The shows and the flows: materials, markets, and innovation in the US
machine tool industry, 1945–1965

https://tinyurl.com/ybta7qzr

History and Technology
Vol. 25, No. 3, September 2009, 257–304
ISSN 0734-1512 print/ISSN 1477-2620 online
© 2009 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/07341510903083245
http://www.informaworld.com

Philip Scranton* Taylor and Francis
 GHAT_A_408497.sgm 10.1080/07341510903083245
 History and Technology 0734-1512 (print)/1477-2620 (online) 
Original Article 2009 Taylor & Francis 253000000
September 2009 
PhilipScranton scranton@camden.rutgers.edu

Machine tools may be fundamental to metalworking industrial economies, but their Cold
War era history in the US has rarely been assessed over the last generation. A quarter
century after David Noble’s crucial and critical Forces of Production, perhaps a broadgauged assessment may be timely. This essay aims to offer two theses for discussion.
First, it seems that a sector whose enterprises once specialized in one or more tool types
reconfigured itself into clusters of firms servicing automotive-based automation
demands, aeronautical/aerospace precision and flexibility needs, or providing
specialized auxiliary components, especially instrumentation and controls. Second,
cascades of new industrial materials and processes generated both opportunities for and
constraints on tool firms, as innovations facilitated users’ substituting, for example,
plastics for metals or material-forming for metal-cutting, quietly shifting the technical
and market foundations. Such dynamics set the stage for US machine tool enterprises’
decline as the Cold War ebbed, but they did not chiefly derive from technological
deflections deriving from military contracting.

Keywords: machine tools; automobiles; aeronautics; military contracts; automation;
precision; numerical control

Six Epigraphs

Never have there been so many technical advances made in so short a time as during the past

four years of war, and it is safe to say that the design of machine tools has advanced at least

fifty years in that time. (H.E. Linsley, Machine Tools Editor, Iron Age, January 1946)1

Out of the research on alloy steels, necessitated by the many and rapid advances in aircraft

design during the war, has come the superalloys. These were developed to furnish necessary

high strength at high temperatures. To a considerable extent, the veil of secrecy surrounding

these important developments has been lifted during the past year. (J.M. Hodge and M.A.

Grossman, R&D Division, Carnegie–Illinois Steel, October 1946)2

A recent trend has been to subordinate the clear-cut distinction between general-purpose and

single-purpose machine tools … first in order to obtain the savings of high production techniques on smaller lots and secondly to install equipment adaptable to change in design of the

product. (American Machinist, March 1946)3

Where Taylor had hard, medium, and soft steel, and hard, medium and soft cast iron to

machine, the present-day field covers literally thousands of types of steels and nonferrous

metals …. There are many carbon and alloy steels, plain and alloyed cast irons, malleable and

pearlitic irons, and many high- and low-strength nonferrous metals of copper, aluminum, zinc,

and magnesium, and a great variety of types and forms of nonmetallic plastics. Dozens of these

metals are now being machined at hardnesses not even thought of by Taylor. (Orlan Boston,

College of Engineering, University of Michigan, April 1946)4

The advance noted between the 1947 and the 1955 machine tool shows was unbelievable. If

the industry continues this trend, and there is every indication that it will, who can say what

lies ahead? (George H. Johnson, President, Gisholt Machine Co., February 1956)5

Since the end of World War II, dual trends appear dominant in metalworking. One is toward

greater productivity and more automatic operation. The other is for greater precision and reliability. Spur to the first are the vast production demands of the auto industry. The second may

be in response to the needs of defense: higher-speed aircraft, missiles and space projects. But

resulting improvements are spilling over into all industry. (E.R. Eshelman, Associate Editor,

Iron Age, August 1960)6