Waterpower in Lowell: Engineering and Industry in Nineteenth-Century America

摘要

Historians of technology may well wonder if there is anything more to say about Lowell, Massachusetts, and its textile mills. The answer is yes. Water-power in Lowell offers a fresh interpretive framework and new research, focused at the intersection of environmental and technological history. Patrick Malone chiefly describes the design and operation of the city's unique resource-the natural and technological system of water-generated energy that powered its massive brick mills for over a century. He tells that story from many angles, returning across the narrative to the remarkable career of James B. Francis, the longtime chief engineer/manager of water-power at Lowell. With extensive original research, Malone goes well beyond all the earlier Lowell studies to describe Francis's remarkable career.