author
Eugene S. Ferguson
1916–2004
A pioneering historian of technology, he helped explain how engineers think with sketches, images, and practical intuition—not just equations. His work opened up a richer, more human view of invention and design.
1 Audiobook
Kinematics of Mechanisms from the Time of Watt
by Eugene S. Ferguson
About the author
Trained first as a mechanical engineer, he earned his degree from Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1937 and spent years in manufacturing before turning toward teaching and history. Over the course of his career, he worked in engineering education, served at the Smithsonian, and later taught history of technology at the University of Delaware.
He is especially remembered for showing that engineering depends heavily on visual thinking. His influential essay on visual reasoning and his later book Engineering and the Mind's Eye argued that drawings, mental images, and hands-on judgment are central to how technologies are imagined and built.
He also helped shape the field itself. As a founding figure in the Society for the History of Technology and a respected bibliographer and scholar, he left a lasting mark on how historians study machines, design, and the people who make them.