A Hammer in Their Hands: A Documentary History of Technology and the African-American Experience (Hardcover)

Carroll W. Pursell

商品描述

Description:

Scholars working at the intersection of African-American history and the history of technology are redefining the idea of technology to include the work of the skilled artisan and the ingenuity of the self-taught inventor. Although denied access through most of American history to many new technologies and to the privileged education of the engineer, African-Americans have been engaged with a range of technologies, as makers and as users, since the colonial era. A Hammer in Their Hands (the title comes from the famous song about John Henry, "the steel-driving man" who beat the steam drill) collects newspaper and magazine articles, advertisements for runaway slaves, letters, folklore, excerpts from biography and fiction, legal patents, protest pamphlets, and other primary sources to document the technological achievements of African-Americans.

Included in this rich and varied collection are a letter from Cotton Mather describing an early method of smallpox inoculation brought from Africa by a slave; selections from Frederick Douglass's autobiography and Uncle Tom's Cabin; the Confederate Patent Act, which barred slaves from holding patents; articles from 1904 by Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBois, debating the issue of industrial education for African-Americans; a 1924 article from Negro World, "Automobiles and Jim Crow Regulations"; a photograph of an all-black World War II combat squadron; and a 1998 presidential executive order on environmental justice. A Hammer in Their Hands and its companion volume of essays, Technology and the African-American Experience (MIT Press, 2004) will be essential references in an emerging area of study.

Carroll Pursell is Adjunct Professor of Modern History at Macquarie University, Australia.

 

Table of Contents:

Introduction xi
I Colonial Era 1
1 African Medicine in the New World 3
Cotton Mather on Smallpox Inoculation (1716) 5
An Account of the Method and Success of Inoculating the Small-Pox in Boston (1722) 6
2 New World Skills 7
Runaway Slave Advertisements 9
A Profile of Runaway Slaves in Virginia and South Carolina from 1730 through 1787
Lathan Algerna Windley
12
Advertisement for a Fugitive Slave (1769)
Thomas Jefferson
14
Letter from Benjamin Banneker to the Secretary of State, with His Answer (1792)
Benjamin Banneker and Thomas Jefferson
15
II Antebellum Years 21
3 The Persistence of Craft 23
Advertisements for Runaway Slaves in Virginia, 1801-1820
Daniel Meaders
25
Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1882)
Frederick Douglass
29
The Fugitive Blacksmith; or, Events in the History of James W, C. Pennington 37
Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)
Harriet Beecher Stowe
40
A Journey in the Slave States (1856) and A Journey in the Back Country (1861)
Frederick Law Olmsted
44
His Promised Land: The Autobiography of John P. Parker, Former Slave and Conductor on the Underground Railroad
John P. Parker
49
Layout of Parker's Phoenix Foundry (1884) 54
U.S. Patent to John Percial Parker for a Soil-Pulverizer (1890) 55
Tending a Cotton Gin (1853) 58
4 The New Industrial Age 59
Notes on North America, Agricultural, Economical, and Social (1851)
James F. W. Johnston
61
Scenes from Oak Lawn, Lousiana Plantation (1864) 64
Slave Labor as Reported in Nile's Weekly Register (1849) and DeBow's Southern and Western Review (1851) 66
The History of the First Locomotives in America (1874)
William H. Brown
71
Advertisement in The Liberator Seeking Colored Inventors (1834) 74
U.S. Patent to Norbert Rillieux for an "Improvement in Sugar-Works" (1843) 75
U.S. Patent to Norbert Rillieux for an "Improvement in Sugar-Making" (1846) 87
The Confederate Patent Act (1861) 89
III War, Reconstruction, and Segregation 91
5 Finding a Place in the Industrial Age 93
Mechanism and Art (1873) 95
Using Jokes to Invent the Expert 97
John Henry, The Steel Driving Man (1929) 98
The Eclipse Clothes Wringer (c. 1880s) 100
Woman with Bicycle (c. 1890s) 101
The Taint of the Bicycle (1902)
W. F. Fonvielle
102
IV The Progressive Era 107
6 Training for the Industrial Age 109
Comments on the Advisibility of Instructing Engineering Students in the History of the Engineering Profession (1903)
L. S. Randolph
111
Industrial Education; Will It Solve the Negro Problem, II (1904)
Booker T. Washington
113
The Training of Negroes for Social Power (1904)
W. E. B. DuBois
120
Industrial Education--Will It Solve the Negro Problem (1904)
Fannie Barrier
127
Working with the Hands (1904)
Booker T. Washington
132
How Electricity is Taught at Tuskegee (1904)
Charles W. Pierce
136
Racial Progress as Reported in The Colored American Magazine (1902) 142
The American Negro Artisan (1904)
Thomas J. Calloway
144
Results of Some Hard Experiences: A Plain Talk to Young Men (1902)
William H. Dorkins
153
Manufacturing Household Articles (1904)
Samuel R. Scottron
157
The Career of Mechanic John G. Howard (1902) 161
7 Inventors 163
The Colored Inventor: A Record of Fifty Years (1913)
Henry E. Baker
165
Clara Frye, A Woman Inventor (1907) 172
U.S. Patent to Garret A. Morgan for a "Breathing Device" (1914) 174
V Between the World Wars 179
8 The Rural South 181
You May Plow Here: The Narrative of Sara Brooks
Sara Brooks
183
Cotton Picking Machines and Southern Agriculture 189
We (1927)
Charles Lindbergh
191
9 Industrial Employment 193
Tuskegee Ideals in Industrial Education (1926)
Joseph L. Whiting
195
Women at Work: A Century of Industrial Change (1934) 199
The Typewriter (1926)
Dorothy West
202
10 The Automobile 209
Automobiles and Jim Crow Regulations (1924) 211
Through the Windshield (1933)
Alfred Edgar Smith
212
Running the Red Light (Tilman C. Cothran) 216
U.S. Patent to G. A. Morgan for a "Traffic Signal" (1923) 217
VI World War II and the Cold War 221
11 Learning to Fly 223
Soaring above Setbacks: The Autobiography of Janet Harmon Bragg, African American Aviator
Janet Harmon Bragg
225
Coffey School of Aeronautics (1944) and 99th Pursuit Squadron, Air Unit (1942) 226
Lt. Clarence "Lucky" Lester 229
12 War Work 231
Negro Workers and the National Defense Program (1942) 233
A Black Woman at Work in a Wartime Airplane Assembly Plant 245
Graduate Technicians and National Technical Association (1944) 246
Defense and Wartime Employment (1946-1947) 248
Bay Area Council against Discrimination, San Francisco (1942) 252
13 After the War 255
Elm City, A Negro Community in Action (1945)
C. L. Spellman
257
Mechanization in Agriculture (1941-1946) 260
The Negro in the Aerospace Industry (1968)
Herbert R. Northrup
265
VII The Movement and Beyond 277
14 Setting a Political Agenda 279
Revolution in a Technological Society (1971)
Samuel D. Proctor
281
15 Ties to Africa 289
Mickey Leland and the USAID Bureau for Africa 291
Solar Cooking Demonstration in Akwasiho Village, Ghana
Hattie Carwell
295
16 Engineering Careers 301
Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering 303
History of the National Society of Black Engineers (1997)
Jerry Good
309
Black Women Engineers and Technologists
Valerie L. Thomas
313
Careers in Science and Technology (1993) 330
17 Accessing the Information Age 339
Bridging the Racial Divide on the Internet (1998)
Donna L. Hoffman and Thomas P. Novak
341
Cyberghetto: Blacks Are Falling through the Net (1998)
Frederick L. McKissack, Jr.
348
Troubletown (1998) 352
The Black Technological Entrepreneur (1999)
Janet Stites
353
18 Technological Troubles 357
A Place at the Table: A Sierra Roundtable on Race, Justice, and the Environment, and The Letter That Shook a Movement (1993) 359
Neighbors Rally to Fight Proposed Waste-Burner (1992) 371
United States to Weigh Blacks' Complaints about Pollution (1993) 374
Presidential Executive Order 12898--Environmental Justice 377
Study Attacks "Environmental Justice" (1994) 380
New York Seminarian Promotes Environmental Justice in Africa (1996)
Paulette V. Walker
382
Further Readings 385
Index 387

