Major Problems in the History of American Technology

Note: Each chapter includes Further Reading. 1. What Is Technology? ESSAYS Leo Marx, The Invention of "Technology" Langdon Winner, Do Artifacts Have Politics? Donald MacKenzie, The Social Shaping of Technology Nina Lerman, The Problem with "Skill" Carroll Pursell, Masculinity and Technology Bruno Latour, The Proliferation of Hybrids 2. New Worlds of Technique: Native Americans and Europeans, ca. 1600-1770 DOCUMENTS William Bradford on Squanto, 1620-1621 Governor Nicolas Denys on the Micmac, 1672 Rev. John Eliot on the "Praying Indians," 1647-1677 William Wood, "...much good might they receive from the English" 1634 Peter Kalm, "...contempt of useful arts," 1750 ESSAYS Karen Kupperman, Native American Technology Patrick Malone, The Skulking Way of War Richard White, The Middle Ground 3. Arts, Tools, and Identities in Agricultural Regimes, ca. 1680-1850 DOCUMENTS William Byrd II, "...to set all the springs in motion," 1726 Edmund S. Morgan, A Virginian Describes His Self-Sufficient Plantation A Plantation Accounting, 1784 A Gentleman Farmer on Common Farmer's Tools, 1822 Morgan County, Illinois (A Guide for Emigrants), 1831 Henry F. French, Irishmen and Spades, 1859 ESSAYS Peter H. Wood, Slavery and Arts in South Carolina Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife's Tale Judith A. McGaw, "So Much Depends upon a Red Wheelbarrow": Agricultural Tool Owenership in the Eighteenth-Century Mid-Atlantic 4. The Debate over Manufactures in the Early Republic, 1785-1820 DOCUMENTS Thomas Jefferson's "Notes on Virginia" (Excerpts), 1785 Tenche Coxe Speaks for Factories, 1787 Alexander Hamilton's "Report on Manufactures," 1791 Thomas Jefferson, Manufacturer (Correspondence), 1795-1816 Thomas Cooper Against Factories, 1823 ESSAYS Leo Marx, The Machine John R. Nelson, "Manufactures" Reconsidered 5. Inside Factory Systems, 1820-1885 DOCUMENTS Rules and Regulations of the Matteawan Company, 1846 "Almira" Weighs Discontent in the Lowell Textile Mills, 1841 "Amelia," Some of the Beauties of Our Factory System--Otherwise, Lowell Slavery, 1845 Virginia Penny Contrasts European and American Watchmaking, 1863 A Strike at Harper's Ferry (Correspondence), 1842 Frederick Douglass, Beaten in a Baltimore Shipyard, 1835 ESSAYS Judith A. McGaw, Gender and Papermaking Charles Dew, Slave Ironworkers in Virginia Merritt Roe Smith, The Political Economy of Pacing 6. "Second Nature": Steam, Space and a New World Order, 1840-1900 DOCUMENTS "...gorgeous scenes of oriental fiction," 1840 Charles Fraser, "The Moral Influence of Steam" (Excerpt), 1846 The Scientific American on Railroads and Russian Peasants, 1847 "...to float upon this tide" (Editorial), 1870 Railroads and Missionaries (Editorial), 1871 "The Buffalo Go": Old Lady Horse Tells a Folktale Plenty Coups Travels to Washington (Memoir), 1880 ESSAYS William Cronon, Annihilating Space: Meat Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men 7. Telephony, 1872-1914 DOCUMENTS Virginia Penny, A New Employment for Women, 1863 Mrs. Rayne Visits Western Union, 1893 Katherine M. Schmitt, Memoir of a Telephone Operator, 1930 Rules for Operating Room Employees, 1908 Clippings from The Telephone Review and The Telephone News, 1911-1914 The New York Telephone Company vs. "Hello" (Advertisement), 1911 "In the Bell Democracy" (Advertisement), 1911 ESSAYS Avital Ronell, Watson, I Need You Venus Green, Personal Service in the Bell System Bruno Latour, Ma Bell's Road Trip 8. Inventing Efficiency: Scientific Management ca. 1900-1939 DOCUMENTS Frederick W. Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management, 1911 Christine Frederick, The New Housekeeping, 1913 James O'Connell, A Trade Unionist Attacks Taylorism, 1911 Arsenal Workers Strike, 1913 An Engineering Student Instructs a Laundress, 1939 Indian Canoe Makers vs. Efficiency Expert, 1938 Nelson Algren, Highpockets, A Taylorist Folktale, 1930s Frank T. Carlton, A Political Scientist on Scientific Management, 1914 ESSAYS Sudhir Kakar, Taylorism as an International Movement Thomas Hughes, The System Must Be First Sharon H. Strom, Scientific Management, Gender, and Feminism 9. Ford, Automobility, and Mass Production, 1908-1941 DOCUMENTS Mass Production (Encyclopedia Article), 1926 Henry Ford, My Life and Work, 1929 Charles Sorenson, Inventing the Assembly Line, 1956 Edmund Wilson, Excerpt from "Detroit Motors" from The American Earthquake Charles Madison, My Seven Years of Automotive Servitude (Memoir), 1980 ESSAYS David A. Hounshell, Mass Production Ronald Kline and Trevor Pinch, The Social Construction of the Automobile in the Rural United States James J. Flink, Modern Times 10. Toys Were Us: Invention and Technological Acculturation in Hobbyist Worlds, 1900-1940 DOCUMENTS Marconi and His Transatlantic Signal, 1902 Clippings from Electrician and Mechanic magazine, 1909-1913 Fern Van Bramer, How Electricity Effects Economy in the Home and Adds to the Happiness of the Family (Prizewinning Essay), 1917 Colonial Radio Saves Wasted Motion, 1934 ESSAYS Susan J. Douglas, Amateur Operators and American Broadcasting: Shaping the Future of Radio Ruth Oldenziel, Boys and Their Toys: The Fisher Body Craftsman's Guild, 1930-1968 11. The Pest War: The Shifting Use and Meaning of Insecticides, 1940-1990 DOCUMENTS "Now It Can Be Told" (Geigy Company Press Release), 1944 Rachel Carson, Eradicating the Japanese Beetle, 1962 Jamie L. Whitten, "That We May Live": A Congressman Responds to Silent Spring, 1966 W.W. Fletcher, The Pest War (Textbook Introduction), 1974 Roger Weinberg and Ronald Morgan, Indians, DDT, the Illiac IV: Computer Scientists Respond to the Environmental Crisis, 1971 Rod J. MacRae, Stuart B. Hill, John Henning, and Guy R. Mehuys, Sustainable Agriculture, 1989 ESSAYS Edmund P. Russell III, Testing Insecticides and Repellants in World War II Angus MacIntyre, A Political Economy of Agricultural Pest Management, 1970 Angus Wright, Aerial Spraying in Mexico 12. The Military-Industrial-University Complex, 1945-1990 DOCUMENTS Vannevar Bush, Science--The Endless Frontier, 1945 Dwight Eisenhower's Farewell Address, 1961 J. William Fulbright, "...the adherence of the professors," 1967 Barry Goldwater, "The so-called military-industrial complex," 1969 C.A. Hudson, Computers in Manufacturing William P. Marbach, "The Race to Build a Supercomputer" Jeff Bingaman and Bobby R. Inman, "Dual-Use" Technology, 1991 ESSAYS Nathan Rosenberg and Richard R. Nelson, Universities and Industrial Research Paul N. Edwards, Why Build Computers? David Noble, Command Performance 13. Countdown to Cyberspace: 1974-1990 DOCUMENTS/ESSAYS Ted Nelson, Computer Lib, 1974 Martin Campbell-Kelly and William Aspray, The Shaping of the Personal Computer Sherry Turkle, The Second Self, 1982 William Gibson, Cyberspace, 1984 Donna Harraway, A Cyborg Manifesto Mike Davis, Los Angeles Before the Riots DeeDee Halleck, Watch Out, Dick Tracy, 1991 Bruce Sterling, From ARPANET to Internet