Technological innovation in the United States

This paper presents nearly three and a half centuries of American invention, and is particularly concerned with primary invention as distinct from development, production, and service engineering. One apparent but not real exception to this statement is that one section will be devoted to the American invention of production engineering. Various factors have stimulated, guided, and inhibited American inventiveness; indeed, colonial status during nearly half the historical period being examined all but stifled technological innovation. It will also become clear that American disenchantment with basic scientific activity diminished the relative magnitude of her innovations after the advent of the technique of applied research in Europe following the middle of the nineteenth century. This circumstance is particularly obvious in the cases of chemical and electrical engineering, the first of the applied sciences.