Benjamin A. Gorman
Battison, Edwin. “Eli Whitney and the Milling machine,”
Smithsonian Journal of History
. 1, No. 2 (Summer, l966), 9-34. Analytical study of Whitney’s musket; gives credit to Robert Johnson for the milling machine’s invention.
Battison, Edwin. “A New Look at the ‘Whitney’ Milling Machine,”
Technology and Culture
14 (October, 1973), 592-98.
Revised his earlier findings and credits Simeon North with the first milling machine.
Blake, William P.
History of the Town of Hamden, Connecticut
. New Haven: Price, Lee and Co., 1888.
Contains many original sources; good for Whitneyville background.
Blake, William P. “Sketch of Eli Whitney,”
Papers of the New Haven Colonial Historical Society
Vol. V (1894), 109-131.
Burlingame, Roger.
Machines That Built America
. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1953. Very readable; check pp. 34-68 for Whitney.
Chandler, Alfred D.
The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business
. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977. Excellent account of the development of the American business system.
Dawley, Alan.
Class and Community
. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976.
Explains now the factory system shaped clauses of people.
Giedon, Siegfried.
Mechanization Takes Command
. New York: Oxford University Press, 1948.
An account of the relationship between workers and machines.
Green, Constance M.
Eli Whitney and the Birth of American Technology
. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1956.
Basic biography; positive treatment of Whitney’s personality, life and accomplishments.
Hartley, Rachel M.
The History of Hamden, Connecticut: 1786-1950
. Hamden: The Shoe String Press, Inc., 1959.
Hindle, Brooke.
Technology in Early America
. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1960.
Contains a good bibliography.
Jones, Stacy V.
Inventions Necessity Is Not The Mother Of
. New York: Quadrangle, 1973.
An entertaining review of patented inventions, famous and obscure, practical and bizarre. Should be fun to use in class.
Knight, Michael. “Industrial Archaeology: A “Dig” for Eli Whitney,”
New York Times
. July 28, 1975.
Explores how archaeology may help in recent historical investigations of Eli Whitney.
Larsen, Egon. A
History of Invention
. New York: Roy Publishers, 1961.
A survey but contains details of work at Whitney’s gun factory.
Mirsky, Jeannette and Allen Nevins.
The World of Eli Whitney
. New York: MacMillan, 1952.
Basic biography; tells the story of his invention largely in his own words; good pre-1952 bibliography, some documents.
Mueller, Robert E.
Inventivity: How Man Creates in Art and Science
. New York: The John Day Company, 1963.
Excellent for dealing with ideas, creativity and the concept of invention, with discussion of machines of the future.
North, S.N.D. and Ralph North.
Simeon North: First Official Pistol Maker of the U.S
. Concord, New Hampshire: Rumford Press, 1913.
The descendants claim that Simeon North made the first milling machine and used interchangeable parts.
Olmsted, Denison. “Memoir of the Life of Eli Whitney, Esq.,” American Journal of Science and Arts. XXI, No. 2 (January, 1832) 201-254.
Early biography of Whitney that used many original interviews.
Osterweis, Rollin G.
Three Centuries of New Haven, 1638-1938
. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953.
Not much information on Whitney, but provides an excellent background for development of New Haven, its industry and commerce. A reference for students doing Quest Activity 14.
“Preservation of the Eli Whitney Gun Factory Site and Its Potential Development as An Historical Site Museum.” Report prepared by Davis, Cochran, Miller, Noyes-Architects for the New Haven Colonial Historical Society, November, 1974. Contains an archeological report on the excavations and a history of the construction of the Gun Factory, 1798 through 1860 and after.
Smith, Merritt Roe.
Harper’s Ferry Armory and the New Technology
. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977.
Covers development of technology at Harper’s Ferry; claims actual interchange ability happened there.
Smith, Merritt Roe. “John H. Hall, Simeon North and the Milling Machine: The Notion of Innovation among Antebellum Area Makers,”
Technology and Culture
. 14 (October, 1973), 573-591.
Covers men working on machine tools, their exchange of ideas and the development of the milling machine.
Thompson, Holland.
The Age of Invention
. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1921.
Two chapters of note: “Eli Whitney” and “Pioneers of the Machine Shop.”
Wigginton, Eliot. ed.
Foxfire V
. New York: Anchor Press, 1979.
Excellent articles and pictures on the making of flintlock rifles.
Woodbury, Robert.
The History of the Milling Machine
. Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1960.
Chapters 1 and 2 are a good guide to technological development; credits Robert Johnson of Middletown with the first milling machine but states that Whitney’s machine was a superior one.
Woodbury, Robert. “The Legend of Eli Whitney and Interchangeable Parts,”
Technology and Culture: An Anthology
. Melvin Kransberg and William H. Davenport eds. New York: Schocken Books, 1972, 318-335.
Woodbury reviews the role of Whitney in history; revises his earlier book claiming that Whitney did not originate or achieve actual interchangeability; stated that he did not invent a milling machine and concludes that “Whitney was just perhaps one of several men of genius....”