Technohistory: Using the History of American Technology in Interdisciplinary Research (review)

This volume includes eleven articles, as well as an introduction by Carroll Pursell, an afterword by editor Chris Hables Gray, and a list of suggested readings in technohistory. Though the articles intentionally span many issues and approaches, the overall point of the collected works is to demonstrate that a technologically grounded analysis can be applied productively in virtually all the academic disciplines, and in this the work succeeds admirably. A major strength of the volume is that it preserves the spirit of the National Endowment for the Humanities seminar that inspired it. Each article is engagingly written, and the reader feels part of an ongoing dialogue. Moreover, even though certain articles may initially appear irrelevant to one’s particular field, a careful reading of all of them reveals important themes that unite these works beyond the stated intent of applying the history of technology across disciplinary boundaries.

For instance, several articles focus on the way in which power differentials—whether located in class, race, or gender differences—shape one’s relative ability either to master technologies or be mastered by them. In a notable example, Lena Sorensen analyzes how information technology has been applied to the nursing profession. She finds that doctors have been much more successful than nurses in resisting rationalization, and she masterfully unpacks the complex relationship between gender, power, and technological adaptation. Other articles that illuminate the basic theme of the reciprocal relationship between power and technology include Roger D. Launius’s discussion of NASA’s diminishing success in using metaphors to generate public support for its programs, and Monika Ghattas’s analysis of how the conflict between the conceptual frameworks of federal bureaucrats, antinuclear activists, and the citizens of Carlsbad, New Mexico, impeded the implementation of a nuclear waste management plan.

A second major theme of this volume has to do with identity—specifically, how the notion of “self” is mediated by and through technology. David Hochfelder’s “Electrical Communication, Language, and Self” discusses the way in which the telephone shaped identity by influencing the personal characteristics that came to be valued in modern American culture. In an especially provocative article, Chris Hables Gray analyzes the implications of using artificial limbs and organs to create “wholeness” and argues that cyborgs, far from being the construct of science fiction, already live among us in such forms as the dialysis patient or the artificial heart recipient. Gray also critiques the godlike self-image of the doctors involved in cyborgism and notes that “of the hundreds of key players that I have seen named and described in the research, none are women” (p. 159), an insight that provides an important analytical bridge to Sorensen’s work. The concluding article, by Gordon Patterson, makes an interesting departure from the dominant focus on more advanced technologies in its analysis of Florida’s Sara Lee Doll. This history of the attempt to create an “anthropologically correct” (p. 234) doll for black girls is important on its own merits, but it also helps to ground the theoretically thick analyses of cyberspace and cyborgism. Through a meticulous, descriptive approach, Patterson demonstrates that even a child’s toy can reflect and shape the idea of “self.”

The articles could have been tied together by theme more explicitly in Gray’s afterword, which instead focuses on the concept of disciplinarity and the importance of technohistory. However, the decision not to write a synthetic conclusion was likely intentional. Other readers will surely find additional themes beyond those discussed here, and—because Gray resists the lure of the “voice of God” afterword—the book ultimately functions as an academic Rorschach test of the reader’s own insights and interests. This is also one reason why the book would provide an excellent foundation for an advanced seminar in the history of technology. The variety of approaches used in Technohistory could pose a problem for readers who insist upon rigid specialization...