On the Garabit Viaduct, see Elie Deydier, Le Viaduc de Garabit (Paris: Editions Gerbert, 1960). For the progression from Rouzat to the Eiffel Tower, see Gustave Eiffel, La Tour Eiffel en 1900 (Paris: Masson et Cie, 1902), pp. 4–6.
3. On Roebling’s Cincinnati Bridge (now the John A. Roebling Bridge), see John A. Roebling, Report of John A. Roebling, Civil Engineer, to the President and Board of Directors of the Covington and Cincinnati Bridge Company (Cincinnati, 1867).
4. For the Eads Bridge, see David P. Billington, The Innovators: The Engineering Pioneers Who Made America Modern (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1996), pp. 144–54.
5. On the Brooklyn Bridge, see ibid., pp. 207–12; and David McCullough, The Great Bridge (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972).
6. On the need for a Hudson River bridge, see O. H. Ammann, “General Conception and Development of Design,” Proceedings of the American Society of Civil Engineers 59, no. 8, part 2 (October 1933): 16–21. This publication is subtitled “George Washington Bridge,” Transactions 97 (1933). This journal issue is cited hereafter as ASCE Transactions 97 (1933).
7. On earlier plans to span the Hudson, see Ammann, “General Conception and Development of Design,” pp. 2–9.
8. On Lindenthal and his earlier work, see Billington, The Tower and the Bridge, pp. 122–28.
9. For Lindenthal’s design proposal, see Ammann, “General Conception and Development of Design,” pp. 9–10. The cost of a tunnel is given on p. 11.
10. On Ammann’s life and education, see David P. Billington, The Art of Structural Design: A Swiss Legacy (New Haven: Princeton Art Museum/Yale University Press, 2003), pp. 74–110. This chapter on Ammann is coauthored with Jameson W. Doig. On Ritter and his teaching, see ibid., pp. 16–29.
11. On Silzer, see Paul A. Stellhorn and Michael J. Birkner, eds., The Governors of New Jersey, 1664–1974 (Trenton, NJ: New Jersey Historical Commission, 1982), pp. 194–96.
12. For Ammann’s efforts to secure public and political support for the George Washington Bridge, see Jameson W. Doig and David P. Billington, “Ammann’s First Bridge: A Study in Engineering, Politics, and Entrepreneurial Behavior,” Technology and Culture 35, no. 3 (July 1994): 537–70. For a more general discussion of public entrepreneurship, see Jameson W. Doig and Erwin C. Hargrove, eds., Leadership and Innovation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987).
13. For an account of the early Port Authority, see Erwin W. Bard, The Port of New York Authority (New York: Columbia University Press, 1942). Bard does not describe Ammann’s role prior to his selection as designer for the bridge. The best and most recent study of the Port Authority is Jameson W. Doig, Empire on the Hudson: Entrepreneurial Vision and Political Power at the Port of New York Authority (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001). Doig highlights Ammann’s pivotal role in this history. The Port Authority became the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in 1972.
14. Doig and Billington, “Ammann’s First Bridge,” pp. 563–65.
15. Ammann, “General Conception and Development of Design,” p. 10. References in the article to the War Department are to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
16. See ibid., pp. 1–65. More detailed description of Ammann’s design may be found in the articles that follow in the ASCE Transactions 97 (1933).
17. J.A.L. Waddell, Bridge Engineering, 2 vols. (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1916), 1:117.
18. See Leon S. Moissieff, “The Towers, Cables, and Stiffening Trusses of the Bridge over the Delaware River between Philadelphia and Camden,” Journal of the Franklin Institute 200, no. 4 (October 1925): 436–66. Ammann was probably aware of this study a year before its publication.
19. For Ammann’s traffic load analysis, see Allston Dana, Aksel Andersen, and George M. Rapp, “George Washington Bridge: Design of Superstructure,” ASCE Transactions 97 (1933): 103–4.
20. See Standard Specifications for Highway Bridges (Washington, DC: American Association of State Highway Officials, 1931), p. 176.
