American Experiment (253 page)

Read American Experiment Online

Authors: James MacGregor Burns

BOOK: American Experiment
12.11Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

[Adams following the locomotive engine]: Diary,
August 21, 1887.

74
[American patents]:
see U.S. Bureau of the Census,
Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970
(U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975), Part 2, pp. 957–59 (Series W 96–106).

[Observer on machinery, 1844]:
Thomas A. Devyr, in the
Working Man’s Advocate,
March 30, 1844, cited in John R. Commons and Associates,
History of Labour in the United States
(Macmillan, 1918–35), vol. 1, p. 491.

75
[Charles Francis Adams on his “blue” day]: Diary,
February 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 1883.

[
Marx on the forces of production]:
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels,
The German Ideology, Parts I and III,
R. Pascal, ed. (International Publishers, 1947), pp. 16, 28, 29.

[Marx and Engels on revolutionizing the instruments of production]:
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, “Manifesto of the Communist Parly,” in David Fernbach, ed.,
Karl Marx: Political Writings
(Random House, 1973–74), vol. 1, pp. 67–98, quoted at p. 70.

[Americans’ knowledge of Marx and Marxism]:
Howard H. Quint,
The Forging of American Socialism: Origins of the Modern Movement
(University of South Carolina Press, 1953), p. 4; David Herreshoff,
American Disciples of Marx
(Wayne State University Press, 1967).

[Marx on Lincoln]:
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels,
The Civil War in the United States
(International Publishers, 1937), p. 281.

76
[Marx’s American journalism]:
Henry M. Christman, ed.,
The American Journalism of Marx & Engels
(New American Library, 1966).

[Life of Marx]:
Christman, p. xii; and see Maximilien Rubel and Margaret Manale,
Marx Without Myth
(Harper & Row, 1975); Werner Blumenberg,
Karl Marx,
Douglas Scott, trans. (New Left Books, 1972).

[The “wretchedness of existence”]:
see Blumenberg, p. 109.

[Marx on “feverish and youthful” America]:
Karl Marx, “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte,” in Fernbach, vol. 2, p. 155.

[America as “outside history”]:
see Herreshoff, p. 13.

[Marx
on “wonders” of bourgeois production]:
quoted in
ibid.,
p. 20.

Innovators: The Ingenious Yankees

[Hoosac Tunnel]:
Gary S. Brierly, “Construction of the Hoosac Tunnel 1855 to 1876,”
Journal of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers Section, American Society of Civil Engineers,
vol. 63, no. 3 (October 1976); Carl R. Byron,
A Pinprick of Light
(Stephen Greene Press, 1974); J. L. Harrison,
The Great Bore
(Advance Job Print Works, 1891); William B. Browne, “Tunnel Days in the Tunnel City” (unpublished manuscript, Williamsiana Collection, Williams College).

77–8
[Progress in coal and iron mining]:
John W. Oliver,
History of American Technology
(Ronald Press, 1956), pp. 315–17.

79
[Automatic turret lathe]:
Nathan Rosenberg,
Perspectives on Technology
(Cambridge University Press, 1976), p. 21.

[Late-nineteenth-century innovators]:
W. Paul Strassmann,
Risk and Technological Innovation: American Manufacturing Methods during the Nineteenth Century
(Cornell University Press, 1959). pp. 130–33, 142–45

[American iron and steel industry]: ibid.,
ch. 2; Oliver, ch. 22; Peter Temin,
Iron and Steel in Nineteenth Century America
(M.I.T. Press, 1964), ch. 8.

[Bessemer converters]:
Temin, ch. 6; Oliver, p. 318; see also James M. Swank,
History of the Manufacture of Iron in All Ages, and Particularly in the United States from Colonial Times to 1891
(American Iron and Steel Association, 1892), chs. 45, 46.

80
[Bridges]:
D. B. Steinman,
The Builders of the Bridge
(Harcourt, Brace, 1945); David Plowen,
Bridges: The Spans of North America
(Viking Press, 1974).

[Eads and the St. Louis bridge]:
Joseph Gies and Frances Gies,
The Ingenious Yankees
(Thomas Y. Crowell, 1976), ch. 22.

81
[Twine binder]:
Oliver, pp. 366–67; William T. Hutchinson,
Cyrus Hall McCormick: Harvest, 1856–1884
(D. Appleton-Century, 1935), vol. 2, ch. 13.

[Chronology of progress after the Civil War]:
adapted from Lawrence Urdang, ed.,
The Time-Tables of American History
(Simon and Schuster, 1981), pp. 223–47.

82
[Sawyer on technological development]:
quoted in Strassmann, p. 184.

[American investment in education]:
Nathan Rosenberg,
Technology and American Economic Growth
(M. E. Sharpe, 1972), p. 35.

[Marx on competition and technological progress]:
Karl Marx, “Wage Labour and Capital,” in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels,
Selected Writings
(International Publishers, 1968), p. 90.

