The Dearborn Meeting, 6–9 November 2014

The fifty-seventh annual meeting of the Society for the History of Technology took place at the Henry Ford and the University of Michigan–Dearborn, in Dearborn, 6–9 November 2014. Members of the program committee were Lars Heide, Kevin Borg, and Dan Holbrook. The local arrangements committee was chaired by Marilyn Zoidis of the Henry Ford, with assistance from Matt Anderson, Bob Casey, Clara Deck, Kristen Gallerneaux, Marc Greuther, Saige Jedele, Cynthia Jones, Dina Mein, Angela Pelc, and John Staudenmaier, S.J. Thanks go to everyone on the program and local arrangements committee, as well as to Christian Overland and Patricia Mooradian of the Henry Ford, Charles Hyde, Bill Kelsh, Cari Casteel, Jay Higgins and Donna Fico of Sprintout, and Jane Carlson.

Annual Meeting Sessions

Opening Plenary

Speaker:

David Nye, University of Southern Denmark

Discussion:

By the Audience

Sporting Spaces in Technological Context

Organizer:

James R. Hansen, Auburn University

Chair:

David N. Lucsko, Auburn University

Comment:

By the Audience

Papers:

“Golf Architect Meets Automotive Engineer: Robert Trent Jones, John Oswald, and the Landmark Redesign of Detroit’s Oakland Hills Country Club for the 1951 U.S. Open Championship,” James R. Hansen, Auburn University; “Gender and Jewish Ys in Creating Sports Spaces for American Jewish Women, 1920s–1930s,” Linda Borish, Western Michigan University; “Speeding Through a Man’s World: Women Sports Car Drivers in the 1950s and 1960s,” Jeremy Kinney, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

Artifacts of Inequality: The Embodiment and Disembodiment of Race in Agricultural Technologies

Organizer:

Owen James Hyman, Mississippi State University

Chair and commentator:

Barbara Hahn, Texas Tech University

Papers:

“The Language of Mechanization: Race and the Quantification of Labor in the Southern Forest Industries,” Owen James Hyman, Mississippi State University; “Muddy to Clean: The Farm-Raised Catfish Industry and Development of Aquaculture Science and Food Technologies,” Karen Senaga, Mississippi State University; “Pig Standards for Nazism and the New Deal: Animal Breeding and Experimental Design at the University of Halle and at Iowa State,” Tiago Saraiva, Drexel University

This Is Not a Roundtable: THATCamp, SHOT, and the Place of Technology in the History of Technology

Organizer:

Finn Arne Jørgensen, Umeå University, Sweden

Discussion:

By the Audience

Technology in Use

Chair and commentator:

Kevin Borg, James Madison University

Papers:

“Repairing Mexico’s Green Revolution, 1940s–1980s,” Joshua Walker, University of Maryland; “Early Gas Engines on the Farm: Did Women Use Them?” Carrie Meyer, George Mason University; “Inching Towards the Metre: Diffusion of Metric Measures in Countries using the Imperial System,” Aashish Velkar, University of Manchester, United Kingdom

Works in Progress

Chair and commentator:

Francesca Bray, Edinburgh University, United Kingdom

Papers:

“The Broken Frame of the Frame Breakers,” Zachary Loeb, NYU–MCC; “The Political Economy of Digital Games: The International Dynamics in East Asia,” HungYin Tsai, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Rethinking Non-Western Social Technical Systems

Chair and commentator:

Lars Heide, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark

Papers:

“Dams and Bikes: How South Korea Managed to ‘Kill the Rivers’ and Enjoy Cycling along Them,” Chihyung Jeon, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea; “Recasting a New River: Engineers, Dams, and Politics along the Cauvery in Southern India,” Ramya Swayamprakash, Independent Researcher, India; “Innovation in Indian Weaving,” Wiebe Bijker and Annapurna Mamidipudi, Maastricht University, Netherlands

Criminality and Technology

Chair and commentator:

Jonathan Coopersmith, Texas A&M University

Papers:

“The March of IDES: The Advent and Early History of Intrusion Detection Expert Systems,” Jeffrey R. Yost, University of Minnesota; “Stealing Freedom: Automobile Anti-Theft Deterrents, Criminal Countermeasures, and Technological Change, 1900–1970,” John Heitmann, University of Dayton

Sound and Vision

Chair and commentator:

Paul Ceruzzi, National Air and Space Museum

Papers:

“Defining the Problem of Aircraft Noise,” Janet R. Bednarek, University of Dayton; “The Stereo Turn in American Television, 1953–1984,” Luke Stadel, Northwestern University

People Movers

Chair and commentator:

Lee Vinsel, Stevens Institute of Technology

Papers:

“The Short History of the Mobile Lounge,” Ray Clark, George Mason University; “Automobile Archaeology: The Human Stories around a Transformative Technology,” Jonathan Summers, Stanford University; “All Aboard: A History of Rail Transportation Technology in Brazil,” Edison Renato Silva, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Geography and...