OF THE MOHAWK-HUDSON REGION
by Jack H. Westbrook
Robert B. Gordon, PhD, Professor, Department of Geology and Geophysics,
Kline Geology Laboratory, Yale University, has this to say about Material Memories:
From colonial times onward the Albany area's metals and materials industries served national needs. Here ironworks began with bloomery forges and blast furnaces using charcoal fuel, and in the first half of the nineteenth century advanced to the puddling furnaces and rolling mills that utilized mineral coal provided by the Delaware & Hudson Canal. Later they adopted the pneumatic steel process developed in Troy by Alexander Holley. In the twentieth century Albany area industries made sophisticated, high-tech materials conceived in the Rensselaer, General Electric, and other laboratories. In this book Jack Westbrook gives us an overview of the area's mines, materials production, and the fabrication of its varied products that ranged from X-ray tubes to massive locomotives. Because he is a distinguished materials scientist, Dr. Westbrook brings a particularly valuable talent to his task. Historians can often discover records of finances and sales left by businesses, but information is very sparse on the actual techniques used in the materials industries. Artisans and workers whose skills were required in the making and shaping of materials rarely wrote about what they did. Visitors to a forge, foundry, or laboratory could describe the actions of workers, but usually lacked the vocabulary to record reliably the technological processes being carried out. Description is especially difficult in metallurgical works, where the processes occurring within furnaces are invisible. Jack's expert knowledge of materials enables him to give us unmatched insights on the accomplishments of the Albany area's natural resources and its artisans, inventors, and scientists.
Meet the author, Dr. Jack H. Westbrook
See the book's index
$15.00 paperback--A Purple Mountain Press original
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