TINKERS AND GENIUS

The Story of the Yankee Inventor, satisfyingly examines the influences and factors that helped make the New England tiskers and geniuses the men they were. Stretching in time from the early settlements to the 19th century and in inventions from the water wheels and stone mills to vulcanized rubber and the sewing machine, Mr. Fuller's is a devoted study and at all times inductive. Whether speaking of Franklin or Howe or Leonard and the early iron forgeries, his method of defining their actions is a searching one that begins from scratch rather than with the accomplishment itself to become a mere chronology. Definitions of results seem rather the natural outcomes of thoughtfully described events. To establish an over all definition of Yankee inventiveness, Mr. Fuller contrasts it first with Puritan characteristics and by the contrast makes its individuality and spirited independence all the more evident. Other trends too, towards the industrial revolution and its economic ends, makes this series of social biographies a substantial contribution to American history. One misses a closer analysis of foreign factors but the American, at least, is here.