Technology and Environment in North American History [Preliminary ed.]

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Defining Technology ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ►

ne reason why technology seems like a hallmark of the modern world is thal the word itself and its current sense are themselves modern. Before U1e latter half of the twentieth century, the word was not generally understood in the same way. A dizzying variety of expressions were used instead to talk about technology, from in• dustrial arts to "technics" (distinct from techniques). lf the evolution of the word is instructive, so is the history of the concept of tech• nology. Using a single word for such a complex human activity and its divers,c n>sults was not an obvious step. lt is surely worth asking whether the unity presupposed by the use c,f the single word technology is more apparent than real.

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THE HISTORY OF THE WORD The concept of t,'Chnc,logy is su rprisi ngly recent. The first clue comes from the very history of the word, which has two Greek roots. Tee/me is, perhaps surprisingly, the word for a rt. Log~, has several meanin~: word, discou~e, or th~'Ory. When Aristotle spea ks of technology, he actually means the "rules of the art (of speech)," what we might today call a rhetoric. So how d id we go from a system of (rhetorica l) knowledge to the study of technics, and then to the concrete apparatus of ou r modem

technica l societie$? Though the word's n,ois are ancient, it gained new meaning in modem time.s. In the sixteenth century, U1c word is still found to refer to the art of speaking about a subject, sometimes to a subject's terrninol,igy, or to any sort of general discourse 1

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about an arl It took a d ifferent reading of thc,se Greek roots to turn lrc/1110-logy into the lllrylines, whethe r or not they are demllnstrably true, are considered to be µerjor111nti1,e to some extent. That is, these

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stori~s have a11 ~Hect; the)' support certain actions and diSCOllrdge others. Affirming Canadian generosit)' engendered shame or defensiveness among the stingy-who feltleft out, even excluded-and exerted a form of peer pressllre. Thus, the 11el'w1* analysis e mphasizes the Interplay of profoun(Uy different forces affecting each other reciprocally, so that technological d~velopments are llOt considered in isolation.

FURTHER READINGS Joerges, Bernward. 1999. "Do Politics Have Artefacts?", Social Sl11d1e, of Science 29, 3 pp. 411-431. Winner, Langdon. 1980. " Do Arlifacts Have Politics''; D11ednlus 109, I, pp. 121- 136.

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The Environmental Human and the Human Environment ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ►

umuf\S are creatures of their environment. They draw sustcn,rncc from the vege-

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table and animal kingdoms. Th_,, '"' !),"' ,§> ;,."' .,"' 9,'1> ".\"' ,p "'"' (\er 9:>er ~ tl> .....er 't,r:r ,,,er f:f .,er ,.,,t:t ,fi' 'bt:t if »..~ ,ra ..,_'6 ~ Jied on h,,nting guns using: flintlocks made in France and widely shst al l other Canad ian cana l projects down to the present day have been intended to improve navigation ,vithin lhe Gr~at

Lakes and the St. Lawrence valley, or to facilitate the movement of sea-going ships in and out of the North American heartland. The greatest single effort to open the Great Lakes to seagoing ships was the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway between Montreal and Lake Ontario, completed in 1959. The 306-km str~tch of river was dammed, deepened, widened, and provided with new locks so as to allow sea-going freighters free access. Including other navigc1tiontll improvements (the St. Lawrence channel, the VVeJJand canal etc.), the entire seaway spans nearly 3,700 km from Sept-lies (Quebec} in the Gulf of St. L,1wrence to Du luth (Mli",esota} at the farthest tip of Lake Superior. Canada paid about 70'Y• of the construction costs of the St. Lawrence Seaway proper and reaps the equivalent share of the revenue. However, the .increasing size of today's container snips prevents 95% of lhem (as of 2005) from fitting through the SO-year-old locks of the original Sea"'ilY, and the seaway is increasingly used for internal shipping,

CANALS AND THEIR IMPACTS: ECOLOGICAL INVASIONS There were ecological consequences to the existence of canals. They allowed fish (such as snakeheads) and other marine animals (such as zebra mussels) to move into ne,v watersheds or reach new lakes and river networks.

An early invader was the sea lamprey, a pri.m.itiv,:, fish that once spawned in freshwater but spent the rest of its adult life in the Atlantic Oce,1n. However, ii has also proven c,1pablc of liv ing in freshwater rivel'S and lakes where it docs not face any predators. It is itself a voracious predator, larger and hungrier than native freshwater lamprey species found in North /\n,erica. Lacking jaws, the sea lamprey uses its mouth ,1s a large sucking disk by fastening itself to a fish with its sharp teeth and picn:ing through the sca les with it~ file-like tongue in order to feed on body fluids. Six out of seven fish attacked by a lamprey d ie. Tile disappearance of three whitefish ,11ecies in the Great La kcs is blan1ecl on the sea lamprey in,•asion. After the 1824 completion of the L.,ch ine Canal and fol.lowing other improvements along the St. Lawrence, the sea la mprey was ffrst spotted in Lake Ontario in the 1!)3()s. After the 1\119 improvements to the VVelland Canal, it was able to move into Lake Erie, where it was fil'St seen in 192'1 . Afterwards, its s'}Jread to the rest of the Great La kes was u nh indered and it reached Lake Micnigan by 1936, Lake Huron by 1937, and La ke Superior by 1938. Controlling the $ea lamprey popu lation in order to protect com mercial and sports fish ing, co~ts about $21 million annually. In all, l !lS invasive species are thought to have moved into the Great Lakes with the help o f cana l works, includ ing 57 that have benefikd from the opening of the

