Steen, Kathryn

Steen, Kathryn. Wartime Catalyst and Postwar Reaction The Making of the US Synthetic Organic Chemicals Industry, 1910-1930 (Unpublished PhD dissertation. University of Delaware, 1995). 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Steen, Kathryn. 

Steen, Kathryn. Confiscated Commerce American Importers of German Synthetic Organic Chemicals, 1914-1929. History and Technology 12 (1995) 261-84. 

Another challenge to coordination common both to the 18th century and 1914-18 was the lack of experience on the part of government, military and civilian. In the Seven Years War, reforms were protracted. But even in the 20th century, problems sometimes took years to work out. This is brought out by Kathryn Steen, in relation to the history of US Ordnance, Patrice Bret on the laboratories of the artillery and the powder administration, and Nathan Brooks on Russia. Britain seems to have suffered less initially from this problem, but the government did have to go outside British industry to secure the American Kenneth B. Quinan from South Africa, to be the arch-designer of their scaled-up plants. 

Kathryn Steen, an historian of technology, is an associate professor of histoy at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Her interests centre on the relationship between government and industry, and on trans-national exchanges and comparisons. She is author of Wartime Catalyst The Making of die U.S. Synthetic Organic Chemicals Industry, 1910-1930 (University of North Carolina Press, fothcoming). 

Verena Schrdter, Kathryn Steen, and Gerhard Kiimmel have used such archives ... 

Louis Galambos and Jeffrey L. Sturchio, "Transnational investment The Merck experience, 1891-1925," in Hans Pohl, ed.. Transnational investment from the nine-teenth century to the present (Stuttgart, 1994), 227-243 and Kathryn Steen, "Confiscated commerce American importers of German synthetic organic chemicals, 1914-1929," History and technology, 12 (1995), 261-285. 

Kathryn Steen, "Wartime catalyst and postwar reaction The making of the U.S. synthetic organic chemicals industry, 1910-1930," (Ph.D. Dissertation., University of Delaware, 1995). 

As the reader may have guessed by now. Gravity s rainbow, like Pynchon s other novels, is a book about paranoia. It is certainly no surprise when a book about World War II and the immediate post-war period has paranoia as its main theme that LG. Farben is one of the main characters. The I.G., with its technical wizardry and complex web of international business relationships, lurks behind the scenes throughout the book. And it is clear that this fictional portrayal of the firm and its dealings has a certain accuracy, as the contributions of Mira Wilkins and Kathryn Steen attest. 

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