[Jefferson on practicality]:
Jefferson to Cooper, July 10, 1812, in H. A. Washington, ed.,
The Works of Thomas Jefferson
(Townsend, MacCoun, 1884), vol. 6, p. 73.

83
[Practical man on “our greatest thinkers”]:
John Milton Mackie,
From Cape Cod to Dixie and the Tropics
(Putnam, 1864), pp. 200–201, as quoted in Rosenberg,
Technology and Growth,
p. 33

[Tocqueville on limits to American mind]:
Alexis de Tocqueville,
Democracy in America,
Henry Reeve, trans., 4th ed. (Sever and Francis, 1864), pp. 40, 48, 53.

[Experiments m electricity]:
Strassmann, pp. 159–60; Malcolm MacLaren,
The Rise of the Electrical Industry during the Nineteenth Century
(Princeton University Press, 1943); Harold Passer,
The Electrical Manufacturers, 1875–1900
(Harvard University Press, 1953).

[Joseph Henry]:
J. G. Crowther,
Famous American Men of Science
(W. W. Norton, 1937), ch. 2.

[Davenport]:
Carl W. Mitman, “Thomas Davenport,” in Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds..
Dictionary of American Biography
(Scribner’s, 1930), vol. 5, pp. 87–88.

[Alexander Graham Bell]:
Herbert N. Casson,
The History of the Telephone
(A. C. McClurg, 1910); Robert V. Bruce,
Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude
(Little, Brown, 1973); Gies and Gies, ch. 24; Oliver, ch. 30.

84
[“Mr. Watson

come here”]:
quoted in Bruce, p. 181.

[Edison]:
Crowther, ch. 4; Matthew Josephson,
Edison
(McGraw-Hill, 1959); Oliver, ch. 24.

85
[Edison’s search for a filament]:
quoted in Oliver, p. 349.

Investors: Eastern Dollars and Western Risks

[Adams’s boredom and frustration]:
Adams, Jr.,
Diary, op. cit.,
January 21, 22, February 16, March 4, 1869; see also Kirkland,
op. cit.,
p. 127.

86
[Adams’s visit to Stock Exchange]: Diary,
April 14, 1869.

[New Year’s greeting]:
quoted in Edward Chase Kirkland,
Men, Cities and Transportation: A Study in New England History, 1820–1900
(Harvard University Press, 1948), p. 92.

[Michigan copper]:
William B. Gates, Jr.,
Michigan Copper and Boston Dollars
(Harvard University Press, 1951); Angus Murdock,
Boom Copper
(Macmillan, 1943).

[“Trial-and-error fumbling”]:
Gates, p. 30.

[Lodes at Calumet and Hecla]:
Russell B. Adams, Jr.,
The Boston Money Tree
(Thomas Y. Crowell, 1977), pp. 160–67, Agassiz quoted at p. 163; Gates, pp. 43–45, 57.

87
[Dividends from Calumet and Hecla]:
Adams,
Boston Money Tree,
p. 166.

[The “general entrepreneur”]:
Thomas C. Cochran,
Railroad Leaders 1845–1890: The Business Mind in Action
(Harvard University Press, 1953), pp. 9–12; see also Adams,
Boston Money Tree,
pp. 136–46.

[Chapin]:
Cochran, pp. 19–20, 288–89.

[Higginson]:
Adams,
Boston Money Tree,
pp. 183–88 and
passim.

[Nathan and Thomas Gold Appleton]:
Frederic C. Jaher, “Businessman and Gentleman: Nathan and Thomas Gold Appleton—An Exploration in Intergenerational History,”
Explorations in Entrepreneurial History,
2nd ser., vol. 4, no. 1 (Fall 1966), pp. 7–39.

[Capital tied up in family trusts]: ibid.,
p. 34.

88
[Growth of New York City as capital market]:
William J. Schultz and M. R. Caine,
Financial Development of the United States
(Prentice-Hall, 1937), pp. 192, 239, 249.

[Lowell on the Lowells]:
quoted in Cleveland
Amory, Proper Bostonians
(E. P. Dutton, 1947), p. 44.

[Barker]:
Fritz Redlich,
The Molding of American Banking: Men and Ideas
(Johnson, 1968), Part 2, pp. 60–61; see also Richard Sylla, “American Banking and Growth in the Nineteenth Century: A Partial View of the Terrain,”
Explorations in Economic History,
vol. 9, no. 2 (Winter 1971–72), pp. 197–227.

[
Girard
]: Redlich, Part 2, pp. 61–63.

[Jay Cooke]:
Ellis P. Oberholtzer, “Jay Cooke,” in Johnson and Malone,
Dictionary
o
f American Biography, op. cit.,
vol. 4, pp. 383–84; Stuart Bruchey, “Jay Cooke,” in John A. Garraty, ed.,
Encyclopedia of American Biography
(Harper & Row, 1974), pp. 217–18.

89
[Redlich on Cooke]:
Redlich, Part 2, p. 356.

[Post-Civil War banking]: ibid.,
p. 74 ff.

