Beach Haven

CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY
A VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION
By Simon Critchley
Oxford University Press, 2001, 149 pages
 
In the discipline of the philosophy of science and technology, two major schisms have evolved, Continental Philosophy and Analytic Philosophy. In this introductory work, Critchley leads the reader through the historical evolution of the ideas of the Continental school, and those who are its leading proponents. The book is laid out as if a series of lectures, one per chapter. Perhaps that was the author’s use or intent.

An example of one focus of the work would be an examination of to whether Continental and Analytic fundamentals represent an unbridgeable divide or are somewhat complimentary. If truth and wisdom (or meaning) are not the same thing, and according to John Stuart Mill (as depicted by Critchley) a difference in the search of each led to such a strong division among generations of philosophers, then why would some philosophers such as Critchley argue the necessity of both rather one over the other?

This ‘why’ question asked includes several premises spoken of throughout the work; the existence of the two schools, the difference of focus for each, the division of rhetoric between them, and attempts by some to enhance or lessen the division. The question asks for opinion, yet would require a respondent to share some data to give credence to their conclusion. To answer the question with evidence would presume some examples of philosophical debate that either seeks to depict difference, or show complementarity between the Analytical and Continental approaches.
The question itself is a short ‘why’, but the prelude lays out a more complicated compound list of premises to show motivation to the question. A respondent may consider whether each or any of the premises are true, or even if any philosophers (including Critchley) actually made the argument asserted.

One such as Critchley considering a response, could approach the answer as a cynic. They may think nobody really argues in favor of complementarity, and seek to disprove that assertion. They might alternatively be a believer. In which case their answer may seek not only to show examples of publicized papers in favor of complementarity, but also argue the position themselves. In an attempt to lay out an introductory approach, Critchley does both.

The goal of the question may be provoking, as it depicts an assumption of philosophers either seeking separation or coexistence. The answer would lead the answerer to take sides around the idea of whether separation or complementarity exist, and why the respondent tends to agree with one, or at least why they feel Critchley agreed with one. The question skews toward complementarity over division since proponents of complementarity, like Critchley, are the focus. Perhaps the question then is leading toward a future seeking more cohesion in the academic discipline of philosophy.

​THE AMBITIONS OF CURIOSITY
By G.E.R. Lloyd
Cambridge University Press, 2002, 175 pages
 
In this work Lloyd contrasts learning in ancient Greece and China. There is a deep look at both the methods of patronage by those in authority, as well as the emergence of brokers who connected scholars with patrons. He also reviews how technology was view differently in these two very different cultures.
 
I wonder if there is a form of codependency between the documented cycles predicting future events in the Chinese publications described by Lloyd, and the emperor and courtiers whose reputations rode on the outcomes. For example Lloyd points out that when a predicted event does not occur it is thought of as a sign that the emperor has special power to hold back the event, but if an event happens that was not predicted it was thought indicative of neglect of some sort on his part. It would be fair to assume, as does Lloyd, that if the emperor looks bad it would go poorly for his wise men who were supposed to help him know these things. Whereas events were supposedly dependent on predictableness and the strength of documentation, so too was the emperor likewise dependent on the strength of the documentation.
 
Similar metaphysics existed in Greek culture in relation to the Pantheon. Omens were both feared and sought after. Courtiers, or ‘wise men’, at times were from religious institutions, other times specifically non-religious. In either case, when patronage was attached to an adopted school, the professors of a given school (theoretical if not an actual institution) were personally at risk.
 
Many parallels can be drawn from today. Academics often study and publish at the behest of authority, public or private, in the form of grants or stipends. Science itself can sometimes bear the brunt of poor findings. Case in point could be the example of early believe there was little risk to humans from so-called ‘mad cow disease.’ As we now look at the latest wave of COVID-19, perhaps we should continue to both consider how science ‘progresses’ and how the same structures that encourage the scientific path might also limit inquiry.