21. Doig and Billington, “Ammann’s First Bridge,” pp. 553–54.
22. For the cable strength, see Dana, Andersen, and Rapp, “George Washington Bridge: Design of Superstructure,” p. 109.
23. The deflection theory was formulated by Wilhelm Ritter in Switzerland and Josef Melan in Austria during the 1880s. A presentation for American engineers appeared in J. B. Johnson, C. W. Bryan, and F. E. Turneaure, The Theory and Practice of Modern Framed Structures, 9th ed. (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1911), part 2, pp. 276–321. For Ammann’s own embrace of it, see Ammann, “General Conception and Development of Design,” pp. 42–43; and Doig and Billington, “Ammann’s First Bridge,” pp. 558–59. The table below (ibid., p. 559), gives the bending moment in the stiffening trusses at midspan and shows the effects of thinness:
Assumptions | ||
2,390,400 | Truss with no cable support | |
56,150 | Truss with movable cable support (deflection theory) | |
6,980 | More flexible truss with movable cable support (deflection theory) |
24. Ammann, “General Conception and Development of Design,” pp. 61–62.
25. For the influence of deflection theory on later bridges, see S. G. Buonopane and D. P. Billington, “Theory and History in Suspension Bridge Design from 1823 to 1940,” Journal of Structural Engineering 119, no. 3 (March 1993): pp. 954–77.
26. The following table shows the trend toward lighter and thinner decks:
Source: John Paul Hartman, “History and Esthetics in Suspension Bridges,” Journal of the Structural Division, Proceedings of the ASCE, 104, 7, Proc. Paper 13857 (March 1979): 1174–76. Depth h refers to the vertical depth of the deck.
27. For the Tacoma Narrows collapse, see F. B. Farquharson, “Aerodynamic Stability of Suspension Bridges with Special Reference to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge,” University of Washington Engineering Bulletin Experiment Station Bulletin, 116, part 1, investigations prior to October 1941. No. 116 appeared in four more parts published in 1950, 1952, 1954, and 1955. Aware that the bridge was in danger, Professor Farquharson was at the bridge at the time of its failure.
28. For Ammann’s Verrazano Narrows Bridge, see David P. Billington, The Tower and the Bridge, pp. 137–38. Decks often consist now of a “hollow box” in which the roadway and a parallel surface under the deck are connected by sides that are tapered out like airplane wings. The box construction lends both torsional and longitudinal stiffness, and the tapered sides deflect wind much more efficiently than flat vertical sides.
29. O. H. Ammann, “George Washington Bridge: General Conception and Development of Design,” pp. 38–39.
30. On the need for historical awareness, see David P. Billington, “History and Esthetics in Suspension Bridges,” Journal of the Structural Division, Proceedings of the American Society of Civil Engineers, 103, ST8, Proc. Paper 13143 (August 1977): 1655–72. This paper provoked a discussion in subsequent numbers that concluded with David P. Billington, “History and Aesthetics in Suspension Bridges: Closure,” 105, ST3, Proc. Paper 14404 (March 1979): 671–87.
31. From the horizontal force, H = qL2/8d, the tension in the cable may be computed and then divided by the allowable stress to determine the cross-sectional area of the cable (sidebar 8.4). A higher cable sag d will permit a smaller cross-sectional area A in the cable and will reduce the weight needed by the anchorages. However, raising the height of the towers will increase the amount of steel needed in them.
32. For the Swiss tradition of which Ammann was an exemplar, along with Robert Maillart, Heinz Isler, and Christian Menn, see again Billington, The Art of Structural Design: A Swiss Legacy, with chapter 3 written with Jameson W. Doig.
CHAPTER NINE
Eastwood, Tedesko, and Reinforced Concrete
1. On Hoover Dam, see Joseph E. Stevens, Hoover Dam: An American Adventure (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988). The dam was known as Boulder Dam from 1933 until 1947.
2. For the origins of reinforced concrete, see David P. Billington, The Tower and the Bridge: The New Art of Structural Engineering (New York: Basic Books, 1984), pp. 148–51.
3. Max Bill, Robert Maillart (Erlenbach-Zürich: Verlag für Architektur AG/Les Editions d’Architecture SA, 1949), p. 26.
4. For Maillart and his work, see David P. Billington, Robert Maillart: Designer, Builder, Artist (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
5. David P. Billington, “Maillart and the Salginatobel Bridge, Switzerland,” Structural Engineering International 1, no. 4 (November 1991): 46–50.
6. On Eastwood and his work, see Donald C. Jackson, Building the Ultimate Dam: John S. Eastwood and the Control of Water in the West (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995).
7. On nineteenth-century dam design, see Norman Smith, A History of Dams (Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press, 1972). For the major types of dams, see Donald C. Jackson, Great American Bridges and Dams (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1988), pp. 41–53.
8. On Huntington, see William B. Friedricks, Henry E. Huntington and the Creation of Southern California (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1992).