(
J
.
P. Morgan]:
George Wheeler,
Pierpont Morgan & Friends: The Anatomy of a Myth
(Prentice-Hall, 1973).

[Morton, Bliss and Co.]:
George Bliss Papers, Miscellaneous correspondence (Letterpress), 1876–79, New-York Historical Society.

90
[Bliss on “our position with the new administration”]:
Bliss to Grenfell, March 6, 1877, in
ibid.

[Communist Manifesto
on entrepreneurs]:
Marx and Engels, “Manifesto,” in Fernbach,
op. cit
., vol. 1, p. 72.

[Schumpeter on the entrepreneurial function]:
Joseph A. Schumpeter,
Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy,
3rd ed. (Harper & Bros., 1947), p. 132 (emphasis added).

90–1
[Veblen on failure to innovate]:
Thorslein Veblen,
Absentee Ownership and Business Enterprise in Recent Times: The Case of America
(B. W. Heubsch, 1923), pp. 80–103; see also J. D. Bernal,
Science and Industry in the Nineteenth Century
(Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1953).

91
[Investment and innovation in late nineteenth-century capitalism]:
see Strassmann,
op. cit.;
Rosenberg,
Technology and Growth, op. cit.;
Rosenberg,
Perspectives, op. cit.

[Daniel Drew]:
Allan Nevins, “Daniel Drew,” in Johnson and Malone,
Dictionary of American Biography,
vol. 5, pp. 450–51; Charles Francis Adams, Jr., “A Chapter of Erie,” in Charles Francis Adams, Jr., and Henry Adams,
Chapters of Erie and Other Essays
(James R. Osgood, 1871), pp. 1–99, quoted at p. 5.

92
[“Commodore” Vanderbilt]:
Wheaton J. Lane,
Commodore Vanderbilt: An Epic of the Steam Age
(Alfred A. Knopf, 1942).

[Harlem Railroad corner]:
Nevins in Johnson and Malone, p. 450.

[Jay Gould]:
Julius Grodinsky,
Jay Gould: His Business Career, 1867–1892
(University of Pennsylvania Press, 1957); Richard O’Connor,
Gould’s Millions
(Doubleday, 1962).

[James Fisk]:
Robert H. Fuller,
Jubilee Jim: The Life of Colonel James Fisk, Jr.
(Macmillan, 1928).

[“Instincts of fourteen”]:
Henry Adams, “The New York Gold Conspiracy,” in Adams, Jr., and Adams, p. 104.

93
[Adams on Fisk and Gould]:
Kirkland,
Charles Francis Adams, Jr.,
pp. 41, 62.

[Adams and bribery]: ibid.,
p. 110; Adams, Jr.,
Autobiography, op. cit.,
pp. 191–96; see also Paul Goodman, “Ethics and Enterprise: The Values of a Boston Elite, 1800–1860,”
American Quarterly,
vol. 18, no. 3 (Fall 1966), pp. 437–51.

Entrepreneurs: The Californians

93
[Lake Donner]:
Alonzo Delano (“The Old Block”),
The Central Pacific Railroad, or ’49 and ’69
(White and Bauer, 1868), p. 18; Collection Bancroft Library, University of California.

94
[Winter of 1866–67]:
Sacramento
Union,
December 28, 1866; Testimony of James Strobridge before the Pacific Railway Commission (Government Printing Office, 1887), vol. 5, p. 3150; Statement of L. M. Clement, civil engineer, Pacific Railway Commission, vol. 5, p. 2577; Alexander Saxton,
The Indispensable Enemy
(University of California Press, 1971), p. 64.

[Conditions]: Chinese-American Workers, Past and Present: An Anthology of Getting Together Magazine
(Getting Together, 1970), pp. 6–7; Wesley Griswold,
A Work of Giants
(McGraw-Hill, 1962). p. 120.

[Twenty-seven-inch record]:
James McCague,
Moguls and Iron Men
(Harper & Row, 1964), p. 159.

[Reluctance to use Chinese laborers]:
Testimony of James Strobridge,
Report of the Joint Special Committee to Investigate Chinese Immigration,
2nd Session, 44th Congress, 1876–77 (Government Printing Office, 1877), Report No. 689, p. 723; McCague, pp. 103–4.

[Chinese hired as potential strikebreakers]:
Saxton, p. 62; McCague, pp. 103–4.

[Early agitationfor railroad]:
Robert S. Cotterhill, “Early Agitation for a Pacific Railroad, 1845–1850,” in
Mississippi Valley Historical Review,
vol. 5, no. 4 (March 1919), pp. 396–414, esp. p. 397.

Other books

Karen Michelle Nutt by A Twist of Fate
Thread of Deceit by Catherine Palmer
His by Right by Linda Mooney
Wicked Gentlemen by Ginn Hale
Brody by Vanessa Devereaux
The Wooden Skull by Benjamin Hulme-Cross
HeartbeatofSilence by Viola Grace
Drowning Tucson by Aaron Morales