General resources for the whole issue:
This book will serve you well for general knowledge of 19th century science and technology:
Licht, Walter. Industrializing America: The Nineteenth Century. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.
You’ll turn to these websites again and again for all of the essays in this issue:
Wikipedia’s entries on 19th century science and technology are generally reliable. Go to this online encyclopedia’s “Main Page” and type in your keyword at “Search”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
“Scientific Revolution,” the website of Robert Hatch at the
University of Florida, provides resources for teaching the history of
science for secondary school teachers:
http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/rhatch/pages/
The “Innovators” section of PBS’s “Who Made America”
website provides biographical sketches of dozens of American inventors,
with links to articles expanding on implications of their work:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/theymadeamerica/
From the Massachusetts Institute of Technology comes the “Invention
Dimension” website of the Lemuel–MIT program. It provides
materials for both the study of science and the history of science and
technology. Take a careful look at its homepage:
http://web.mit.edu/invent/invent-main.html
If you don’t have time to see it all, focus on the “Science and Invention Education” page:
http://web.mit.edu/invent/r-archive-1.html
The archives of their “Inventor of the Week” series provide solid biographical sketches of most of the figures discussed in this issue and dozens more:
http://web.mit.edu/invent/i-archive.html
About.com, although a highly commercial site, has done a really good job with materials for science and technology. Be sure to visit the “About: Inventors” section at its website. The site’s timeline of major inventions of all centuries provides links to articles about specific inventions mentioned:
http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa111100a.htm
Scan the “Topics” in the menu at the left, and you’ll
find articles on specific subjects, lesson planes. The “Timelines”
are very, very useful:
http://inventors.about.com/od/timelines/
The “Today in History” feature even has a timeline showing
which inventions were patented on every day of the year:
http://inventors.about.com/od/todayinhistory/qt/day_in_history.htm
Resources for Dr. Glass' essay:
If you’re interested in pursuing the history of the evolution of American patent law, go to:
Walterscheid, Edward C. To Promote the Progress of Useful Arts American Patent Law and Administration, 1798-1836. Littleton, Colo.: F.B. Rothman, 1998.
This book studies the history of a specific, highly significant group of mid 19th century patents:
Schimmelman, Janice Gayle. American Photographic Patents 1840-1880: The Daguerreotype & Wet Plate Era. Nevada City, Calif.: Carl Mautz Pub., 2002.
You’ll find History Now’s issue on the American
West /historynow/09_2006/index.php
helpful for the study of the nation’s physical and demographic expansion
in the 19th century. The websites I’ve suggested for biographical
sketches of major figures will take you to more information on the inventors
and industrialists mentioned here.
Virginia Tech’s exciting new "Digital History Reader"
is very much a work in progress, so keep an eye on the home page for additions.
It’s aimed at the needs of high school and college classrooms, but
it promises to be full of ideas for teachers at any level. Right now,
there are only ten American history "modules," but two of these
will come in handy for pursuing topics discussed in this issue of History
Now such " How Did Abolitionism Lead to the Struggle for Women’s
Rights?" and "Industrialization and its Discontents: The Great
Strike of 1877":
http://www.dhr.history.vt.edu/us/index.php
As yet, there aren’t "Teachers Guides" for all of the
modules, but take a look at the ones they’ve mounted. I think you’ll
be pleased and excited about the future of this site:
http://www.dhr.history.vt.edu/teachersguide.html
This book is your best source for the development of steam power:
Hills, Richard Leslie. Power From Steam: The History of the Stationary Steam Engine. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
For discussions of the mechanization of American agriculture in the 19th century, try these books:
Ferleger, Lou, ed. Agriculture and National Development Views on the Nineteenth Century. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1990.
Holbrook, Stewart Hall. Machines of Plenty: Pioneering in American Agriculture. New York: Macmillan, 1955. Yes, it’s fifty years old, but very readable.
McClelland, Peter D. Sowing Modernity America's First Agricultural Revolution. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1997.
One of David McCullough’s earliest books, and one of his best, if you ask me, is his study of the Brooklyn Bridge. Thirty-five years after its publication, it’s still in print – the last edition came out in 2001:
The Great Bridge. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972.
Supplement this, if you can, with Ken Burns’ PBS documentary:
Brooklyn Bridge. Produced by Florentine Films in association with the Department of Records and Information Services of the City of New York and WNET/Thirteen. Los Angeles, CA: Direct Cinema, 1990.
Not surprisingly, PBS’s “For Educators” page for this special is your best bet for lesson plans and suggestions for further readings and web resources:
http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/brooklynbridge/educators/
For those of you interested in the broader question of the development of new methods of processing iron and steel that made the bridge possible, go to:
Gordon, Robert B. American iron, 1607-1900. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.
While we no longer think of Pennsylvania as the nation’s primary source of oil, there are sources dealing with the decades when Titusville and Oilville dominated that industry:
Giddens, Paul Henry. Early Days of Oil, A Pictorial History of the Beginnings of the Industry in Pennsylvania. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1948.
The Drake Well Museum in Titusville, Pa., has a “Little Squirts” website with materials for K-4:
http://www.drakewell.org/little_squirts_children.htm
and a useful “History” of Edwin Drake and the Titusville site:
http://www.drakewell.org/History%20of%20Drake%20Well.doc
I’ll have to restrain myself in offering sources for the Crystal Palace exposition and later “world fairs.” I’ll start with the most recent book length studies:
Giberti, Bruno. Designing The Centennial : A History of the 1876 International Exhibition in Philadelphia. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2002.
Hobhouse, Hermione. The Crystal Palace and the Great Exhibition Art, Science and Productive Industry: A History of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. London: Athlone Press, 2002.
Muccigrosso, Robert. Celebrating the New World: Chicago's Columbian Exposition of 1893. Chicago: I.R. Dee, 1993.
Wikipedia has first rate entries on the London Crystal Palace, with excellent links to other websites:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crystal_Palace
Wikipedia also has good entries on the Philadelphia exposition of 1876 and the 1893 fair in Chicago. The University of Maryland Library has good webpages on the New York Crystal Palace and the Philadelphia and Chicago Fairs:
http://www.lib.umd.edu/ARCH/honr219f/1853nyci.html
http://www.lib.umd.edu/ARCH/honr219f/1876phil.html
http://www.lib.umd.edu/ARCH/honr219f/1893chic.html
American Memory at the Library of Congress provides good classroom materials on the 1876 Exposition in its “Learning Pages”:
http://memory.loc.gov/learn/lessons/00/centen/index.php
The sources I’ve given above for brief sketches of inventors and innovators may not include these recent additions to the literature on Samuel F.B. Morse:
Israel, Paul. From Machine Shop To Industrial Laboratory Telegraphy and the Changing Context of American Invention, 1830-1920. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.
Silverman, Kenneth. Lightning Man: The Accursed Life of Samuel F.B. Morse. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003.
The American Memory website includes images of Morse’s papers at the Library of Congress. Use the homepage links to a good biography of Morse and discussion of the invention of the telegraph:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/sfbmhtml/sfbmhome.html
To broaden your knowledge of American labor history of the period:
Laurie, Bruce. Artisans Into Workers: Labor in Nineteenth-Century
America. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997.
Nicholson, Philip Yale. Labor's Story in the United States. Philadelphia,
PA: Temple University Press, 2004.
