GE History Books

[Brian D. McCary]

> From owner-pynchon-l at sfu.ca Wed Jun 21 21:07 CDT 1995
> From: <LOT64 at aol.com>

>                                       Ron Churgin
> 
> ps: I still have yet to find any generally available history book on GE.
> Especially dealing with the war years.  GE is one of the largest US
> corporations and one of the most influential with a history going back to
> Edison.  Can it be that no one has wanted to write a book on them?  Has GE
> tried to discourage books about itself?  Maybe I'm not looking in the right
> places?  Anyone with any info?
> 

Two books were written, commissioned by GE.  They are

"Men and Volts, The Story of General Electric" by John Winthrop Hamond,
copyright 1941, published by JB Lippincot,

"Men and Volts At War", by John Anderson Miller, 
copyright 1947, published by the Whittlesey House div. of McGraw Hill.

M&V covers Edison's birth to about 1922, and At War covers WWII (suprise!!).
The good part is both men had access to plenty of internal documents, and
were commissioned by a company so convinced of it's moral rectitude that 
little overt censoring appears to have gone on.  The bad part is that they
tend towards a combination of smarmy writing of the "aren't these people 
wonderful, gee whiz, what will they come up with next!!" and dry, old-school
fact-listing history book writing.  

No ISBN or LOC #'s were on my copies.  I doubt they are still in print.  GE
could have hunted all the general circulation copies down like Benny the Bulb,
but I doubt it.  Specifically, try the Schenectady (NY) and Albany (NY) county
libraries.  

Best of luck

Brian