The San Jose Meeting, 4-7 October 2001

The Society for the History of Technology held its forty-third annual meeting at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, California, 4-7 October 2001. John K. Brown chaired the program committee; the other members were Michael Allen and Karin Zachmann. Members of the local arrangements committee were Barbara Molony (chair), Jim Koch, Cathy Valerga, and Jim Williams. Special thanks to the Center for Science, Technology and Society at Santa Clara University, the Tech Museum for Innovation of San Jose, and Dan Maloney, Media Services, Santa Clara University.

Sessions

Silicon Valley, Innovation, and the History of Modern Computing
Organizer: Barbara Molony, Santa Clara University
Panelists: Gordon E. Moore, Intel Corporation; Regis McKenna, the McKenna Group; Douglas Engelbart, Bootstrap Institute
Moderator: Paul Ceruzzi, National Air and Space Museum

Secretary's Session: Collecting the History of Science and Technology On-Line
Organizer and chair: Stuart W. Leslie, Johns Hopkins University
Panelists: James Sparrow and Dan Cohen, Center for History and New Media, George Mason University

The Many Faces of Cybernetics
Organizer and chair: Jennifer S. Light, Northwestern University
Papers: "Bodies and Bombers: The Breakdown of the Cybernetic Vision," Thomas A. Stapleford, Harvard University; "The Role of Cybernetics in the History of Family Therapy," Deborah F. Weinstein, Harvard University; "Cybernetics and Urban Planning in the Mainframe Age," Jennifer S. Light; "Embodying Cybernetics: Engineers, Astronauts, and the Apollo Guidance Computer," David A. Mindell, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Moderator: Ross Bassett, University of North Carolina

The Technocratic State and Its Critics: Technology, Technocracy and Public Policy in the United States, 1930-Present
Organizer: Russell Olwell, Eastern Michigan University
Chair: Deborah Fitzgerald, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Papers: "Workers, Downwinders, and Public Health Researchers Confront the Hanford Nuclear Facility, 1945-Present," Russell Olwell; "Technocratic Politics and the New Deal: Jerome Frank, William Leiserson, and Public Policy in the 1930s," Jessica Wang, University of California, Los Angeles
Commentator: David Hounshell, Carnegie Mellon University

Consumers Are Always Right
Chair: Pamela Walker Laird, University of Colorado at Denver
Papers: "Electrification Takes Command? Victor Talking Machine, the Phonograph, and the Consumer, 1922-1929," Alexander B. Magoun, David Sarnoff Library; "A Moment of Cultural (Gear) Shifting: Old Beetles, New Beetles, and a Manual for the Compleat Idiot," Paul E. Ceruzzi, National Air and Space Museum; "Pollution and the Politics of Performance: The American Hot Rod Industry and the Environmental Regulatory Movement, 1966-1984," David N. Lucsko, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; "From the Delights of Marginality to the Search for Social Respectability: French Consumers and Citizen Band, 1970-1990," Pascal Griset, Université Paris--Sorbonne
Commentator: Elspeth Brown, University of Toronto

Factories and Workers in Early Industrial Europe
Organizers: Håkon With Anderson, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and Lindy Biggs, Auburn University
Chair: Daryl Hafter, Eastern Michigan University
Papers: "Combination Acts and Technological Change: French and English Papermaking in the Age of Revolution," Leonard N. Rosenband, Utah State University; "The 19th Century Norwegian Factory: A Precursor of the 20th Century, or a Prolongation of the 18th?" Håkon With Anderson; "The Social Meaning of England's Cotton Mills," Lindy Biggs
Moderator: Joel Mokyr, Northwestern University

Networking Europe
Organizer: Arne Kaijser, Royal Institute of Technology
Chair: Thomas P. Hughes, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Papers: "Crossing Borders: Linking Systems," Arne Kaijser; "The Small Steps: A Historical Perspective on Nordic Cooperation in Telecommunications," Per Lundin, Royal Institute of Technology; "Networking the Portuguese Empire, 1855-1939: The Telegraph and the Radio," Ana Silva Paula, Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Commentator: Richard Hirsh, Virginia Polytechnic Institute

Identifying Visitors/Visitor Identities: Acknowledging Museum Audiences in Exhibition Practice
Organizer and chair: Maggie Dennis, Smithsonian Institution
Papers: "Muting the Objects of Race: Exhibition Dilemmas at the Louisiana State Museum," Adrienne Berney, Louisiana State Museum; "Weaving the Once and Future Web: Comparative Telecommunications History in Public Space at the National Library of Medicine," Hunter Crowther-Heyck and Michael Sappol, National Library of Medicine; "Voortrekkers, Wagon Lagers, and the Enola...