HOW USERS MATTER
Edited by Nelly Oudshoorn & Trevor Pinch
MIT Press, 2003, 340 pages


Most Significant Arguments

The work How Users Matter is a compilation of papers focused on the ideas of how users of technology and developers of technology influence one another in their decisions about technology. Likewise, a number of the papers also speak to non-users of technology and what might put them into a position of non-use. Much of the relationship between user and technology development is shown as co-constructive. For example in Christina Lindsay’s piece, From the Shadows, referring to TRS-80 users she speaks to a sort of migration from that conceived initially by a technology developer, to those that actually take up and reshape the technology as users. I this case she starts with the reflexive user where the developer and user are one and the same so the technology matches the person creating it. Then the configured user who is defined or limited by the construct of the technology. Finally a projected user where the developers imagine the persons tastes, motives, etc. All of these are at the beginning of the technology release process. Then the “real” user steps in, with the technology in hand, and may comply with the notions the designers had in mind, but many do not. In fact many reshape the technology. They even can form user groups that work together to reshape the technology and its use.

This idea of user groups like the TRS-80 group is another important theme that was iterated in a number of the papers. Some of these groups are like the friks and Raners in the Laegran article, Escape Vehicles. In these examples the users form a sort of self-help collective to share information and spark ideas among themselves. They also find identity and community among like-minded people. Then there are the user groups acting as spokespeople in the Parthasarathy article, Knowledge is Power, and the work by van Kammen, Who Represents the Users?. In these examples there are interested parties who are users (patients), but then they take on more of a leadership role in structuring, to one degree or another, policies based on their interpretation of the respective user community. One good example of this was the difference in how the US and UK patient advocacy groups approached actors in the policy and development portions of a system/network around genetic testing, the BRCA gene technology, in the Parthasarathy work. The US groups like the NBCC and BCA felt they were more knowledgeable than the average patient and wanted to limit access to and use of the BRCA testing. In the UK the GIG felt that increased access was in order. These groups sprung up from volunteers who coalesced into a formal advocacy group. The US healthcare system differed from the UK healthcare system in that the US version is/was dominated by private medical research and insurance companies and the patient groups generally do/did not trust that these companies would have the patient’s interest ahead of profits. The UK system is primarily a government run medical system and is more trusted by the patient groups. This is how the article explains the difference in approach.

Comparison with Other Readings

The idea around community or group representation does not seem to be in the Cowan article, Consumption Junction. She certainly advocates for putting the user at the center of the network with ever-widening concentric rings showing different provider groups. The center is the user or type of user in the household domain, then out to retail suppliers of the finished product, then wholesaler, producers and governmental regions. There are groups that are supposed to represent the user, for example a government agency is supposed to somehow be mindful of the consumer needs, as are the retailers, but she does not focus on the users themselves forming any sort of formal group to either co-identify, or to speak on behalf of the user community. Her model allows for such a group in terms of an option to place them onto one of the network diagrams, but she doesn’t focus on how such a group might influence, or be influenced by, the other actors in the user-centric network.

Strengths and Weaknesses

The Users book and the Cowan article seek to define the network of technology creation from the perspective of technology consumption. I really like this approach in that creators of technology will either ultimately consider if and how their technology is used or they will fail. Many do consider this, but get caught in a trap of considering the user at the beginning of development then stop once the technology is “publicized”. That said, in the case of the TRS-80 the technology was preserved and shaped by the users even through the company didn’t do much with it, and eventually discontinued the line. None the less, Tandy did eventually fail with the TRS-80 if their goal was about gaining a large user base and continuing sales.

Most of the articles admit that every user is different, but then still make efforts to categorize both users and non-users. For example Wyatt puts non-users into groups with titles: Resistors, Rejecters, Excluded, Expelled. These ideas about grouped non-users are helpful, but it doesn’t allow for those who may move from category to category, or are in more than one category at the same time. Wyatt does speak of non-users who are former users (Rejecters and Expelled). She also speaks about non-users ability to become future users. Each of these groupings implies some sort of knowledge by the non-users about the existence of the technology. If they never even knew a technology existed, could they be in one of these non-user groups? Would we have to create another non-user groups called “Unaware”?

