The History of Technology Working Group meets monthly to discuss a colleague’s works-in-progress or to discuss readings that are of particular interest to participants.
Participants at Consortium activities will treat each other with respect and consideration to create a collegial, inclusive, and professional environment that is free from any form of discrimination, harassment, or retaliation.
Participants will avoid any inappropriate actions or statements based on individual characteristics such as age, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, nationality, political affiliation, ability status, educational background, or any other characteristic protected by law. Disruptive or harassing behavior of any kind will not be tolerated. Harassment includes but is not limited to inappropriate or intimidating behavior and language, unwelcome jokes or comments, unwanted touching or attention, offensive images, photography without permission, and stalking.
Participants may send reports or concerns about violations of this policy to conduct@chstm.org.
Upcoming Meetings
Tuesday, May 27, 2025, 1:00 - 2:30 pm EDT
Philip Scranton, Rutgers University
"The Auto Parts Maze in the US and the USSR, 1946-1980"
This is a chapter of Prof. Scranton's book manuscript Spare Parts: A Global History of a Modern Problem, forthcoming from Johns Hopkins in 2026.
Abstract:
Thousands of academic and trade books have analyzed the automobile industry, supplemented by millions of journal and magazine pages covering day-to-day production and marketing. The literature on vehicle maintenance and repair is far thinner (see Vinsel & Russell, The Innovation Delusion; Borg, Auto Mechanics), while studies of the essential technologies – spare parts – are few indeed. Our fascination with production and consumption has left what links the two – distribution – largely uninvestigated. Whereas auto assembly trended strongly toward corporate consolidation, parts provision resisted the Big Three’s sustained efforts at control, persisted as a source of technical novelty, and remained chaotic and bitterly competitive throughout the postwar decades. Parts profusion accelerated during the 1960s, rising in eight years from 472,000 distinct components for Detroit models to 768,000. The perils of such abundance included long delays in locating the correct spare and the fragmentation of auto servicing into rival clusters of garages, dealerships, mass merchandisers (Sears), specialized chains (Midas), parts wholesalers (NAPA) and retailers (Auto Zone), supplemented by “shade tree mechanics” and DIY economizers. By contrast, the closing section highlights the perils of planning, Soviet-style, which yielded shortages of many components and surpluses of others (especially those that were easy-to-make, whether needed or not). Both “systems” worked, after a fashion, though neither was rational, efficient, or at all systematic.
Past Meetings
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Barbara Hahn, Texas Tech University. Introduction to Technology in the Industrial Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2020).
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Emily Gibson, Office of Legislative and Public Affairs, National Science Foundation, "Technology and Policy: Applied research and engineering at the National Science Foundation during the 1970s"
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*Note special time* Junaidu Danladi, Bayero University, Kan0-Nigeria, "Public Perceptions and Resistance to Piped Water in Kano City, 1924-1945"
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Paulina Hartono, Berkeley, "Do Radios Have Politics? The Politics of Radio Ownership in China in the 1920s and 1930s"
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Jaipreet Virdi, University of Delaware, "Dorothy Brett's 'Ear Machines': Disability, Technology and Representation"
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Tech Working Group will not meet on October 15, due to the upcoming international SHOT conference
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What is the history of technology and who gets to decide? The group will discuss Eric Schatzberg's conclusion and manifesto from his Technology: Critical History of a Concept, and Jennifer Lieberman's essay "Finding a Place for Technology."
Benjamin Twagira, Emory University, paper title "'We Are What What We Know': Radio, Rumor, Identity and Politics in Militarized Kampala"
Meredith Sattler, Cal Poly San Louis Obispo, "Knowledge Space Eco-Technics: Designing Life-Forms and Life Ways at Biosphere 2, 1974-1994"
Whitney Laemmli, Columbia University Society of Fellows in the Humanities, "The Lilt in Labour: Movement, Efficiency, and Pleasure in Mid-Century British Industry"
James Esposito, Ohio State University, "The Airplane as Breathing Machine: Aviation Medicine and Human Experimentation at the Royal Air Force Physiological Laboratory 1939-1954"
We will be reading Lee Vinsel and Andy Russell's Technology and Culture article "After Innovation, Turn to Maintenance." Jennifer Alexander will share some thoughts to share some thoughts to start the conversation.
Peter Sachs Collopy, Caltech Archives, "When Computer Animation was Analog: Scanimation Outside the Digital Paradigm"
NOTE SPECIAL DATE Yuan Yi, Columbia University, "Custom-Made Machines in the Era of Mass Production" (dissertation chapter)
Alicia Maggard, Brown University, presenting "Pacific Mail, Industrial Empire: Steam Infrastructure and U.S. Power", a chapter from her dissertation.
Edward Jones-Imhotep, York University, presenting "The Image of Work: Charting Human and Machine Failures at the Dawn of the Jazz Age," a chapter from his book project Reliable Humans, Trustworthy Machines.
Philip Scranton, Rutgers University, discussed his current project, A Business History of Communism: Enterprise and Experiment in China, 1950-71.
Christopher Otter, Ohio State, presented an excerpt from his book-in-progress "Diet for a Large Planet: Food Systems, World-Ecology and the Making of Industrialized Britain."
Note Special Day Greg Eghigian (Penn State and co-convener of CHSTM's Human Sciences group) presented on UFOs in post-World War II culture.
Note Special Day Katie Boyce-Jacino (Johns Hopkins) presented on planetariums in Weimar Germany
Jennifer Alexander is an Associate Professor of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine at the University of Minnesota, with specialization in technology and religion; industrial culture; and engineering, ethics, and society. Her publications include The Mantra of Efficiency: From Waterwheel to Social Control (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008). Her current project is a book manuscript analyzing the international religious critique of technology that developed following WWII. She asks how religious and theological interpretations of technology have changed over time; how, over time, technologies and engineering have extended their reach into the human world over time through a developing technological orthodoxy; and how these changes have affected each other.
Benjamin Gross
Benjamin Gross is Vice President for Research and Scholarship at the Linda Hall Library in Kansas City, Missouri. He is responsible for managing the Library’s scholarly outreach initiatives, including its fellowship program. Before relocating to the Midwest in 2016, he was a research fellow at the Science History Institute and consulting curator of the Sarnoff Collection at the College of New Jersey. His book, The TVs of Tomorrow: How RCA’s Flat-Screen Dreams Led to the First LCDs, was published in 2018 by the University of Chicago Press.
