Geoffrey Cantor
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199596676
- eISBN:
- 9780191725685
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199596676.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Church History, Religion and Society
While many religious writers praised Paxton's innovative design, often likening it to a temple or the modern equivalent of a medieval cathedral, High Churchmen and Roman Catholics abhorred the ...
More
While many religious writers praised Paxton's innovative design, often likening it to a temple or the modern equivalent of a medieval cathedral, High Churchmen and Roman Catholics abhorred the design, comparing it most unfavourably to the neo‐Gothic style then in vogue for ecclesiastical and public buildings. Certain exhibits also proved controversial, none more so than Pugin's contributions to the Medieval Court, which were often seen as importing Catholic devices into the very heart of the Exhibition. This chapter centres on the religious controversies surrounding the Crystal Palace and its contents in order to show that it was a highly contested space and that protagonists across the religious spectrum endowed it with different spiritual meanings.Less
While many religious writers praised Paxton's innovative design, often likening it to a temple or the modern equivalent of a medieval cathedral, High Churchmen and Roman Catholics abhorred the design, comparing it most unfavourably to the neo‐Gothic style then in vogue for ecclesiastical and public buildings. Certain exhibits also proved controversial, none more so than Pugin's contributions to the Medieval Court, which were often seen as importing Catholic devices into the very heart of the Exhibition. This chapter centres on the religious controversies surrounding the Crystal Palace and its contents in order to show that it was a highly contested space and that protagonists across the religious spectrum endowed it with different spiritual meanings.
Gowan Dawson
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226332734
- eISBN:
- 9780226332871
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226332871.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter continue the focus on the law of correlation’s imbrication with mid-Victorian modernity, exploring its close relation to the central symbol of this new age of entrepreneurship, industry ...
More
This chapter continue the focus on the law of correlation’s imbrication with mid-Victorian modernity, exploring its close relation to the central symbol of this new age of entrepreneurship, industry and consumerism: the Crystal Palace. It considers both the Great Exhibition and then the commercial reconstruction of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, examining how, with the expensive life-sized models of prehistoric creatures built at the latter, the demands of mid-nineteenth-century commerce gave a new impetus to the endorsement of the law of correlation, ensuring that it remained central to the new forms of print culture, and modes of visual education and entertainment that were emerging in the 1850s.Less
This chapter continue the focus on the law of correlation’s imbrication with mid-Victorian modernity, exploring its close relation to the central symbol of this new age of entrepreneurship, industry and consumerism: the Crystal Palace. It considers both the Great Exhibition and then the commercial reconstruction of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, examining how, with the expensive life-sized models of prehistoric creatures built at the latter, the demands of mid-nineteenth-century commerce gave a new impetus to the endorsement of the law of correlation, ensuring that it remained central to the new forms of print culture, and modes of visual education and entertainment that were emerging in the 1850s.
Kate Nichols and Sarah Victoria Turner
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780719096495
- eISBN:
- 9781526124135
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719096495.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Social History
This introductory chapter explores and establishes the Sydenham Crystal Palace in relation to existing scholarship on the Great Exhibition of 1851. The Sydenham Palace combined education, ...
More
This introductory chapter explores and establishes the Sydenham Crystal Palace in relation to existing scholarship on the Great Exhibition of 1851. The Sydenham Palace combined education, entertainment and commerce, and spans both nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We resituate it as an important location within the London art world and establish the broader connections it had with rival ventures such as the South Kensington Museum and the numerous international exhibitions in the period. We set out the new possibilities for the analysis of both nineteenth- and twentieth-century visual and material cultures opened up by this unique venue, problematising the periodisation of art works and attitudes into discretely ‘Victorian’ and ‘Edwardian’ categories.Less
This introductory chapter explores and establishes the Sydenham Crystal Palace in relation to existing scholarship on the Great Exhibition of 1851. The Sydenham Palace combined education, entertainment and commerce, and spans both nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We resituate it as an important location within the London art world and establish the broader connections it had with rival ventures such as the South Kensington Museum and the numerous international exhibitions in the period. We set out the new possibilities for the analysis of both nineteenth- and twentieth-century visual and material cultures opened up by this unique venue, problematising the periodisation of art works and attitudes into discretely ‘Victorian’ and ‘Edwardian’ categories.