Aside from students of STS, I would think the works would appeal to policy makers, advocates, technology designers, technology planners and historians. I could see interest in those who also look into behavioral economics. It’s an interesting field where researchers try to understand how people make every day decisions, including how they spend their money.
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FASCIST PIGS
By Tiago Saraiva
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2016, 326 pages


Most Significant Arguments

In the book Fascist Pigs, Tiago Saraiva puts a focus on agriculture as a technology that influenced decisions made in the Fascist leadership of Italy, Portugal and Germany from WWI through WWII. The work also notes how Fascist philosophy guided decisions by agro-geneticists and breeders. As a result of the experience of low food supplies and dependence on other countries for food, these governments each came to a vision or goal of being food independent. That led to a search for breeding programs of plants and animals that would have desired characteristics in the given country. Geneticists took their signals from leaders and focused efforts along the path of seeking “elite breeds”. When some success was had, the ideas expanded to such application on humans as well. That led to the horrific effects of separating races and “defective” people for “elimination.” Laws were passed to encourage or pressure farmers to participate in programs. There were military interventions to ensure compliance. The language around agro-programs used mystical and militaristic language such as “Battle of Wheat”. Nationalism was equated with farming through language as well such as plants, animals and people being “rooted in the land”. Ultimately selection in each area was approached in the form of pedigrees and performance tests. Interestingly, in most cases there was difficulty ensuring/documenting pedigrees. For example German pigs were sometimes not documented through enough generations to make the official requirement, so scientists began to gather data through eugenics. Similarly when recruiting SS soldiers the effort to establish an applicant’s genealogy was often not possible, so verbal acceptance of SS values and satisfactory performance in training was sufficient.

All three countries also grew through colonialism in eastern Europe and throughout Africa. Such colonialism justified managing breeds, sending "pioneers" to occupy lands, and subjugation of local populations as cheap labor. 

Comparison with Other Readings

One area in particular stood out to me. On page 116 Saraiva discusses the mix of “Front Pigs” meaning successful breeders who produce the preferred specimens, and “subsistence breeders” meaning those who produced pigs that did not meet the preferred standards. This made me think of readings comparing technology innovators with maintainers. Russell and Vinsel (see attached file below), for example, mention that when it comes to technology maintenance, typically effort is 2% preventative and 98% repair, meaning maintenance is viewed of less value. Even if Germany didn’t achieve the level of innovation they targeted (meaning preferred breeds of pigs or potatoes) it would be interesting to understand the comparison between the number of compliant pigs compared to the “subsistence” pigs.

Strengths and Weaknesses

The linking of strategic approaches to agriculture with a country’s overall strategy makes for a strong argument. In particular showing agricultural and political outcomes from overarching philosophies brings some clarity to me as a reader. Throughout the work Saraiva draws attention to the “uniqueness” of this line of thinking (comparing the technology of agriculture with the philosophy of government). Pointing out the uniqueness of the argument sometimes comes off as criticism of other historians in general for not having come to similar conclusions.
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I like linking of seemingly unrelated areas to show truth. Patterns can reveal truth, and I think that approach could be helpful in my future papers. Others who might find this line of thinking helpful could be government strategists, scientific ethicists, political philosophers, and maybe cultural anthropologists.
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THE SOUL OF A NEW MACHINE
By Tracy Kidder
Back Bay Books, 2000, 293 pages

​
The work is a tale of an upstart computer company taking on the big boys. Specifically, in the early 1980s Data General Corp (DGC) created a minicomputer as the market was just taking off. Giant IBM was left in the lurch as they concentrated on large-scale super-computers. This book traces the conception, design and build of the Eclipse model (internally called the Eagle). Kidder also speaks to the technology that led to the possibility of a minicomputer, the microchip.

Internal politics, the cult of personality, and subterfuge are just a few of the story lines traced in this work. Just as fascinating is what happens after the model becomes a hit. Sales and Marketing take over and the engineers based in Massachusetts who created the asset suddenly have no direction in their careers. Along the way there is an interesting combination of cooperation and competition between the hardware chip designers, and the micro-code firmware writers. Aside from this mini-competition, and the strategic competition with the likes of IBM, there is an intermediate layer race as well. An entirely different group of engineers at DGC in South Carolina were working on a different model. The other group was well funded while the Eagle group were scraped together by a few tenacious leaders.

​The work is a fascinating look into an industry and culture most of us only vaguely aware of. Despite how much technology is discussed, Kidder is able to make it understandable for the rest of us.

