Lenny Reich

Education

B.S. Mechanical Engineering (Bucknell)

B.A. Mathematics (Bucknell)

M.A. (Colby College)

Ph.D. History of Science and Technology (Johns Hopkins University)

Areas of Expertise

• Petroleum industry history and policy issues

• Management of technological innovation

• Energy history and policy issues

• History of technology and business history

Personal Information

Lenny Reich has an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Ph.D. in the History of Technology from Johns Hopkins University. He has held major fellowships at the Smithsonian Institution, Harvard Business School, and the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology (at MIT). Professor Reich worked for a number of years on the Papers of Thomas A. Edison at Rutgers University before coming to Colby in 1986.

His research interests have been in the history of the electrical industry, especially the combination of science, technology, and business that have made companies such as General Electric and AT&T potent forces over the last hundred years; and recently in the history of transportation, with emphasis on the business and environmental consequences of technological change.

Publications

“Mirror-Image Attitudes: Enthusiasm for Cars and Trucks in America, 1895-1915,” in Robert Friedel and Paul Israel, eds., Forces Totally New: Novelty, Technology, and Culture, 1890-1910, The MIT Press.

“Motor Trucks and Modernity: Technology, Transportation, and the Changing American Economy, 1898-1918,” (in progress)

“Ski-Dogs, Pol-Cats, and the Mechanization of Winter: A History of Snowmobiling in North America,” Technology and Culture, July 1999.

“From the Spirit of St. Louis to the SST: Charles Lindbergh, Technology, and Environment,” Technology and Culture, April 1995.

“Lighting the Path to Profit: GE’s Control of the Electric-Lamp Industry, 1892-1941,”Business History Review, Summer 1992.