Categories of Difference, Categories of Power Bringing Gender and Race to the History of Technology

摘要

In October 1824, the managers of the newly formed Franklin Institute for the Promotion of Science and the Useful Arts held their first Annual Exhibition of Manufactures. They intended sweeping results: "By bringing together the various products of our workshops," they explained, "we shall soon discover what manufactures flourish in the country,-what objects are successfully prepared by our mechanics,-and in what respects they are deficient. Great as is the merit of new inventions, your board is convinced that to attain perfection of workmanship in old established inventions, is an object of at least as great importance."1 Indeed, items such as black broadcloth and marble mantles were to be encouraged, alongside more newfangled stoves and cast-iron pipes.