A Companion to American Technology [Hardcover]

• 22 original essays by expert scholars cover the most important features of American technology, including developments in automobiles, television, and computing
• Analyzes the ways in which technologies are organized, such as in the engineering profession, government, medicine and agriculture
• Includes discussions of how technologies interact with race, gender, class, and other organizing structures in American society

Notes on Contributors vii

Introduction 1
Carroll Pursell

PART I BEGINNINGS

1 Technology in Colonial North America 9
Robert B. Gordon

2 The American Industrial Revolution 31
James C. Williams

PART II SITES OF PRODUCTION

3 The Technology of Production 55
Carroll Pursell

4 Technology and Agriculture in Twentieth-Century America 69
Deborah Fitzgerald

5 House and Home 83
Gail Cooper

6 The City and Technology 97
Joel A. Tarr

7 Technology and the Environment 113
Betsy Mendelsohn

8 Government and Technology 132
Carroll Pursell

9 Medicine and Technology 156
James M. Edmonson

PART III SITES OF CONTEST

10 The North American “Body&alÇ