Kate Nichols
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- April 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199596461
- eISBN:
- 9780191795770
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199596461.003.0005
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
Chapter 4 contributes a classical focus to recent scholarship on the contested relationships between visual art and industry in Victorian culture. At the Crystal Palace, classical sculpture was not a ...
More
Chapter 4 contributes a classical focus to recent scholarship on the contested relationships between visual art and industry in Victorian culture. At the Crystal Palace, classical sculpture was not a refuge from industrial modernity, but a means of enhancing manufacture. The first part establishes the Sydenham Palace as a significant location for the design reform movement usually associated with the South Kensington Museum. It examines the roles that Palace architects Matthew Digby Wyatt and Owen Jones hoped Greek sculpture might play in reforming art manufacture, and subsequently the British economy. The second section analyses the successes and failures of the connections fostered between classical art and industry at Sydenham, focusing on the Ceramic Court and the Crystal Palace Art-Union. It concludes by analysing the changing relationship between ‘high art’, design, labour, and commerce in the context of the Arts and Crafts movement in the later nineteenth century.Less
Chapter 4 contributes a classical focus to recent scholarship on the contested relationships between visual art and industry in Victorian culture. At the Crystal Palace, classical sculpture was not a refuge from industrial modernity, but a means of enhancing manufacture. The first part establishes the Sydenham Palace as a significant location for the design reform movement usually associated with the South Kensington Museum. It examines the roles that Palace architects Matthew Digby Wyatt and Owen Jones hoped Greek sculpture might play in reforming art manufacture, and subsequently the British economy. The second section analyses the successes and failures of the connections fostered between classical art and industry at Sydenham, focusing on the Ceramic Court and the Crystal Palace Art-Union. It concludes by analysing the changing relationship between ‘high art’, design, labour, and commerce in the context of the Arts and Crafts movement in the later nineteenth century.
Sadiah Qureshi
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226700960
- eISBN:
- 9780226700984
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226700984.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter first considers the ways in which human displays were made amenable to being used as opportunities for ethnological research in the early half of the nineteenth century. It then explores ...
More
This chapter first considers the ways in which human displays were made amenable to being used as opportunities for ethnological research in the early half of the nineteenth century. It then explores how displayed peoples were formally incorporated into ethnological education and practice by Robert Gordon Latham's curatorship of the court of natural history at the Crystal Palace in Sydenham. It is argued that exhibited peoples were turned into ethnological specimens that became both the objects and the means of ethnological investigation among the lay public, phrenologists, physicians, anatomists, and ethnologists, and in a range of settings from institutionally backed private examinations to personal connections made at commercial performances.Less
This chapter first considers the ways in which human displays were made amenable to being used as opportunities for ethnological research in the early half of the nineteenth century. It then explores how displayed peoples were formally incorporated into ethnological education and practice by Robert Gordon Latham's curatorship of the court of natural history at the Crystal Palace in Sydenham. It is argued that exhibited peoples were turned into ethnological specimens that became both the objects and the means of ethnological investigation among the lay public, phrenologists, physicians, anatomists, and ethnologists, and in a range of settings from institutionally backed private examinations to personal connections made at commercial performances.
Kate Nichols and Sarah Victoria Turner (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780719096495
- eISBN:
- 9781526124135
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719096495.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Social History
‘The 10th of June, 1854, promises to be a day scarcely less memorable in the social history of the present age than was the 1st of May, 1851’ boasted the Chronicleon 10 June 1854, comparing the ...
More
‘The 10th of June, 1854, promises to be a day scarcely less memorable in the social history of the present age than was the 1st of May, 1851’ boasted the Chronicleon 10 June 1854, comparing the opening of the Crystal Palace, newly installed on the crown of Sydenham Hill, to that of the Great Exhibition. Many contemporary commentators deemed the Sydenham Palace’s contents superior, the building more spectacular and its educative potential much greater than its predecessor. Yet their predictions proved to be a little wide of the mark, and for a long time, studies of the Great Exhibition of 1851 have marginalised the Sydenham Palace. This collection of essays will look beyond the chronological confines of 1851 and address the significance of the Crystal Palace as a cultural site, image and structure well into the twentieth century, even after it was destroyed by fire in 1936.Less
‘The 10th of June, 1854, promises to be a day scarcely less memorable in the social history of the present age than was the 1st of May, 1851’ boasted the Chronicleon 10 June 1854, comparing the opening of the Crystal Palace, newly installed on the crown of Sydenham Hill, to that of the Great Exhibition. Many contemporary commentators deemed the Sydenham Palace’s contents superior, the building more spectacular and its educative potential much greater than its predecessor. Yet their predictions proved to be a little wide of the mark, and for a long time, studies of the Great Exhibition of 1851 have marginalised the Sydenham Palace. This collection of essays will look beyond the chronological confines of 1851 and address the significance of the Crystal Palace as a cultural site, image and structure well into the twentieth century, even after it was destroyed by fire in 1936.
