Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T03:56:35.070Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Thomas Midgley and the Politics of Industrial Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Stuart W. Leslie
Stuart W. Leslie
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of History, Rochester Institute of Technology
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The conventional distinctions between “practical” and “scientific” research and development can be misleading. The experience of Thomas Midgley, Jr., at the General Motors Corporation in the three decades before World War II, and especially his critical role in the development of “antiknock” gasoline additives, freon refrigerant, and synthetic rubber, illustrate this fact. Dr. Leslie demonstrates that the management of corporate research and development, especially as that management affects uniquely talented individuals whose interests do not necessarily reflect the immediate needs of the company as seen by management, is basic to success. To solve such problems as they arose, Charles F. Kettering, himself a sympathetic scientist as well as distinguished inventor, worked closely with chief executive Alfred P. Sloan, whose genius for solving managerial problems matched the scientific genius of the most brilliant men in the General Motors laboratories.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 54 , Issue 4: Business History and the History of Technology , Winter 1980 , pp. 480 - 503
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1980

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Midgley, Thomas, “Critical Examination of Some Concepts in Rubber Chemistry,” Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, 34 (July, 1942), 891.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Layton, Edwin, “Mirror Image Twins: The Communities of Science and Technology in 19th Century America,” Technology and Culture (October, 1971), 562–580.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Kettering, Charles F., “Thomas Midgley, Jr. 1889–1944,” National Academy of Sciences, Biographical Memoirs, 24 (1947), 361.Google Scholar

4 Thomas Boyd, “The Early History of Ethyl Gasoline” (unpublished manuscript, Kettering Archives, General Motors Technical Center), Warren, Michigan, 2.

5 Lynwood Bryant's as yet unpublished work on engine knock, is an important source for much of the information on TEL. I thank Professor Bryant for sharing it with me.

6 Midgley, Thomas and Boyd, Thomas, “Methods of Measuring Detonation in Engines,” SAE Journal, 10 (January, 1922), 7.Google Scholar

7 Brittain, James, “C. P. Steinmetz and E. F. W. Alexanderson: Creative Engineering in a Corporate Setting,” Proceedings, Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (September 1976), 1415.Google Scholar

8 Layton, “Mirror Image Twins,” 579.

9 Boyd, “The Early History of Ethyl Gasoline,” 5.

10 Sloan, Alfred, My Years with General Motors (New York, 1965), 223.Google Scholar

11 Boyd, “The Early History of Ethyl Gasoline,” 8.

12 Interview with Fred W. Davis and R. V. Hutchinson, Kettering Archives Oral History Project, March 10, 1947, 363 (Kettering Archives).

13 Thomas Boyd, Laboratory Report, July 19, 1919 (Kettering Archives).

14 Chandler, Alfred and Salsbury, Stephen, Pierre S. du Pont and the Making of the Modern Corporation (New York, 1971).Google Scholar

15 Boyd, “The Early History of Ethyl Gasoline,” Appendix II.

16 Midgley, Thomas, “From the Periodic Table to Production,” Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, 29 (January, 1937), 242.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 Boyd, “The Early History of Ethyl Gasoline,” 112.

18 The New York Times, October 31, 1924, 1.

19 Hamilton, Alice, Journal of the American Medical Association, 84 (May 16, 1925), 1481.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 Boyd, Thomas, Campbell, John, Lovell, Wheeler, “Detonation Characteristics of Some Paraffin Hydrocarbons,” Industrial and Engineering Chemistry (January, 1931), 26ff.Google Scholar Part of a series of papers, each examining one hydrocarbon fuel group. Other papers appeared in the same journal in May 1931, October 1933, May 1934, and October 1934.

21 Alfred Sloan to Charles Kettering, January 18, 1926 (Kettering Archives). Copies of many of these letters are also available as part of the Trial Transcript of U.S. vs. E. I. du Pont de Nemours, United States District Court, Northern Illinois District, Eastern Division, 1953.

