The Chicago Meeting, December 27–29, 1974

Organizational Notes THE CHICAGO MEETING, DECEMBER 27-29, 1974 The seventeenth annual meeting of the Society for the History of Technology took place at the Oxford House Motor Hotel in Chicago, December 27-29, 1974. This was the first time that SHOT met sepa­ rately and had no joint programs with other (and larger) organiza­ tions, and there was some apprehension beforehand that the atten­ dance would not be sufficiently large to justify a separate meeting. Happily, these fears proved unjustified. Attendance ranged from twenty-five to seventy-five at the program sessions, and some sixty people attended the annual luncheon and heard Dr. John B. Rae’s presidential address (see p. 404). This “separate-but-equal” meeting had the disadvantage that SHOT could not carry on its missionary function of disseminating information about the history of technology to other historians; only a few hardy individuals made their way to the SHOT meetings from the American Historical Association, which was meeting several miles away. But it also had some advantages: SHOT was not “lost in the crowd”; members could easily find one another; and there were no competing program sessions to divert attention. Hence, weighty dis­ cussions about various aspects of the history of technology were car­ ried on without distraction or disturbance. The result was a lively, entertaining, and informative annual meeting. PROGRAM SUMMARIES “Modern Communications: Aspects of the Growth of Electronics and Radio” was the topic of the opening session, held on Friday afternoon, December 27. James E. Brittain (Georgia Institute of Technology) was chairman. Speaking on “Patterns of Invention and Institutionalization in 20th-Century Electronics,” Thomas M. Smith (University of Oklahoma) described certain patterns which reflected societal efforts to achieve social control over modern technology. Smith drew a dis­ tinction between strategic and tactical patterns of events and gave examples from both the internal technical history of radio electronics 429 430 Organizational Notes and the external realm of social consequences and interactions. He concluded that the social consequences of such strategic changes as that associated with the electronic computer and the “Information Revolution” had tended to defy prediction. Smith then turned to institutional patterns with a focus on political, economic, and R & D traditions. He argued that the raison d’etre of the two older traditions was fundamentally different from that of R & D and that the latter had been held in a “subjugation that is probably excessive and ought to be temporary.” He argued that the primary aim of the R & D tradition was neither beauty nor utility but, rather, “innovation on a proliferative scale.” Smith gave examples of attempts to transform revolutionary innovative activity into conservative institutional activ­ ity. He concluded the paper with a brief summary of “Project Whirl­ wind” to illustrate the complex interaction of innovative and institu­ tional forces which sometimes conflict and sometimes are reinforced. In “Arc Challenges Spark: The Federal Telegraph Company and Communications in the United States, 1909—1932,” Arthur L. Norberg (University of California, Berkeley) gave a detailed case study of the origins and early history of the Poulsen Wireless Telephone and Telegraph Company and its manufacturing subsidiary, the Federal Telegraph Company. Norberg discussed the activities of an innova­ tive engineering group under the leadership of Leonard F. Fuller of the Federal Company that was formed to improve the power output and reliability of the Poulsen arc transmitter. Fuller and his assistants were able to develop an empirical theory of the arc based on a theoret­ ical formulation of Heinrich Barkhausen. This enabled the Federal engineers to design successful arc transmitters of enormous power capacity (up to 1,000 kilowatts) by 1920. Norberg stressed the impor­ tance of the support provided by the U.S. Navy in accelerating the developmental process. “Electronics in the 1930s” was the topic addressed by Charles Süsskind (University of California, Berkeley) in the final paper of the session. Süsskind presented a brief overview of significant achieve­ ments in radioelectronics since the 1890s. He suggested that a qualita­ tive change took place in the 1930s as electronics became more science intensive, emerged from a status of servitude to radiocommunica­ tions, was applied to industrial processes, and began to achieve parity in engineering education. Süsskind used...