Waterpower in Lowell

Engineering and Industry in Nineteenth-Century America
Erscheinungsjahr 2009
ISBN: 978-0-8018-9306-3
Verlag: Johns Hopkins University Press

Buch, Englisch, 272 Seiten, Format (B × H): 137 mm x 211 mm, Gewicht: 318 g

Reihe: Johns Hopkins Introductory Studies in the History of Technology

Winner, 2010 Peter Neaverson Award, Association for Industrial Archaeology

Patrick M. Malone demonstrates how innovative engineering helped make Lowell, Massachusetts, a potent symbol of American industrial prowess in the 19th century.

Waterpower spurred the industrialization of the early United States and was the principal power for textile manufacturing until well after the Civil War. Industrial cities therefore grew alongside many of America’s major waterways. Ideally located at Pawtucket Falls on the Merrimack River, Lowell was one such city—a rural village rapidly transformed into a booming center for textile production and machine building. Malone explains how engineers created a complex canal and lock system in Lowell which harnessed the river and powered mills throughout the city.

James B. Francis, arguably the finest engineer in 19th-century America, played a key role in the history of Lowell’s urban industrial development. An English immigrant who came to work for Lowell’s Proprietors of Locks and Canals as a young man, Francis rose to become both the company’s chief engineer and its managing executive. Linking Francis’s life and career with the larger story of waterpower in Lowell, Malone offers the only complete history of the design, construction, and operation of the Lowell canal system.

Waterpower in Lowell informs broader understanding of urban industrial development, American scientific engineering, and the environmental impacts of technology. Its clear and instructional discussions of hydraulic technology and engineering principles make it a useful resource for a range of courses, including the history of technology, urban history, and American business history.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Malone, Patrick M

Fachgebiete

• Technische Wissenschaften Maschinenbau | Werkstoffkunde Technische Mechanik | Werkstoffkunde Hydraulik, Pneumatik
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte
• Technische Wissenschaften Technik Allgemein Technikgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Harnessing the Merrimack River
2. Building a City at the Falls, 1821–1836
3. Expanding the Waterpower, 1836–1847
4. Testing the Waters: Scientific Engineering in Lowell
5. Protecting the People and the Profits, 1847–1865
6. Controlling the System, 1865–1885
Postscript
Notes
Suggested Further Readings
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Malone, Patrick M
Patrick M. Malone is a professor of urban studies and American civilization and director of the Urban Studies Program at Brown University. He is the coauthor of The Texture of Industry: An Archaeological View of the Industrialization of North America, and the author of The Skulking Way of War: Technology and Tactics among the New England Indians, also published by Johns Hopkins.