SHOT, the History of Technology, and Engineering Education

摘要

According to the accepted "creation story," the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) took form after Melvin Kranzberg, John B. Rae, and Carl Condit met in Ithaca, New York, in June 1957 with Henry Guerlac, president of the History of Science Society (HSS). The trio hoped to persuade Guerlac that HSS and its journal his should pay more attention to the work of historians of technology. They were disappointed, however, for, according to Kranzberg, the history of science was focused on "'intellectual giants.' What was important were thinkers. Technologists, so-called tinkerers, were simply not worth considering. Guerlac said as much to me." Kranzberg labeled the meeting a disaster for "the small group that traipsed to Guerlac's house in Ithaca with such great hope and which saw us going down the hill from his house thoroughly cowed and almost, but not quite, completely discouraged. [Yet] looking back on that episode years later, we can realize that the refusal of HSS (personified by Guerlac) to include the history of technology in its purview was probably the best thing that could have happened to us." According to Kranzberg, Guerlac's decision precipitated the formation of SHOT in 1958: Kranzberg remembers saying to Condit, "By God, we're just going to have to start our own society and our own journal."