YALE SENIOR INSPECTION TRIP FOR MECHANICAL AND INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERS. MARCH 27 - APRIL 3, 1929 [typescript title]

[New Haven, 1929].. [3],66,[3] leaves of typescript, text on recto only, plus two inserted sections of typed notes, eleven leaves containing programs or pamphlets, two leaves containing four photo-postcards, and one large photograph. Original blue cloth. Front hinge heavily cracked, cloth fraying, board nearly detached. Corners heavily worn. Contemporary manuscript corrections to typescript. Internally clean. Most of the tipped-in pamphlets in very good or better condition. A unique and interesting typescript documenting a Yale senior trip to visit various industries. The author, A.R. Dunning, Class of 1929, writes in the Foreword:

"In writing my reminiscenes [sic] of the inspection trip, I am afraid that I have not followed a definite enough course of procedure, but have allowed myself to wander about aimlessly, writing what I felt when and how it pleased me....And I am sure that I will better appreciate my own childish viewpoints herein expressed, when, as an old man I look back and find one tangible evidence of my college life, than to discover that the transportation facilities of National Dog Biscuit were insufficient thirty years ago."

He does, however, thank Professor Seward and the rest of the faculty for organizing the trip and for their excellent choice of the industries visited.

The trip covered four states (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Michigan) and included visits to fourteen businesses: AT&T; Wright Aeronautical Corp.; Edison Laps Works & Lighting Institute of General Electric; Hardwick & Magee Wilton Rugs & Carpets; High Pressure Pumping Station; Sears, Roebuck; Carnegie Steel Co. Rolling Mills Homestead Plant; Carnegie Steel Co. Blast Furnaces; Carnegie Steel By-Product Coke Plant; Universal Portland Cement Co.; Westinghouse Electric & Mfg. Co.; Cadillac Motor Car Co.; and Ford Motor Co. Dunning gives brief reports about each industry and expresses his youthful opinions. He comments that at AT&T there were perhaps too many people on the payroll, "a great number of men roaming about the halls seemingly unattached from any responsibility in the company yet no doubt adding considerably to the cost of operation." Recognizing production was not the primary consideration in a research lab, he nevertheless has trouble understanding "why an organization as efficiently managed and modernly equipped as the American Telephone and Telegraph Company should permit itself the folly of supporting a research laboratory so loosely controlled and so haphazardly operated." Wright Aeronautical Corp. fared a bit better: "an outstanding example of modern industrial development." Dunning could imagine himself working for Westinghouse, though he concludes about the Edison Lamp Works: "while our visit here was very interesting in a negative sort of way, the guides seemed to take us for a ladies' sewing circle, which had come to see all the pretty lighting arrangements."

Dunning studied Mechanical Engineering at Yale. Some of the items tipped into this volume include an 8 x 11-inch group photograph of the students and professors on the trip posed in front of Westinghouse; a brochure advertising the Wright "Whirlwind Engine," showing some of the planes in which it was used; four photo postcards of the Ford Motor Co. in Detroit; several programs for banquets, including speakers and menus; several other pieces on the Wright engine and aeronautics; and promotional brochures for some of the companies visited.