ABSTRACT
Despite the short time the war lasted, and the inability to get innovations into production, World War I did have an impact on American science. To a large extent, industrial research in America dates from World War I. The scientists who had experienced this in World War I were the ones who would shape the institutions of American science in the 1920s and 1930s. The significant industrial research laboratory in American industry was established by Thomas Edison in Menlo Park, New Jersey, using the profits he made from sale of telegraph equipment to Western Union. Research in the Bell Telephone System also began before World War I. Coolidge was also responsible for further improvements in tungsten lamp filaments, which not only strengthened General Electric Company’s (GE’s) market position but won Coolidge the Rumford Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