Kate Nichols
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- April 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199596461
- eISBN:
- 9780191795770
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199596461.003.0003
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
Chapter 2 explores the relationship between the Victorian entertainment industry and the emergent ‘professional’ classical archaeological establishment at mid-century. It offers the first overview of ...
More
Chapter 2 explores the relationship between the Victorian entertainment industry and the emergent ‘professional’ classical archaeological establishment at mid-century. It offers the first overview of the role that classical sculpture and architecture played in nineteenth-century shows of London, spanning actors posing in bodystockings, medical wax work museums, casts at Madame Tussauds, and the Regent’s Park Colosseum. It provides the first detailed assessment of the public display of classical sculpture in 1850s Britain, at the British Museum and beyond, and situates these displays within the history of classical archaeology. It features detailed discussion of 1850s archaeological engagements at the Crystal Palace, looking at polychromy and the relationship between Greek ‘originals’ and Roman ‘copies’ of sculpture. It argues that in 1850s London, ‘amateur’ and ‘professional’, ‘entertainment’, and ‘education’ ought to be seen in tandem, rather than as polar opposites. It foregrounds the Crystal Palace as a prime location for exploring such connections.Less
Chapter 2 explores the relationship between the Victorian entertainment industry and the emergent ‘professional’ classical archaeological establishment at mid-century. It offers the first overview of the role that classical sculpture and architecture played in nineteenth-century shows of London, spanning actors posing in bodystockings, medical wax work museums, casts at Madame Tussauds, and the Regent’s Park Colosseum. It provides the first detailed assessment of the public display of classical sculpture in 1850s Britain, at the British Museum and beyond, and situates these displays within the history of classical archaeology. It features detailed discussion of 1850s archaeological engagements at the Crystal Palace, looking at polychromy and the relationship between Greek ‘originals’ and Roman ‘copies’ of sculpture. It argues that in 1850s London, ‘amateur’ and ‘professional’, ‘entertainment’, and ‘education’ ought to be seen in tandem, rather than as polar opposites. It foregrounds the Crystal Palace as a prime location for exploring such connections.
Flora Willson
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226402079
- eISBN:
- 9780226402109
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226402109.003.0010
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
Willson addresses music’s epistemological status: what kind of object of knowledge music was held to be, what material artifacts could speak for it, and in what kind of Museum. The occasion is the ...
More
Willson addresses music’s epistemological status: what kind of object of knowledge music was held to be, what material artifacts could speak for it, and in what kind of Museum. The occasion is the 1851 Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, which took place at London’s Crystal Palace. The organizers sought to represent “the Present” – ordered, classified, and ranked – as the culmination of historical narratives of progress. Music was represented by its instruments, and partook of their status as objects; the Exhibition featured pianos, organs, violins, and more, as well as internal mechanisms and other component parts, as representative works of industry. Its material traces were scattered throughout Machinery, General Hardware, the Fine Arts Court, and even Manufactures from Animal and Vegetable Substances. Instruments rather than musical masterpieces were “demonstrated." Music was an ever-elusive presence; it tended to recede into the buzz of the crowd, to vanish, half-unheard, into the towering domes of the steel-and-glass cathedral. Willson argues that the “musical work” was hardly an immortal artifact, ideal type, or regulative concept, but was manifested instead in a striking multiplicity of commodified ways at this “Great Exhibition of Things.”Less
Willson addresses music’s epistemological status: what kind of object of knowledge music was held to be, what material artifacts could speak for it, and in what kind of Museum. The occasion is the 1851 Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, which took place at London’s Crystal Palace. The organizers sought to represent “the Present” – ordered, classified, and ranked – as the culmination of historical narratives of progress. Music was represented by its instruments, and partook of their status as objects; the Exhibition featured pianos, organs, violins, and more, as well as internal mechanisms and other component parts, as representative works of industry. Its material traces were scattered throughout Machinery, General Hardware, the Fine Arts Court, and even Manufactures from Animal and Vegetable Substances. Instruments rather than musical masterpieces were “demonstrated." Music was an ever-elusive presence; it tended to recede into the buzz of the crowd, to vanish, half-unheard, into the towering domes of the steel-and-glass cathedral. Willson argues that the “musical work” was hardly an immortal artifact, ideal type, or regulative concept, but was manifested instead in a striking multiplicity of commodified ways at this “Great Exhibition of Things.”
