The history of Brown & Sharpe turns out to be not only an important technological and economic story, but also a fascinating human story. Joseph Brown, the founder, was a skilled clockmaker-turned-machine-maker who invented new machines, and new ways to make things, as needed. Samuel Darling was an eccentric inventor from Maine, a one-time competitor who joined the firm and brought with him his prized dividing engine. The Sharpes-Lucian, his son Henry, and grandson Henry, Jr.- guided the firm for more than a century, and shaped not only the company, but also the global machine tools industry.
Gerald Carbone’s history of Brown & Sharpe tells these stories, bringing the people to life, putting them into the context of Rhode Island’s and the nation’s history, and the history of technology and the political economy of the United States. Brown & Sharpe’s story is the story of the American Industrial Revolution. But Carbone does much more than tell a dry story of machines and money, of innovative design and engineering, profit and loss. The real story here is the human one, encompassing more than a century-and-a-half of technological change, labor history, and public policy, culminating in history’s longest strike. How did the owners and managers negotiate the ever-changing economy, rapid technological change, changing expectations about work and pay? How did the men and women who worked at the firm learn their skills and organize their work to produce and market a dazzling array of measuring devices, sewing machines, machine tools? How did the firm help shape the city, the nation, indeed modernity as we live it today?