1700s, military
engineer;
European Industrial
Revolution - "civil engineers".
1775 Continental
Congress - Corps of Engineers;
French military
engineers
in Revolutionary army.
1802 Congress - Corps of
Engineers,
West Point - first
American engineering school.
1816, instructor
Claudius Crozet,
1817, superintendent
Sylvanus Thayer - standard four-year curriculum,
modeled after France's
Ecole Polytechnique.
Dennis Mahan, West Point
engineering prof 1832-1871 - wrote Elementary Course of Civil
Engineering
- "the only really practical man is the one who is thoroughly grounded in
theory".
West Point grads explore
& map West, map nation's coasts, assisted road & railroad builders.
West Point's formal
French-style engineering training vs. British trend toward self-trained
non-military engineers working on industrial projects - practical
problem-solving
rather than theoretical.
1825 Erie Canal
on-the-job
training new generation.
Building railroads such
as Baltimore & Ohio also effective training school.
Ellis Chesbrough,
trained on railroad survey crew 1830s - 1850s chief engineer for Chicago's
Board
of Sewerage Commissioners.
19thC mechanical
engineers
began as machine-shop apprentices.
"shop culture"
- orientation, institutions & traditions of work.
1829 Rensselaer
Polytechnic Inst. world's first private engineering school.
1842 Harvard engineering
school; Yale 1847.
1850, first time US
census included engineers as profession - 2000 civil engineers in
US.
Land-grant institutions
- 1862 Morrill Act, teach agriculture & mechanics to children of
"farmers & mechanics".
compromise between
formal
French style & practical British emphasis.
Until late 1800s,
engineering
training emphasized craft skills as much if not more than scientific
background. Education practical shop work.
Gradually,
specialization.
1880s, many US
students study
engineering in Germany.
1870, only 5% of US
engineers
had college degree. Vast majority
still training through practice, on the job or
apprenticeship.
Conflict of old
"shop culture" & new "school culture".
Early 1900s, engineering
schools effectively won battle.
Formation of engineering
societies:
- 1852 American Society
of Civil Engineers
- 1871 American
Institute
of Mining Engineers
- 1880 American Society
of Mechanical Engineers
- 1884 American
Institute
of Electrical Engineers
(those four "Founder
Societies)
ASCE high standards of
membership, elite of professional engineers - full members over age thirty,
practice
for ten years, in "responsible charge" of engineering design &
direction for five years.
Publishing
in Proceedings;
AN Inst. of Mining Engineers - admitted anyone
"practically engaged in mining, metallurgy or metallurgical
engineering".
ASME attempted to find
middle ground.
Inherent tension - where
do an engineer’s loyalties lie?
engineering opportunity
for young men to seek success & fortune - Herbert Hoover geology at
Stanford,
mine engineer & supervisor Australia & China - millionaire young
age.
Late 1800s professional
ideology - engineer as agent of technological change & national
progress; engineer
as supremely rational thinker, social responsibility.
1895 ASCE: "We are
the priests of material development, of work which enables other men to enjoy
the fruits of nature."
1893, US one hundred
engineering
schools, twelve thousand students;
1933 160 schools,
sixty-five
thousand students.
1890s Wisc. &
Harvard master's programs in electrical engineering.
1894 MIT grad program in
civil engineering,
engineers in large
corporations, systems.
new industrial research
labs
electrical
manufactures $19
million in 1889, $335 million in 1914.
1901 General
Electric - MIT
chemistry prof Willis Whitney
1912 durable tunsten
filament,
1919, staff of 134
GE's "House of
Magic".
DuPont, AT&T, and
others.
GE - Charles
Steinmetz, employed
by GE since 1893. consulting engineer - 195 patents for GE in 30 years.
published
over 200 papers;
1930, over 1,600
corporate R&D facilities in US,
"better things for
better living"
DuPont explosives 1800s,
WWI, supply of German
chemicals cut off,
1920s rayon; 1934
polymer chemist Wallace Carothers - nylon
1924, cellophane.
Charles Kettering -
GM