9. Jackson, Building the Ultimate Dam, pp. 66–83. The savings in materials of Eastwood’s design are given on pp. 71–72.
10. On Hume Lake, see ibid., pp. 85–98.
11. On Big Bear, see ibid., pp. 98–104.
12. For a report of the Eastwood design, see “The Big Meadows Dam,” Journal of Electricity, Power, and Gas 27 (September 30, 1911): 287–89. See also Jackson, Building the Ultimate Dam, pp. 109–33, and on Schuyler and Noble, pp. 114–15. The former had published a standard book on reservoirs and dams: James D. Schuyler, Reservoirs for Irrigation, Water-Power, and Domestic Water-Supply (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1901).
13. Jackson, Building the Ultimate Dam, p. 123.
14. Ibid., p. 127.
15. On the Mountain Dell competition, see ibid., pp. 146–51. Bids are round numbers. Eastwood began to describe his innovation in the engineering press.
16. On the Lake Hodges Dam, see Jackson, Building the Ultimate Dam, pp. 160–67.
17. On the Littlerock Dam, see ibid., pp. 197–208. Eastwood replaced his radial design with a straight crested dam.
18. On Webber Creek, see ibid., pp. 219–23.
19. On the St. Francis Dam collapse, see Charles F. Outland, Man-Made Disaster: The Story of the St. Francis Dam (Glendale, CA: Arthur H. Clark, 1963).
20. Jackson, Building the Ultimate Dam, pp. 241–44. See also Fred D. Pyle, “Hodges Dam Strengthened,” Engineering News-Record 117 (November 5, 1936): 644–47.
21. David P. Billington, “History and Aesthetics in Suspension Bridges,” Journal of the Structural Division (American Society of Civil Engineers) 103, no. ST8 (August 1977): 1–18.
22. Lars Jorgensen, “The Record of 100 Dam Failures,” Journal of Electricity 44, no. 6 (March 15 and April 1, 1920): 274–76, 320, and 321.
23. At the time, Dyckerhoff & Widmann employed Franz Dischinger (1887–1953), Ulrich Finsterwalder (1897–1988), Wilhelm Flügge (1904–90), and Hubert Rüsch (1903–79). The first two were designer-builders while the last two became academics, Flügge writing a pioneering text on thin shells and Rüsch doing advanced research on reinforced-concrete structures. See D. P. Billington, “Anton Tedesko: Thin Shells and Esthetics,” Journal of the Structural Division (American Society of Civil Engineers) 108, ST11 (November 1982): 2541–44. The original stimulus to the firm’s work in thin concrete shell design was a 1922 scale model dome in Jena, Germany. The Zeiss Optical Company commissioned the dome to test the functioning of a new planetarium to be placed in the German Museum in Munich. Dyckerhoff & Widmann built the dome and then worked out a mathematical theory for such shells. The theory and construction technique came to be known as the “Zeiss-Dywidag System.” See Shell-Vaults, System “Zeiss-Dywidag,” (Wiesbaden-Berlin: Dyckerhoff & Widmann A.G., 1931), a sixty-page promotional brochure, Anton Tedesko Papers, Princeton Maillart Archive, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey.
24. Anton Tedesko, “A Chronicle, Part III,” 1984, pp. 1–38. Unpublished manuscript in the Tedesko Papers.
25. D. P. Billington, “Anton Tedesko: Thin Shells and Esthetics.”
26. Anton Tedesko, “A Chronicle, Part IV,” 1986, pp. 2–3. Unpublished manuscript in the Tedesko Papers.
27. Starline advertisement flyers, Harvard, Illinois, 1934, in the Tedesko Papers.
28. “Reinforced Concrete Shell Roof over Unobstructed Dairy Floor,” Concrete 42, no. 7 (July 1934): 3–4. For the tests, see “Thin Concrete Shell Roof Tested under Large Unsymmetrical Load,” Engineering News-Record (November 7, 1935): 635. See also A. Tedesko, “Memorandum on the Construction Century of Progress Barn Final Report,” May 10, 1934, 3 pages, Tedesko Papers.
29. R. L. Bertin, “Construction Features of the Zeiss Dywidag Dome for the Hayden Planetarium Building,” Journal of the American Concrete Institute 31 (May–June 1935): 449–60.
30. On Milton Hershey, see James D. McMahon, Built on Chocolate: The Story of the Hershey Chocolate Company (Los Angeles: General Publishing Group, 1998).
