Biographies

Carnegie, Andrew James Watt New York, Doubleday, Page, 1905. 241 pages.
A biography by one of America's great industrialists. It should not be surprising that successful people like Carnegie studied the lives of other successful people. This biography is also available online.

Law, Rodney James James Watt and the Separate Condenser, London H.M.S.O., 1969. A Science Museum (Great Britain) monograph. 46 pages.

Marshall, Thomas H. James Watt (1736-1819), London, 1925. This biography is also available online.

Sproule, Anna James Watt, Exley Publications, Herts, UK, 1992. Easy to read for the late elementary or middle school. Lots of photos and pictures. 64 pages.

Robinson, E, Musson, A.E. James Watt and the Steam Revolution, Adams and Dart, London, 1969. 228 pages.

Steam Engine Bibliography

Thomas Savery, A Miner's Friend, available online.

Robert H. Thurston, A History of the Growth of the Steam-Engine originally published 1878, Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell University Press; London, H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1939. 490 pages. Thurston was a professor of mechanical engineering, and this book has detailed descriptions of the engines from Watt's time and later, as well as Watt's other inventions. The book includes a good description of the valve mechanism of the Boulton and Watts Albion Mills engines and the parallel motion device. Available online, although the online version suffers some character display problems.

Robert Stuart, A Descriptive History of the Steam Engine, London, J. Knight and H. Lacey, 1824. 228 pages. Stuart was a civil engineer. Stuart gives a lot of detail on the the operational details of the engines and the portion on Watt occupies about 45 pages in the center of the book. Savery's pump, Newcomen's early pump, and Watt's pumps are described in some of the best detail compared to other books listed here.

Web Sites

Newcomen and (Watt) engine This site is from a professor who visited the Henry Ford museum and provides photos of some of the same Newcomen and Boulton-Watt pumps displayed on this web site.

History of steam engines This site has an overview of the history of steam engines. One of the highlights is the animations linked below:

Newcomen engine This page offers an extremely brief history, but has a wonderful animation of an early Newcomen engine in action so that you can watch the steam, water and piston. The engine illustrated here is one of the older style Newcomen engines with the boiler under the steam cylinder.

Watt engine This page also has an extremely brief history, but has a wonderful animation of an early Watt engine in action.

Steam Engines of the 18th Century (realistic models and related literature)

Ancient Steam Engine Models (working models of steam engines)

Online Books about steam engines. This web site provided by the University of Rochester history department has online versions of old books on steam engines, as well as biographies.

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