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In T R o d u c T Io n : Th e so u R c e s o f we a p o n s In n o v a T Io n 5
small but steadily growing network of research universities supported by the
personal fortunes of wealthy industrialists, such as Andrew Carnegie and John
D. Rockefeller. From these humble beginnings emerged a domestic scientific
community that, by 1940, had already assumed international standing in the
physical sciences, especially in the new fields of atomic, nuclear, and solid-state
physics. Similarly in the case of industry, many large manufacturing companies
had established centralized research laboratories after 1900 to capitalize on the
latest developments in these and other scientific and engineering disciplines. 8
The military services aggressively tapped this diversified academic and industrial
knowledge base during World War II, and they would continue to do so after the
war was over, to meet evolving weapons requirements.
The rapid postwar growth of the civilian research infrastructure matched
the continued diversification of key sectors of the industrial economy into
the defense business. The huge demand for war materials had prompted
businesses across the country to add manufacturing capacity (at government
expense) for everything from aircraft parts and optical equipment to torpedoes
and artillery shells. Although many companies jettisoned or closed their
military operations after 1945 and prepared to re-enter civilian markets,
others chose to remain in the defense business by purchasing governmentowned
production facilities built during the war. The firms pursuing this
latter strategy were as diverse as the defense markets they served. Some
companies, such as the aircraft and electrical equipment manufacturers, had
always provided hardware to the military services, even during peacetime, and
they simply added more capabilities to these core businesses. In other cases,
firms that had cut their teeth on military contracts during the war viewed
the rapid growth potential in new defense markets as an effective means to
offset cyclical behavior in existing civilian product lines. Typically, such firms
diversified into defense-related fields through outside acquisitions or by
expanding their internal R&D operations. The latter strategy was especially
common in large, science-based corporations during the early years of the
8 On the rise of research universities and the growth of the scientific and engineering communities in
the United States, see, for example, Daniel J. Kevles, The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community
in Modern America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987); Helge Kragh, Quantum
Generations: A History of Physics in the Twentieth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999);
John W. Servos, Physical Chemistry from Ostwald to Pauling: The Making of a Science in America (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1990); Laurence R. Veysey, The Emergence of the American University (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1965); Roger L. Geiger, To Advance Knowledge: The Growth of American
Research Universities, 1900–1940 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Robert E. Kohler, Partners
in Science: Foundations and Natural Scientists, 1900–1945 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991);
and Bruce Seely, “Research, Engineering, and Science in American Engineering Colleges, 1900–1960,”
Technology and Culture 34 (April 1993): 344–86. On the growth of science-based industries and the
corresponding expansion of corporate research and development, see Alfred D. Chandler Jr., Strategy and
Structure: Chapters in the History of the American Industrial Enterprise (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press,
1962); Chandler, The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge, Mass.:
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1977); David A. Hounshell, “The Evolution of Industrial
Research in the United States,” in Engines of Innovation: U.S. Industrial Research at the End of an Era, ed.
Richard S. Rosenbloom and William J. Spencer (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1996); and John
Kenly Smith Jr., “The Scientific Tradition in American Industrial Research,” Technology and Culture 31
( January 1990): 121–31.