Route 128 and the Birth of the Age of High Tech
Route 128 and the Birth of the Age of High Tech

Author: Alan R. Earls

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 132

ISBN-13: 9780738510767

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From the invention of ether and the telephone in the nineteenth century to the birth of radar and the computer in the twentieth century, Greater Boston has been a hotbed for creating and nurturing new ideas. In the early years of the century, the ground was being sown for a new economy to supplant the slowly declining shoe and textile manufacturing industries that had long dominated the region. After World War II, Route 128, dubbed by critics "the road to nowhere," became the locus of this high-tech development. Although originally intended to ease gridlock and provide an avenue to recreational opportunities, by the late 1950s, Route 128 was dotted with industrial parks and new subdivisions. It was soon known as the Golden Crescent, in recognition of the prosperity it brought to the whole region. Route 128 and the Birth of the Age of High Tech tells the intertwining stories of the construction of the nation's first circumferential beltway and the burgeoning high-tech industries of Massachusetts, which helped spawn the modern age of personal computers, the Internet, and biotechnology.

Boston Made
Boston Made

Author: Dr. Robert M. Krim

Publisher: Charlesbridge Publishing

Published: 2021-02-23

Total Pages: 163

ISBN-13: 1632892251

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A fascinating look at how Boston became and remains a global center for innovation--told through 50 world-changing inventions. “Robert Krim is a long-time champion of the Boston area’s history of innovation, finding remarkable examples of ingenuity and creativity going back centuries and continuing today. He shows how a culture of innovation can make a small place a beacon of hope for the world, by developing the fresh ideas and useful discoveries that make a difference in every part of life.” —Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School professor and author of Think Outside the Building: How Advanced Leaders Can Change the World One Smart Innovation at a Time Since the 1600s, Boston has been at the forefront of world-changing innovation from starting the country's first public school to becoming the first state to end slavery and giving birth to the telephone. Boston was the site of the first organ transplant and more recent medical and biotech breakthroughs that have saved the lives of thousands. That's not to mention pioneering advances in everything from rockets to robotics. In total, Boston-area inventors have contributed more than four hundred stand-out social, scientific, and commercial innovations and uncounted numbers that are less well known. Boston Made tells the absorbing stories of 50 of these - and why they are no accident. In fact, fresh waves of innovation have brought the city back from four major economic collapses. Dr. Robert Krim lays out a set of "innovation drivers," including strong entrepreneurship, local funding, and networking. From boom to decline and back to boom, Boston has maintained an ability to reinvent, and build anew. Dr. Krim with technologist Alan Earls have developed and outlined a new interpretation of how a resilient city has flourished. At a time when the national and global economy is reeling from pandemic shockwaves, the authors have laid out what a dynamic world-class city has done in the face of adversity to find a fresh and successful path forward.

Polaroid
Polaroid

Author: Alan R. Earls

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 134

ISBN-13: 9780738536996

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Edwin Land and Polaroid, the company he created in the 1930s, have spawned many bold scientific innovations over the years. Most of them led quickly to unique commercial products. Best known for revolutionary instant photography systems, Land and Polaroid also achieved miracles in light-polarizing technology that is embedded in many of today's consumer products. During World War II, Polaroid manufactured and created a large array of products for the U.S. military; later, Land's top-secret cold war initiatives led to crucial intelligence breakthroughs. Polaroid features images of signature innovations, scientists, and photographers who pioneered the use of Polaroid film.

Happier?
Happier?

Author: Daniel Horowitz

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 019065564X

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Happier? provides the first history of the origins, development, and impact of the shift in how Americans - and now many around the world - consider the human condition. This change, which came about from the fusing of beliefs and knowledge from Eastern spiritual traditions, behavioral economics, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and cognitive psychology, has been led by scholars and academic entrepreneurs, in play with forces such as neoliberalism and cultural conservatism, and a public eager for self-improvement. Ultimately, the book illuminates how positive psychology, one of the most influential academic fields of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, infused American culture with captivating promises for a happier society.

Raytheon Company
Raytheon Company

Author: Alan R. Earls

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 132

ISBN-13: 9780738537474

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Raytheon's history is one of the great American success stories. Launched in 1922, the Cambridge-based company quickly moved to the forefront of innovation in the electronics industry. During World War II, thousands of Raytheon workers contributed to the war effort, supplying eighty percent of the magnetron tubes (vital components for U.S. and British radars), developing miniature tubes for the crucial proximity fuse in antiaircraft shells, and providing entire radar systems. Although government contracts slowed after World War II, Raytheon continued to develop military components, including leading-edge radars and missiles for America's defenses in the Cold War, but it also began to offer a host of civilian products: the famous RadaRange (the world's first microwave oven), televisions, marine radars, transistors, miniature hearing aids, and medical equipment.