RELOCATING MODERN SCIENCE
By Kapil Raj
Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, 285 pages


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The subscript to the title reads: Circulation and the Construction of Knowledge in South Asia and Europe, 1650-1900. The author offers historical examples to support essentially two hypotheses. The first is that when two cultures interact, the science of both hybridize with each other, they co-construct. Each then evolves differently before and after the interaction. Traditionally western businesses look to expand into additional markets, or to gain new trading partners. In the historical period in question, each European country had some version of an East India Company that sought to exploit India and surrounding states. The belief was that the 'contact zone' such as the Indian Ocean region was a source for information. The science was happening back at the European society, then diffused or disseminated back out to the contact zone. These western countries inevitably expanded trade into some form of colonization.

This idea of science diffusing from west to east also spurred the other major argument Raj has. Western countries had an inherent mistrust of data gathered by 'locals' rather than data gathered by European scientists. He shows that even when western, essentially white, scientists are present, the real information still comes from local scholars, often in writings that already existed before the 'explorers' even arrived.

Two-Way Flow of Scientific Knowledge Between Europe and South Asia

In the reading, Kapil Raj gives examples of how Indian knowledge and expertise contributed to scientific accomplishments. These accomplishments were then brought back to Europe as a form of hybrid science. This assertion is in contrast to the tradition argument of the diffusion model where contact zones are areas where data is extracted to inform science that happens in the west, then diffused back to contact zones. Raj shows how knowledge from the west mixed with Indian knowledge to form a new sort of knowledge that was further adopted differently in both Britain and India. Each knowledge base was different from each other, and from what existed before the cultural interaction. This is because people are mutable, and they make process and knowledge likewise mutable. Science, then, is a function of situated values, norms, sociabilities, divisions of labor, regimes of proof, etc. (228) Contact zones implement co-constructive processes of negotiation.

One example, the interaction between French and Dutch botanists with locals in Orissa and Malabar which brought about two studies, the Jardin de Lorixa and the Hortus Malabaricus. French and Dutch actors learned local botanical and medical knowledge from Fakirs through pre-existing indigenous books. Both resulting works were largely ignored for various political reasons such as Antoine de Jussieu’s personal issues with Nicolas L’Empereur. Eventually additional actors looked at the information in more market-oriented terms and the value of the two works were revisited.

Mapping efforts in India by James Rennell in the 1780s, and Thomas Montgomerie throughout the 1860s to 1880s are further examples. Both used western approaches to train locals in surveying efforts, but worked with the locals (Pundits) to adopt approaches based on local needs. In the case of the Pundits working for Montgomerie, use of traditional western instruments caused negative repercussions by mountain peoples who saw the work as spying. To adjust, Montgomerie adopted Pundit bodies as instruments using pace counting in place of survey chains. In one case when Nain Singh was pushed to ride on an animal, he adjusted the stride count from his own body to that of the animal. When western cartographers questioned the process it was later shown this approach to be more accurate than some other western attempts using scientific instruments alone (215-216). This approach also often kept the human 'instrument' from being killed.

Mapping efforts started with economic goals in mind (defining farm lands or trade routes). Eventually these goals gave way to political goals, such as when the British government took advantage of French and Russian wars, coupled with fear of a potential Russia-China pact, to militarily secure Himalayan trade routes. Despite the success of the mapping effort, the exploitation attempt went poorly in 1904 when British forces killed 5000 Tibetans, then left without any real gain. In this sort of example Raj calls cartography ‘politics by other means.’ (185)

Credible Witnesses

Given skepticism by British scholars who never left the comfort of the Royal Geographic Society, Raj points to efforts by East India Company (EIC) officials to inspire trust in efforts at knowledge generation by a blend of British and Indian scholars. One way they did this was to create colleges in India where EIC officials were sent to learn local information such as language and geography. Locals were simultaneously taught western science, sometimes separate from their British counterparts, sometimes in the same classes. The more the EIC western students learned from and interacted with locals, the more they came to trust them and convey back to England the trustworthiness of generated information. In fact it worked so well there came a time when Indian scholars were brought to England to teach similar topics in British schools.

Indian scholars were able to share their own theoretical/mathematical ideas which seem to work better than the experimental learning encouraged by instruments shared from the west. (179) Western math books were quickly consumed by Indian scholars, and then updated with additional new Indian mathematical discoveries.