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St. Lawrence Seaway. The impact of the sea lamprey pales compared to that of Uie zebra musse:. Originally an Eurasian species, zebra mussels are believed to have been Introduced around 1985-1986, being first discovered In Lake St. Clalr u1 Ontario in 1988, before spteading to all of the Great Lakes, and pl,1guing lakes Erie and Ontario mos! of all. While in the larval stage, they are virtually undetectable and they can be transported accidentally tone"' water bodies by fishermen. Zebra mussels are detrin1e11ta I lo native freshwater mussels because mussels past the l,uval s\age swim freely for a fow wt?eks in ,, juve11ile stage a11d then attach themselves to rocks or other hard surfaces-such as boat hulls, water intake valves-and mature 11ative mussels. The local clams were virtually w!pedoul; son,e insect species disappeared. Other native species of mollusks, fish, and lnsects SlLrvive ln stre,tms and rivers. Zebra ,nussels were later joined by a cousin from the same part o( !he Caspian Sea, the quagga 1nussel. Both are DreiSi;c1111 ntussels and are such voracious feeders that they've depleted much of the algae population of the lakes they've colonized. This has been good for water clarity and ren10•1ing pollutants now (bced into the sediments, but it has decimated lake Life, deprived fish of their usual food, and promoted the growth of toxic blue-green algae that the Dreissena mussels theniselves often reject instead of eating. 1-Veedy algae kno"' n as Oadophora also profi~ but their death and decomposition processes absorb oxygen fron1 the surrounding water. This oxygen-poor en• virorunent favolus the growtl1 of botulism bacteria that are lhen taken up by the quag:ga and zebra mussels. When the mussels are consumed by anotlu-r invasive species. the goby fish, the botulis1n bactc~ia contaminate the fish. U the fish are preyed upon by loons, the end result 1nay be poisoned loons.

BASIC DEFINITIONS OF CANAL TECHNOLOGY Mill Race: the narrow trench or cutting

used to lead water fron, a rt-servoir to a

mill in order to turn its wate rwheel (a lso known in Great Britain as a "mill !eat.")

Pound Lock: another na me for the modern canal lock furnished with two sets of doc.lrt. open ing out,,,,ards; th~ pound lock connech'= two watc.rways. sitting '°'t different levels, or a waterway and another lock, or even hvo lock~ in a series.

Rigo/et:

a narrow, navigable channel created along a riverbank by a parallel structure (dam, levee, or stone wa ll) at a place where the river's course is interrupted by rapids.

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Towpath: lhe path runni11g along the water's edge that is used by men or horses pulling barges.

Weir. a dam, usually submerged, that raises the level of a stream or river.

FURTHER READINGS James Thoma~ Flexner, StenmbOfllS Come True: A111crica11 /11v1•11/ors i,r Aclio11, 194-1.

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Railroads: An Iron and Steel Web ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ►

ailways took over where canals had left off. They were foster and they could operate in " greater range of climates and weather conditions, crossing deserts or facing winter blizzards. Freed from some of their geographica l constraints of canals, they were able to go up mountains and link more towns and \'illages. Within a few years, they cou ld also move significant loads. lJl North An1crica, they fostered the growth of industry, accelerated the settlement of the frontier, and became a dominant force in the workings of the agricultural sector. They also transformed the landsc.1pe in new ways. Steam locomotives required water and fuel (wood, then coal). Rai lway bridges had to be stronger and bigger. New types of bridges emerged: ~-uspended bridges, girder plate bridges, tn 1$s bridges, and cantilever bridges (as at Quebec City). Cuttings, emba nk ments, and viaducts multiplied to control the grade of railway tracks. They foci Iitated the spread of new species while helping bring about the nea r destruction of some, such as the Pla ins bison.

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AN ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION ln 1820, moving a ton of gra in duced rates enormous ly since their speed made it possible to n,ove several loads from

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T he Evolution of t he Ci nci n nati to N•w York Ru n

Year 1817

Route

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The enthusiasm ,,roused by these nelA; intoxicating velocities helps us to understand the ra ilway fever that gripped countries at several points throughout the nine-

teenth century. More than any other innovation until then, perhaps, railways sym· bolized speed, progress, and in,provetnent. As early as 1837, British h is torian Thomas ~1acau.lay referred to the abiJjty to "traverse the Janel in cars which whirl along with· out horses" as one o f the more obvious signs of human progress (Box 2). Builders were increasingly ab le to push through 11ew lines and projects, to "railroad" them through tJ,e countryside, tlU'ough vWages and cities. The railroad compan ies were often able to oveslook or lo get the p ublic to overlook major accidents as being ejther acts of God or the fault of human error. This enthusiasm had in no way abated by the last years of the nineteenth centltry when railway builders t,,ckled s01ne of their grandest projects, In the United States, ,, transcontinental railroad link was completed in 1869, while Canada finis hed its o,vn

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BOX 2 ► Witnesses: T homas 8 . Macaulay (1837) On prog,n'ti~: "'Ii fur.tt ltngt!Jrursl hfr. it i,o~ uuJISUt1'fl pnirr. i't J111sc:rllrrR111$1J('d ,i13mr..11C$, it ;ua ;ncuo,,al Jlu- frr~ t,Uty trguably played an even greater role in North America where the very evolution of Canada and the United States as they exist today would have been m>trkedly different in their absence. The pride of railw~y promoters is obvious in the 1888 pronouncement on Canada's Grand Trunk Railway in a commercial prospectus (Box 3).

