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THE RISE OF SCIENCE IN INDUSTRY 



Since England was the first to get the industrial revolution started, 

 and, if Germany was the country which first reahzed the full utilization 

 of science, observers such as Whitehead whose viewpoint is European 

 usually overlook the American experience. It is important to understand 

 that Americans were not unique in what they were doing to apply sci- 

 ence to technology, but it is more important to understand that in their 

 efforts they transformed American civilization itself. To try to bring 

 Whitehead's generalizations to earth, we can test them against the Amer- 

 ican setting. 



A. 



THE BESSEMER PROCESS 



CThe great increase in steel as the basis of heavy industry after 1865 

 was dependent on two processes: the Bessemer and the open hearth. To 

 test the amount of science which was applied in the crucial innovation of 

 the Bessemer process, we shall look at two contemporary comments. 

 The process itself was known before the onset of our period, both 

 through the work of Henry Bessemer in England and William Kelly in 

 the United States. Hence our quest is not simply for an inventor, but 

 rather for those continuous subsidiary adaptations which change an idea 

 into an industrial reality. The real question is to determine how much 

 of the knowledge on which these innovations were based sprang from 

 the scientific tradition and how much was the product of cut-and-try 

 experiment by managers and mechanics. The man skilled in the art of 

 steel-making can do a great deal with his own native wit and with such 

 experimenting as he can do on an existing process in the midst of actual 

 production. But such a man, however shrewd, is not a professional in- 

 novator. Both of the following passages were written by 1877 and re- 

 flect the opinion of practical steel men in the very midst of the shift to 

 heavy industry. 



The technological influence of the British example is also important 

 to note. Much information had to come from the British; tales of their 

 accomplishments hung over the American innovators. Yet we can also 

 see American practice rather quickly departing from the European 



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