Joseph Wickham Roe

Born in 1871, Joseph Wickham Roe was an American mechanical engineer and professor associated with New York University. He wrote about engineering in a way that was both practical and historical, with a special interest in the people and machines behind industrial change.

He is best known for English and American Tool Builders, a landmark study first printed in 1916 and later reprinted in 1926. The book traces the development of machine tools and the craftsmen, inventors, and firms that made them, and it helped establish Roe as an important historian of manufacturing technology.

Roe also wrote on other engineering subjects, including steam turbines. He died in 1960, leaving behind work that still matters to readers interested in engineering history, invention, and the rise of modern industry.