31. By using chocolate workers, the greatest part of the arena’s cost, construction labor, was donated by the client, so the cost of the Hershey Arena is difficult to compare with other projects. Roberts and Schaefer agreed to do design and construction supervision for 14 ¢ per square foot of covered area or 75,000 × 0.14 = $10,500. Later the area increased to 84,933.33 square feet, so their fee increased accordingly. See Tedesko to Hershey Lumber Products, January 21, 1936; Roberts to Hershey Lumber Products, January 25, 1936; and Tedesko to Hershey Lumber Products, February 3, 1936, Tedesko Papers.
32. On the design and building of the Hershey Arena, see Tedesko, “A Chronicle, Part IV,” pp. 25–29. See also D. Paul Witmer “Sports Palace for Chocolate Town,” and Anton Tedesko, “Z-D Shell Roof at Hershey,” Architectural Concrete (Portland Cement Association) 3, no. 1 (1937): 1–11; “Thin-Shell Barrel Roof,” Construction (April 1937): 44–47; and Anton Tedesko, “Large Concrete Shell Roof Covers Ice Arena,” Engineering News-Record, April 8, 1937.
33. In February 1981, Tedesko sent these 1936 calculations to Hershey and a copy is deposited in the Tedesko Papers at the Princeton Maillart Archive. His calculations of the horizontal forces produced slightly different numbers than those in sidebars 9.3 and 9.4 because his analysis was more accurate than the one presented here, but the difference is less than 1 percent of the values of H given in the figures here. For a full discussion of the history and calculations of the arena, see Edmond P. Saliklis and David P. Billington, “Hershey Arena: Anton Tedesko’s Pioneering Form,” Journal of Structural Engineering 129, no. 3 (March 2003): 278–85.
34. Tedesko, “A Chronicle, Part IV.”
35. For Tedesko’s recollections of the Hershey Arena, quoted here, see ibid., pp. 25–29.
36. On Tedesko’s later career, see Billington, “Anton Tedesko: Thin Sheels and Esthetics,” pp. 2541–44. Tedesko also built hangers for the U.S. Army Air Force at bases around the United States during World War II.
37. Tedesko, “A Chronicle, Part IV.”
38. Ibid., p. 34.
39. Ibid., p. 29. See also Anton Tedesko, “Thin Concrete Shell Roof for Ice Skating Arena,” Engineering News-Record, February 16, 1939. The senior author, a native of a town adjoining Ardmore, met Schwertner in 1952 through a Princeton classmate, Bill Borden. The senior author then met Tedesko, worked for him from 1952 until 1960, and remained a close friend until his death in 1994.
40. Eric Molke, “Elliptical Concrete Domes for Sewage Filters,” Engineering News-Record, November 9, 1939, pp. 623–25. See also Anton Tedesko, “Point-Supported Dome of Thin Shell Type,” Engineering News-Record, December 7, 1939.
41. Anton Tedesko, “Tire Factory at Natchez,” Engineering News-Record, October 26, 1939. The compression stress given was 282 psi and the concrete strength at decentering was 2,500 psi. After a few weeks the strength would be at least 3,000 psi.
CHAPTER TEN
Streamlining: Chrysler and Douglas
1. For the aerodynamics of the 1930s, see Walter Stuart Diehl, Engineering Aerodynamics (New York: Ronald Press Company, 1940). On drag, see John D. Anderson Jr., A History of Aerodynamics and Its Impact on Flying Machines (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 73–74, 320–21; and on streamlining, pp. 321–28.
2. For Walter Chrysler, see Vincent Curcio, Chrysler: The Life and Times of an Automotive Genius (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 1–124, 215–41.
3. Ibid., pp. 241–335.
4. On Zeder, Skelton, and Breer, see Richard P. Scharchburg, “Zeder-Skelton-Breer Engineering,” in George S. May, ed., Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography: The Automobile Industry, 1920–1980 (New York: Facts on File, 1989), pp. 500–508; and Carl Breer, The Birth of the Chrysler Corporation and Its Engineering Legacy, ed. Anthony J. Yanik (Warrendale, PA: Society of Automotive Engineers, 1995).
5. On the hiring of Zeder, Skelton, and Breer, see Richard P. Scharchburg, “Zeder-Skelton-Breer Engineering,” in May, Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography: The Automobile Industry, 1920–1980, p. 504. For the Chrysler Six, see Breer, The Birth of the Chrysler Corporation, pp. 79–90; and Curcio, Chrysler, pp. 297–313. Richard P. Scharchburg, “Walter Percy Chrysler,” in May, Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography: The Automobile Industry, 1920–1980, gives prices and sales figures on pp. 61–62. The car competed primarily against Buicks.