Kate Nichols
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- April 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199596461
- eISBN:
- 9780191795770
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199596461.003.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
The introduction situates this book in the broader fields of classical reception studies, cultural history, art history, museum studies, and Victorian studies. It sets out methodological approaches ...
More
The introduction situates this book in the broader fields of classical reception studies, cultural history, art history, museum studies, and Victorian studies. It sets out methodological approaches to nineteenth-century understandings of the past and historical consciousness. It provides an overview of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, its directors’ ideals, guidebooks, displays, history, and protagonists. It offers a tour of the classical sculpture on display in the Greek, Roman, and Pompeian Courts.Less
The introduction situates this book in the broader fields of classical reception studies, cultural history, art history, museum studies, and Victorian studies. It sets out methodological approaches to nineteenth-century understandings of the past and historical consciousness. It provides an overview of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, its directors’ ideals, guidebooks, displays, history, and protagonists. It offers a tour of the classical sculpture on display in the Greek, Roman, and Pompeian Courts.
Kate Nichols
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- April 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199596461
- eISBN:
- 9780191795770
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199596461.003.0008
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
The conclusion situates the Sydenham Palace alongside the Millennium Dome/O2 arena, comparing the criticisms of mass audiences, authenticity, and exhibitionary strategies at 2008’s Tutankhmun ...
More
The conclusion situates the Sydenham Palace alongside the Millennium Dome/O2 arena, comparing the criticisms of mass audiences, authenticity, and exhibitionary strategies at 2008’s Tutankhmun Exhibition to the 1850s critics at Sydenham. Museums now seem the only suitable environment for antiquities; the Crystal Palace stands as a counter narrative, an example of the wide range of mid-nineteenth-century exhibitions of and engagements with classical sculpture—and of the changing approaches to these objects throughout the Palace’s lifespan into the twentieth century.Less
The conclusion situates the Sydenham Palace alongside the Millennium Dome/O2 arena, comparing the criticisms of mass audiences, authenticity, and exhibitionary strategies at 2008’s Tutankhmun Exhibition to the 1850s critics at Sydenham. Museums now seem the only suitable environment for antiquities; the Crystal Palace stands as a counter narrative, an example of the wide range of mid-nineteenth-century exhibitions of and engagements with classical sculpture—and of the changing approaches to these objects throughout the Palace’s lifespan into the twentieth century.
Kate Nichols
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- April 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199596461
- eISBN:
- 9780191795770
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199596461.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
This book examines the debates that arose around the presentation of classical plaster casts to a mass audience at the Sydenham Crystal Palace, in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain. It ...
More
This book examines the debates that arose around the presentation of classical plaster casts to a mass audience at the Sydenham Crystal Palace, in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain. It uncovers the social, political, and aesthetic role of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture in Victorian and Edwardian culture, assessing how classical art and architecture figured in debates over design reform, taste, beauty and morality, race and imperialism. A study in classical reception, it draws on diaries, autobiographies, scrapbooks, and pamphlets to analyse audience responses to classical sculpture, and to suggest how these responses figured in contemporary popular and scholarly understandings of the Greek and Roman past. It demonstrates the vital life of classical sculpture for audiences beyond the Royal Academy, high art criticism, the Country House, and the University, and suggests that other less ‘academic’ locations ought to be taken seriously as chapters in the history of archaeology. Focusing on the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, it provides the first in-depth analysis of this popular entertainment venue in South London. This ephemeral, now vanished edifice offers an alternative history of museums to the received vision of order, chronology, and permanence typified by the British Museum. Foregrounding the close connection between entertainment and education at the Palace demonstrates a much longer history of the commercial ‘heritage industry’ usually associated with the 1980s.Less
This book examines the debates that arose around the presentation of classical plaster casts to a mass audience at the Sydenham Crystal Palace, in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain. It uncovers the social, political, and aesthetic role of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture in Victorian and Edwardian culture, assessing how classical art and architecture figured in debates over design reform, taste, beauty and morality, race and imperialism. A study in classical reception, it draws on diaries, autobiographies, scrapbooks, and pamphlets to analyse audience responses to classical sculpture, and to suggest how these responses figured in contemporary popular and scholarly understandings of the Greek and Roman past. It demonstrates the vital life of classical sculpture for audiences beyond the Royal Academy, high art criticism, the Country House, and the University, and suggests that other less ‘academic’ locations ought to be taken seriously as chapters in the history of archaeology. Focusing on the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, it provides the first in-depth analysis of this popular entertainment venue in South London. This ephemeral, now vanished edifice offers an alternative history of museums to the received vision of order, chronology, and permanence typified by the British Museum. Foregrounding the close connection between entertainment and education at the Palace demonstrates a much longer history of the commercial ‘heritage industry’ usually associated with the 1980s.