​MORE WORK FOR MOTHER
By Ruth Schawartz Cowan
Free Association Books, 1989, 257 pages


Most Significant Arguments

In More Work for Mother, author Ruth Schwartz Cowan links changes in domestic work with changes brought about by technological advancements. She speaks to the separation of labor into work for women, men and children. As technology makes tasks easier, or even not needed, Cowan notes how most of the advancements replaces work done by men and children. Those technologies that do help with “woman’s” work removes the “need” to keep other women help in the home.

Examples of taking away work by men and children are often around cooking stoves and ovens. As gas and electricity replaced wood and coal, the need for gathering and preparing wood dissipates. The cooking work still exists, but the help to mother by father and children is lessened, or even eliminated. Washing machines are another example. As machines came into the home there was no longer a perceived need for sending laundry out or having a laundress come into the home. Although doing a load of laundry was less strenuous, at the same time expectation for cleanliness also increased so the amount of laundry work increased. The effect of both of these examples was that work eased, but for mother workload increased.

In the post-war era of the 1960’s and 1970’s work for women outside the home became more normal. Unlike when this happened during the depression when poor women worked outside the home out of necessity, women in general felt either need or opportunity to do so. In this case not just poor women began to work outside the home, but so too middle-class women. Despite this, the housework did not shift off of mother and onto the rest of the family. Cowan argues this is because the division of labor, masculine and feminine work, has been firmly entrenched in American culture. Entrenchment of the single family home and self-sufficiency in America also keeps alternate arrangements from succeeding such as communal work sharing.

Comparison with Other Readings

Jesse Adams Stein addresses the idea of masculine and feminine work in the piece Masculinity and Material Culture in Technological Transitions. She points to the government press operations in Australia to show how cultural assumptions mold division of labor. Unlike the Cowan work looking to the home, Stein is looking at work outside the home, in the printing press. There was a division of “men’s work” in the press at the time of the letterpress. Generally the argument was that running a letterpress machine took physical strength and the ability to know a machine’s quirks so well as to be able to run it properly. Both of these aspects were thought to be beyond a woman’s ability. In fact a few women here-and-there did run these machines, but found other ways of approaching the need to load type if the weight was too much for them. Then the disruption came was letterpress was supplanted as a technology by offset lithography. Male machinists fought moving from the heavier manual process as they defined themselves in that role. Even when offset lithography became the norm, pressmen still defined their role in masculine terms. Less skill was needed to run the machines, but the tradition of working a press had been masculine and change was slow. Similar to Cowan’s argument that housework was primarily looked at as feminine culturally, Stein argues that press work was primarily looked at as masculine culturally.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Cowan’s arguments are well laid out. The technical migration and the corresponding correlation to changes in housework seem natural and logical. Even her arguments about why some technologies or processes were chosen over others seem to work.

One area I question was her depiction of the shift from mother as consumer of services to mother as producer of services. The “products” of mother were keeping the family fed, healthy and clean. As the specific work to accomplish this shifted from others to mother, and the quality and quantity expectation rose, the result was increased work for mother. Cowan gives examples of the shift from consumer to producer such as less delivery to the home with availability of the car. Mother now had to go to the supermarket to get the food rather than having it delivered, or going to a local market by walking there. The supermarket came about because increased use of refrigeration allowed for more variety of food out of season. As expectation to deliver health and food to family included a more varied diet, mother produced transportation of food stuffs by driving to a supermarket that was not close enough to walk to, and would not deliver. She also needed the car to allow for larger loads of foodstuffs required by the increased variety in diet.

I would argue that it is a little more complicated. For example when mother walked to the local market to pick up food, that act is not unlike driving to the supermarket. She was a consumer of delivery before the car (delivery to home, delivery to local market). She is a consumer of delivery after the car (delivery to the supermarket). Like drawing lines in a system between what is in and out of the system, the line between consumer and producer can be difficult. Mother was, and is, both consumer and producer of food delivery both pre- and post-car. The question is where does one draw the line? One could pick at similar arguments given by Cowan on healthcare (doctor home visits vs mother taking a child to the clinic), education (home schooling vs getting the kids to a public school), etc.

