An entrepreneurial opportunity in process: creating an industrial fellowship in early twentieth century America

Abstract

This paper offers insight into the processes by which a pair of entrepreneurial actors envisioned and articulated their model for an industrial fellowship scheme designed to address their mutual needs, interests, and strengths. I employ the framework of ‘the new entrepreneurial history,’ which focuses on ‘the processes through which actors, individually and collectively, pursue uncertain future forms of value,’ to analyze the formation of an industrial fellowship research system as it developed in 1906 through a body of correspondence between a chemist, Robert Kennedy Duncan, and a businessperson, E. Ray Speare. The close-reading of these letters provide a clear view into the complex dance of ideation between these entrepreneurial actors as they imagined new opportunities for their fields, assembled resources, negotiated terms for information sharing, and crafted narratives and structures to foster legitimacy.

Keywords:

• Sense-making
• opportunity creation/identification/exploitation
• correspondence as a source
• narrative creation and use
• models of innovation in research organization

Acknowledgements

I am deeply grateful to Daniel Wadhwani, Joris Mercelis, Gabriel Galvez-Behar, and Anna Guagnini for their team effort bringing our work together and shaping this special issue. I would also like to thank Anne McCants, and JoAnne Yates for their continued support and guidance. Thank you also to the anonymous reviewers for their insight and constructive feedback. Of course this article would not be possible without the staff of the Carnegie Mellon University Library and their Mellon Institute collection.

Notes

1. Records pertaining to the Alden Speare’s Sons Co. especially the properties owned and managed in Cambridge are located at the Cambridge Historical Trust.

2. ‘E. Ray Speare to R.K. Duncan October 8, 1906,’ in Carnegie Mellon University Archives, Mellon Institute Documents, Box 209, ff7664.

3. ‘E. Ray Speare to R.K. Duncan October 8, 1906.’

4. Ibid. ‘the actual process of washing, the actual chemistry, of the laundry business has had but little attention. It has been taken for granted that the old process of washing, bleaching and bluing the good was right and the only marked advance has been in the turning out of higher grade product to perform these functions with little or no careful chemical attention to the actual improvement of the process itself.’

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

11. ‘R.K. Duncan to E. Ray Speare October 13, 1906’ in Carnegie Mellon University Archives, Mellon Institute Documents Box 209, ff7664.

12. ‘R.K. Duncan to E. Ray Speare October 13, 1906.’

13. Adolf Frank (1834–1916) studied chemistry at the University of Berlin and earned his PhD at University of Gottingen. He is most well known for inventing a process to fix atmospheric nitrogen along with Nicodem Caro. Based on this work, he founded Cyanid Gesellschaft in 1899 with the support of Deutsche Bank, Siemens & Halske, and Deutsche Gold und Silber Scheideanstalt. The formation of this company is what Duncan is relaying to Speare. While Duncan does not get the details about Frank’s career quite correct, the main point that he trying to convey to Speare that in this German case there is a close and productive connection between banks, corporations, and individual scientists. Cyanid Gesellschaft, was not yet profitable at the time when Duncan was telling this anecdote. It was only after World War I that the company became commercially successful. Frank’s personal papers are located at Leo Baeck Institute Center for Jewish History in New York – the finding aid is accessible online at: https://findingaids.cjh.org.

14. ‘R.K. Duncan to E Ray Speare November 10, 1906’ in Carnegie Mellon University Archives, Mellon Institute Documents Box 209, ff7664.

15. ‘R.K. Duncan to E Ray Speare October 13, 1906’ in Carnegie Mellon University Archives, Mellon Institute Documents Box 209, ff7664.

16. ‘R.K. Duncan to E Ray Speare October 13, 1906.’

17. Ibid.

18. ‘R.K. Duncan to E Ray Speare February 7, 1907’ in Carnegie Mellon University Archives, Mellon Institute Documents Box 209, ff7664.

19. ‘R.K. Duncan to E Ray Speare October 13, 1906.’

20. Ibid.

21. ‘E. Ray Speare to R.K Duncan October 31, 1906.’

22. Ibid.

23. Ibid.

24. Ibid.

25. ‘R.K. Duncan to E Ray Speare November 10, 1906’ in Carnegie Mellon University Archives, Mellon Institute Documents Box 209, ff7664.

26. ‘R.K. Duncan to E Ray Speare November 10, 1906.’

27. Ibid.

28. Ibid. ‘The only possible hitch to a practical arrangement of this very important matter for American industry is this question of secrecy, and I am hoping that the compromise of the matter that I have suggested will be acceptable to you.’

29. ‘E. Ray Speare to R.K. Duncan November 21, 1906’ in Carnegie Mellon University Archives, Mellon Institute Documents Box 209, ff7664.

30. ‘R.K. Duncan to E Ray Speare October 13, 1906.’

31. ‘R.K. Duncan to E Ray Speare October 13, 1906.’

32. ‘E. Ray Speare to R.K Duncan October 31, 1906.’

33. ‘E. Ray Speare to R.K Duncan December 10, 1906’ in Carnegie Mellon University Archives, Mellon Institute Documents Box 209, ff7664.

Alden Speare was one of the original founders of Boston University, and former president of its board of trustees. He was also a former president of the Boston chamber of commerce and associated board of trade. E Ray Speare noted, ‘in regard to your proposed article for the North American Review … any expression you might deem wise to make in reference to this fellowship and our connection with it, would of course, be very much appreciated by us and we should be much pleased to have you mention our name in connection with this in any way you see fit.’

34. ‘E. Ray Speare to R.K Duncan November 10, 1906’ in Carnegie Mellon University Archives, Mellon Institute Documents Box 209, ff7664.

35. ‘E. Ray Speare to R.K Duncan November 10, 1906.’

36. Ibid.

37. Ibid. Duncan described his views of the problems facing industrial leaders, ‘when they want “good men,” and they always do, they do not know where to apply for them, and when they are confronted with chemical problems, and what industry isn’t, they don’t know what to do with these problems.’

38. Ibid.

39. ‘R.K. Duncan to E. Ray Speare December 5, 1906’ in Carnegie Mellon University Archives, Mellon Institute Documents Box 209, ff7664. Duncan also reminded Speare ‘the University is entering upon this work solely for the purpose of increasing useful knowledge and that in order to do this it is extending help to you.’

40. ‘R.K. Duncan to E. Ray Speare December 5, 1906’.

41. A phosphoprotein commonly found in milk.

42. A hard white endosperm of seeds from palm trees that resembles ivory.

43. A naturally occurring hydrocarbon resin found in northeastern Utah.