U.S. Army Natick Laboratories
U.S. Army Natick Laboratories

Author: Alan R. Earls

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 132

ISBN-13: 9780738537290

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The U.S. Army Natick Laboratories, dedicated in 1953 under the aegis of the Quartermaster Corps, was an important part of the revolution in military science brought to a head by the fevered pace of developments in military technology during World War II. The laboratory, now known as the Soldier Systems Center and including facilities run by the U.S. Army, Navy, and Coast Guard, focuses entirely on research associated with helping soldiers to be healthier and more effective. U.S. Army Natick Laboratories: The Science behind the Soldier features nearly two hundred historic images depicting the projects and accomplishments of the laboratories, including the development of food irradiation, the freeze-drying technique, meals-ready-to-eat (MREs), body armor, new parachute technology, and clothing for every environment imaginable.

The Yankee Road: Tracing the Journey of the New England Tribe That Created Modern America
The Yankee Road: Tracing the Journey of the New England Tribe That Created Modern America

Author: James D. McNiven

Publisher: Wheatmark, Inc.

Published: 2015-03-14

Total Pages: 498

ISBN-13: 162787142X

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Who is a Yankee and where did the term come from? Though shrouded in myth and routinely used as a substitute for American, the achievements of the Yankees have influenced nearly every facet of our modern way of life. Join author Jim McNiven as he explores the emergence and influence of Yankee culture while traversing an old transcontinental highway reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific -- US 20, which he nicknames "The Yankee Road." The Yankee Road: Tracing the Journey of the New England Tribe that Created Modern America combines fascinating history with a travel narrative, taking the reader on a journey through the places Yankees and their descendants settled as they expanded westward. Using a physical road to connect locations important to the Yankee cultural "road," McNiven takes us on twenty-two side trips into individual stories, introducing readers to the origins of such large-scale and diverse ideas as conservation, public education, telegraphy, mass production, religion, and labor reform. See familiar places and stories in a Yankee light, such as the fight for women's rights in Seneca Falls and Walden Pond that Thoreau made famous. Learn about less familiar venues like Route 128's technology companies that led to the creation of the computer industry (and incidentally, the Internet), and to the Worcester suburb of Shrewsbury, where two old women changed the world by making possible the birth control pill. McNiven's first tour goes as far west as the Pennsylvania-New York border, with more stories to come. As we travel The Yankee Road, we will meet some of the men and women who made these ideas happen. Harry Truman once said, "I like roads. I like to move." This is a road book. Come on along.

Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation

Author: Alan R. Earls

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 132

ISBN-13: 9780738535876

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From its inception in 1957, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), headquartered in Maynard, Massachusetts, carved itself a role in American business unlike any other company. Launched by Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineer Ken Olsen with a $70,000 investment from the country's first venture capital firm, DEC rapidly became a pioneer in computer technology. In its heyday, DEC had a valuation of more than $12 billion and employed approximately one hundred twenty thousand people worldwide, making it second only to IBM. Its people and technology contributed to making computers increasingly affordable, which led directly to the advent of the personal computer, the first computer games, and computer networks. DEC was also a leader in the Internet revolution, claiming the dubious distinction of launching the first spam mailing and registering one of the first commercial domain names. Through photographs of people, events, and machines, Digital Equipment Corporation tells the story of the unassuming computer revolutionaries who reshaped the technological world. It is written for anyone who is interested in how the present era of computing ubiquity has evolved since the 1940s, when IBM chairman Thomas Watson predicted that the whole world might need no more than five computers.

Watertown Arsenal
Watertown Arsenal

Author: Alan R. Earls

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 132

ISBN-13: 9780738549453

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In 1988, the U.S. Base Realignment and Closure Commission announced the closure of the Army Materials Technology Laboratory in Watertown, the last remnant of the famous Watertown Arsenal, which served the country from shortly after the War of 1812, through two world wars and much of the Cold War. Known for its contribution to the development of some of the most powerful artillery ever made, including the famed aatomic cannon, a the Watertown Arsenal also earned a reputation in other ways. In the early 1900s, it hosted famous efficiency experts, such as Frederick Winslow Taylor. Later it pioneered important advances in materials science and stood as a vital regional institution that employed generations of people from the Boston area. Along the way it hosted many famous visitors, including Franklin D. Roosevelt and Gen. Douglas MacArthur.