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND RaiJroads may have been the first complex, large-scale trclmolugica/ S1Jslems. ln addl· lion to the loro1notives (the result of an intricate adaptation of the basic steam engine to locomotion), trains could not roll without a iarge quantity of other material equipment (tracks, rolling stock, stations, ya rds, signalling devices, fuel supplies, water supplies). Furthermore, a railroad was made possible by a corporate organization, a iarge capital investn,ent, and a great number of specially trained managers, engi• neers, conductors, and mechanics (in addition to less specialized employees such as porters, stewards, cooks, ticket agents, etc.). Because railroads operated over a large geographical area, 24 hours,, day, every day of the year, in ,,II kinds of weath,n {un• Like canals), they demanded a 11ew breed of professional n,anagers. The methods of the older fumily-ow ned-and-opcratcd finm could not fill the bill. Such a complex technological system requ ired an organized, hierarchic bureaucracy. Steam vehicles go back to the eight~-enth century. Aside from a toy exhibited in front of the Chinese emperor in '1670, the first stc,,m·drivcn vehicles were built in France by 1770 by Joseph Cugnot. {They worked, but they were too slow and ineffi. cicnt to be of much use.) The dawn of the nineteenth century saw new attcn,pts in Great 8ritain and the steam coaches of Trevithick and Gurney enjoyed some su«ess until they were forced from the roads by laws favouring horse-drawn coaches. Steam locomotives were used on the private rnilways of coilieries by 1812, but George Stephenson's experiments with locomotives on railways available for both freight and passenger transport met ,vith greater success, unhindered by public or political opposition since he ran his steam trains over privately-o"'ned tracks. The world's first fully commercia l steam tra ins were developed in England in 1825, running on th~ Strlckton and Darlingtrln railway, which operated li ke a turnpike or canal (>f the day insofar as it was open to anyone who paid t(lllS or used vehicles in conformity with the way's charter. initia liy, the locomotive-drawn ca rriages

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were pitted against horse-drawn ca;rts, bttt the locomotive won a decis ive victory by

1833. By tnen, the first major steam railway line (52 km) had opened in 1830. In 1827, a French raj lway started operating out of Saint-Etienne, though locomotives didn't run on railways in France until 1829-1830. Also in 1830, the first regul,1r steam milroad (10 km) opened in the United States (Charleston and H,1mburg). Other countries followed suit Belgium, Germany, and then both Canada and Russia in 1836. Canada's first railway ran between fa1 int-Jean. and La Prairie over 40 kilometres, completing a major commercial route between New York and Monlrtlal. The working cond itions of the 11rr1l('," rmd (lird nftcr{lmrrf:,5, Theu I :;twubltlf m1rr ,, Indy lyi11g qn lic-r lmck ,,gim~st a ltttle µ'lllnrd~rrer. u11th the bloo.l strcrm1mg ~'t'r ha fact. (wJ11~h

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w11s fttrd co/(1t1r) ltt a 11muberofdfstmrr /Utlc strenmsfmm lll!iJ/1 I ,rskd >n·r ifshrtould sa.wl· lou• ,1 lutlr l11ttttdy ttn1f .SheJnst naddeil umt I gi:J'Cl' hu :,1m1t jj.tJd left h,r_(or :,0u1,-body t/s.t T1u ttr..t.t time I 11u-sse.d h..:r sl,4 was detld, Tlwu D man. attnuut.-.:1 ,rt the inquts.t y~trnluy tu.•ir!! ,::tidnil:.~1 Juul 1wt tltr ltnst rcrmmrlJrnuce ojwitat m!tll,y pqs~•,l>, amu: nm,wQ: up W /ltC' ruul ,mplorttl we tJ help ium find Jus wife~ u:IJ() .r;ns 1r_ftenv11rds found demi No imagrr.ntion (Jm coucriw 1h.•

min oflhc• tnrrh~~~- Ori/Jr extmordmnry we(thts uud('r u,luch ll1e peopk :CJfrr lyrrtg. or th(' comp/kmions u1JD wliidr they u.1Crc tw,~tcd up amo11g irrm rmd 'Wf.lOd, w1d mad mrd u.w.ta

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l 1lt1n'1 wrlf" pl;our ,, I wu1'1 ,lo nu~ /'l/1(('1' U.1(1.V, 11J1'1 J c0111d (),tff sJ:t•nr u, '-/JfllA llltc>Ut mlfSdf. t1•,,ir1, ofC(J,U'S,t I ith)Uld mthl'r lt"1 J'-1 I ktt:pi.11,,i.: t1t.1ty qull!t lu·rt.. I ht.1.vt tr-I tfo11't know u•liat u, call U- wotecllou. Wnmlerf11lly prolific. hmmis tl,e Vt•st famts 11/ tl1t Norl/1 1 as lls btetdmggro,md.s, travdlmg huudre,ts of nul.t:-. lu Sliffe/Iv/food, 1/ hrrc.to-day. JJJJd c..'1.-:.rwhtn- h.Hmtrrmu, mu.l 1w do, 199(1-)

Modern ranching and fann ing becan,e possible in the n e,vl)'•Vacated lands of the central Prairies. The settlers may have farn,ed for thcmsc·lves at first, but· they soon fo1mcd for customers far and wide, subject to the whims of distant markets served by the railway companies. Th.is ,.,as a more systen,atic type of fu.rming, subservient to the dc1nands of an increasing ly integrated and indus trialized cconon1y. Ranching evolved as well. Cattle herds initia.Uy g razed the open range, overseen by cowboys who nh,o look on the job of shcphcrdi ng tile herds to market. Cattle drives bccan,c

shorter in 1867 when a Chicago Li\'cstock dealer, J. G. McCoy, brought a railway line to J\.bile:nc, Kans.ts. Once barbed wire was introduced by Joseph Glidden in 187,a. the open range could be divided into private parcels. The use of s ilos, s ta rting around

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1875 ht Illinois, to accumulate feed made it possible for cattle o,\'ners to function wiUt smaller lots of land. Pencing affected another large Prairie mammal, the pronghorn antelope found from Alberta and Saskatch~wan down to northern Mexico. Like the bison, its population iit the ea rly 1800s may have numbered as h igh as 30 or 35 m illion individuals throughout its range. By 1924, only about 20,000 remained. The pronghorn is one of the world's fleetest runners, attaining speeds of nearly 100 km/h, but it is unable to jump fences. Modern roads, railways, and fences have cttrtailed pronghorn migratio1ts, and sometimes barred it from needed access to food and water. Recent initiatives have modified fences to lift the bottont wire bigh enough for the animals to scu1·ry under it, as well as substitute smooth wire for the barbed wire of standard fences. As Ute railroads started to move livestock (cattle on the hoof) supplied by ranchers, they extended the process whereby consumers grew ever more clislanced from the source of even the most basic products. \d-For s~v\?n sqi.1are riggt.> for describi11g [11,·111y's V,-ssds except wlte/1 iltey a,-e ilt 0 11r possession, in wltidt caS, a Unitm fack will be ltoisle,f over tJ,e Sig11al." 1

