How do historians know what they know?

Historians know what they know by looking back into the past and making connections. Digging deep and connecting events together helps historians figure out what happened in the past and why exactly it happened. They analyze primary sources from events they are studying in order to piece events together. In this project, I will be a historian and piece together why and how exactly Silicon Valley became the $2.3 trillion it is today.

Stanford

The biggest reason Silicon Valley is the technology capital of the United States is the presence of Stanford University. Located in Palo Alto, California, the university is one of the top research institutions in America and the world. Many influential people and companies that helped establish Silicon Valley have ties to Stanford, including Federal Telegraph Co, Hewlett-Packard (HP), Varian Brothers, and the father of Silicon Valley, Frederick Terman. In 1969, Stanford became one of the four nodes of the government program ARPANET, which would go on to become the internet.

Frederick Terman

Known as "the father of Silicon Valley", Frederick Terman was a key figure in the broadspread development of the technology industry. Terman received his undergraduate degree at Stanford and his doctorate at M.I.T. in electrical engineering. He returned to Stanford in 1925 to teach a course in radio engineering. He successfully built up Stanford's program in electronics and electronic engineering, but many students were leaving to get better jobs out east after they graduated. Terman began to encourage students to stay in the west coast after they graduated. Tech businesses HP and Varian Brothers were started by former Stanford students in California. Terman was able to create an industrial park on 660 acres of Stanford's land where it was leased to electronics and high tech companies. This created an agglomeration of tech companies in the area.