Bruce Sinclair

1929 - 2025

Bruce Sinclair
04/30/1929 - 03/15/2025
Bruce Sinclair and his fraternal twin brother, Jerry, were born in 1929, the last two of five children born to Bert and Helen Sinclair. By the mid-1930s, the family had settled first in Vallejo and then in Napa where his father was a partner in the Berry & Sinclair Photography Studio. The pull of war work brought the family to Richmond, where Bruce graduated from Richmond High School. His education at UC Berkeley was interrupted in 1950 when he enlisted in the Air Force during the Korean War. While in the service he served primarily in electronic countermeasures monitoring Soviet nuclear testing from occupied Japan and later US nuclear testing in Nevada. Upon discharge, he returned to his studies with new enthusiasm, earning a bachelor's degree from Cal, a master's from New Mexico Highlands University, and a second master's from the University of Delaware's new Hagley Program in industrial history. His degree in hand he became the founding director of the Merrimack Valley Textile Museum in North Andover, Massachusetts. Married to Christine Roen in 1956, he moved his wife and two children, Alan and Margaret, to each new endeavor. One more move brought them to Cleveland, Ohio where he earned a PhD in history from Case Western Reserve University.
His doctorate in history launched him into a lifelong engagement teaching the history of technology and engineering. He became a member then chair of the History Department of Kansas State University, Manhattan; followed by a long career as a member and then director of the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto; and lastly as the Melvin Kranzberg Professor for the History of Technology at Georgia Institute of Technology. He was a enthusiast supporter and highly visible member of the Society of the History of Technology, serving one term as president. The society recognized his first book, Philadelphia's Philosopher Mechanics, with a book award and crowned his career with its highest honor the Leonardo daVinci Medal.
Bruce was an enthusiastic sailor, first as a cruiser on the East Coast, then as a racer in San Francisco Bay. While teaching in Toronto, he cruised with his second wife Mary Pickard Winsor in a Folkboat on Parry Sound before sailing it to the Bahamas and back. He owned a series of lovely boats, many of them traditional wooden boats, but was especially fond of his two Bay boats, Pretty Penny and The Shadow, sisterships built by Hank Easom to a Gary Mull design. Winning the Larry Knight Trophy for the Vallejo Yacht Club in his Mull 30 gave him a lot of pleasure.
He was pre-deceased by his son Alan (d. 1980) but he is survived by his daughter, Margaret Vargas, and her descendents, as well as by his last wife of 36 years, Gail Cooper. His four siblings left him many nieces and nephews who fondly remember their Uncle Bruce.