THE COMPLICATED DEVELOPMENT OF THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH Earl ier chapter~ rarely dealt with individual inventors. Canals evolved incrementally. Rail roads were lt.•chnological systems of even greater complexity, so that different people in different countries ofte,1 had a valid cJajm un this or that improvement to a g iven component of the system. The electric telegraph might :Seem like a different matter, but .it was a suificiently complkated i,wention to h«ive required several inventors. Electricity was studied intensively during the l Sth century. It ,vas noted by April 1746 that a line-up nearly a rr,ile Jong of monks linked by iro-n rods se-emed to be traversed instantly by an electric shock produced by an accumulator. By 1753, a Scotsman suggested that electricity be used to transmit signals by making each wire or other electrica l effect correspond to a letter. In Spain, Fr,lncisco Salva is U1ought to have set up an experimental line with multiple wires between Madrid and the spring residence of the royal family as early as 1795. fn England, twenty-eig ht-year-old ~ itcd by J,lmes H Morrison. "The Dukt' of Kent's Astomshing Trll.'graph'"> Th.;, Beaw.r (December 1991-January 1992), p, 32.

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Francis Ronalds bLLi lt experimental lines using up to LS kilometres of iron wire in order to connect dials and transmit signals. ln July 1816, he wrote to the British Adnliralty offering to demonstrate it. The Secretary of the Ad,nirally replied, "Telegraphs of ,1ny kind are wholly unnecessary, no other than the one in use will be adopted." By the 1830s, two types of electromagnetic telegraphs had been developed: the needle system and the armature system. The flrst employed the deflections of small magnetic needles placed at the receiving ends of the wit·,;s through whici, a current was sent. The second placed an electromagnet at lhe end of the wire, so that the current put through the electromagnet might produce a mechanic,,! effect. Russian d iplomat Pavel SchHling drew on the work of an early experimenter ln MLLnich, Soen1mering (around 1810), to design ,1 single needle telegraph that becan,e known to scientists throughout EtLrope and became part of lectures on electricity in various locations. The son of a British doctor who had known Ronalds, William Cooke allended such a lecture in Munich and came back to England deternuned to build a practical electric telegraph. With the help of a university scientist, Charles Wheatstone, he succeeded by June 1837, patenting an invention that tweded only to be marketed. By then, the competition was fierce. Electric telegrnphs were being thought up by nt101erous inventors in Europe and North America. ln 1832, during ,, six-week trip across the Atlantic, Srunuel Mol'se (1791- 1872) conceived a particularly efficient code using only dots and dashes produced by depressing a single key (no need for magnetic needles or cumbersome d ials) suitable for an electric telegraph; however, it would take him until 1837 to find the r ight partners (a university chenlist by the name of Leonard Ga le and the son of an industrfo list, Alfred Vail) in order to perfect the corresponding appa rntus and start marketing it in 1838~L839. The code designed by Morse and Vail wn for thou:;.inds of year.;, the petroleum age started a round 1859 in North America. Ten years earlier, Canadian inventor Abraham Gesner (1797-1864) had di~tilled kerosene from oi l a~ an il/11mi11a11t capable of replacing wha le oil lamps and candles. In 1654, having moved to the United States, he was awarded th ree patenl5 by the United State,; Patent Office for three different kerosene mixes, each being '"'a new manufactu re or compU.$iticm o( matter for illuminating a nd uther purposes." He specifically noted that he obtained each from "petroleum, maltha, or soft minera·1pitch, asphaltum, or bitumen." (Four years earlier, British inventor James You ng had obtained a patent for a simila r proce..'>-5J And in 1857, New York businessman Michael Alexander Diel:2. (1830-1883) perfected a kerosene lamp with a flat '"ick superior to other lamps u~ing whale oil-such as the ones the Dietz company run by his brothers were making at the time! The oil obtained as a by-product from brine wells and tar pits suddenly acquired much g reater value. Jn Ennisk illei, Township, Ontario, the brothers Charles and Henry Tripp had learned of tar-like gum deposits from the Geological Survey of Canada. They acq tLiced the rights and were cUistilling the gums and resins by 1853. By 1854, they had formed a company, the International Mining and Manufacturing Company. Though their products were innovative and rewarded at the Paris World Pair in 1855, the Tripp brothers did not make money. There were no raj lways or even decent roads out of the Enniskille,1 swan1p, so that cartage was inordinately expensive.

