Books in the Lemelson Center Studies in Invention and Innovation enhance public understanding of humanity's inventive impulse. Authors in the series raise new questions about the work of inventors and the technologies they create, while stimulating cross-disciplinary dialogue. By opening channels of communication between the various disciplines and sectors of society concerned with technological innovation, the Lemelson Center Studies advance scholarship in the history of technology, engineering, science, architecture, the arts, and related fields, and disseminate it to a general interest audience.
The Lemelson Center Studies series is co-edited by Joyce Bedi, Arthur Daemmrich, and Arthur Molella, and published by the Smithsonian's Lemelson Center in association with the MIT Press.
Potential authors are invited to submit book proposals for the series at any time. For further information, contact Joyce Bedi.
The Lemelson Center Studies in Invention and Innovation series is supported in part by Barbara Hiatt in honor of Father John Scott, mentor and former President of St. Martin’s University, who had a deep love of American History.
Books in the Series:
American Independent Inventors in an Era of Corporate R&D (2021) explores how America's individual inventors persisted alongside corporate R&D labs as an important source of inventions.
By Eric S. Hintz
Available from MIT Press
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/american-independent-inventors-era-corporate-rd
Beyond Bakelite: Leo Baekeland and the Business of Science and Invention (2020) reveals the changing relationships between science and industry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, illustrated by the career of Leo Baekeland, often dubbed the “father of plastics.”
By Joris Mercelis
Available from the MIT Press
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/beyond-bakelite
Handprints on Hubble: An Astronaut’s Story of Invention (2019) explores a vital but overlooked chapter in the Hubble Space Telescope’s story—the period from 1984 to 1990 during which she was part of a small band of engineers who turned general notions of on-orbit maintenance into the concrete stuff of the tools, training materials, and procedures.
By Kathyrn D. Sullivan, a former astronaut and the first American woman to walk in space
Available from the MIT Press
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/handprints-hubble
Does America Need More Innovators? (2019) is a critical exploration of today's global imperative to innovate, by champions, critics, and reformers of innovation.
Edited by Matthew Wisnioski, Eric S. Hintz, and Marie Stettler Kleine
Available from the MIT Press
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/does-america-need-more-innovators
The Early American Daguerreotype: Cross-Currents in Art and Technology (2016) recounts the activities of the unexpected mix of fine artists, inventors, scientists, and mechanical tinkerers who transformed the daguerreotype into a new way to see the world.
By Sarah Kate Gillespie
Available from the MIT Press
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/early-american-daguerreotype
The Color Revolution (2012) offers a fresh perspective on the myriad ways innovations in color affect our lives, revealing innovators’ interactions with science, industry, and art that influenced consumer choice and business practice.
By Regina Lee Blaszczyk
Available from the MIT Press
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/color-revolution
Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age (2009) reveals the vibrant, complex, and intriguing woman whose career paralleled the meteoric trajectory of the postwar computer industry.
By Kurt Beyer
Available from the MIT Press
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/grace-hopper-and-invention-information-age
Invented Edens: Techno-Cities of the Twentieth Century (2008) traces the design of "techno-cities" that blend the technological and the pastoral.
By Robert H. Kargon and Arthur P. Molella
Available from the MIT Press
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/invented-edens
Internet Alley: High Technology in Tysons Corner, 1945-2005 (2008) looks at how government military contractors and high-tech firms transformed an unincorporated suburban crossroads into the center of the world's Internet management and governance.
By Paul Ceruzzi
Available from the MIT Press
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/internet-alley
Power Struggles: Scientific Authority and the Creation of Practical Electricity Before Edison (2008) traces the development of electrical technologies that laid the foundation for Edison’s work: their invention, commercialization, and adoption.
By Michael Brian Schiffer
Available from the MIT Press
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/power-struggles
Inventing for the Environment (2003) describes the many ways in which invention affects the environment.
Edited by Arthur Molella and Joyce Bedi
Available from the MIT Press
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/inventing-environment
Forthcoming Titles:
- American Bridge: Inventing Structure, Building Nations by Gregory Dreicer considers the ways in which the lattice, internationally recognized as American, sparked an exchange of ideas that enabled the explosive growth of transportation networks, inspired 19th-century builders to transform traditional construction processes, and led to some of the most extraordinary spans ever built.
- Every American an Innovator by Matthew Wisnioski examines the cultural history of innovation’s ascendance in the United States by analyzing the myriad ways that the imperative to innovate has had far-reaching consequences that continue to structure contemporary life.
- Reinventing the Wristwatch: From a Mechanical to an Electronic World by Carlene Stephens explores both the technical and human dimensions of introducing the electronic wristwatch in the context of the Cold War.
- The Synthetics Revolution by Regina Lee Blaszczyk examines the history of synthetics and their impact on American material life in the long twentieth century, starting with the British and French inventors of the first man-made fibers in the Victorian period and ending in our own globalized era with worries about the impact of artificial materials on the environment
