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Waterpower in Lowell

Engineering and Industry in Nineteenth-Century America

Patrick M Malone author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Johns Hopkins University Press

Published:27th Nov '09

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Waterpower in Lowell cover

An extremely well-written, well-researched, and well-organized analysis of how the waterpower system at America's premier industrial waterpower site emerged and evolved during the nineteenth century and how that system was managed. -- Terry S. Reynolds, Michigan Technological University

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.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.

Presents an excellent analysis of the origins, evolution and management of the waterpower system (including a discussion of hydraulic and engineering principles) during the 19th-century industrialization period in the US. Highly recommended. Choice 2010 Malone has made a real contribution by illuminating the technological basis for the rise of the nation's first planned industrial city and by showing how the novel demands posed by that industrial complex contributed to the emergence of hydraulic engineering over the course of the nineteenth century. -- Thomas Dublin New England Quarterly 2010 A work of outstanding scholarship within the field of history of technology and an important contribution to the study of industrialisation. -- Ian West Industrial Archaeology Review 2010 This worthy contribution to historical understanding is also an accessible undergraduate text...It would enliven any survey course in the history of American technology. -- John K. Brown Technology and Culture 2011

  • Winner of Association for Industrial Archaeology Peter Neaverson Award 2010 (United States)

ISBN: 9780801893056

Dimensions: 216mm x 140mm x 23mm

Weight: 408g

272 pages