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The Tripps sold out to James M.iller Williams, a coachmaker from Hamilton. Ln 1858, VVW!a,ns dug into the gum beds to find their source. At a depth of 4 me~res, he struck oil. This was the 6,st oil wcll in North America. (The drilling cf oil wells goes back centuries in China and Iran) The timing was perfect for Williams. The Great Western Railway had just completed a Une from London to Sarnia, passing th rough the village or Wyoming nearby. The oil cou Id now get to market and a boom town cal.led Oil Springs quickly grew up around the site. By 1861, 400 wells were producing anywhere between 50 and 800 barrels a day, at a lime wh~n barrels were selling for $10 apiece, a sum that amounted approximately to a week's wages at the time. After '1867, though, the Ontario oil industry moved a few· k ilometres north to Petrolia as the wells near Oil Springs began to dry up. In 1859, however, Titus Drake struck oil in Pennsylvania and started an even larger oil n1sh in the United States. Oil was sold to machine shops and factories as a lubricant, and to households and businesses as a source of lighting fuel. The Civil War accelerated the pace of dl'ill.ng (the whaling industry was hampered by nav,11 operations). By 1862, some three ntillion barrels of crude oil were being processed. Growth persisted after the war. In l872, the nun,ber of processed barrels had trebled. Transportation initia Uy depended on the moving of ba reels by horse c,1rt or river barges to the nearest railroad-loading points. The barrels were th,·n loaded into freight cars for the trip to cities where the crude was being refined and sold. It w.1s ,1 cumbt•rsome process-the barrels 1night leak, lhe barges capsize, and the wagons sink into the mud. Pipelines were c1uickly tested as a solution and the first one to opernte was built in 1865 over a ten kilometre span. Pipelines were extended throughout the 1870s and 1880s, but they remained ntostly short·h,uu lines, connecting oil fields to the railroads. Tanker cars were developed after 1870. Thus, the pipeline network was integrated with the railway nchvork, and also with the telegraph network. Oil con1pan ies used the telegraph system to monitor the price for oil in various markets ,1nd also to keep track of the flow through their pipelines. The logic of networks also led It> a quasi-monopoly situation in the petroleum system. Joh n D. Rockefeller rea lized that the petroleum ind ustry depended on the petroleu m transportation system. Starti ng with part-ownership of an oi l refinery in Cleveland, he negotiated a rebate with one of the two ra ilroads then ~rving Cleveland. Using the rebate, he wa~ able to C()erce other Cleveland refiner~ into selling out

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and soon c(mtroll~cl the city's oil refining capacity. A, he acquire of the telegraph or the telephone required compaiativcly little electrica l power. In many C,lSCS, battl•ries cou ld provide the power required. Lighting was a different matter. Generators were needed, of a size that placed major demands on the u ltin1ate motive force (steam engines, waterpower). However, once such generators were built and s hown to be effective, the Aoodgat~ wer;~ opened to a s urge of new uses for electricity. Electricity made transporting power easy. Previously, power derived from water (via wheeb or turbines) and slea m cou ld only be transferred over short distances. Milb and factories were s ited near sources of waterpower (hence Ute importnnce of O ttawa's Chaud ihe fal ls, wh ich originally powered a grist m ill, a sawmill, and a hemp mill). Even s team engines needed a regular supply or water to replenish their boilers. Furthermore, stea m engines or waterwheels were connected to belts, shaft~, and pu lleys crisscros.5ing factodes, ma king for a crowded and noisy work environment. With electricity, motive power was delocalized. It was no longer necessary to

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cluster a fuctory's machine around the power source (water turbine, steam engine) or even to build a factory in the vicinity of a water sou.rce. However, electricity's first major role in everyday llfe was to produce light. Edison foug ht an epic battle to turn this into a profitable proposition. His first plants Lost money, but the retu rns on later plants made the effort a mo111ey-maker ,1nd repaid the sums spent lo acquire rights lo key patents (includ ing those of Canadian Inventors Henl'y Woodward and J\1atthew Evans). Returns increased with adoption as more p~ople bought in, as the irutial research costs were amortized, and as Edison's engineers grew more proficient at bullding plants and generati1\g electricity efficiently. Though Uw direct curre1tt (DC) generators developed by Edison had a short range, the alternc1tlng current (AC) ge11erators adopted by rail magnate George Westinghouse \,,ere able to produce power that cot,ld be transported over dozens, even hundreds of miles. Tbe AC motor designed by Ni kola Tesla (1856-19-13) and the multiphase AC system originating in ideas also patented by Tesla wou ld eventu,11Jy form the basis for tocllay's Nortl, Amerkan power distribution system. Edison fought hard to convince the public AC was unsafe. ln 1888, he was offering 25 cents to loca l child ren in Ne\v Jersey to bring in dogs. The dogs were then wired and zapped, first with DC, and then with AC. Since it took 1000 volts o( DC to electrocute the typica l mutt, but only 300 volts of AC, Edison argued vigorously that AC was dangerous. Edison's passion for den>0nstrating the d angers o( AC led him to electrocute larger an in1als, which led to the invention by others of the electric chair for human executions, even though Edison was not ln fuvour of capital punishmC"nl. However, tl'lc VVestinghouse designs prevailed. They cottld serve towru; and vil1,tgcs and isofoted l>0uses that could 11ot benefit Crom the short-rnnge Edison power plants. And since one Westinghouse p lant could do the job or a dozen Edison plants, they were fur n1ore economic,11, using lt•ss copper and other materials. An1ong the first long-distance lint-s were those built in California and those linking the Niag.ara Falls power plants to the Hydro Ontario network. It was the age of wires- telegraph and telephone li nes hung between poles and buildings, filling the sky over city streets. Ed ison decided to bury his power li1>es, but other utiJjties soon added power lines to the maze of wires nlnning above the streets. Electric light, just like electricity in genera l, was cnonnotrsly popu lar. In France, people struck by the wonders of electricity spoke of it in magical terms (it was the "Fee ElectriciM"}. Later, Ed ison's elecrric light turned into an entry poi nt for other household instruments power~,d by electricity. Bulb Sc.k ets were uSE.-d at first to pwer Qther e~rly ¢.!~ tri~I ctevic;e~: f'Jn~, teakeHle~, sewing m,whine~, !Qa.:;tern, ir911.$,

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and vacuum cleaners. By the turn of the century, the electrical vibrator for women (originally invented by Joseph MorHmer Granville before 18$3 as a genera l purpose medical massage dev ice but tLLrned into an aid for the medical relief of female "hysterla") was another common device sold to home users through advertisements in such publicaHons as needlework catalogues. The modern plugs and wall outlets evolv"d around the turn of the century before becoming fixtures in every modern home.