Jonathon Shears (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780719099120
- eISBN:
- 9781526128270
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719099120.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
Chapter 1 presents material that records the origins of the ideas for the Exhibition in the discussions of Prince Albert, Henry Cole, and others. It contains the original Minutes of the Royal ...
More
Chapter 1 presents material that records the origins of the ideas for the Exhibition in the discussions of Prince Albert, Henry Cole, and others. It contains the original Minutes of the Royal Commission and transcripts of the public speeches that were made to promote the Exhibition amongst politicians and industrialists. Documents that attest to the objections of influential figures, the press and the general public can also be found in this chapter along with information about the construction of the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park and accounts of the opening ceremony. The chapter demonstrates that, before the Exhibition could take place, an ideological battle had to be won.Less
Chapter 1 presents material that records the origins of the ideas for the Exhibition in the discussions of Prince Albert, Henry Cole, and others. It contains the original Minutes of the Royal Commission and transcripts of the public speeches that were made to promote the Exhibition amongst politicians and industrialists. Documents that attest to the objections of influential figures, the press and the general public can also be found in this chapter along with information about the construction of the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park and accounts of the opening ceremony. The chapter demonstrates that, before the Exhibition could take place, an ideological battle had to be won.
Graeme Gooday (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226487267
- eISBN:
- 9780226487298
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226487298.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter examines the demonstration of the safety of electricity in public spaces. It explains that the moral panics and technical concerns about electricity necessitated its public testing in ...
More
This chapter examines the demonstration of the safety of electricity in public spaces. It explains that the moral panics and technical concerns about electricity necessitated its public testing in the home and on the theatrical stage, particularly in Crystal Palace and London's theatres. This chapter highlights the intimate connections between space and scientific testing and explains that the practice of electrical safety had to be seen to be believed at other social, personal, and instrumental scales for it underlay developments in physics and engineering.Less
This chapter examines the demonstration of the safety of electricity in public spaces. It explains that the moral panics and technical concerns about electricity necessitated its public testing in the home and on the theatrical stage, particularly in Crystal Palace and London's theatres. This chapter highlights the intimate connections between space and scientific testing and explains that the practice of electrical safety had to be seen to be believed at other social, personal, and instrumental scales for it underlay developments in physics and engineering.
Naomi R. Lamoreaux and Kenneth L. Sokoloff
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262122894
- eISBN:
- 9780262277884
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262122894.003.0013
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Economic History
This Afterword consolidates and summarizes the findings revealed by the studies and analyses undergone throughout the book. It concludes that innovation is even more important in today’s globalized ...
More
This Afterword consolidates and summarizes the findings revealed by the studies and analyses undergone throughout the book. It concludes that innovation is even more important in today’s globalized economy. The technological leadership of the United States is seen to be mainly influenced by institutional supports for the market in technology. The United States has been fortunate, thus far, to have its institutions be capable of adapting over time to changing circumstances in the market for technology. An example of the importance of institutional innovation in promoting technological advance is the massive growth of venture capital. We can add to this the institution of the U.S. patent system, which fostered further development of ideas and creativity, especially after such innovations were presented at the Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851. It is this institutional edge that keeps the U.S. above other countries with technological potential such as China, India, and Brazil.Less
This Afterword consolidates and summarizes the findings revealed by the studies and analyses undergone throughout the book. It concludes that innovation is even more important in today’s globalized economy. The technological leadership of the United States is seen to be mainly influenced by institutional supports for the market in technology. The United States has been fortunate, thus far, to have its institutions be capable of adapting over time to changing circumstances in the market for technology. An example of the importance of institutional innovation in promoting technological advance is the massive growth of venture capital. We can add to this the institution of the U.S. patent system, which fostered further development of ideas and creativity, especially after such innovations were presented at the Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851. It is this institutional edge that keeps the U.S. above other countries with technological potential such as China, India, and Brazil.