6. For Chrysler’s rise to Big Three status in 1927–28, see Curcio, Chrysler, pp. 361–99. The Plymouth sold for between $670 and $725.
7. For the innovations at Chrysler, see Breer, The Birth of the Chrysler Corporation, pp. 91–142. Apart from the Airflow, these were incremental in nature.
8. On the Airflow car, see Howard S. Irwin, “History of the Airflow Car,” Scientific American 237, no. 2 (August 1977): 98–105; Breer, The Birth of the Chrysler Corporation, pp. 143–75; and James J. Flink, “The Path of Least Resistance,” Invention and Technology 5, no. 2 (Fall 1989): 34–44. We have assumed a coefficient of 0.015 for a paved road and estimated the frontal area of the Chrysler Airflow to be twenty-eight square feet.
9. On the failure of the Airflow, see Curcio, Chrysler, pp. 542–57.
10. For Douglas, see Frank Cunningham, Sky Master: The Story of Donald Douglas (Philadelphia: Dorrance, 1943); and Wilbur M. Morrison, Donald W. Douglas: A Heart with Wings (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1991). For Orville Wright’s second demonstration at Ft. Myer on July 30, 1909, and the job offer from Edison, see ibid., pp. 4–6.
11. On the 1924 World Cruiser, see Morrison, Donald W. Douglas, pp. 30–33. For the specifications of the World Cruiser, see C. G. Grey, ed., [Jane’s] All the World’s Aircraft (London: Sampson Low, 1925), pp. 249–50.
12. On the Ford Trimotor, see Allan Nevins and Ernest Frank Hill, Ford: Expansion and Challenge, 1915–1933 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1957), pp. 238–47; and C. G. Grey and Leonard Bridgman eds. Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft, 1930, pp. 281–83.
13. See Louis Breguet, “Aerodynamical Efficiency and the Reduction of Air Transport Costs,” Aeronautical Journal 26 (1922): 307–13; and B. Melvill Jones, “The Streamline Airplane,” Aeronautical Journal 32 (1929): 358–85.
14. On Boeing, see Robert Redding and Bill Yenne, Boeing: Planemaker to the World (London: Arms and Armour Press, 1983). For the Monomail airplane, see C. G. Grey and Leonard Bridgman, eds. Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft, 1931, pp. 252–53. For the Boeing 247, see Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft, 1934, pp. 259–60 (for the 247-D, which had an improved propeller); and R. E. G. Davies, Airlines of the United States since 1914 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1972), pp. 180–83.
15. On the death of Rockne, see ibid., pp. 93–94; and for the TWA negotiations with Douglas, see ibid., pp. 183–84. See also Frederick Allen, “The Letter That Changed the Way We Fly,” Invention and Technology 4, no. 2 (Fall 1988): 6–13. For the TWA specifications, see Peter M. Bowers, The DC-3: 50 Years of Legendary Flight (Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Aero/TAB Books, 1986), p. 22.
16. For the role of NACA in aviation research, see Anderson, A History of Aerodynamics, pp. 294–96, 301–4, 328–69. For the use of NACA research by Douglas in the DC series planes, see ibid., p. 358.
17. On the Douglas Transport and DC-1, see Grey and Bridgman, Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft, 1934, pp. 278–79. For its test flight, see Cunningham, Sky Master, pp. 220–21.
18. On the DC-2, see Wilbur M. Morrison, Donald W. Douglas, pp. 77–90; Bill Yenne, Mc-Donnell Douglas: A Tale of Two Giants (New York: Crescent Books, 1985), pp. 84–91; and C. G. Grey and Leonard Bridgman, eds., Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft, 1935, pp. 300–301. For a comparison of the DC-1 and Boeing 247, see again Bowers, The DC-3, p. 22.
19. On the DST and DC-3, see Yenne, McDonnell Douglas, pp. 92–118; and C. G. Grey and Leonard Bridgman, eds., Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft, 1937 pp. 292–94. For the figure on planes in service in 1942, see Davies, Airlines of the United States since 1914, p. 608.
20. For the technical data on the Wright Flyer, see chapter 6. For the DC-3, see Grey and Bridgman, Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft, 1937, pp. 292–94.
21. See Donald J. Bush, The Streamlined Decade (New York: George Braziller, 1975). On the New York World’s Fair, see Helen A. Harrison, guest curator, Dawn of a New Day: The New York World’s Fair, 1939/40 (New York: Queens Museum/New York University Press, 1980).