FURTHER READINGS Thomas P. Hughes, Ne/works of POWus items of farm machinery such. as threshing machines. It was only after the start of the war, as the dema11d for wh,:,at escalated, that the company began selling tmctors powered by an internal combustion engine though it faced a serious competitor in the massproduced Fordson models of the f'ord Company. In the Un ited States as well, the total number of trucks and tractors on farms only bega n to surge towar,ds the end of the First World VVar. ln fact, the number of horses on US farms peaked during the First World War. .Lndeed, it wasn't until the early 1950s that trucks and tractors becan1e more numerous than horses. The rise in the nun1ber of tractors continued unabated into the 1970s, after which it fell back as fam• ily farms lost ground and higher oil prices discotu·aged the accun1ttlation of unneces• sa ry units. Between 1980 and 2001, the total re1nained below 50 mill ion, significantly less than the peak of about 55 million of the late 1960s. In Canada, l>etween 1961 and 2001, the nu.n1ber of tractors ren1ained between five and ten million, significanUy more than might be expected based on a comparison of each coLmlry's population. Not al l agrict1ltural activities were successfttlly mechanized, though. As late as the 1960s, some crops-such as cotton and tobacco-f the US industry, Canada ha~ held it~ own with oiher car-pn>ducing countrie~. Between 1905 and 2005, Canad ian car assembly plants tunu,d out 88 m illion vehicles. During the sa me period, the (ta lian car industry accounted for 75 million vehicles. Yet, while Ita lian brand name.-; such as Fiat, Ferrari, and La mborghini are known worldwide, there are no real Canadian equivalents as a result ()f the structure of its automobile 2 Henry

Ford and Samuel Crowther, My L{f..• t1mi \,V(lrk (Doublt,eday. Page, 1922), p. ?2.

148

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industry, dominated by branch plants of foreign companiei (U.S., Swedish, Japanese, Korean), b)• joint ventures between local investors and foreign manufacturers, and by licensing agreements allowing Canadfan manufacturers to benefit from outside expertise. Various fed era I and provincia I governments have shaped the evolution of Canadian auto,nobile manufacturing, allowing it to grow in spite of the small domestic market. During the first third of the twentieth century, a 35 percent import duty on finis hed veh icles a long with lower duties on parts provided key support for Canada-based 1nanufacturers. A flood of small European cars in U1e 1950s forced the federal government to revisit this policy and the 1961 report of the Bl,1den Royal Conunission led to the Canada-US Auto Pact in fo,ce from 1965 to 200'1 . The agreement traded reg tllated access to the Canadian market by the Big Three auto• makers (Ford, GM, Chrysler) for unlin,ited access to the US market while requiring the Big Three to 1naintain lheir Canada-based production of cars al 1964 levels. White it appeared to be a good deal for Canada on the race of it and proved over time lo be quile beneficial, the Big Three agreed to il in order to reduce future trade d isputes. As a result, the Canadian automobile industry tended to be limited to assem• bly ,md parts manufacturing. Very little development or design work actually hap• pened in Canada. The US car mant1facturing boom of the first decade of the twen• tieth century discournged local entrepreneurs such as CCM and inspired instead the first joint ventures between Canadian bu;,iness1nen and US companies. The difference between the import duty on car parts and the one on the finished car meant that, if assembly could be done cheaply enough, a car n1,1de with US parts and assembled in Canada would sell for less in Canada than the s,m,e c,u assembled in the United States. Furthern,ore, British policies adopted in 1897 man• dated the al most entirely free trade of goods between all pa rts of the British Empire. /\s a resu lt, a car m,1de in C,mada could be exported free of any duties to other parts of the Empire whi le a similar car made in the United States would face tariffs. fn 1904, a young Canad ian cntrcprent•ur fro m Windsor, Ontario, approached Henry J'ord with a proposition. Gordon McGregor wou ld build Ford-designed cars in Walke rvi lle, just west of Windsor. Some parts were sourced in Ca nada to lower costs further. ·rh is was the beginnings of the company that beca me known as Ford of Ca.nada. By the outbreak of the First World War, it was producing more than half of all the cars made in Canada and, with the aid of US :;alt:s personnel, was exporting

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,1lmost half of its prodltctkm, either to other pa rts of the British Empire or to countries in the southern hemisphere, since Ford of Canada .had more cars available in winter, when Canadian sales slowed to a near standstill, than its US counterpart. By thell, the Ceini; the wrong li\ce), l.n olher cn.f youth to sha re music at home instead of going out. Radio a nd television also extended the reach of politics, religion, and sports. Ins tead of need ing to leave home to hear political s peeches, attend mass, or take in a ga me, people cou ld s imply tune in to the news, a broadcast sermon, or (m·the-air play-by-play. Intermittent involvement cou ld turn into a full-time interest, to the poss ible exclus ion of all others.

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Did the sma ll number of ava ilable radio stations ,ind television channels foster the creation of a North American mass culture in the course of the twentieth century? There is no doubt that radio ond television had become omnipresent by 1960. Television gai ned a solid foothold in the United States as early as 19~9 when two percent of households already owned a set. but this grew lo 54 percent with.in six yea rs. In Canada, about 66 percent or Carwclians were able to watch Canadian Broad· casting Corporation (CBC) television in 1955. By then, u,e Can.>dian television own• ership rate (0.074 per capita) w~s just behind U,e British rate (0.082 per capita). By 1959, 90 percent of US homes owned a television set, a level matched by Canadian homes by 1967. Canadian television ownership co1ttim,ed to lag somewhat U\e pace set by the United Stales down lo the end of the twentieth century (Fig:ure 1).