Sarah Jo Peterson
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226025421
- eISBN:
- 9780226025568
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226025568.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
For years, the Ford Motor Company brought dramatic changes around Detroit dating back to its expansion to Highland Park in 1910 and then to Dearborn in the 1920s. Hence, local residents could see the ...
More
For years, the Ford Motor Company brought dramatic changes around Detroit dating back to its expansion to Highland Park in 1910 and then to Dearborn in the 1920s. Hence, local residents could see the Willow Run Bomber Plant as just another move by the company to expand west along the Michigan Central Railroad. The only physical manifestations of large-scale industrialization were the conversion of fields and orchards into steel and concrete. Ford’s relocation to Highland Park’s “Crystal Palace” and Dearborn’s River Rouge plant sparked social upheaval and economic disruption. In 1941, residents of Ypsilanti Township became anxious that the manic changes observed at Highland Park and Dearborn would soon be coming to their place. Meanwhile, local leaders saw Willow Run as the most recent manifestation of industrial suburbanization that characterized Detroit’s metropolitan area in the motor age.Less
For years, the Ford Motor Company brought dramatic changes around Detroit dating back to its expansion to Highland Park in 1910 and then to Dearborn in the 1920s. Hence, local residents could see the Willow Run Bomber Plant as just another move by the company to expand west along the Michigan Central Railroad. The only physical manifestations of large-scale industrialization were the conversion of fields and orchards into steel and concrete. Ford’s relocation to Highland Park’s “Crystal Palace” and Dearborn’s River Rouge plant sparked social upheaval and economic disruption. In 1941, residents of Ypsilanti Township became anxious that the manic changes observed at Highland Park and Dearborn would soon be coming to their place. Meanwhile, local leaders saw Willow Run as the most recent manifestation of industrial suburbanization that characterized Detroit’s metropolitan area in the motor age.
Arthur M. Diamond Jr.
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- June 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190263669
- eISBN:
- 9780190263706
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190263669.003.0005
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Microeconomics
Process innovations mainly benefit consumers by reducing prices of services and of new and old goods, which benefits aspiring ordinary citizens more than the privileged rich. The interchangeable ...
More
Process innovations mainly benefit consumers by reducing prices of services and of new and old goods, which benefits aspiring ordinary citizens more than the privileged rich. The interchangeable parts of the American system of manufacturing (famously demonstrated at Britain’s Crystal Palace in Victorian England) reduced the costs of many goods, bringing them within the reach of the working class. Process innovations are often financed by rich venturesome consumers who buy expensive early versions of new goods. Besides lowering costs, process innovations also increase the variety, convenience, and quality of goods. Important process innovations include Fritz Haber’s inventing a way to create fertilizer from air; Henry Ford’s adaptation of the assembly line to reduce the costs of manufacturing cars; Sam Walton’s logistical, information technology and managerial innovations to reduce the costs of retailing; and Jeff Bezos’s Internet process innovations to increase the variety, convenience, and speed of delivery of retail goods.Less
Process innovations mainly benefit consumers by reducing prices of services and of new and old goods, which benefits aspiring ordinary citizens more than the privileged rich. The interchangeable parts of the American system of manufacturing (famously demonstrated at Britain’s Crystal Palace in Victorian England) reduced the costs of many goods, bringing them within the reach of the working class. Process innovations are often financed by rich venturesome consumers who buy expensive early versions of new goods. Besides lowering costs, process innovations also increase the variety, convenience, and quality of goods. Important process innovations include Fritz Haber’s inventing a way to create fertilizer from air; Henry Ford’s adaptation of the assembly line to reduce the costs of manufacturing cars; Sam Walton’s logistical, information technology and managerial innovations to reduce the costs of retailing; and Jeff Bezos’s Internet process innovations to increase the variety, convenience, and speed of delivery of retail goods.
