Still Turning: A History of Aermotor Windmills by Christopher C. Gillis (review)

Windmills are a stunning piece of technology, critical in the past as well as the future. They are ripe with cultural and environmental meaning, symbolic in the United States (and elsewhere) of the human struggle to flourish in volatile climates and landscapes. Windmills have pulled water from the ground, pulverized grain, and converted energy to electricity. More subtly, their very presence says "I am here," a vertical indicator that agriculturalists are at work on the horizontal Great Plains.

Because of the fundamental importance of windmills, both globally and regionally, Christopher C. Gillis's Still Turning: A History of Aermotor Windmills, is a welcome addition to the existing literature. As the title indicates, Gillis primarily focuses on one windmill manufacturer, but, as the author notes, "Aeromotor remains the most widely recognized windmill on the market," and the company's familiarity is such that a history of windmills in the United States can essentially be written by using Aer motor as a lens (p. 197).

Gillis does a fine job with his subject, both corporate and general. Still Turning is full of business history, as leadership and sales strategy shifted over the more than one hundred years that Aermotor has been operational. There is also abundant technical information (including diagrams and photographs) for readers who enjoy learning about how windmills work, and how they were improved over centuries of development and use. Gillis does not skimp on the pre-Aermotor time period, but provides two chapters of global windmill developments before delving deeper into his main subject. At the end of his book, the author describes how Aermotor dealt with emerging competitive technologies, and despite a lull in the 1950s–1960s, asserts that windmills and wind technology once again have an important future.

Though it is rich in technology and business history, a more neglected subject in Still Turning is the social and cultural influence of the machines— particularly their influence in the United States generally, and the Great Plains specifically. Gillis does not neglect this part of the history entirely. He notes, for example, the increase in African American and Hispanic workers in the post–World War II era, the activities of organized labor, as well as a brief description of the daily routine of a worker at Aermotor (pp. 134–35). However, these interludes are short and leave the reader wanting more. The author is at his best when he connects social conditions with technical change. Aermotor created a tilting windmill, for example, to ease customer fear of heights. Previous designs had forced farmers to climb to the top of their windmills every week to grease exposed gears. Many neglected this dangerous task for fear of slipping, falling, and sustaining serious injury or even death. The company's response was to invent a tower that could be lowered to ground level for oiling. Appreciative customers bought thousands of the new design over the first three years it was offered (pp. 49–50). In another example, the author described how Aermotor responded to farmers' desire to repair their own windmills, rather than hiring someone else to do it or buying new parts (p. 114).

With these and other subjects, Gillis connected the humans who used windmills with the company that developed and sold them. This fundamental linkage allows the reader a peek into larger topics, such as the environmental constraints of the Great Plains. Although their inclusion is appreciated, larger historical events that are linked to windmills are not always explored with enough nuance and complexity. Gillis uses a fairly simplistic explanation for the dust bowl, to give one example, and does not use appropriate scholarship to interpret the event (p. 114).

The author's research on his main subject (Aermotor), however, cannot be faulted. Still Turning is full of endnotes that prove in-depth research in company archives, trade literature, newspapers, and many other sources. Gillis also conducted hundreds of interviews for his project. The result is a...