The ideas in this work could appeal to students of history, technology, sociology, gender, etc. I think there is appeal here to lay readers as well. The conversations sparked between my wife and I were interesting. My helpfulness with Thanksgiving preparations certainly increased, but I found her unwilling to allow me to get involved in some of the work which seem to support Cowan’s culture entrenchment arguments. Spouses and children should be more aware of the burdens on mothers whether they work outside the home or not.

​FORCES OF PRODUCTION
A Social History of Industrial Automation
By David F. Noble
Transaction Publishers, 2011, 409 pages

In Forces of Production, Noble notes the belief that technological progress is thought by some to mean social progress. In fact, he argues that “progress” is determined by who is setting the goals and expectations. If change moves an organization closer to the stated goal then it is dubbed progress.

In this light, technology is a tool to move an organization towards a goal, but it is not the driving force in determining the goal. One example given are the chapters around the adoption of numerical control (NC) and the non-adoption of record-playback (RP) methods of automated machining. NC is more complicated and requires a planning and programming set of skills that are different from the skills of a machinist. RP depends, at least initially, on the skills of a machinist to record the moves to be replicated by the machine.

Despite many drawbacks, management saw NC as progress and RP as a step backwards. Why? Noble notes that one goal of management, if not the goal, is to reduce dependence on skilled labor. The desired outcome would be to lower cost and increase management’s control over what happens in the shop. NC pushes control away from machinists. RP requires a machinist. Labor, he argues, saw NC as the opposite of progress since it reduced the strength of the laborer and labor unions in negotiation with management. Noble argues convincingly that technology is not a problem or a solution. Problems and solutions are political, moral, and cultural. Technology is one tool to help clarify and resolve both the problems and solutions.


Like other works I have reviewed, Noble makes a strong argument against technological determinism. In fact, he almost speaks as if technology is really a minor, or at least secondary, part of the story. Technology in his examples is an enabling or disabling factor in the goals and decisions of the actors.

His approach seems to start each chapter with the generalized positions, then give a number of specific examples. At the end of each chapter he restates the arguments linked to the specific examples in the chapter. The technology examined is very specific, automation of machining parts, and primarily aircraft parts. In fact, automation was also being implemented in other industries at the same time which he alludes to once. This approach is not unlike at least a portion of the David Hounshell work reviewed in a past review posting (http://bhaven.org/reviews/american-system-to-mass-production). In that reading the argument was about movement from skilled manual labor toward mechanization, though not automation per se. In the Hounshell work several different industries are looked at in the beginning, but eventually the focus moves to sewing machine manufacturing.


There are plenty of good examples and specifics that support the arguments made by Noble. In deed, at times perhaps there are too many arguments shared. For example in the section about why RP was not adopted it seems like many more people or organizations are quoted than in any other portion of the book. It appears that Noble “sides with” the proponents of RP because he quotes so many of them. It felt a little like he was piling on. He at times offers other motives by management for adopting automation such as lowering costs, increasing productivity, being more competitive. Unfortunately these motives seem minimized throughout the text to a point where these might be only viewed as positives by management because they support the real motives, control and power.

In the end, the epilogue, Noble's arguments seem more balanced. He refocuses on the topic of technology and its relationship to the idea of progress. Clearly the motives of management and labor go to defining progress, and it is how Noble helps clarify that technology is a means and not an end. The work as a whole could appeal to varying interests. It could help clarify the topic for historians, students of business and labor movements, sociologists, and political scientists.

There were portions I found enlightening. For example during WWII when the image we have these days shows the nation united in purpose, Rosie the Riveter taking care of the home front while “our boys” were fighting evil. Yet in reality there were large numbers of strikes, lockouts and other sorts of work stoppages. The responses by FDR were telling of the thought process of the day, that led directly to the later hunting for “anti-American activities” by Congress. World competition between democracy/free enterprise and socialism/communism were and are real, but seeing communism as the force behind every ill made resolution of the problems difficult. Policy makers could take note from this linkages of technology with academia, industry and politics. Economists might also find the financial ties between government, academia and industry worth consideration. 

