Academic Entrepreneurship and Engineering Education: Dugald C. Jackson and the MIT-GE Cooperative Engineering Course, 1907–1932

Abstract

Academic Entrepreneurship and Engineering Education: Dugald C. Jackson and the MIT-GE Cooperative Engineering Course, 1907—1932 W. BERNARD CARLSON Between 1880 and 1930, the American engineering profession underwent a remarkable transformation. During these years, the number of practicing engineers grew from 7,000 to 226,000, an in­ crease of over 3,000 percent.1 In 1880 there were only three estab­ lished engineering fields, civil, mechanical, and mining; the next five decades saw the creation of specialties ranging from aeronautical and metallurgical engineering to sanitation and heating-refrigeration. Representing these new engineers were a variety of professional so­ cieties that set standards for education and conduct as well as stim­ ulating the diffusion of new engineering knowledge through journals and meetings.2 Dr. Carlson is assistant professor of humanities in the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Virginia. Earlier versions of this article were presented in the History of Science Colloquium at Johns Hopkins University in 1980 and at the 1981 meeting of the Society for the History of Technology. A portion was published in the Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education 2 (1984): 488-95. The author wishes to thank Steven Catlett and Murphy Smith, of the Library of the American Philosophical Society, and Helen Samuels and Deborah Cozort, of the Institute Archives and Special Collections at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also thanks Regina B. Carlson, Michael Dennis, Joel Genuth, Richard P. Gillespie, Thomas P. Hughes, Michael Katz, Barbara Kimmelman, Ronald Kline, Robert Kohler, Mark Rose, Robert Rosenberg, John Servos, Arnold Thackray, Edmund N. Todd, and George Wise for reading and critiquing earlier drafts.©1988 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved. 0040-165X/88/2903-0006$01.00 ’Edwin T. Layton, Jr., The Revolt of the Engineers: Social Responsibility and the American Engineering Profession (Cleveland, 1971; Baltimore, 1986), p. 3. 2The rise of professional engineering in America has been extensively explored by historians. Among the major studies are Daniel H. Calhoun, The American Civil Engineer: Origins and Conflict (Cambridge, Mass., 1960); Monte A. Calvert, The Mechanical Engineer in America, ¡830—1910: Professional Cultures in Conflict (Baltimore, 1967); Raymond H. Merritt, Engineering in American Society, 1850—1875 (Lexington, Ky., 1969); David F. Noble, America by Design: Science, Technology, and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism (New 536 Academic Entrepreneurship and Engineering Education 537 Why did engineering grow so rapidly and emerge as a profession between 1880 and 1930? Although the development of the engineer­ ing profession can be linked to the general process by which the Amer­ ican middle class shaped a number ofoccupations into professions, the expansion of engineering has also been attributed to major changes occurring in American business and industry during this period.* 3 As business firms used larger and more complex technological systems such as electric power grids, assembly lines, and continuous-flow chemical processes, they employed a growing number of engineers to design, supervise, and maintain these systems.4 Because such systems were often central to the operation of these firms, engineers frequently assumed managerial positions and applied their expertise not only to designing machinery but also to the human and financial aspects of industrial organizations. Successful in the application of their methodology to both technical and organizational problems, engineers grew in social and economic status. By the early 20th century, American engineers had come to be regarded as the creators of a richer, more rational civili­ zation, and it is hardly surprising that social commentators such as Thorstein Veblen should have perceived them as the natural leaders of the future.5 Engineering education was intimately involved in the transforma­ tion of the engineering profession. Schools of engineering grew rap­ idly from 1880 to 1930 in order to provide engineers who could build York, 1977); Bruce Sinclair, A Centennial History of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (Toronto, 1980); Terry S. Reynolds, 75 Years ofProgress—a History ofthe Amer­ ican Institute of Chemical Engineers (New York, 1983); and A. Michal McMahon, The Making of a Profession: A Century of Electrical Engineering in America (New York, 1984). 3On the American middle class and the rise of the professions, see Burton Bledstein, The...