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The Rise of an Inventive Profession: Learning Effects in the Midwestern Harvester Industry, 1850–1890

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

John Nader
John Nader
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Economics and History at State University of New York, Delhi, NY 13753.
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Abstract

This article makes use of nearly one thousand patents to trace the origins and evolution of professional invention in the midwestern harvester industry. These data indicate that professional inventors had become integrated into the industry by the 1870s. This unity of business and invention made firms loci of learning and fostered the rise of a market in technology through which patents and patentees became available.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 54 , Issue 2 , June 1994 , pp. 397 - 408
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1994

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References

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