Stories From The Stacks

Roger Horowitz talks with Katherine Epstein about her new book Analog Superpowers: How Twentieth-Century Technology Theft Built the National Security State (University of Chicago Press, 2024). From the publisher: “A gripping history that spans law, international affairs, and top-secret technology to unmask the tension between intellectual property rights and national security.   At the beginning of the twentieth century, two British inventors, Arthur Pollen and Harold Isherwood, became fascinated by a major military question: how to aim the big guns of battleships. These warships—of enormous geopolitical import before the advent of intercontinental missiles or drones—had to shoot in poor light and choppy seas at distant moving targets, conditions that impeded accurate gunfire. Seeing the need to account for a plethora of variables, Pollen and Isherwood built an integrated system for gathering data, calculating predictions, and transmitting the results to the gunners. At the heart of their invention was th

Far from the battlefield the First World War spurred a massive increase in industrial output in the United States. Arms and armaments, ships and steel, a vast stream of materiel poured from American factories, mines, and mills to feed the insatiable maw of war. The consequent strain placed on American railroad infrastructure left it vulnerable to environmental disruption, such as that caused by the great blizzard of 1916-17. These developments marked a significant chapter in the environmental history of American industry. In this episode of the Hagley History Hangout we chat with Gerard Fitzgerald, visiting fellow at the Greenhouse Center for Environmental Humanities at the University of Stavanger and lecturer in the Department of Engineering and Society at the University of Virginia, whose latest research considers the environmental context of industrialization in the United States during World War One. In support of his work Fitzgerald has received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Te

Large technological systems can be vulnerable to manipulation, perhaps especially when they are centralized, monopolistic, and complacent. That was the situation in American telecommunications in the early 1960s when a generation of hackers developed techniques to manipulate the Bell telephone system to their advantage, a practice known as phone phreaking. In his dissertation research, Jacob Bruggeman, PhD candidate at the Johns Hopkins University, digs into the technology and politics of hackers, tracing their trajectory from anti-establishment actors on the fringes of technological systems, to positions of influence and control over the very same systems. In parallel to these developments in the hacker community, major organizations, both public and private, adopted new positions and policies designed to secure the system. In support of his research, Bruggeman received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information, and

What is jazz and when did it begin? Music scholars do not agree. Taking an archival perspective, however, clarifies the dilemma and allows us to see jazz where people at the time performed, recorded, consumed, and discussed what they thought of as jazz music. The emergence of jazz as an economic force, and a defining cultural aspect of an era, were tightly bound up in the prevailing system of racism, segregation, and inequality in the early twentieth-century United States. In her latest book project, Stephanie Doktor, assistant professor of Music Studies at Temple University, explores the racial context within which the jazz recording industry developed, and the indelible mark left by the systemic racism of the period upon the music industry to the present day. Using the Victor-RCA records held in the Hagley Library, Dr. Doktor reveals how race, class, and gender mutually shaped the political economy of early jazz. In support of her work, Dr. Doktor received funding from the Center for the History of Busin

Tracing the circulation of ideas can cast light on patterns of interaction between various people and institutions in the past. During the mid-late twentieth century, a circuit of ideas linked business culture, industrial designers, academia, and related professional organizations. The movement of values, techniques, and perspectives between these distinct but interpenetrative spaces illuminates how they related to one another in historical context. In her latest research Penelope Dean, professor of architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago, uncovers this movement of ideas and uses it to bring business and design histories into conversation. Using numerous collections held in the Hagley Library, including the Raymond Loewy and Ernest Dichter collections, Dean identifies the spread of ideas between business and design, and the development of a shared language capable of communicating complex concepts across professional groups. In support of her work Dr. Dean received funding from the Center for

Chinese plastic is cheap and abundant. It wasn’t always. The ubiquity of plastic in twenty-first century consumer culture belies its past rarity and the many cultural meanings it has borne over time. How did plastic come to play such a central role in the economy of China? In her dissertation research Yaxi Liu, PhD candidate at the University of Oxford, reveals the story of plastic’s introduction to the Chinese market and the varied political and cultural meanings assigned to plastic in China. The first plastic introduced to China was acrylic fiber. The technology transfer necessary derived from Britain and from Dupont in the USA. The state reserved for itself a monopoly on plastic production for decades, and the material gained a reputation for scarcity and luxury. Following the emergence of plastic recycling and secondary manufacturing in rural districts, the material came to be associated with cheapness and low status. The Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society supports research in

