William David Coolidge: A Centenarian and His Work

This book was written by a GE colleague of Dr. Coolidge and focuses on Coolidge's career at GE - and what a career it was. In 1905, Dr. Coolidge was the first person hired as a staff member of the GE Research Lab. Initially, he served part time both at GE and on the faculty of MIT. His first GE assignment was to develop a way of making tungsten ductile enough to be fabricated into a light bulb filament. His success formed the basis of the GE lighting business. He then went on to develop tungsten x-ray targets, which formed the basis of the GE medical systems business. Most of the book centers on this work with tungsten. In addition to being one of the most important contributors to GE businesses, Dr. Coolidge also was the head of the Research Lab from 1932 until his retirement from that post in 1945, but his involvement with GE did not end then. He continued to consult well into his late 90's - he died at age 102. As noted, this book was written by GE colleague of Dr. Coolidge. It is very short; less than 100 pages, and is much more of a personal book than one written by an academic or popular historian. It is contains numerous photographs. This is not a book of general interest, but should be of interest to those interested Dr. Coolidge, the history of GE and the use of tungsten for light bulbs and x-ray targets.