Organizational Notes: The Munich Meeting, 17-20 August 2000

The forty-second annual meeting of the Society for the History of Technology, held jointly with the Gesellschaft für Technikgeschichte e.V., took place from 7 to 10 August 2000 at the Deutsches Museum and the Forum Hotel in Munich. Michael Allen chaired the program committee; other members were Hans-Joachim Braun, John K. Brown, Karin Zachmann, Hans Weinberger, and Martina Blum. Local arrangements were handled by Martina Blum (chair), Christine François, Olivia Linder, Andrea Lucas, Helmuth Trischler, and Ulrich Wengenroth. Special thanks go to MAN, Landeshauptstadt München, the Deutsches Museum, and the Dibner Fund.

Sessions

SHOT/GTG Joint Plenary Session: How the History of Technology Speaks to Other Fields of Scholarship
Speaker: David Nye, Odense University
Comment: Ulrich Wengenroth, Munich Center for the History of Science and Technology

Poster Sessions

"New Patterns of Research: Placing Jacques Besson's Theatrum Instrumentarum et Machinarum into a Digital Environment," Ronald Brashear, Smithsonian Institution Libraries; "Can Remote Sensing Technology Aid Historians?" Buck T. Foster, Mississippi State University; "Effects of the Technical Revolution in the Hospital from an Economic View: Medical Technology and the Change in the Institutional Character of Twentieth-Century Hospitals," Silke Judith Hübner, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität; "Technikgeschichte in Emblemen öffentlicher Wappen Deutschlands," Konrad Gappa, Dinslaken; "Präsentation des Ausstellungsprojektes 'Papier und Umwelt' im Westfälischen Freilichtmuseum Hagen--Landesmuseum für Handwerk und Technik--Landschaftsverband Westfalen--Lippe," Eckart Maier, Westfälisches Freilichtmuseum, Hagen; "Die Popularisierung der Produktivität: Industriefilme der 50er Jahre und die österreichiche Produktivitätsdebatte," Ramón Reichert, Universität Wien

Producing Reliability, Reliable Production: Wartime, Cold War, and Industrial Contexts of Technological Dependability
Organizer: Ann Johnson, Villanova University
Chair: Leo B. Slater, Chemical Heritage Foundation
Papers: "Overcoming Unreliability and Demonstrating Reliability: Robert Bosch GmbH and the Introduction of ABS," Ann Johnson; "The Military-Industrial Displex: Cold War Electronics and the Construction of Reliability," Edward Jones-Imhotep, Harvard University; "No Mere Hobby: Cold War Amateur Radio as a Back-up Communications System," Kristen Haring, Harvard University; "The Reliable Instrument: Arnold O. Beckham, Statistical Quality Control, Spectrophotometry, and World War Two," David Crawford Brock, Princeton University, Chemical Heritage Foundation
Commentator: John Krige, CRHST/Georgia Institute of Technology

Decision-Making within System Technologies: Comparative Perspectives on Railway Traction in the Twentieth Century
Organizer: Colin Divall, University of York
Chair: Barbara Schmucki, Technische Universität Darmstadt
Papers: "Dieselization in the Two Germanys: A Comparison," Günter Krause, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Eisenbahngeschichte; "The Culture and Technology of Railroad Electrification: Comparisons between U.S. and European Practice," Albert J. Churella, Ohio State University; "Early Railway Electrification in the Asia-Pacific Region: A Comparative Study," Robert Stuart Lee, University of Western Sydney; "'That Thing Will Never Work on a Real Railroad': The German Diesel Hydraulic Locomotive and the Corporate Culture of the Southern Pacific Railroad," Jeffrey W. Schramm, Lehigh University
Commentator: Lucy Taksa, University of New South Wales

Gender, Consumption, Technology
Organizer: Martina Heßler, Technische Universität Darmstadt
Chair: Stephanie Smith-Divita, Case Western Reserve University
Papers: "Male and Female Construction of Femininity: The Introduction of Electrical Domestic Appliances during the Interwar Period in Germany," Martina Heßler; "Lightning Rod Men, Nervous Women, and the Commodification of Risk in Nineteenth Century America," Arwen Palmer Mohun, University of Delaware; "Wrist Computer and Babe Magnet: Masculinity and the Origins of the Digital Watch, 1967-1976," Maggie Dennis, National Museum of American History; "'Technology Shopping': Gendered Representations of Consuming Practices in Postwar Austria," Monika Bernold, Universität Wien, and Andrea Ellmaier, O¨sterreichische Kulturdokumentation
Commentator: Joseph J. Corn, Stanford University

Work in Progress I
Chair: Philip Scranton, Rutgers University
Papers: "La Real Sociedad Económica and the Transfer of Early Industrial Technologies to Cuba," Maria M. Portuondo, Johns Hopkins University; "The Doubled-Bitted Axe in Historical Perspective," Ronald Jager, independent scholar; "Conceptualizing the Societal Consequences of the Development of Large Technical Systems: Observations on the Growth of the Food System...