The experience of girlhood in early national and antebellum America was both circumscribed and liberated by geography. Spaces defined who American girls were expected to be. Spaces, too, allowed girls to redefine themselves and to defend themselves against irksome expectations. Looking backward, the geographies of girlhood can be read as evidence of lives both intimate and public. While the “Southern Belle” occupies an outsized position in the popular imagination of the American past, does this caricature reflect actual lived experiences and identities? In her dissertation research Emily Wells, PhD candidate at the College of William & Mary, aims to find out. By investigating and recreating the geographies of girlhood in the American South, as defined by the legal practice of chattel slavery, among upper class white families, Wells seeks to go beyond the Scarlet O’Hara archetype to understand how girls defined themselves and understood their worlds. Wells suggests that before the Civil War, girls in the Amer

The positive image cannot exist without the negative, and the relationship between the two reveals the fundamental nature of the image as fungible, media as a process, and truth value as a matter of interpretation. Scholarship and conservation therefore have a profound responsibility to collect, preserve, and interpret media negatives for what they reveal about the relationship between positive images and the truth. In her latest project, Dr. Stefka Hristova, associate professor at Michigan Technological University, theorizes the relationship between media negatives, their positive counterparts, and the truth value accessible through a careful study of both. Using the collections held in the Hagley Library, Hristova demonstrates that a photographic image cannot be understood without reference to its negative. Likewise, and with profound implications for our present moment, the images and other media generated algorithmically cannot be properly judged or interpreted without an understanding of their negatives

In this episode of Hagley History Hangout Roger Horowitz interviews Margot Canaday about her remarkable book Queer Career: Sexuality and Work in Modern America that received the received 2024 Hagley Prize for the best book in business history that year. Canaday’s Queer Career’s rincipal focus is on the private sector, business enterprises large and small, and traces the opportunities, obstacles, and accomplishments of LGBT+ people as they sought to make a living from the 1950s through today. She emphasizes that as federal and many state agencies routinely refused to hire LGBT+ people, their most important sources of employment was in the private sector. Still facing pressures to keep their sexuality hidden in their jobs, their precarity lead them to accept lesser positions and pay than they might otherwise would have qualified for. Once stablished, they nonetheless made great strides in economic opportunity over these decades in white collar and blue collar jobs, and by creating their own firms. Her ana

Excessive heat has presented a problem for public health officials in New York City since the mid-nineteenth century building boom that covered the island of Manhattan in bricks, concrete, and other heat-storing materials. Prior to that, however, Americans had noticed that cities were warmer than their surrounding countryside as early as the 1790s. The phenomenon now known as the “urban heat island” has shaped the bodily experiences and collective destinies of millions. In her latest research, Dr. Kara Schlichting, associate professor at the City University of New York, uncovers the complex relationship between the evolving built environment of the city, the macro-climatic conditions prevailing globally, and the socially-differentiated lived experiences of heat had by city residents. By digging into Hagley collections, including trade catalogs and the Willis Carrier collection, Schlichting is able to tell a history that links multiple scales of time and space, an act of scholarly imagination that allows us

The political meaning of industry depends upon its context. Following the Second World War, Native American tribal governments engaged in a program of industrial development meant to secure the political self-determination of their nations. Initially concerned with attracting capital investment to reservation communities, by the 1970s native governments had moved on to become investors in wholly owned tribal enterprises. In his dissertation research, Sam Schirvar, PhD candidate at the University of Pennsylvania uncovers a story that is both surprising and revealing of deeper patterns in American history. While outsiders saw industrial development as a means to efface native communities and tribal governments, tribal leaders themselves saw it as a means to self-determination. While the wider American economy was moving toward privatization of enterprise, Native Americans were creating publicly owned industries. Industry can mean different things to different people at different times. In support of his res

Ben Spohn interviews Mark Aldrich about his 2018 book, Back on Track American Railroad Accidents and Safety 1965-2015. This period marked a decline in safe operating on American railroads through the 1970s which were followed by a period of increased safety and profitability for American railroads. Aldrich makes the case that the joint factors of economic deregulation through the Staggers Act and the federalization of railroad safety via the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) drew attention to safety issues on the railroad like poor track condition, unsafe grade crossings, or engineer fatigue and left railroads with not only incentives to become safer, but enough money in their coffers to adequately shore up these safety concerns. Mark Aldrich is the Marilyn Carlson Nelson Professor of Economics emeritus at Smith College. Back on Track American Railroad Accidents and Safety 1965-2015 is a sequel to Aldrich’s earlier book on railroad safety, Death Rode the Rails: American Railroad Accidents and Safety, 18

