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• W4366809497 abstract "Book Reviews The Grammar of the Machine: Technical Literacy and Early Industrial Expansion in the United States. By Edward W. StevensJr. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995. Pp. x+210; figures, tables, notes, in­ dex. $27.50 (hardcover). As the title suggests, Edward Stevens’s book is an overview of ante­ bellum technical education. The work covers a good deal ofground, ranging from college natural philosophy courses to science educa­ tion atwomen’s academies. Historians of technology and science will be familiarwith most of the topics covered, especially the histories of numeracy and mechanics’ institutes and the role of spatial thinking among technicians. But Stevens provides a fresh perspective on these issues and shows that technical education bridged “the two great domains ofknowledge in nineteenth-century America: natural and moral philosophy” (p. 174). His goal is to demonstrate that “the coexistence ofthe liberal, scientific, and technical” in this era’s curriculum “reflected the common desire to secure the moral foun­ dations of an emerging republic” (p. 6) and “to integrate different disciplines . . . under a moral umbrella supported by the idea of progress” (p. 3). Technical education arose in the antebellum period to satisfy the need for skilled technologists in the newly industrializing economy. Technical literacy required a combination of hands-on facility with machines and materials, basic competence in science and mathe­ matics, and visual and spatial acuity. But technical education had a didactic component as well; it sought to instill habits of “efficiency, punctuality, and accuracy,” precepts that formed its “larger moral and civic context” (p. 29). This work is divided into two parts. The first two-thirds outlines the reasons and methods for providing technical education. Histori­ ans of antebellum science and technology will be quite familiar with Stevens’s discussion, as he draws heavily on the work of Brooke Hindle , Eugene Ferguson, Patricia Cline Cohen, George Daniels, and Robert Bruce. This is not to say that Stevens merely rehashes the existing literature. His goal is to describe the challenges educators faced in providing training in drafting, science, and mathematics to a diverse and often poorly trained audience. Thinking and commu­ nicating spatially—making and reading drawings—were important abilities that helped set apart skilled mechanics from unskilled operPermission to reprint a review published here may be obtained only from the reviewer. 299 300 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE atives. These skills, however, lay in the domain of the fine arts before 1820, so educators had to modify existing methods of instruction. While spatial thinking helped to connect theory and practice, the mechanic also required training in science and mathematics. This also presented educators with a challenge, as few craftsmen had the background to learn these subjects in the traditional manner. As a result, educators and popularizers avoided advanced calculations and arcane theorizing; instead, they provided illustrations and dem­ onstrations and related scientific concepts to practical, everyday ap­ plications. The remainder of the book shows how these pedagogical strate­ gies shaped technical education in three settings: mechanics’ insti­ tutes, women’s academies, and polytechnic schools. Here again Ste­ vens relies extensively on the historians of these institutions, including Bruce Sinclair, Deborah Warner, and Barbara Solomon. He extends their work to show in detail the educational methods these institutions employed to reach diverse and nontraditional stu­ dent bodies. The “Franklinesque mission” (p. 131) of mechanics’ institutes was to combine technical and liberal education, a fusing evident in apprentice libraries and the Franklin Institute’s high school. Women’s academies, such as the Troy Female Seminary, “sought to unite the moral and scientific,” and to instill in “the new republican woman” a “commitment to progress through science and technology” (p. 146). This commitment would not liberate her from the domestic sphere but instead would help her implant a love of science in the next generation of American scientists—her sons. New engineering schools, like the Rensselaer School, built a curricu­ lum that combined shop training, scientific and mathematical in­ struction, and drafting courses. In so doing, Rensselaer provided a pedagogical base that supported the professionalization of the engi­ neering community. To the historian of technology, Stevens’s book is useful in two ways. First, it provides a convenient and concise..." @default.
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• W4366809497 title "The Grammar of the Machine: Technical Literacy and Early Industrial Expansion in the United States by Edward W. Stevens Jr" @default.
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