The Atlanta Meeting, 16-19 October 2003

The forty-fourth meeting of the Society for the History of Technology took place concurrently with the annual meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science at the Sheraton Colony Square in Atlanta, 16-19 October 2003. Members of the program committee were Jennifer Alexander (chair), Karin Zachmann, and Ruth Oldenziel. Steve Usselman chaired the local arrangements committee; other members were Augustus Giebelhaus and Devorah Slavin. Special thanks to the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Sessions

Opening Plenary: Historians' Perspectives on NASA, the U.S. Space Shuttle Progam, the "Columbia" Accident and Investigation, and the Future of Manned Space Exploration
Chair: David Hounshell, Carnegie Mellon University
Panel: Alex Roland, Duke University; Roger Launius, National Air and Space Museum; John Krige, Georgia Institute of Technology; Silvia Kraemer, Colby College

Where 'Race' Resides: Perspectives on Technology and the Persistence of Racialist Thought
Organizer: Amy Slaton, Drexel University
Chair: Scott Knowles, Drexel University
Commentator: Evelynn Hammonds, Harvard University
Papers: "Performance Standards and the Limits of Inclusion: A Historical Context for Minority Engineering Programs," Amy Slaton; "Ne'er the Twins Shall Meet: Race, Criminal Identification Technologies, and Pudd'nhead Wilson," Simon Cole, University of California, Irvine; "Civilization and Histories of 'Technology'" Rebecca Herzig, Bates College; "'Turning Black Skin White': Reading Race and Technology in the X-Ray Experiments of 1903," Carolyn Thomas de la Peña, University of California, Davis

Engineering Europe: Transnational and Transatlantic
Chair: Tom Misa, Illinois Institute of Technology
Commentator: Geert Verbong, Eindhoven University of Technology
Papers: "Technology and the Dynamics of European Integration: The Quest for a European Patent, 1949-2003," Eda Kranakis, University of Ottawa; "Competing by Cooperating: Anglo-American Radar Development in World War II," Chris Eldridge, National Academy of Sciences; "Bargaining on European Telecommunications Standards: Color TV Controversies versus Cellular Phone Agreement," Walter Kaiser, Aachen University; "History of a Technological Concept: The National System of Innovation Framework," Naubahar Sharif, Cornell University

Environmental Policy
Chair and commentator: Ed Russell, University of Virginia
Papers: "Protecting the Environment or National Employment? Recycled Paper in Norway, 1965-1990," Eyvind Bagle, Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology, Oslo; "Burying Nuclear Waste on Either Side of the 49th Parallel," Darrin Durant, University of Toronto; "Voices in Technology: Los Angeles' Not Quite Democratic Environmental Policies of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s," Sarah Elkind, San Diego State University

Towards a Concept of National Innovation Culture: How the Challenge of New Technologies Was Met in East and West Germany
Organizer: Thomas Wieland, Munich Center for the History of Science and Technology
Chair: Ulrich Wengenroth, Munich Center for the History of Science and Technology
Commentator: Raymond Stokes, University of Glasgow
Papers: "The Evolution of the Technological Identity of German Pharmaceutical Corporations," Iciar Dominguez Lacasa, Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research, Karlsruhe; "'German Quality Work' as a Basis of and an Obstacle to Innovation: Scientific Apparatus Engineering at Carl Zeiss in West and East Germany," Uwe Fraunholz, Dresden Technical University; "University-Industry Relations in the Two German Innovation Systems: The Examples of Biotechnology and Machine Tools, c. 1960-90," Manuel Schramm, Dresden Technical University; "Strategies for New Technologies: Nuclear Power Reactors and Biotechnology in Post-War West Germany," Thomas Wieland

Beyond the Industrial and Agricultural Divide
Chair and commentator: Kathryn Steen, Drexel University
Papers: "Industrial Espionage along the Delaware," Brooke Hunter, Rider University; "Jeffersonian Politics and Roman Technology in Charles Wilson Peale's The Exhumation of the Mastadon (1806-1808)," Katherine Woltz, University of Virginia; "Railroads and Time Consciousness in Antebellum South Carolina," Aaron Marrs, University of South Carolina; "'I Can't Afford Not to Spray': Iowa Farmers and Chemical Insecticides, 1945-1970," Joe Anderson, Iowa State University; "The 'Accuracy and Facility' of Chemical Analysis: Technological Interactions between Farmer and Land in Antebellum America," Benjamin Cohen, Virginia Polytechnic Institute

Business and Leisure Communication Technology
Chair: Robert Buerglener, University of Chicago
Commentator: W. Bernard Carlson, University of Virginia
Papers: "Information, Technology, and the Struggle to Control Change: The NYSE from...