Elting E. Morison
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780262529310
- eISBN:
- 9780262336581
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262529310.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
People have had trouble adapting to new technology ever since (perhaps) the inventor of the wheel had to explain that a wheelbarrow could carry more than a person. This little book describes how we ...
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People have had trouble adapting to new technology ever since (perhaps) the inventor of the wheel had to explain that a wheelbarrow could carry more than a person. This little book describes how we learn to live and work with innovation. It considers, among other things, the three stages of users' resistance to change: ignoring it, rational rebuttal, and name-calling. It recounts the illustrative anecdote of the World War II artillerymen who stood still to hold the horses despite the fact that the guns were now hitched to trucks—reassuring those of us who have trouble with a new interface or a software upgrade that we are not the first to encounter such problems. The book offers an entertaining series of historical accounts to highlight this major theme: the nature of technological change and society's reaction to that change. It begins with resistance to innovation in the U.S. Navy following an officer's discovery of a more accurate way to fire a gun at sea; continues with thoughts about bureaucracy, paper work, and card files; touches on rumble seats, the ghost in Hamlet, and computers; tells the strange history of a new model steamship in the 1860s; and describes the development of the Bessemer steel process. Each instance teaches a lesson about the more profound and current problem of how to organize and manage systems of ideas, energies, and machinery so that it will conform to the human dimension.Less
People have had trouble adapting to new technology ever since (perhaps) the inventor of the wheel had to explain that a wheelbarrow could carry more than a person. This little book describes how we learn to live and work with innovation. It considers, among other things, the three stages of users' resistance to change: ignoring it, rational rebuttal, and name-calling. It recounts the illustrative anecdote of the World War II artillerymen who stood still to hold the horses despite the fact that the guns were now hitched to trucks—reassuring those of us who have trouble with a new interface or a software upgrade that we are not the first to encounter such problems. The book offers an entertaining series of historical accounts to highlight this major theme: the nature of technological change and society's reaction to that change. It begins with resistance to innovation in the U.S. Navy following an officer's discovery of a more accurate way to fire a gun at sea; continues with thoughts about bureaucracy, paper work, and card files; touches on rumble seats, the ghost in Hamlet, and computers; tells the strange history of a new model steamship in the 1860s; and describes the development of the Bessemer steel process. Each instance teaches a lesson about the more profound and current problem of how to organize and manage systems of ideas, energies, and machinery so that it will conform to the human dimension.
Elting E. Morison
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780262529310
- eISBN:
- 9780262336581
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262529310.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter describes the development of the Bessemer steel process. In spring 1862, a rail of Bessemer steel was laid down between two abutting iron rails in the Camden yard of the London and ...
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This chapter describes the development of the Bessemer steel process. In spring 1862, a rail of Bessemer steel was laid down between two abutting iron rails in the Camden yard of the London and Northwestern Railway. Three years later, in May 1865, the first rail manufactured from Bessemer steel in the United States was produced at the North Chicago Rolling Mill. The chapter first provides an overview of steelmaking and metallurgy before discussing the commercial and intellectual development of the Bessemer steel process, along with the use of Bessemer steel in making railroads. It also considers innovations in the production of the Bessemer steel process and the patent controversy sparked by the technology, tariff protection for the process, and the Bessemer Association's price-fixing scheme. The chapter concludes by highlighting the stages involved in the innovating process: the inventive stage, the stage in which the invention is applied by the first entrepreneurs, the stage in which other entrepreneurs and engineers refine and consolidate, and the stage in which still other entrepreneurs take over to expand.Less
This chapter describes the development of the Bessemer steel process. In spring 1862, a rail of Bessemer steel was laid down between two abutting iron rails in the Camden yard of the London and Northwestern Railway. Three years later, in May 1865, the first rail manufactured from Bessemer steel in the United States was produced at the North Chicago Rolling Mill. The chapter first provides an overview of steelmaking and metallurgy before discussing the commercial and intellectual development of the Bessemer steel process, along with the use of Bessemer steel in making railroads. It also considers innovations in the production of the Bessemer steel process and the patent controversy sparked by the technology, tariff protection for the process, and the Bessemer Association's price-fixing scheme. The chapter concludes by highlighting the stages involved in the innovating process: the inventive stage, the stage in which the invention is applied by the first entrepreneurs, the stage in which other entrepreneurs and engineers refine and consolidate, and the stage in which still other entrepreneurs take over to expand.
Robert B. Gordon and Patrick M. Malone
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- November 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780195058857
- eISBN:
- 9780197561089
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780195058857.003.0014
- Subject:
- Archaeology, North American Archaeology
As American entrepreneurs enlarged their undertakings and began to shift them from waterpowered shops in the countryside to factories in the cities, they ...
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As American entrepreneurs enlarged their undertakings and began to shift them from waterpowered shops in the countryside to factories in the cities, they created a demand for new sources of energy and larger quantities of raw materials. The coal and, later, oil that they used to power their factories were brought to manufacturing centers on canals and railways and by coastal or river shipping. They used the wood and water resources of North America more heavily than ever, but they also created new kinds of workplaces. Their workplaces in the coal and oil fields, on canals and railways, in mills that made iron with mineral coal, and in the nonferrous-metal mines and mills were outside any previous experience of American artisans. Often, these workplaces were not adequately described or recorded before they were replaced. Material evidence helps us fill this gap in the historical record. In mining anthracite, both miners and mine operators faced a complex underground environment where there were few reliable clues to guide their work (Chapter 4). Geologists could help little, and, as anthracite was not much used elsewhere in the world, mining expertise could not be easily borrowed; instead, mining methods were developed through experience and error on the part of individual miners. The technological and social practices that endured in anthracite mining were largely established in the years between 1827 and 1834 by inexperienced adventurers whose aim was to obtain coal quickly and with the least trouble. Many of these practices were later adopted in underground bituminous mines. We can reconstruct a picture of the work of anthracite miners from study of the remaining mines, artifacts, and accounts of mine operation. Each breast in a mine was worked by a miner, who was paid on piece rate. He directed and paid one or two helpers, for whom he provided the necessary tools and supplies. They reached the breast where they worked by walking through the haulage ways and gangways that were the common ground in the mine.