商品描述(中文翻譯)

描述:
在非裔美國歷史和科技歷史的交叉點上工作的學者正在重新定義技術的概念,將熟練工匠的工作和自學發明家的聰明才智納入其中。儘管在美國歷史的大部分時間裡,非裔美國人被剝奪了許多新技術和工程師的特權教育,但自殖民時代以來,非裔美國人一直參與各種技術,作為製造者和使用者。《他們手中的鐵錘》(這個標題來自著名的關於約翰·亨利的歌曲,“鋼鐵工人”打敗了蒸汽鑽)收集了報紙和雜誌文章、逃亡奴隸的廣告、信件、民間傳說、傳記和小說摘錄、法律專利、抗議小冊子和其他一些原始資料,以記錄非裔美國人的技術成就。這個豐富多樣的收藏包括了一封由科頓·馬瑟描述的早期天花接種方法的信,這種方法是一名奴隸從非洲帶來的;弗雷德里克·道格拉斯自傳和《湯姆叔叔的小屋》的選段;禁止奴隸持有專利的南方聯邦專利法案;1904年布克·華盛頓和W·E·B·杜波依斯的文章,討論非裔美國人的工業教育問題;1924年《黑人世界》的文章,“汽車和吉姆·克羅法規”;一張全黑人的二戰戰鬥中隊的照片;以及1998年關於環境正義的總統行政命令。《他們手中的鐵錘》及其附帶的論文集《科技與非裔美國人的經驗》(麻省理工學院出版社,2004年)將成為新興研究領域中的重要參考資料。卡羅爾·普賽爾是澳大利亞麥覺理大學現代史兼職教授。

目錄:
引言
I. 殖民時代
1. 新大陸的非洲醫學
2. 奴隸時代的技術
3. 南北戰爭時期的技術
4. 重建時期的技術
5. 20世紀初的技術
6. 20世紀中期的技術
7. 20世紀末的技術
8. 21世紀的技術
附錄:非裔美國人的專利
索引