The Emergence of Basic Research in the Bell Telephone System, 1875-1915

DR. HODDESON, senior research physicist in the Physics Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is also the archivist-historian at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois. The present article is part of a detailed investigation into the historical development of the basic solid-state physics program that led to the discovery of the transistor. The author would like to thank Charles Gillispie for the initial encouragement of this program; Spencer Weart, Charles Weiner, Joan Warnow, Gordon Baym, George Schindler, Mort Fagen, Arthur Norberg, and three reviewers for Technology and Culture for valuable criticism; Carl Thurmond, Joseph Burton, Philip Platzman, Viola Graeper, Michael Majorossy, Bernard English, Mary Lynn Toto, and Young Hi Quick for generous research help throughout; and Stanley Goldberg and Gerald Tyne for useful correspondence. She would also like to acknowledge assistance from the American Institute of Physics Center for History of Physics, Princeton University (Program in History and Philosophy of Science), Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, Rutgers University (Physics Department), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Physics Department), and the American Council of Learned Societies.