PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

History 398 - Fall 2006

Technologies and Their Societies: Historical Perspectives

Professor Michael S. Mahoney

I. Structure of the Course

II. Books to be Purchased

All other assignments listed below are contained in a packet of selected readings available from Pequod or linked to online versions. Copies of all readings are available at the Reserve Reading Room on A Floor in Firestone Library.

There are some general resources for the course on the World Wide Web. Each week has a link to the sources pertinent to its topics.

III. Lectures and Assignments

Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7 Week 8 Week 9 Week 10 Week 11 Week 12

Week I (18 September)

  • Lecture 1. Introduction 
  • Lecture 2. Mills and Manors
Reading 
Richard Holt, The Mills of Medieval England, Chaps. 3, 6 [packet]
Cowan, Chaps. 1-3
WWW Resources  | Background and Supplementary Reading

Week II (25 September)

  • Lecture 3. Power Machinery
  • Lecture 4. The Steam Engine
Reading 
Peter Laslett, The World We Have Lost, Chap. 1, "English Society Before and After the Coming of Industry" [packet]
Richard L. Hills, Power in the Industrial Revolution, Chap. 2 [packet]
Anthony F.C. Wallace, Rockdale, Chapter IV, pp. 124-164 [packet]
WWW Resources  | Background and Supplementary Reading

Week III (2 October)

  • Lecture 5. The Factory
  • Lecture 6. The Factory System
Reading
Richard L. Hills, Power in the Industrial Revolution, Chaps. 10-12 [packet]
Anthony F.C. Wallace, Rockdale, Chapter IV, pp. 164-185 [packet]
Thomas Dublin, Women at Work: The Transformation of Work and Community in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1826-1860, Chaps. 2-5 [packet]
WWW Resources  | Background and Supplementary Reading

****First Paper Due****

Week IV (9 October)

  • Lecture 7. The New Industrial Worker
  • Lecture 8.  Industrial Ideologies
Reading 
Karl Marx, Capital, Vol.I, Chap.15 ("Machinery and Large-Scale Industry"), Sect. 1-5, 8 [packet]
Charles Babbage, On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, Chaps. 1, 8, 13, 19, 20 [packet]
E.P. Thompson, "Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism", Past and Present 38(1960), 56-97 [online version] [E-reserves]
WWW Resources  | Background and Supplementary Reading

Week V (16 October)

  • Lecture 9. The Machine in the Garden
  • Lecture 10. John H. Hall and the Origins of the "American System"
Reading
Merritt Roe Smith, Harpers Ferry Armory and the New Technology, Chaps. 9-11 [packet]
Nathan Rosenberg, "Technological Change in the Machine Tool Industry, 1840-1910", Journal of Economic History 23(1963), 414-443 [repr. in Rosenberg,Perspectives on Technology (Cambridge U.P., 1976), Chap.1] [packet] [JSTOR]
WWW Resources  | Background and Supplementary Reading

Week VI (23 October)

  • Lecture 11. The Machine in the Home
  • Lecture 12. Light and Sound
Reading
Ruth Schwartz Cowan, A Social History of American Technology, Chaps. 6-9
WWW Resources  | Background and Supplementary Reading

****Second Paper Due****

FALL BREAK

Week VII (6 November)

  • Lecture 13. Ford's Model T: A $500 Car
  • Lecture 14. Highland Park and the Assembly Line 
Reading
Thomas P. Hughes, "The Electrification of America: The System Builders", Technology and Culture 20,1(1979), 124-161  [JSTOR] [E-reserves]
Cowan, Chap. 10
Henry Ford, "Mass Production", Encyclopedia Britannica, 13th ed. [packet] (Picture tour of the Assembly Line)
WWW Resources  | Background and Supplementary Reading

Week VIII (13 November)

  • Lecture 15. Ford and the $5 Day 
  • Lecture 16. Taylorism and Fordism: Contrasts and Connections 
Reading
Stephen Meyer III, The Five Dollar Day: Labor Management and Social Control in the Ford Motor Company, 1908-1921, pp. 123-202 [packet]
Lindy Biggs, "The Engineered Factory", Technology and Culture 36,2 (1995), Supplement, S174-S188 [JSTOR] [E-reserves]
Michael S. Mahoney, 'Engineering Plus': Technical Education and the Liberal Arts at Princeton
WWW Resources  | Background and Supplementary Reading

Week IX (22 November)

  • Lecture 17. Mass Distribution: The Consumer Society
  • Lecture 18. The System Builders
Reading: 
Cowan, Chap. 12.
Robert S. and Helen M. Lynd, Middletown, Chaps. 4-8, 13-14, 17-19, 27-29
WWW Resources  | Background and Supplementary Reading

Week X (29 November)

  • Lecture 19. From the Difference Engine to ENIAC 
  • Lecture 20. From Boole to EDVAC 
Reading
Campbell-Kelly and Aspray, Chaps. 1-6

WWW Resources  | Background and Supplementary Reading

Week XI (4 December)

  • Lecture 21. In our Own Image: Creating the Computer, 1945-95
  • Lecture 22. The Software Paradox 
Reading 
Campbell-Kelly and Aspray, Chaps. 7-9
Thomas Haigh, "The Chromium-Plated Tabulator: Institutionalizing an Electronic Revolution, 1954-1958", IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 23,4(2001), 75-104 [PDF (PU only)] [E-reserves]
Michael S. Mahoney, "Finding a History for Software Engineering", Annals of the History of Computing 26,1(2004), 8-19 [PDF (PU only)]
WWW Resources  | Background and Supplementary Reading

Week XII (11 December)

  • Lecture 23. Working Toward Choices 
  • Lecture 24. Where Are We Now? 
Reading 
Campbell-Kelly and Aspray, Chaps. 10-12
Michael S. Mahoney, "Boys' Toys and Women's Work: Feminism Engages Software", in Angela N.H. Creager, et al. (eds.), Feminism in Twentieth Century Science, Technology and  Medicine (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), Chap. 9 [E-reserves]
Langdon Winner, "Do Artifacts Have Politics?" Daedalus(Winter, 1980), 121-136 (online) [E-reserves]
Background and Supplementary Reading

Reading Period

Reading 
Lessig (entire)
Background and Supplementary Reading
FINAL EXERCISE DUE 22 JANUARY
Review Questions from earlier Final Exercises