The decade after 1945 saw substantial changes at the General Electric Research Laboratory in Schenectady both in the way in which research was done and in the people doing the research. The passing of the generations at a research laboratory in a small city in Upstate New York reflected a broader change undergone after World War II by all of American science. Science and technology had helped win the war. Scientists and engineers now appeared to be the bulwarks of national defense and the preservers of national prosperity. In the heady postwar climate, no one worried much about where science ended and where technology began. There was enough for both. Inventions and innovations launched before or during the war—televisions, plastics, atomic energy, electronics, computers—now loomed as huge and expanding opportunities. A person who had embarked on a career in science now had a wide choice of well‐paying jobs in government or industry.

Topics
Atomic energy, Careers and professions, Industry, News and events, Laboratories
1.
C. G. Suits, Interview with GE News Bureau, 14 March 1946, on file at GE R&D Center, Schenectady, New York.
2.
E. W. Layton, Conditions for Technological Development, in Science, Technology and Society, a Cross Disciplinary Perspective, I. S. Rosing, D. de Solla Price, eds., Sage, Beverly Hills, Cal. (1971).
3.
K. Birr, Pioneering in Industrial Research, Public Affairs Press, Washington (1957).
For other perspectives on prewar industrial research, see G. Wise, PHYSICS TODAY, July, 1976, p. 9;
and L. Hoddeson, PHYSICS TODAY, March, 1977, p. 23.
4.
C. G. Suits, Biographical File, GE R&D Center.
5.
C. G. Suits, G. K. Harrison, L. Jordan, eds., Applied Physics: Electronics, Optics, Metallurgy, Science in World War II Series, Little Brown, Boston (1948).
6.
G.
Gaines
,
Thin Solid Films
,
99
,
ix
(
1983
).
Crossref
Search ADS
 
7.
B. S. Havens, J. E. Jiusto, B. Vonnegut, Early History of Cloud Seeding, New Mexico Inst. of Technology, Socorro, New Mexico (1978).
8.
H. C.
Pollock
,
Am. J. Phys.
51
,
278
(
1983
).
Crossref
Search ADS
 
9.
H. C. Pollock and K. H. Kingdon, Pioneering in the Atomic Age, GE Res. Lab. Bull. (Summer, 1965) p. 9.
10.
J. R. Stehn, The Story of the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, Memo JRS‐5, Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, 24 April 1952;
R. G. Hewlett, F. Duncan, Atomic Shield, US AEC Washington (1972), especially p. 120.
11.
Interview with V. Wilson, 28 October 1977.
12.
L. Hawkins, Biographical File, GE R&D Center.
13.
Interview with C. G. Suits, 28 April 1981, GE R&D Center.
14.
Interview with F. Bundy, 19 September 1975, GE R&D Center.
15.
Interview with V. Wilson, 28 October 1977, GE R&D Center;
V. Wilson, “Recollections of the Early Days of the Atomic Age,” Address to the Northeastern New York Section, Am. Nuc. Soc. 7 December 1967.
16.
Interview with H. Strong, 10 June 1980, GE R&D Center.
17.
Interviews with H. Hurwitz, Jr, 7 April 1978;
J. Lawson 10 July 1980;
J. Burke, 20 March 1981, GE R&D Center.
18.
Information on new employees at the GE Research Lab taken from the “Who's New” column of the GE Research Lab News for 1946.
19.
M. Graham, The Corporate Laboratory as Entrepreneur: the RCA Experience, paper delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the History of Technology, 21 October 1983.
This content is only available via PDF.
© 1984 American Institute of Physics.
1984
American Institute of Physics
You do not currently have access to this content.