Competing Research Traditions in American Industry: Uncertain Alliances between Engineering and Science at Westinghouse Electric, 1886-1935

Westinghouse Electric opened a new research laboratory nearthe company’s main factory in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,in 1916. Located in the suburban borough of Forest Hills, thelaboratory was set up to provide scientific knowledge for theolder materials testing and product development laboratoriesat the factory. Unlike its industrial counterparts, however,the Forest Hills laboratory was dominated by a strong engineeringresearch tradition that disrupted efforts undertaken in the1920s and again in the 1930s to build and sustain a diversifiedfundamental research program. Whereas Eastman Kodak, DuPont,AT&T, and General Electric had successfully integrated fundamentalresearch into their corporate laboratories, the Forest Hillslaboratory remained the site of recurring tensions between twocultures of innovation—one based on fundamental science,the other on engineering research. Although such tensions oftenresulted in competing research strategies, managerial conflicts,and mismatched corporate priorities, the long-standing cultureof engineering research contributed far more to Westinghouse’sstrategic growth than even the most advanced fundamental research.More generally, the interactions between the cultures of engineeringand science that characterize the early history of industrialresearch at Westinghouse highlight the evolving and sometimesconflicting patterns of technological innovation and organizationalchange in American industry before World War II.