American Machinist History.

JL Sargent · Jun 29, 2006

I have American Machinist publications dating back to 1946. I really enjoy the older ones. They provide a great history lesson about machine tool technology. Im curious how American Machinist got its start and how long ago?

rivett608 · Jun 29, 2006

American Machinist, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1877......

for some history and a good read.... check out the book "60 Years with Men and Machines" by Fred Colvin..... he was the first editor of AM and these are his stories.... and it's even in reprint by Lindsay.

Bob - AM Publisher · Jun 29, 2006

The first issue of American Machinist was published in November 1877. It was a monthly broadsheet newspaper with a paid circulation of 5,000. It said:
"To keep our readers informed as to the most important and valuable of inventions within the scope of machinery, giving suitable illustrations of new objects and discursive reviews of the same, is one of the prime objectives of the American Machinist."

Around 1885 (the exact date is lost to us), American Machinist launched a new feature called "Letters from Practical Men." It consisted of tricks, techniques and innovations, submitted in writing from readers. The name of that feature was changed to "Ideas from Practical Men" and -- during WWII -- to "Practical Ideas", which today stands as one of the oldest continuously run features of any magazine in the United States.

As a point of trivia, the game "Trivial Pursuit" credits American Machinist with coining the term "automation."

Obviously, with 128 years of history, I could go on. But I've got to get back to tending to the 129th.

Bob Rosenbaum
Publisher

JL Sargent · Jun 29, 2006

Wow, thats a long time to be in print. Rivett, I looked for that book in my Lindsay Catalog but did not find it. Ill have to get a copy of that one and maybe find me a couple of the 1900ish AM publications. Thanks for the info.

Bob - AM Publisher · Jun 29, 2006

Sixty Years with Men & Machines: It's rare. You're going to need to find a good bookstore that specializes in old books on Americana or business topics.
Amazon.com comes up with it, for $79.00.

JL Sargent · Jun 29, 2006

I bought one on Ebay for $14.95 + $3.50 shipping. Thought that was reasonable. They have 2 more and its item # 200001365720 if anybody else wants a look see. You can put that in the search window to get there.

rivett608 · Jun 29, 2006

JL Here is just a sample from that book..... just love they way he describes things........ and this is just "cool" summer time reading....

JL Sargent · Jun 29, 2006

I have a vision of a watchmaker fitting two tiny gears with boxing gloves on. Looks like fun reading. Thanks for the suggestion.

Carl Darnell · Jun 30, 2006

The American Machinist Handbook was first published in October 1908. I have a second edition 1914 and a seventh edition 1940. I like the old handbooks and such before 1940. There is a lot of interesting info in the old books.

northernsinger · Jul 2, 2006

I bought an original copy--funny locution--of Colvin's partly ghost written autobiography several years ago and thought quite well of it.

This was a numbered edition, and signed and inscribed by the author, in 1947. It is possible that all of the original edition were likewise handled. Sometime later, the inscription and signature in my copy were roughly erased, for some reason I can't know.

The passge that Rivett provides describes the interior and winter working conditions of a 3rd Street Philadelphia workshop in about 1880. This was a location I was pretty familiar with 80-90 years later, when it still held some workshops.

The cold I became used to from Vermont farm worhsops and tractor sheds.

Northernsinger

jlegge · Jul 3, 2006

Is there an archive of American Machinist Magazines?

I been doing some historical reseach and this would be a great asset to be able to use.

John

Bob - AM Publisher · Jul 4, 2006

John,
American Machinist doesn't have a publicly available archive; we have a history of most copies in our office, but are not staffed to manage it for public access.

Our electronic copies go back five years ( AmericanMachinist.com) . I know that many larger libraries have complete or nearly complete editions archived on microfiche.

Carl Darnell · Jul 4, 2006

northernsinger, no I don't think the books were signed by the authors at least neither of mine are. I would guess that your book was at a book store signing or the owner of the book met the author and asked him to sign it. I think that would be an interesting book to have. I am still looking for the 1908 first edition. I am interested to compair it to my 1914 second edition.

Bob, AM publisher, do you know when they quit printing the American Machinist Handbook?

Bob - AM Publisher · Jul 4, 2006

Bob, AM publisher, do you know when they quit printing the American Machinist Handbook?

I don't, off the top of my head. We'll look into it and report back.

Stephanie · Jul 4, 2006

Bob,

I wonder if you have considered making select old issues available on CD-ROM? Once you get the pages scanned, it costs almost nothing to make copies of the CD. Perhaps you could take advance orders on this board? (You would have to include a Table of Contents for the articles you would include...) It would be interesting to see what level of interest there would be for such a thing...

There are companies that specialize in this hardcopy-to-CD conversion.

Bob - AM Publisher · Jul 4, 2006

Stephanie,
Thanks for the idea. We hadn't thought of that.
Right now our hands are very full with our new benchmarking study, through which we developed standardized "key performance indicators" for machine shops. If you measure against these indicators, we now have a database that can help determine where you're doing well and where you need to improve operations. That's been a large project and makes ideas like the CD-ROM the kind of thing that we need to put into the future. But it will be well worth considering.

railfancwb · Jul 5, 2006

Several years ago, National Geographic put all its issues onto a set of CDs. Don't remember where, but I do remember an article which went into great detail concerning the methodology. As I recall, many magazine pages required multiple scans for optimum rendering -- one for text (and maybe B&W line drawings, another for B&W pictures, still another for color pictures, maybe still another for maps and other color line art.

Today, they would no doubt use the DVD format -- possibly even the double depth variation.

Going forward, with many magazines being produced for printing electronically, it should be even easier to provide CD or DVD copies.

Charles

Bruce -- AM Editor · Jul 5, 2006

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Do you know when they quit printing the American Machinist Handbook?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The last one was published sometime in the late 1970s. 1978 or 1979.
There is a long history here, but the short answer is that American Machinist once was owned by McGraw-Hill, and McGraw-Hill had separate magazine and book publishing divisions.

The Handbook was published by the book division, and McGraw-Hill latedr sold the the magazine, which changed hands several times before being purchased by Penton Media.

So, we, at Penton Media, never had the Machinist's Handbook and, as far as I can tell, McGraw-Hill still owns the rights to the name, but it's not being published anymore.

northernsinger · Jul 5, 2006

Carl, re your yesterday's post, I was not referring to the Machinist's Handbook--which I think you are--but to Colvin's autobiography, 'Sixty Years with Men and Machines,' published by Whittlesey House (which was a division of Mcgraw-Hill) in 1947.

My copy certainly does appear to have been signed, inscribed to someone, and then erased.

Northernsinger

Toolbert · Jul 12, 2006

I have an interesting American Machinist' book here, "Extracts from Chordal's Letters", printed in 1883. It's a 400 page hardcover anthology of "Chordal's Letters to the American Machinist" from 1881 to 1883. The author is James W. See aka Chordal and it includes a photo plate of the author, signed in fountain ink.

The contents are amazing ... it is primarily a book of business management advice. For example, is electric lighting worth the cost, or do we stick with whale oil. How do you train managers, how do you treat your employees and customers right, how do you deal with recalcitrant customers, to build a good business over the long term ... 80% of this book applies today, some things just don't change. Yes there is practical machining advice but aimed more at the shop owner not the individual.

A reprint of a later edition is available through Amazon.

American Machinist History.

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