Does Technology Drive History? “The traditional answer was that engineers and inventors had made possible a technological triumph.” The academic version.

Does Technology Drive History?

• “The traditional answer was that engineers and inventors had made possible a technological triumph.”

• The academic version of this argument,…claimed that “culture evolves as the amount of energy harnessed per capita is increased,….”

• “…and, that ‘the degree of civilization of any epoch, people, or group of peoples, is measured by ability to utilize energy for human advancement or needs.’”

Nye’s Approach – the Social Construction of Technological

Systems

• “Contextualist”

• “How technologies are shaped by social conditions, prices, traditions, popular attitudes, interest groups, class differences, and government policy.”

• “Human beings select the machines they use and shape them to fit within different cultures”

Possible Strengths and Weaknesses of the Contextualist Approach

• People act, things do not.• By emphasizing cultural studies one may easily

neglect the importance of in-depth technical and scientific knowledge to an understanding of the story.

• Contextualists emphasize the importance of “ordinary “ people. There are times when key individuals and their inventions make in incredible difference to the history of technology.

The Idea of Technological Momentum

• Capital Investment in a Technology

• The Existence of a Creative Potential Related to an Existing Technology

An Examination of Overlapping Technological Systems

• Muscle Power• Water Power – Mills and Canals• Steam Power – Railroads, Steamboats,

Factories• Electricity – Motors, Flexible Lighting• ICE – Tractors, Trucks, Autos• Nuclear Power• The Chip

The Energies of Conquest

• Native Americans -- “Everything they built was built by human muscle power; the horse and ox were unknown to them until the Spanish Conquest. Native Americans commanded less energy and intruded less on the environment.”

Acoma Pueblo – 10th c., perhaps oldest continuously inhabited city in the U.S.

City of Chokia, 700-1400 A.D., Population high of 30,000

Hammerstones, scrapers, bone tools and hand-held "bowls.

“…the use of firearms undermined Native Americans’ traditions and joined them to a market economy. They were no longer hunting for subsistence, and soon the balance between their needs and local supplies was upset. They were becoming a part of the European

Economy.”

Coastal Trade – the Importance of the Schooner

• “The most efficient sailing ships were thus able to produce a maximum of 200 to 250 times the human energy required to operate them. For 200 years this energy efficiency gave coastal cities a decisive advantage over inland rivals.”

• What was the so-called “industrious revolution?”

Wood – The Key Energy Source and Material of the Colonial Era

• Used for Structures – later significance of the balloon frame design (1833)

• As a fuel/source of energy for heating

• As a reactant (charcoal) in the manufacture of iron

• As a source of potash for glass manufacture – a chemical

• “Much of America’s economic development [ in the period before the Civil War] relied on improving use of human muscle power. Improved hand tools made work more efficient, increased agricultural productivity, and released additional labor for non-farm work.”

Hand Tools: Grub hoe, used in Maine, forged rivets, colonial era

Hay cutter, colonial era

Hewing ax, typically found in American shipyards before 1740

In 1644, near the first English settlement in the State of New York, Southampton, colonists built a water mill for grinding of corn.

Colonial Population Estimates

(in round numbers)

Year Population

1610 350

1620 2,300

1630 4,600

1640 26,600

1650 50,400

1660 75,100

1670 111,900

1680 151,500

1690 210,400

1700 250,900

1710 331,700

1720 466,200

1730 629,400

1740 905,600

1750 1,170,800

1760 1,593,600

1770 2,148,100

1780 2,780,400

The Horse Whim

The Horizontal Tread Wheel

Paddleboat Horse Ferry, 1814

Dizzy Horses?

The Treadmill, Late 1820s

America’s Horsecar Business, Early 1880s

• 415 Street Railways in Operation

• 18,000 Cars

• 100,000 horses

• 150,000 tons of hay consumed each year

• 11,000,000 bushels of grain consumed each year

• 1,212,400,000 passengers carried

Daily Cost to Keep 9 Horses, Needed to Power a Two Horse Car• Feed $2.70• Hay 1.44• Bedding .18• Shoes .72• Medicine .20• Stableman 1.64• Pavement repairs

.14• Tow Boys .14

• Brushes .03• Driver 1.75• Water .05• Gas for lighting

stables .09• Stable repairs .05• Harness .18• TOTAL $9.31

1895 Baltimore Street car map – horsecar line still in operation at Fell’s Point