Whitney, Amos

SUBJECT AREA: Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering, Weapons and armour

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b. 8 October 1832 Biddeford, Maine, USA

d. 5 August 1920 Poland Springs, Maine, USA

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American mechanical engineer and machine-tool manufacturer.

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Amos Whitney was a member of the same distinguished family as Eli Whitney. His father was a locksmith and machinist and he was apprenticed at the age of 14 to the Essex Machine Company of Lawrence, Massachusetts. In 1850 both he and his father were working at the Colt Armory in Hartford, Connecticut, where he first met his future partner, F.A. Pratt. They both subsequently moved to the Phoenix Iron Works, also at Hartford, and in 1860 they started in a small way doing machine work on their own account. In 1862 they took a third partner, Monroe Stannard, and enlarged their workshop. The business continued to expand, but Pratt and Whitney remained at the Phoenix Iron Works until 1864 and in the following year they built their first new factory. The Pratt \& Whitney Company was incorporated in 1869 with a capital of $350,000, Amos Whitney being appointed General Superintendent. The firm specialized in making machine tools and tools particularly for the armament industry. Pratt \& Whitney was one of the leading firms developing the system of interchangeable manufacture which led to the need to establish national standards of measurement. The Rogers-Bond Comparator, developed with the backing of Pratt \& Whitney, played an important part in the establishment of these standards, which formed the basis of the gauges of many various types made by the firm.

Amos Whitney was made Vice-President of Pratt \& Whitney Company in 1893 and was President from 1898 until 1901, when the company was acquired by the Niles- Bement-Pond Company: he then remained as one of the directors. He was elected a Member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1913.

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Further Reading

J.W.Roe, 1916, English and American Tool Builders, New Haven; reprinted 1926, New York, and 1987, Bradley, Ill. (describes the origin and development of the Pratt \& Whitney Company).

RTS