Joseph Brown, founder of Brown & Sharpe, was a skilled clockmaker who invented new machines, and new ways to make things. Samuel Darling, an eccentric inventor from Maine, joined up and brought with him his engine for marking precise graduations on measuring instruments. Lucian Sharpe, with his son Henry and grandson Henry, Jr., guided the company for more than a century--and along with it the global machine tools industry. The men and women of Brown & Sharpe produced and marketed a dazzling array of measuring devices, machine tools and precision machinery. They truly helped shape Rhode Island, the nation and the modern world. The history of Brown & Sharpe covers more than 150 years of technological development, labor history and public policy, culminating in history's longest strike.

Picking up where The Makers of Modern Rhode Island left off, Dr. Patrick T. Conley, president of the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame, takes us through the golden age of the state's history, from 1861 to 1900. It was during this period that Rhode Island played a leadership role in the Industrial Revolution. From military leaders like General Ambrose Burnside to social reformers such as Sarah Elizabeth Doyle and architects Charles F. McKim and Stanford White, they ensured that the state's contributions to the nation would never be forgotten. This volume includes more than one hundred biographical sketches of influential Rhode Islanders who helped make this brief span of time the greatest in the state's history.

Arming the World tells the story of the American small arms industry from the early 1800’s through the post-Civil War era. Almost from the beginning, the United States produced arms in new, and radically different, ways, relying upon machinery to mass produce guns when others still made them by hand. Leveraging their technological advantage, American gun-makers produced guns with interchangeable parts and perfected new types of small arms, ranging from revolvers to repeating rifles. The federal government’s staggering purchases of arms during the Civil War stimulated the development of fast-firing breech-loading rifles and metal-cased ammunition. When, in 1865, it became clear that every country in the world had re-equip itself with modern weapons, the Americans had an overwhelming head start. Salesmen from Remington, Winchester, Colt and Smith & Wesson --- and from lesser-known firms, too – traveled the world marketing their guns, dominating – or, perhaps, even inventing – the international arms business. American gun-makers sold rifles and side-arms by the millions and cartridges by the billions to great powers, restive colonies and fading empires alike. Adding a new element to the unstable global balance of power, American gun-makers affected the course of history.

The evolution of the United States from a late-18th century coalition of rebel British colonies to a 21st century global superpower was shaped by several forces. As the nation expanded its boundaries after the Treaty of Paris confirmed independence from Great Britain in 1783, it acquired a rich variety of resources – coal, fertile soils, forests, iron ore, oil, precious metals, space, and varied climates as well as extensive tracts of territory. Technological innovations, such as the cotton gin and steam power, enabled entrepreneurs to exploit those resources and create wealth. Federal and state legislators provided environments in which the economy could flourish, and military strategists kept the country safe from external attack. Diplomats negotiated commercial agreements with foreign governments and cultivated multinational alliances that strengthened freedoms. Through its focus on the people and places that shaped the country’s economic and political development and its detailed accounts of the processes that enabled the U.S. to expand across the continent Historical Dictionary of the United States contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 400 cross-referenced entries on important personalities as well as aspects of the country’s politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the United States.

A sweeping biography of one of the most influential and successful business-women in American history, BECOMING ELIZABETH ARDEN opens the Red Door to a world of wealth, glamor, and the profitable business of beauty Elizabeth Arden was a household name on six continents and a millionaire several times over before her death in 1966. Arden counted British royalty and social elites from the overlapping worlds of New York, Hollywood, London, and Paris among her clients. She revolutionized skin care and cosmetics, making it acceptable for all women to embrace glamour and wear makeup—not just actresses and prostitutes. She created a successful international business empire before women gained the vote and at a time when virtually no woman owned or ran a national company. She developed the first luxury spa and insisted on a holistic understanding of health and beauty. Unconventional and driven, Arden fervently believed that every woman could be beautiful. Acclaimed biographer Stacy Cordery does full justice to one of America’s greatest entrepreneurs. Canadian-born Florence Nightingale Graham turned herself into Elizabeth Arden, using her uncanny sense of the possible to take full advantage of everything New York City offered, building her company and becoming one with her brand. In an astounding rags-to-riches tale, Elizabeth Arden came to personify sophistication and refinement. Her hard work and innovation made makeup, fitness, and style not only acceptable but de rigueur. Arden prospered throughout the Depression, reimagined women’s needs during two World Wars, and by pioneering new approaches to marketing and advertising, ushered beauty into the modern era. Cordery delivers a compelling picture of a modern CEO whose career provides a model for aspiring businesses to this day.

In the 1960s transitioning from acting to politics was rare. Ronald Reagan was not the first to do it, but he was the first to jump from the screen to the stump and on to credibility as a presidential contender. Reagan’s transformation from struggling liberal actor to influential conservative spokesman in five years—and then to the California governorship six years later—is a remarkable and compelling story. In Becoming Ronald Reagan Robert Mann explores Reagan’s early life and his career during the 1950s and early 1960s: his growing desire for acclaim in high school and college, his political awakening as a young Hollywood actor, his ideological evolution in the 1950s as he traveled the country for General Electric, the refining of his political skills during this period, his growing aversion to big government, and his disdain for the totalitarian leaders in the Soviet Union and elsewhere. All these experiences and more shaped Reagan’s politics and influenced his career as an elected official. Mann not only demonstrates how Reagan the actor became Reagan the political leader and how the liberal became a conservative, he also shows how the skills Reagan learned and the lessons he absorbed from 1954 to 1964 made him the inspiring leader so many Americans remember and revere to this day. Becoming Ronald Reagan is an indelible portrait of a true American icon and a politician like none other. Purchase the audio edition.

This book provides a compact history of gears, by summarizing the main stages of their development and the corresponding gradual acquisition of engineering expertise, from the antiquity to the Renaissance and the twentieth century. This brief history makes no claim to be exhaustive, since the topic is so extensive, complex and fascinating that it deserves an entire encyclopedia. Despite its brevity, the book debunks a number of popular misconceptions, such as the belief that the first literary description of a gear was supplied by Aristotle. It disproves not only this myth, but also other peremptory statements and/or axiomatic assumptions that have no basis in written documents, archaeological findings or other factual evidence. The book is chiefly intended for students and lecturers, historians of science and scientists, and all those who want to learn about the genesis and evolution of this topic.