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Broadcasters did want to appea l to the largest po.Sible market and most offered family-oriented fare that could be enjoyed by people tlf various ages and backg rounds. Nevertheless, regiona l, linguistic, and culntral diversity was present Both popular and classica l ("serious"} music w.as aired. Westerns, soap operas, science fiction serials, educahonal programming, and plays drawing on classic authors from Shakespea re onwards all won a share of a ir tin1e down to the 1980s. While some ha,,e described the resu lting culture as middlebrow, the range was vast and only excluded

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extreme intellectualism or violence and vulgarity. Then, was room for Elvis Presley as much as for Vladimir Nabokov. Artistic movements later considered to be too challenging to be appreciated properly were still part of the general conversation, as well as public intellectuals ranging from Lewis Mumford to Marshall McLuhan. As the number of telev ision channels multiplied aft(crwards, specialization in• creased and U1e n,ass aud ience of earlier times fragmented. Radio lhlteners opted for certain formats (news and talk, country music, soft rock, religion, jazz) just as the television aud il':nce divided accorcling to network, political preference, and specialty channel. The pdce to be p,1id for the expanding d iversity of programn,ing was the rise of comnll?rcials, sponsorships, and pledge campaigns. Outside of relativdy ~are government-funded cultural and educational progran,ming, advertising, corporate branding, and appeals for public donations necessarily interrupt radio and television offerings. The influence of advertisers and sponsors has often been criticized, but it remains perhaps the last standard•setter outside of the courts.

CHAPTER

The Atomic Age ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ►

PLANNING AND PREPARING THE FUTURE The mass mechanization ushered in by the First World War quickly extended b,~ yond transportation. Technolog ies that became widely available for the first time (private cars, aiicralt, mechanical refrigerators for the home) combined with new med ia (newspaper supplements, "slick" and "pulp" magazines, radio, movies that were no longer silent, and even television by 1939) to foster a new sense of the possible. The ground was ,1lso laid for the acceptance of d1ange and novelty through other means. ln mid-century North An,erica, both ,,dvertising, popular fiction, ,ind forw.trd· thinking visionaries proposed captfvati11g conceptions of the future, many of them embod ied in the showpieces of the l939- l940 New York World's Fair. They appealed to a society increasingly enjoying the fru its of technology in dai ly life, from per.;onal amenities and com.forts (running water, electric lighting, phonographs) to coUectrve infrastructure (paved roads and highways, hydroelectric dams, airports} at a time when t~-chnologica l progress was the only source of optim ism in a world wracked by economic cris is and global war.

In North American society, the technological imagination of the early twentieth century was the product of a culture rooted in the 18th-century Enlightenment that began by celebrating the inventor as a benefactor of all humanity. Th roughout the nineteenth century, the inventor in the United Stales t(>Ok on a distinctive ca~'t. Presented a$ ~elf-taug ht, the heroic male inventor was celebrated as thir surroundings in different ways. A high· rise development can be served by public transit, but suburban split-levels an• usu• a Uy associated with personal cars, garages, and frec,v,,ys. There are so n1any possible ways to build even the simplest of objects lhat designers are free to place n1ore weight on so1ne factors than others, and select some outconws at the expense of others. In particular, industrial designers juggle with trade-offs directly ,1ffecting the performance of their creations. The discipline of design s tarted with nothing more than a preoccupation for es• thetia.. 1n £ngland, Christopher iJresscr (1834-'l904) was a designer infli1cnccd by the reform of the British decorative arts, but his work grew to include work on the shape ,1nd appearance of ma.nufactured objects. By 1889, his s1t1dio functioned in essence a.s .in industrial design fu'n1. The British example inspired Gemrnn design· crs th.rough Hcnnann Muthesius, who had been to England. Along with Pete,: Behrens, the first industria l designcr employed by a large corporation {AEG), in 1907 l'vluthcsius cre.~ted the Ocut,c.lrer Werkb,md, an association dedicated to combining a rt, er.aft, and industry in order to create "a rtistic" indttstria l products that could be exported abroad. In Great Bri·tain, the 191:i Dc:~ign and lndu~triei; A.'ilio,iation gather.eel all those involved with industrial design: designers, manufacturers, architects, advertisers, and merchants. By 1937, the United Kingdom had a national register t1f industria I designers.

180

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A past member of the Wcrkb1111d, Wa llt!r Gropius launched the enormously influential Bauhaus movement in Germany after World War I, with the idea of applying design to everything: architecture, posters, furnih,re, paintings, sculpture, household implements, amoni; others. If British design was all about lending practical dev icP.s ;,i ~11 ltahle And funrtional form,. thP Bauhllu.S h>nde-d to impos~ ;:., S"n,·rnl look on

all objects.

