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EVOLUTION OF AMERICAN ENGINEERING 30 Forces Affecting Development Societal Demand for Goods and Services. On a large-scale this "demand-pull" appears to have been the primary driver of technology development, and particularly of growth in established technologies. Demand by towns and cities for municipal water supply systems in the post-Colonial period, for example, was based on the general recognition that such systems were available. Civil engineering expanded through the demand for this and other public improvements; and technology advanced as engineers adapted and improved the associated hydraulic pumps and turbines. Similarly, the need of railroads for a means of message transmission led to the telegraph, which was then adopted as a more general medium of communication. The Civil War intensified the demand for improved transportation and communications systems, leading to a burst of inventiveness that then stimulated business and thus the entire technology development process; electrical and mechanical engineering were specific beneficiaries. High demand for automobiles in the period after World War I is another example of societal demand driving the direction and rate of engineering development. Each particular demand translates into a demand-pull on manpower as well, resulting in the establishment of an educational system or new components suitable for imparting the needed skills and knowledge. But societal demand based on available technology and clearly defined wants should be distinguished from potential, as-yet-unrecognized demand. Undeveloped Societal Demands. Often the demand for a product or a service is latent; that is, were a suitable technology available and recognized, demand would appear. In modern times, perceiving these unexpressed needs is often the function of marketing analysts. During earlier periods it was the inventor/entrepreneur himself who identified the latent demand and developed the technological means to fulfill it. Thomas Edison, for example, after an early experience of failure in marketing a device he had invented, always thereafter identified a market before pursuing an idea (Pursell, 1981). The success of the "automated" reaper was likewise due to McCormick's accurate assessment of a need for greater harvesting capacity in the face of a farm labor shortage. Charles Kettering, the legendary director of General Motors' Research Laboratory, owed his phenomenal success to an ability to anticipate the product that "people never knew they wanted until it was made available to them" (see appendix). Once identified and addressed, such hidden needs rapidly translate into demand that further stimulates development.