22 Ibid.

23 Charles F. Kettering to Alfred Sloan, December 23, 1925 (Kettering Archives).

24 Weil, Richard, “Synthetic Rubber,” Industrial and Engineering Chemistry (November, 1926), 1176.Google Scholar

25 Burgdorf, C. C., “Artificial Rubber During the War in Germany,” Industrial end Engineering Chemistry (November, 1926), 1174.Google Scholar

26 Geer, William, “Future Commercial Prospects for Synthetic Rubber,” Industrial and Engineering Chemistry (November, 1926), 1136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27 James McEvoy to Alfred Sloan, March 11, 1926 (Kettering Archives).

28 Ibid.

29 Alfred Sloan to James McEvoy, March 15, 1926 (Kettering Archives).

30 Ibid.

31 Alfred Sloan to Lammot du Pont, January 21, 1927 (Kettering Archives).

32 Lammot du Pont to Alfred Sloan, January 25, 1927 (Kettering Archives).

33 Alfred Sloan to Lammot du Pont, January 21, 1927 (Kettering Archives).

34 Alfred Sloan to Pierre S. du Pont, February 3, 1927 (Kettering Archives).

35 Alfred Sloan to Lammot du Pont, January 21, 1927 (Kettering Archives).

36 Alfred Sloan to Lammot du Pont, February 3, 1927 (Kettering Archives).

37 Midgley, Thomas, “Natural and Synthetic Rubber I,” Journal of the American Chemical Society, 51 (April, 1929), 1215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 Ibid., 51 (April, 1929), 1294.

39 Ibid., 53 (January, 1931), 203.

40 Ibid., 54 (August, 1932), 3381.

41 Ibid., 56 (May, 1934), 1156.

42 Ibid., 56 (June, 1934), 1325.

43 Ibid., 59 (December, 1937), 2501.

44 Alfred Sloan to J. Brooks Jackson, February 3, 1927 (Kettering Archives).

45 Alfred Sloan to Thomas Midgley, March 8, 1927 (Kettering Archives).

46 James McEvoy to John Pratt, December 3, 1927 (Kettering Archives).

47 Thomas Midgley to Alfred Sloan, September 5, 1928 (Kettering Archives).

48 Ibid.

49 Ibid.

50 Sloan, My Years with General Motors, 355.

51 Ibid., 356.

52 Donaldson Brown, “Report on Operations of Kinetic Chemicals, Inc.,” internal report to General Motors Policy Committee, October 1944 (Kettering Archives), 6.

53 Ibid.

54 Ibid., 7.

55 Thomas Midgley, “From the Periodic Table to Production,” 244.

56 Midgley, Thomas and Henne, Albert, “Organic Fluorides as Refrigerants,” Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, 25 (1930), 544.Google Scholar

57 Thomas Midgley, “From the Periodic Table to Production,” 245.

58 Thomas Midgley and Albert Henne, “Organic Fluorides as Refrigerants,” 543.

59 Ibid.

60 E. G. Biechler to John L. Pratt, July 31, 1929 (Kettering Archives).

61 Boyd, Thomas, “Thomas Midgley, Jr.,” Journal of the American Chemical Society (June, 1953), 2794.Google Scholar

62 Brown, “Report on Operations of Kinetic Chemical, Inc.,” 11.

63 General Motors Memorandum, June 28, 1930 (Kettering Archives).

64 “Progress Report on Fluorides,” General Motors Patent Department, June 26, 1930 (Kettering Archives).

65 Brown, “Report on Operations of Kinetic Chemicals, Inc.,” 14.

66 Layton, “Mirror Image Twins.”

67 Sloan, My Years With General Motors, 252.

68 Charles F. Kettering, Direct Testimony, U.S. vs. E. I. du Pont de Nemours, United States District Court, Northern Illinois District, Eastern Division, 1953, 3604.

69 Sloan, My Years With General Motors, 99–116.

70 Thomas Midgley, “From Periodic Table to Production,” 244.

71 Rae, John, The American Automobile (Chicago, 1965), 242.Google Scholar

72 The New York Times, November 3, 1944, 21.