The Generations of Corning

This engrossing history of an extraordinary company, Corning Incorporated, chronicles how one of the oldest business enterprises in the world maintained its place as a global leader in technology for over 150 years. In the nineteenth century, Corning developed coloured signal lights for railroads. In the twentieth century, it created Pyrex and colour television tubes; today, it is a Fortune 500 company leading the international marketplace in areas such as fibre optics and photonics.

If you use the Internet, drive a car, or simply turn on a light, then Corning is a part of your life. The Generations of Corning tells the fascinating stories of its founding family, the Houghtons, the inventors, and the adventures, behind Corning's remarkable achievements - from unexpected discoveries, like the laboratory mishap that led to Corning Ware, to the years of painstaking, often frustrating, research that led to its breakthrough in fibre optics.

From 1851 to 1996, five generations of Houghtons made Corning a company that combined a culture of continuous innovation with a sense of loyalty to its employees and their community. Davis Dyer and Daniel Gross show how the critical changes in organization and leadership that accompanied each new generation helped Corning not just survive, but to prosper, and push itself to the cutting edge of materials technology in decade after decade. The Generations of Corning is a classic success story and a triumph of the inventive spirit.