DESIGN AND DEPRESSION 111 the United St,,tes, indu,;tria l desig11 emerged as a full-fledged pn,fession after World War I, but it took over centre stage during the Depression when increased competition made ii imperative for companies to differentiate the looks of their products. The shock of the Depression in North Ao,erica cannot be understated. In 1929 prices, real output fell fro tn $'103.1 billion in 1929 to $73.7 billion in 1933. Private construction (residentia I housing and business) cUd not recover unti I the 1950s. Over four million passenger ca rs had been produced in 1929, a level that was not equalled agail1 until 1950. (Chaplin's 1936 movie iv1odern Times illustrates the effect of this crash on forn,er asseo, bly line workers.) Unemployment shot up from 3.2 percent in 1929, peaking nt 25 percent in 1933, and it reo,nined as high as 19 percent in 1938. In such a context ,vherc the market had effo,:tivcly shrunk, any edge colmtcd . The investment in design was part of other investments by the largest corporations of the day (RCA, AT&T, IBM, Dupont, Alcoa, Ford, GM, Kodak, and Gencr,11 Electric). Rely ing on their o,vn privately funded research a nd development, they turned out new or improved consluncr products (the tclevisiol\, nationwide longdist,, nce c,, Uing, nylon, Plexiglas, Lucite, cars with power steering and automatic transm issions) ,ind in some cases returned to profitability before the beginning of World War ll. By 1944, sixteen profo~ional designers, includ ing Raymond Loewy a nd Henry Dreyfuss, were abfo to forn1 n Society of Industria l Dt'Signers. Unlike many of their Europe;,n colleagues employed by large compa nk'S, US designers w,:re consultants for the most part. This may explain the cross-fertil ization that is so eviden t in the work of designers s·.1ch as Buckminster Fu ller and Norman Bel Ceddes. Indeed, Bel G~'t the chanc't! to i1nagine how the world of 1%0 would look. In so doing:, Uiey actually influenced how it ended up looking and t~.e post-war architectural style reliant on metal and glass was often startlingly different from early twentieth--:entury still beholden to Beaux-Arts ideals. M,,ny of their dreams were rea lized during the ensuing decades. The hopes for better living through technology even survived the shock of Hiroshima and ato,nic power was Incorporated in North American dreams of a clean and shining Jetsons future. After vVorld War II, the future dsions of science fiction took on a darker cast. Once the Soviet Union detonated an aton1ic bomb of its own ln 1949, the spectre of a war fought with nuclear weapons gave rise to stories set in a post-apocalyptic world often featuring societies which had reverted to an agrarian lifestyle. Indeed, even nuclear tests proved to be de,1dly. In 1953, fallout from nuclear tests in Nevada was detected as radioactive rain in Troy, New York. In 1954, a thermonuclear bomb test at Bikini AtoU iJ1 the Paci fie scattered fallout that contaminated a Japanese fishing ves• sel downwlnd from the site, killing one crewman within days. To mollify incipient public opposition throughout North An1erica, extraordinary efforts to find a silver lining to the creation of the fission and fusion bombs received unprecedented support. Nuclear technology was developed to yield power plants usins fission reactors, cancer-curing isotopes bred in nuclear facilities, and radioac• tive !'arms_ Nucleai· engineers promised to come through with atomic cars, planes, and rockets as well as fusion reactors producing energy that might one day be "too cheap to meter:' Some inOucntia I scientists pushed the idea of using nuclear bombs as dyn.unite on steroids to d ig tunnels or canals, to melt the Albertan tar sands or even to dissipate the Los Angeles sn1ogln 1953, fuccd with a developing nucleru: arn1s race and signs of concern at home, the United States attempted to put more weight on the peaceful possibilities of atomic power. They proposed a new deal which would (a) rcstri_ct the prolif(•ration of nu· clear bombs by cutting off nuclear weapon know-how to countries that did not yet possess the Bo1nb; (b} offer in exchange access to nuclear technology for pc,icefuJ purposes under the supervision of a UN agency that wou ld verify that it wouldn't be used for mil itary purposes; and (c) com mit all countries, including those with nuclea r a.rsena1s, to v,•orking towa rds nuclear d isa rmament.

In a speech al the Un ited Nations on December 8, 195..1, President Dwight Eisen· hower ca lled for the creation of what be,;a me the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) in 1957 and proclaimed that, "The more important rc~ponsibility of this atom ic energy agency would be to devise methods whereby this fissionable material

184 .- Taclnolotv ... IIIV1ron111n1 In Noni Allll'ICal . ..,..,

wou ld be allocated to serve the peaceful pursuits of mankind. Experts would be mobi li.z ed to apply ato,nic energy to the needs of agricultur~, med k ine, and other peaa.~ ful act.ivities. A specia l p urpose would be to provide. abundant electrica l energy in the power-starved a re,is of the world." 1 The Atoms for Peace p rogram comprised a serie,, of d ifferent goverrtme.ntal initiatives to pursue nuder, Urm,h Prune Minister Livy..-( C•ot)ll.' coodemncd C,•rm~ny'• ,ub; nf!it'll'Utishs and ICJ~'C t/mJ1J.1.1tra ofmoney /f,;fJanl Hu· mtlizatum vfa :.-msk /Jm)rrl Thl-s ~hm1ltl ,µ,t lmd ,,s lo rtny mrduf cmuplnc.cucy ro11,rrumg mtr sri.,,11t~fkposlttnn, .fqr ,t 1s eq1mlly dc11r rl,01 we ,,re hr(ngms up" ~•tmrnulon u/yxy/i11) had other uses. When US inventor John Wesley Hyatt came up with ,1 substitute for ivory (to ·, e used in the manufacture of billtard balls) in 1866, he combined dissolved pyroxylin with camphor to produce cc/111/oid, the first synthetic plastic. CelltLloid was later applied in 1884 by George Eastman, the founder of Kodak, to the fabrication of th in films for photography. Also in 1884, French chen1ist Louis Bernigaud produced fibers from pyroxylin that could be wo,·en into a new synthetic material that was ca lled rnyo11 (or rny~1111e in French, from the verb rnyo1111rr, "to radiate," because he found the n1aterial sttrprising ly bright and reflective). The science of artificial materials took a giant step wiU1 chen,ist Leo Hendrik Baekeland who produced ,i polymer for which he could not find a solvent. When he noted th;it ii could also be moulded inln a materia l th;.it w as hard, watpr-rvsistant

solvent•resist,1nt, and a non-conductor of electTicity, he realized that he had a useful product. Known as Bakelite, it soon becanie in its black and ~hlny fom'\, an iconic ma• terial of the early twentieth century. The success of these early synthetics encouraged a century-old comp,1ny, Du Pont de Nemouxs, to diversify. Founded in 1802 as a gunpowder manufacturer, it had co1ne to control a hnost all of the US market by the end of the nineteenth cen• tury. To escape p-Jssible sales downturns and antitn ,st k-gaJ suits, it established an industrial research laboratory in 1903, purchased foreign patents, and sought to develop new products. In 1924, it acquired the US rights to a French invention, eel• lophanc, and turned out a moisture-proof variety that enjoyed increasing popularity as a w mp use:l by coounerciaJ facilities. Other synthe tic polymers, such as neoprene, an importa,nt synthe tic rubber first p roduced in 1932, and nylon, followed. The increasing quantity and variety of these arti ficiaJ substances have completely altered the look ,,nd feel of our artificial env ironme.nls. l{ock, wood, ivory, bone, and natu ral texti les can all be replaced with artificia l substitutes, and nowadays they often are. Yet, in the e nd, the most important result of chemical i;c;ience in the hvenlieth century may have been the discovery of the Habe r-Bosch prcx:ess for the easy, inor· gan ic synthesis of ammonia, a key ingred ient of fertilizers. Developed by Fritz Haber

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