MOST WONDERFUL MACHINE
MECHANIZATION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN BERKSHIRE PAPER MAKING, 1810-1885
By Judith A. McGaw
Princeton University Press, 1987, 439 pages


In her work Most Wonderful Machine Judith McGaw dives deep into the paper mill industry in the Berkshire region. Though the industry and location are specific, she shows how larger forces both influence, and are influenced by, events and larger systems. In particular the work speaks to mechanization of an industry that starts out local and creates a hand-crafted product. The forces she identifies first inspires the creation of the industry, then is slowly shaped.

Among her approaches, throughout the work McGaw speaks to the individual people involved in the industry creation and expansion. Those who adopt or resist mechanization and their likely incentives are explored. The culture of the people is important. Initially the mill owners, workers and townspeople are mostly homogeneous in their acceptance of Calvinistic and Congregational moral foundations. There was a very egalitarian mindset. That helped keep owners close to the work and the workers. They were cautious about adoption of machines that would be detrimental to workers, though as business need put pressures on them, adoption became the norm. I found it interesting how work was organized based on the religious assumptions such as the role of women, and the need of less skilled men to adjust their working time around farming work.

As machines increased there was less need for some skilled work. Some men moved to work more traditionally thought of as women’s work, but some jobs stayed firmly in the hands of women until they too were finally mechanized. McGaw tells us that technological determinism is not an overriding force. Most all the decisions shown were based on culture and business need. Many of the industry moves came as a result of owners’ interactions with each other, not as competitors, but as a sub-community. They also seemed to make decisions from a paternalistic point of view in regards to the industry and the local community. For example McGaw tells us mill owners were often held responsible for the actions of their workers outside the mill. Likewise the owners felt free to 'manage' the lives of their workers such as asking them to sign an agreement not to give in to drink.

McGaw approaches her work much like Susan Douglas did in Inventing American Broadcasting in that one industry is the focus. Like Douglas, she also helps dig into the psyche of the mill owners. Unlike Douglas, she also focuses into a specific geographic location where Douglas was attempting to look at the entire broadcast industry. Both limit themselves to a specific time period. Both discuss the specifics of the technology evolution and how the “advances” came about. Both use the historical context to show change in the larger system. For example, in the work on broadcasting, the inventors concentrate on a specific technology shortcoming and try to fix that technical issue. When they do, those who compete in the space use the technology to advance their standing in the business. The driving force seems to be individual advancement and competition. In the case of paper mill owners, the incentive is different. As costs increase and price demands decrease through competition, mill owners adopt changes in technology almost grudgingly. In general they are not inventing the technology to lead an industry, but rather tend to adopt a technology in order to keep pace with an industry.

In both cases there is a sort of salient or reverse salient that drives technology change. In the Douglas work the incentive is to solve a technological issue. In the McGaw work the incentive is to solve a business issue. In either case the decision makers are shaped by environments. For example, McGaw points to the raw materials needed, the sort of people needed, and the transportation available. As things change in each of these areas, so does adoption of mechanization change. In one case, as paper demand grows and rag supplies don’t grow in accord, there is a shift to use of chemical means to make previously unusable rags now usable. Unfortunately the change results in an increased polluting impact on the water supply. A need to increase drying capacity resulting from increased paper creation through mechanization (a reverse salient), adding heated drying creates a new supply need for burning fuel (wood, then coal). This need leads to deforestation and increased air pollution. Increased transportation options lead to a migration from local markets, then to regional markets, and finally to national markets. All of this adds demand, and the cycle of reverse salient, to mechanization, to new reverse salient continues through this entire history.

I like the approach of using a specific example to illuminate larger issues or trends. In the work, the specifics are easy to understand and give clarifying language to understand what choices are made, and why they are made. The decisions influence change and are influenced by change. Getting to know an industry I had not considered before made the reading more interesting. For my own future research I could find this approach useful. I find the simplification of the language in a story format helpful. I say simplification of language, but I don’t mean simplification of complex issues. The strength of the work is that complex issues are depicted in understandable ways. Her use of specific data is also a helpful tool. That blend seems to appeal to the academic interested in the topic. I’m less sure if people outside academia would have an interest unless they are in the paper industry. One other area I would have liked to have seen is a comparison with some other region. I’m sure paper mills in another region of America would have had different influences through its development. Some high level look at such a comparison might have been helpful to show the bigger Science, Technology and Society (STS) issues could have been more clarifying.