Metal Fatigue: American Bosch and the Demise of Metalworking in the Connecticut River Valley

摘要

From the early decades of the nineteenth century through the 1950s, manufacturing industries that relied on a community of skilled artisans flourished in the Connecticut Valley, the region between New Haven, Connecticut, and Springfield, Vermont. Here were found firms such as Winchester and Colt that still have immediate name recognition, as well as less-well-known companies, such as Jones & Lamson or Van Norman, which supplied vital machine tools for American industry. In the decades following 1960, most of these industries declined or departed. The well-paying jobs and community support they provided withered. Innovative tool-making companies, started by talented engineers, passed through second- or third-generation family members and then to absentee owners.