Nye is going to introduce us to several theories used by historians of technology:
- social construction
- technological momentum
- contextualists vs. internalists
One way of understanding which technologies come into use:
Technologies are social constructions
What does it mean to say that technologies are socially constructed?
- groups of people with different ideas work on a technology
to bring it into use--the shape of the technology is the result of
their interactions. Would automobiles look different if women
played a larger role in their design?
- what determines whether a technology is successful is not how well it works (there isn't a single standard to measure this by), but what its role is in society (how it works given the particular expectations people have of it)
- the elementary school idea of the scientific method--the laws of nature are facts out there in nature waiting to be discovered, and the method of hypothesis and test will alway reveal them (other methods will not work)
- science is objective and it always leads us closer and
closer to truth (if you aren't objective or don't use the scientific
method that is bad science and won't lead towards truth)
Consider the bicycle:
- High wheel bicycles came from England to America in the 1870s--very much a macho sport, limited appeal. They were custom built and expensive (and had no gears). Can you imagine riding across the United States on one of these things?
- the Chicago Daily News of July 5, 1884 expressed the
following view of cyclist Stevens' arrival from San Francisco. "When it
takes a bicyclist seventy-two days to wheel from San Francisco to
Chicago we are inclined to the opinion that he has more time on his
hands than wit in his head. This man's experience does not demonstrate
that the bicycle has any advantage over a first-class ox team on such a
trip."
1896 Ladies Bicycle
- Safety
bicycle
introduced in 1887--once the technology stabilized bicycling became a
major fad.
- Business expanded wildly--in the mid-1890s the industry produced 1.2 million machines annually (an important source of demand for good roads, which made the automobile practical, and of the idea of independent travel).
- many gun and sewing machine manufacturers went into the bicycle production business. The fad for bicycling ended in 1897, bringing the industry to an abrupt end.
- An example of new products and the interlocking of industries in the American System of Manufacture:
- Pope Manufacturing Company started bicycle manufacture in a sewing machine factory owned by the Weed Sewing Machine Company, which before it had its own factory had contracted the production of its sewing machines to the Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Company (in fact the sewing machine company eventually bought the rifle company's factory). Pope was successful by advertising, particularly through posters and a magazine he owned, and by buying patents until he had a near monopoly that lasted until 1886.
-
- Bicycles went from being a way for men to show off to a way for women to find more freedom
- today enthusiasts for recumbent bicycles think the current
design of road bikes is silly, but recumbents aren't allowed in racing
(because they have less wind resistance so are faster) so show no sign
of catching on in a big way, even though they are supposedly more
comfortable
Technological momentum:
- The course of technological progress is not inevitable, but once we get committed to one system it is hard to change over to a different one
- it isn't inevitable that any given system will be successful, but once it is it builds up momentum which makes it harder to change
- consider how Europe and the U.S. have different electrical outlets and voltages, different cell phone systems, and different videotape formats. It seems silly to not be able to use the same devices in different countries, but it would be extremely expensive for either side to change
- it would be hard to change a city like Atlanta from
automobile dependence to heavy use of mass transit because the layout
of the city is based on the automobile, not on mass transit
Contextualists vs. internalists
- internalists look at the line of development from one
machine to the next (written from "the point of view of an insider who
looks over an inventor's shoulder" p. 57)
- intenalist approach looks at the technical merits of alternative solutions to a problem and at cases where no solution is successful
- a contextual approach looks at all the different things that people considered in making technological choices, many of which are not technical (eg. if a Volvo will last twice as long as most other cars, why don't more people buy them?)
- social construction is one example of a contextualist
approach
- internal factors: people were more familiar with steam technology, and problems like slow starting were being solved (that one by the Stanley Steamer, above)
- internal combustion engines were noisy, gasoline was hard to get, and they were hard to start--but they had the theoretical advantage was the best power to weight ratio
- contextual factors: good steam cars were expensive because the manufacturers focused on quality, not making low priced cars
- Ford won the battle for the gasoline engine by designing a practical low cost car--Ford wanted to make a car for farmers and the weight-power ratio mattered most in rural areas where roads could be muddy
- would history have been different if a steam automobile
manufacturer had focused on making a low cost car?
- another
story Nye doesn't tell but could have:
- steam automobiles had to refill water more often than fuel--the convenient way to do this was at horse watering troughs
- when an outbreak of hoof and mouth disease occurred in New
England in 1914 public watering troughs were closed and steam cars
became much less practical because of the problem of running out of
water
- we only think the success of gasoline automobiles was inevitable because of hindsight
As an example of social construction, consider the question: Should electric power systems be owned by government or private industry?
- Is electric power more like sewer systems (government owned)
or cable television (private industry)?
- in the early years of building electric light and power systems the private companies concentrated on the most profitable markets in big cities
- many cities in South Carolina founded municipal electrical systems, thinking of electricity as a utility like water or sewers
- Anderson SC was the first city in the South to
have AC electric power
- a civil engineer who had grown up in Anderson, William Church Whitner, designed a municipal electrical system in 1890.
- Whitner interviewed Nicola Tesla in 1891 and persuaded the town of Anderson to buy an experimental 5,000 volt AC generator for a dam at High Shoals on the Seneca river
- when this generator came on line in 1895 it was the largest one in the world and the successful transmission of power the six miles from the dam to the city was a breakthrough
- after 1900 private utilities tended to modernize more quickly than publicly-owned systems and be able to offer lower prices, so municipal utilities began buying electricity rather than generating their own or sold out entirely to private companies
- then in the 1930s the government stepped in again:
- Rural Electrification
Authority established in 1935 to organize locally owned co-ops to
provide electric service in areas where the farms were too far apart to
make it profitable for private companies to set up systems.
- In 1935 only 10% of farms
had power from a network (some generated their own electricity).
- Part of the idea was to improve rural life so people would stay on farms instead of moving to cities to look for work.
- The argument was sometimes made that people had a right to electricity
This page written and copyright Pamela E. Mack