"Brown & Sharpe employees produced and marketed measuring devices, machine tools and precision machinery, and helped shape Rhode Island, the nation and the modern world. The history of Brown & Sharpe contains the story of the Industrial Revolution in America, covering more than 150 years of...

Machine generated contents note: Foreword by Sir John Templeton -- Author's Introduction -- Acknowledgments -- Chapter 1 Making Tracks: The Industrial Revolution, -- Canals, and Railways -- Chapter 2 Breaking Out: The Story of the U.S. Railroads -- Chapter 3 Investing at the Speed of Sound: --...

We examine the long transition from water to steam power in US manufacturing, focusing on early users of mechanical power: lumber and flour mills. Digitizing Census of Manufactures manuscripts for 1850 to 1880, we show that as steam costs declined, manufacturing activity grew faster in counties...

In our days, German machine tool makers accuse their Chinese competitors of violating patent rights and illegally imitating German technology. A century ago, however, German machine tool makers used exactly the same methods to imitate American technology. To understand the dynamics of this...

In our days, German machine tool makers accuse their Chinese competitors of violating patent rights and illegally imitating German technology. A century ago, however, German machine tool makers used exactly the same methods to imitate American technology. To understand the dynamics of this...