Social and cultural histories of technology in the United States
from the pre-colonial era to the present. Topics include mass
communications and entertainment, industrialization, modernism,
food production and consumption, national identity, and the
environment.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students: Graduate students are expected to attend all class meetings,
read all the materials assigned to undergraduates, and attend
and participate in all discussions as regular members of the
course. In addition, graduate students will have additional
reading assignments; as a group, graduate students will meet
occasionally with the instructor to discuss these materials.
Graduate students will also write a 750-word professional-
quality book review and a 3500- to 4000-word historiographical
essay on a theme germane to their own research.
Athena Title
Technology in American Culture
Prerequisite
HIST 2111 or HIST 2111E or HIST 2111H or HIST 2112 or HIST 2112E or HIST 2112H
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student Learning Outcomes
By the end of this course, students will be able to arrive at conclusions about how technology has shaped American lives by gathering and weighing evidence, logical argument, and listening to counter argument.
By the end of this course, students will be able to write stylistically appropriate papers and essays about the history of technology. Students will be able to analyze ideas and evidence, organize their thoughts, and revise and edit their finished essays.
By the end of this course, students will be able to identify how the history of technology in America shaped diverse social and cultural attitudes toward race, class, and gender, progress and modernity, and work and leisure, encouraging them to understand diverse worldviews and experiences.
By the end of this course, students will be able to apply appropriate methodological approaches to their analysis of primary sources, using such sources to support their own original analysis of the history of technology and organizing their evidence to show historical continuities and discontinuities.
By the end of this course, students will be able to generate their own research question or topic, locate suitable primary and secondary sources, and synthesize their ideas in novel ways.
By the end of this course, students will be able to initiate, manage, complete, and evaluate their independent research projects in stages and to give and receive constructive feedback through the peer review process.
Topical Outline
What Is Technology?
Technology and the Idea of Progress in American History
Technologies of Colonization and Conquest
The Age of Homespun
Technology and Nationalism: Debating Manufactures
Proto-Industrialization in an Agrarian Age
Social Implications of the Factory System
"System, Order, Uniformity"
The Transportation Revolution
The Railroad as Industrial Symbol
The Emergence of Engineering Culture
Technology and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism
Modernism and the Culture of Efficiency
Humans as Machines—Taylorism
Our Ford, Who Art in Heaven: Mass Production and Automobility
