On General Electric and Irving Langmuir: When General Electric (GE) formed in 1892, Thomas Edison had already decided to abandon the electrification business and move on to motion pictures. He spent a majority of the 1880s installing direct current (DC) electrification systems for commercial buildings like J. P. Morgan's investment firm at 23 Wall Street. But his original 1879 patent for the incandescent light bulb was expiring, so GE sought to improve (and hopefully re-patent) it. To accomplish such a feat, GE established the nation's first corporate research and development (R&D) laboratory in 1901. The primary problem with Edison's light bulb lay in its carbon filament, which produced a blackened film around the inside of the bulb when lit. As a chemist who did part of his doctoral research on light bulbs, Irving Langmuir (pictured above) understood this problem well. GE hired him in 1909 to work in their R&D lab, and thus, Langmuir began experimenting with different filament materials to make the light bulb more efficient. He settled on tungsten because it has a very high melting point, and therefore, would not produce any unwanted by-products when lit for long periods of time. With Langmuir's tinkering, GE was able to re-patent the light bulb and avoid financial ruin.
On the Springfield Armory: From 1777 to 1968, the Springfield Armory stored ammunition (gunpowder) and produced weapons (guns and bayonets) for the U.S. Army. Founded at the request of General George Washington, the first weapon designed and manufactured at the Armory was a flintlock musket in the 1790s. But why Springfield, Massachusetts? The town was far enough inland (along the Connecticut River) to avoid a coastal attack and it had easy access to commodities such as water and timber. Its location permitted military officers and skilled craftsman to work in a secure and semi-isolated environment. Yet as the demand for weapons grew, Armory operators quickly realized that they could not rely on the hands of gunsmiths alone. In the 1820s, the Armory adopted the newly invented Blanchard lathe, which was a machine developed for cutting irregular shapes (mostly from wood). And by the Civil War, the Armory was producing around 1,000 guns per day. Other technological improvements to gun design that occurred at the Armory during the 19th century included percussion locks (1840s), breech loading (1860s), and bolt-action magazines (1890s). The main advantage behind these improvements resided in the ability to fire more rounds per minute. Also, guns from the Armory were present in World War I and II, as the M1903 Springfield rifle and John Garand's M1 semi-automatic rifle were standard issue for American soldiers.
On the Boston Manufacturing Company: When Francis Cabot Lowell returned from England in 1812, he set out to establish the first integrated textile mill in the United States. An integrated mill meant one which contained power looms alongside power carding and spinning machines (Samuel Slater's Pawtucket mill only had power spinning capabilities). The power, of course, came from a waterfall's gravitational force, such as the Moody Street Dam on the Charles River in Waltham, Massachusetts (pictured above). For Lowell, the Boston Manufacturing Company's primary goal was to produce a low-cost, coarse-fiber cotton fabric. The ideal market for this cotton fabric included farmers, factory workers, and slaves. But the real genius of Lowell's business model centered on its vertical integration of the textile industry. To integrate vertically, Lowell saw the need to convert raw cotton directly into a usable fiber. The only "X" factors in the integration process resided in the production of raw cotton (Southern slaves) and the demand for textiles (advertising). By 1815, Nathan Appleton and others had convinced Lowell of the need to create demand through marketing. They also believed the entire company hinged on the effectiveness of its power looms, because that was where the highest fixed costs existed. Workers could be hired and fired, but debt repayments for the power looms had to be consistent.
On the Waves of Imperialism: Did Europe, especially Britain and France, purposefully under-develop Africa? That is one of the primary questions which historians have been debating for decades. To contextualize this question, historians generally divide the history of imperialism into two waves. The first wave began with the Portuguese invasion of Morocco (Battle of Ceuta) in 1415 and ended around 1830 when France invaded Algeria. Lasting roughly 400 years, this wave included everything from Columbus, the Conquistadors, and the "Age of Discovery" to Napoleon's armies marching across Europe. The primary economic ideology behind this imperialistic wave was mercantilism, and the sole purpose of such a system was to make the state wealthy. Mercantilism, which put merchants at the center of its scheme to acquire markets, drove the trading of anything from gold and guns to slaves and sugar. But what changed in the mid-nineteenth century to cause historians to identify a "second wave" of imperialism? More countries and new technologies (Quinine, Maxim gun, etc.) got involved, as nationalism and industrialization encouraged new players to join the game. Thus, the second wave included nations like Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the United States. Ultimately, it lasted from 1830 to the post-World War II period when many African and Asian countries gained their independence.
On Mandatory Minimum Sentencing: When Congress passed the Boggs Act of 1952, the United States entered the realm of mandatory sentencing. More specifically, the Boggs Act called for minimum prison terms and maximum punishable fines for people found in possession of marijuana. Thus, mandatory sentencing began as a means to deter the sale and use of a drug. But by the mid-1980s, the criminalization of drugs went into hyper-drive. With the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, Congress enacted a variety of new mandatory sentences for drugs including cocaine, marijuana, and MDMA (ecstasy). Perhaps the biggest change in federal drug policy at the time was the heightened emphasis on the punitive instead of the rehabilitative. The state had effectively tossed aside judicial discretion (in certain circumstances) and cast an "unequal gaze" (as Foucault would say) toward the perpetrator. It was a "modernization of punishment" according to government officials. It was also a grand experiment in transparency, making it known to citizens that if you commit "X," you will receive "X's" punishment. And although mandatory sentences started in response to drugs, they have since spread to cover nearly all felonies, as states like California have adopted a "three-strikes law," which has dramatically increased incarceration rates. As a result, the U.S. has become a prison-industrial complex where cheap criminal labor helps sustain corporate profit margins.