Less
As American entrepreneurs enlarged their undertakings and began to shift them from waterpowered shops in the countryside to factories in the cities, they created a demand for new sources of energy and larger quantities of raw materials. The coal and, later, oil that they used to power their factories were brought to manufacturing centers on canals and railways and by coastal or river shipping. They used the wood and water resources of North America more heavily than ever, but they also created new kinds of workplaces. Their workplaces in the coal and oil fields, on canals and railways, in mills that made iron with mineral coal, and in the nonferrous-metal mines and mills were outside any previous experience of American artisans. Often, these workplaces were not adequately described or recorded before they were replaced. Material evidence helps us fill this gap in the historical record. In mining anthracite, both miners and mine operators faced a complex underground environment where there were few reliable clues to guide their work (Chapter 4). Geologists could help little, and, as anthracite was not much used elsewhere in the world, mining expertise could not be easily borrowed; instead, mining methods were developed through experience and error on the part of individual miners. The technological and social practices that endured in anthracite mining were largely established in the years between 1827 and 1834 by inexperienced adventurers whose aim was to obtain coal quickly and with the least trouble. Many of these practices were later adopted in underground bituminous mines. We can reconstruct a picture of the work of anthracite miners from study of the remaining mines, artifacts, and accounts of mine operation. Each breast in a mine was worked by a miner, who was paid on piece rate. He directed and paid one or two helpers, for whom he provided the necessary tools and supplies. They reached the breast where they worked by walking through the haulage ways and gangways that were the common ground in the mine.
Lynn Abbot and Doug Seroff
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617036750
- eISBN:
- 9781621039150
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617036750.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
This book traces black vocal music instruction and inspiration from the halls of Fisk University to the mining camps of Birmingham and Bessemer, Alabama, and on to Chicago and New Orleans. In the ...
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This book traces black vocal music instruction and inspiration from the halls of Fisk University to the mining camps of Birmingham and Bessemer, Alabama, and on to Chicago and New Orleans. In the 1870s, the Original Fisk University Jubilee Singers successfully combined Negro spirituals with formal choral music disciplines, and established a permanent bond between spiritual singing and music education. Early in the twentieth century there were countless initiatives in support of black vocal music training conducted on both national and local levels. The surge in black religious quartet singing that occurred in the 1920s owed much to this vocal music education movement. In Bessemer, Alabama, the effect of school music instruction was magnified by the emergence of community-based quartet trainers who translated the spirit and substance of the music education movement for the inhabitants of working-class neighborhoods. These trainers adapted standard musical precepts, traditional folk practices, and popular music conventions to create something new and vital. Bessemer’s musical values directly influenced the early development of gospel quartet singing in Chicago and New Orleans through the authority of emigrant trainers whose efforts bear witness to the effectiveness of “trickle down” black music education. A cappella gospel quartets remained prominent well into the 1950s, but by the end of the century the close harmony aesthetic had fallen out of practice, and the community-based trainers who were its champions had virtually disappeared, foreshadowing the end of this remarkable musical tradition.Less
This book traces black vocal music instruction and inspiration from the halls of Fisk University to the mining camps of Birmingham and Bessemer, Alabama, and on to Chicago and New Orleans. In the 1870s, the Original Fisk University Jubilee Singers successfully combined Negro spirituals with formal choral music disciplines, and established a permanent bond between spiritual singing and music education. Early in the twentieth century there were countless initiatives in support of black vocal music training conducted on both national and local levels. The surge in black religious quartet singing that occurred in the 1920s owed much to this vocal music education movement. In Bessemer, Alabama, the effect of school music instruction was magnified by the emergence of community-based quartet trainers who translated the spirit and substance of the music education movement for the inhabitants of working-class neighborhoods. These trainers adapted standard musical precepts, traditional folk practices, and popular music conventions to create something new and vital. Bessemer’s musical values directly influenced the early development of gospel quartet singing in Chicago and New Orleans through the authority of emigrant trainers whose efforts bear witness to the effectiveness of “trickle down” black music education. A cappella gospel quartets remained prominent well into the 1950s, but by the end of the century the close harmony aesthetic had fallen out of practice, and the community-based trainers who were its champions had virtually disappeared, foreshadowing the end of this remarkable musical tradition.
David Segal
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- July 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198804079
- eISBN:
- 9780191842320
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198804079.003.0013
- Subject:
- Physics, Condensed Matter Physics / Materials, Soft Matter / Biological Physics
Chapter 13 is the last chapter. It suggests how the 21st century may be described in terms of ‘ages’ analogous to the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Will the 21st century be described as the Silicon Age? Or ...
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Chapter 13 is the last chapter. It suggests how the 21st century may be described in terms of ‘ages’ analogous to the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Will the 21st century be described as the Silicon Age? Or perhaps be referred to as the Genomic Age? Or maybe the New Polymer Age? The role of climate change and international conflict on the pace of materials development are discussed.Less
Chapter 13 is the last chapter. It suggests how the 21st century may be described in terms of ‘ages’ analogous to the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Will the 21st century be described as the Silicon Age? Or perhaps be referred to as the Genomic Age? Or maybe the New Polymer Age? The role of climate change and international conflict on the pace of materials development are discussed.
