Technological Transformation of Gilded Age America
Edition: 1
Copyright: 2014
Pages: 172
Edition: 1
Copyright: 2014
Pages: 172
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This book examines the technological transformation and industrial development of the United States, focusing on the major innovations, industries, and individuals that shaped modern society. It begins by exploring the growth of technology in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including advancements in steel, aluminum, petroleum, communications, electricity, chemicals, and automobiles. The book also analyzes the organization of large industries, the rise of entrepreneurs and industrialists, and the social and political responses to industrial growth. It concludes by addressing the environmental consequences of modernization, including water and air pollution, waste management, and early efforts toward environmental protection.
PREFACE
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 2: THE TECHNOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION
I. Europe and Asia 1870–1914
II. The Rapidity of the American Technological Transformation
- Factors that contributed to the American technological transformation in the last half of the nineteenth century
- The professionalization of science continued
III. The American Technological Transformation
Steel
- Major contributors to the development of the large-scale steel industry: Kelly, Bessemer, and Mushet
- Significance of Kelly, Bessemer, and Holley
- An improved steelmaking process: the regenerative open-hearth furnace
- Major furnace advances
- United States steel production and cost and effect on the environment
Aluminum
- Hall and Héroult: A case of nearly simultaneous invention
Petroleum
- Origin of petroleum, early use as a medicinal and illuminant
- First large petroleum discovery
- Nineteenth-century methods of finding and drilling for petroleum
- Petroleum storage and refining
- Petroleum discoveries after Titusville
- Thermal and high-pressure catalytic cracking of crude petroleum
- United States petroleum reserves
Communications Industry
- Telephone
- Edison’s contribution to the telephone
Electrical Industry
- Light bulb
- Establishing the General Electric Company
- Westinghouse and the introduction of alternating current
- Edison’s other inventions
- Phonograph
- Motion picture machine
- Spirit communication machine
A Brief Look at the Emerging American Chemical Industry
- Salt industry
- Borax industry
- Sulfur industry
- Electrolytic industry: Dow Chemical Company
- Plastics industry
Automobile Industry
- External combustion engine: steam-powered and internal combustion gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles
- American automobile manufacturers and organizers
CHAPTER 3: INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZING METHODS OR TECHNIQUES AND INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZERS
I. General Characteristics of Major Industries
II. Leading Industrial Organizers
III. Origins of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs Who Dominated American Industry
IV. Reaction to the Growth and Consolidation of Industry
- Public reaction
- Political reaction from state and federal governments: regulation of railroads and corporations
- Regulation of railroads
- Regulation of corporations
CHAPTER 4: ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION: THE OTHER SIDE OF URBANIZATION, MODERNIZATION, AND INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT
I. Introduction
II. Water Purification and the Problem of Waste Disposal in the United States: The Three Stages of Development
- Background
- Water distribution and sewer systems
- Slow and rapid sand filtration systems
- Chlorination
III. Industrial Water Pollution
IV. Air Pollution
- Acid rain and smoke
- Cottrell and the electrostatic precipitator: the first industrial environmentalist
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION
REVIEW QUESTIONS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
Anthony N. Stranges, Professor of History, teaches US History and History of Science courses at Texas A&M University. Stranges earned BS and MS degrees in Chemistry from Niagara University (New York) and a PhD in the History of Science from the University of Wisconsin (Madison). His research has focused on the history of chemistry; history of synthetic fuels in World War II Germany and England, and their postwar development in the United States; history of solar and wind energy; acid rain; and global warming.