The Mind of Whitney

Wallis Whitney, the pioneer of research and development laboratories, carried into his world of science the belief that all the old knowledge and even the definitions of invention were enemies of progress.  He saw his role as director of the lab at General Electric as following the opening of acceptable new ideas, watching the growth of thought in the minds and hands of investigators.  A research laboratory, Whitney said, "was not where assignments were fulfilled, but the art of profiting from unexpected occurrences."  Habit and procedures were an obstacle to the pursuit of the unknown in Whitney's mind.

In the area of current thought of his time, it was believed that streetcars would one day reach into every alley of every town in America, and that electric lighting was the final improvement in street lighting.  Whitney, however, saw a future with new modes of transportation that were far more efficient than the street car.  On electricity, he wondered if there might be some way of putting "phosphors" into the cement of the roadways and highways to collect and store cheap daylight and use it at night to make the streets safer and travel easier.  He believed it would make street lighting obsolete.

Whitney had that kind of mind, and became the apostle of the industrial research lab which would grow and flourish in the coming decades with giants of the industrial world.  Electricity was just the beginning.

Next time...Industrial R&D flourishes
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Today in Pioneer History: "On May 21, 1881, Clara Barton and Adolphus Solomons found the American Red Cross, an organization established to provide humanitarian aid to victims of wars and natural disasters.  Barton, was known as the "angel of the battlefield" during the Civil War, and afterwards was commissioned to search for lost prisoners of war by President Lincoln. The American Red Cross received it first federal charter in 1900.  Barton headed the organization into her 80s and died in 1912.  Hats off to nurses everywhere!