"Looking Back, Looking Beyond": The Washington, D.C., Meeting, 17–21 October 2007

The forty-eighth meeting and fiftieth anniversary celebration of the Society for the History of Technology took place at the Capital Hilton in Washington, D.C., on 17–21 October 2007. Members of the program committee were Paul Ceruzzi (chair), Martina Hessler, and Jennifer Light. Local arrangements were made by Art Molella, Maggie Dennis, and Paul Ceruzzi. Serving on the fiftieth anniversary planning committee were Stephen H. Cutcliffe (co-chair), Robert C. Post (co-chair), Deborah Douglas, Bruce Seely, Ruth Schwartz Cowan, Hans-Joachim Braun, Art Molella, Paul Ceruzzi, Rosalind Williams, Steven Usselman, Amy Bix, and Richard Hirsh. Special thanks to the Society's fiftieth anniversary sponsors: the Smithsonian's Lemelson Center; the National Museum of Industrial History; the National Academy of Engineering; the National Science Foundation; the Chemical Heritage Foundation; the Rockefeller Archive Center; the Johns Hopkins University Press; the Carnegie Institution of Washington; the MIT Press; the Georgia Institute of Technology's Graduate Program in History and Sociology of Technology and Science; the Georgia Institute of Technology's Ivan Allen College; Iowa State University's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; Iowa State University's Department of History; Iowa State University's Graduate Program in History of Technology and Science; the University of Virginia's Department of Science, Technology, and Society; Carnegie Mellon University's Department of History; the University of Maryland's Graduate Program in the History of Science, Technology, and Environment; Lehigh University's Program in Science, Technology, and Society; Lehigh University's Department of History; the University of Delaware; the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm; and the University of Athens, Greece. Extra special thanks to Maggie Dennis, Jim Williams, Fred Allen, Henry Petroski, Jonathan Gifford, Andy Butrica, Joseph Corn, Alex Roland, Joe Schultz, Will Eastman, Betsy Mendelsohn, Paul Rosenthal, Charlie Dobbs, Paul Nienkamp, Greg Bennet, and Cynthia Bennet.

Annual Meeting Sessions

"Engineering" SHOT: The Past and Present Relationship between Historians of Technology and Engineers

Organizers: Sarah K. A. Pfatteicher, University of Wisconsin–Madison, and Bruce Seely, Michigan Tech

Chair and comment: Gary Downey, Virginia Tech

Papers: "Engineering Storytellers: 50 Years of the Journal of Engineering Education," Sarah K. A. Pfatteicher, University of Wisconsin–Madison, and Jack Lohmann, Georgia Tech; "Engineers, Historians of Technology, and the Early Years of SHOT," Bruce Seely, Michigan Tech; "Kranzberg's Legacy: Historians' Continuing Role in ASEE," Kathryn Neeley, University of Virginia

A Feeling for the Machine: Technology and Affect in Europe, 1750–1830

Organizer: Adelheid Voskuhl, Harvard University

Chair: Ann Johnson, University of South Carolina

Papers: "Mechanical Musicians and the Human-Machine Boundary in the Sentimental Culture of Eighteenth-Century Europe," Adelheid Voskuhl, Harvard University; "Forging the Infinite Melody: Hoffmann and the Technology of the Perfect Sound," Emily Dolan, University of Pennsylvania; "Love and Industry: The Saint-Simonian Religion of Technology," John Tresch, University of Pennsylvania

Alternative and Failed Technologies

Chair: Jason Theriot, University of Houston

Comment: Anne Greene, University of Pennsylvania

Papers: "The Development and Demise of the Agrifuels Ethanol Plant in New Iberia, Louisiana: Private Initiative and Political Betrayal," Jason Theriot, University of Houston; "Fuel Cells," Matthew Eisler, University of Alberta

Roundtable—Common Ground? Perspectives on Integration of STS and Environmental History Thus Far

Organizer: Sara B. Pritchard, Cornell University

Chair: David Nye, Syddansk University

Papers: "Landscapes of Envirotech," Thomas Zeller, University of Maryland; "Envirotech Methods: Looking Back, Looking Beyond?" Sara B. Pritchard, Cornell University; "Organisms and the History of Technology," Edmund P. Russell III, University of Virginia; "STS and the Co-Evolution of Technology and Nature," Hugh S. Gorman, Michigan Tech; "Reflections on the Integrative Historical Scholarship of Environment, Technology, and Health Disparities in America," Sylvia Hood Washington, University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health and Institute for Environmental Science and Policy; "STS and Environmental History as a Foundation for Environmental Activism," Pat Munday, Montana Tech

Systems: Engineering, Analysis, and Modeling

Chair: Glen Bugos, Moment LLC

Comment: Paul Ceruzzi, National Air and Space Museum

Papers: "Kissinger's Information Automation Project: Early White House Computer Adoption, 1969–1972," John Laprise, Northwestern University; "Forty Years of Winter Simulation Conferences: Discrete Event Simulation Evolution," Julian Reitman, Independent Scholar...