Doron S. Ben-Atar
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300100068
- eISBN:
- 9780300127218
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300100068.003.0004
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Economic History
This chapter discusses the role of Benjamin Franklin in discouraging European manufacturers from immigrating to America. It reveals that in 1784, shortly after concluding the peace treaty with ...
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This chapter discusses the role of Benjamin Franklin in discouraging European manufacturers from immigrating to America. It reveals that in 1784, shortly after concluding the peace treaty with England, Franklin published, in France, a short pamphlet titled, “Information to Those Who Would Remove to America,” advising those planning to immigrate that opportunities in the New World were limited. He directed his discouraging remarks at one particular group: European manufacturers. Franklin explained that the United States did not follow the practice of European princes who offered high salaries and privileges to manufacturers to induce them to migrate and introduce unknown advanced industrial technology. The chapter finds that he recognized the infant state of American manufacturers and their technological deficiencies, and neither ruled out technology piracy nor urged his countrymen to respect European prohibitions on the diffusion of technology.Less
This chapter discusses the role of Benjamin Franklin in discouraging European manufacturers from immigrating to America. It reveals that in 1784, shortly after concluding the peace treaty with England, Franklin published, in France, a short pamphlet titled, “Information to Those Who Would Remove to America,” advising those planning to immigrate that opportunities in the New World were limited. He directed his discouraging remarks at one particular group: European manufacturers. Franklin explained that the United States did not follow the practice of European princes who offered high salaries and privileges to manufacturers to induce them to migrate and introduce unknown advanced industrial technology. The chapter finds that he recognized the infant state of American manufacturers and their technological deficiencies, and neither ruled out technology piracy nor urged his countrymen to respect European prohibitions on the diffusion of technology.
Doron S. Ben-Atar
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300100068
- eISBN:
- 9780300127218
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300100068.003.0008
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Economic History
This chapter discusses the technological advancement in the United States during the period from the American Revolution to the Crystal Palace exhibition of 1851, a period during which US technology ...
More
This chapter discusses the technological advancement in the United States during the period from the American Revolution to the Crystal Palace exhibition of 1851, a period during which US technology caught up with and surpassed its European rivals. The industrialization that took place along the northeastern seaboard in the first half of the nineteenth century facilitated a dramatic two-thirds growth in per capita income. The chapter reveals that the US economy grew faster and was more productive than that of any other nation in Europe. Contemporaries and historians have come up with a wide range of social, political, and cultural explanations for this dramatic development. The chapter finds that federal and state authorities were officially committed to respecting the intellectual property of others, yet, in fact, sanctioned smuggling of protected knowledge on a huge scale. American investors and mechanics also adapted imported technology to local circumstances.Less
This chapter discusses the technological advancement in the United States during the period from the American Revolution to the Crystal Palace exhibition of 1851, a period during which US technology caught up with and surpassed its European rivals. The industrialization that took place along the northeastern seaboard in the first half of the nineteenth century facilitated a dramatic two-thirds growth in per capita income. The chapter reveals that the US economy grew faster and was more productive than that of any other nation in Europe. Contemporaries and historians have come up with a wide range of social, political, and cultural explanations for this dramatic development. The chapter finds that federal and state authorities were officially committed to respecting the intellectual property of others, yet, in fact, sanctioned smuggling of protected knowledge on a huge scale. American investors and mechanics also adapted imported technology to local circumstances.
Doron S. Ben-Atar
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300100068
- eISBN:
- 9780300127218
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300100068.001.0001
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Economic History
This book focuses on intellectual piracy and presents an interpretive study of the American appropriation of forbidden European know-how from the perspective of a diplomatic historian of the early ...
More
This book focuses on intellectual piracy and presents an interpretive study of the American appropriation of forbidden European know-how from the perspective of a diplomatic historian of the early republic. The technology and the manner in which Americans acquired it came in three forms that were never quite independent of one another. First, there was the knowledge itself—the mechanical and scientific discoveries that made innovations possible. Second, there were the innovations that improved existing production processes and allowed for the creation of new products that were smuggled across the Atlantic Ocean. Third, and most important, were the workers who immigrated to North America, bringing with them the professional training they had acquired in Europe's factories. These three distinct historical phenomena constitute a unified problem from the perspective of the relations among states—namely, the rules and boundaries of national ownership of intellectual property on the international scene. The book focuses on the role policies relating to intellectual property played in promoting the appropriation of smuggled technology, which led to the emergence of the United States as the premier industrial power in the world. It discusses the evolution of the American approach to the problem of the relations between international boundaries and intellectual property from the colonial period to the age of Jackson, examines the role of federal and state governments in that transformation, and explains the contradictory American policy.Less
This book focuses on intellectual piracy and presents an interpretive study of the American appropriation of forbidden European know-how from the perspective of a diplomatic historian of the early republic. The technology and the manner in which Americans acquired it came in three forms that were never quite independent of one another. First, there was the knowledge itself—the mechanical and scientific discoveries that made innovations possible. Second, there were the innovations that improved existing production processes and allowed for the creation of new products that were smuggled across the Atlantic Ocean. Third, and most important, were the workers who immigrated to North America, bringing with them the professional training they had acquired in Europe's factories. These three distinct historical phenomena constitute a unified problem from the perspective of the relations among states—namely, the rules and boundaries of national ownership of intellectual property on the international scene. The book focuses on the role policies relating to intellectual property played in promoting the appropriation of smuggled technology, which led to the emergence of the United States as the premier industrial power in the world. It discusses the evolution of the American approach to the problem of the relations between international boundaries and intellectual property from the colonial period to the age of Jackson, examines the role of federal and state governments in that transformation, and explains the contradictory American policy.