The DuPont firm was a leader in workplace and community safety communications during the twentieth century. This had been baked into the company culture from the first, as gunpowder manufacturing made essential. What changed over time were the techniques and media of communication, and the intended audience targeted by the company’s messaging. In her latest research, Madison Krall, assistant professor of communication studies at Seton Hall University, explores the wealth of health and safety materials generated by the DuPont company during the twentieth century. From posters to motion pictures, the firm deployed a wide array of media to promote safety in the workplace and beyond. DuPont wished to convince the public that its products were safe, and to convince employees and community members that safety was their responsibility. In support of her work Dr. Krall received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more Hagley History Han

Scholars often think and write about business diplomacy as something that happens between firms and national governments. But the historical pattern is more complex than that, with contacts between businesses forming a significant portion of the international circuit of communication about business and economic matters. As part of his doctoral research, Grigorios Antoniou, PhD candidate at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, is exploring the significance of international industrial conferences to the development of a global network that linked high-level business leaders from across boundaries between industries, sectors, and countries. Using collections held in the Hagley Library, including the National Industrial Conference Board and trade catalog collections, Antoniou uncovers a milieu in which elites met to mingle, cut deals, and burnish their status. For more Hagley History Hangouts, more information on the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society, and our many resear

American households are awash in expensive credit card debt. But where did all this debt come from? In this history of the rise of postwar American finance, Sean H. Vanatta shows how bankers created our credit card economy and, with it, the indebted nation we know today. America’s consumer debt machine was not inevitable. In the years after World War II, state and federal regulations ensured that many Americans enjoyed safe banks and inexpensive credit. Bankers, though, grew restless amid restrictive rules that made profits scarce. They experimented with new services and new technologies. They settled on credit cards, and in the 1960s mailed out reams of high-interest plastic to build a debt industry from scratch. In the 1960s and ’70s consumers fought back, using federal and state policy to make credit cards safer and more affordable. But bankers found ways to work around local rules. Beginning in 1980, Citibank and its peers relocated their card plans to South Dakota and Delaware, states with the weakes

Hagley’s Ben Spohn interviews David Alff about his recent book: The Northeast Corridor: The Trains, the People, the History, the Region. In this comprehensive history of America’s most heavily-traveled rail line, Alff shows ow what began as a series of disconnected nineteenth century rail lines became the spine connecting America’s Megalopolis, the dense urban forest connecting Boston with Washington D.C., with New York,Trenton, Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore in between. As Alff explains, the Northeast Corridor is always arriving as the many small railroads that provided service to the Corridor, after over a century of corporate mergers, and laying new rails and electrifying old ones, came to fall under the stewardship of one railroad, the Penn Central before it fell into bankruptcy. The U.S. government created Amtrak, partly in response to this crisis and it took on passenger service on the Northeast Corridor and nationwide. The Northeast Corridor remains a work in progress with the latest link

In the United States, courts make policy through their interpretation of law and regulations. Through litigation, policy decisions are given the force of law. When litigation fails, then the object of regulation is often lost. This applies to the world of digital technologies, where corporate consolidation and the churn of ever-evolving technology makes anti-trust action both essential and difficult. In her latest research, Dr. Andrea Matwyshyn, professor of law and innovation studies at Pennsylvania State University, delves into the U.S. vs IBM trial which pitted anti-trust regulators against the emergent champion firm of American computing. At issue in the trial were the anti-competitive actions taken by IBM, and the impacts they would have on the American economy, and more significantly, the American society more broadly. When the Reagan administration dropped the case, it cut off a possible future of increased competition. In support of her research Dr. Matwyshyn received funding from the Center for th

The Channel Islands lie between Britain and France, and historically occupied a space between Europe and the Americas within circuits of movement around the Atlantic world of the eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. This position as a place in-between gave the Channel Islands special significance to migrants, refugees, smugglers, and pirates. In her latest book project, Dr. Sydney Watts, associate professor of history at the University of Richmond, uncovers the story of the Channel Islands as a locus of trade and migration. Her particular focus is on French refugees and migrants who left France during the Revolution and Napoleonic Wars for political and economic reasons. Among this group were the du Ponts, an aristocratic French family who fled an inhospitable environment in France in favor of entrepreneurial adventures in the new United States. Watts uses the du Pont family records held at the Hagley Library for her research. In support of her research, Dr. Watts received funding from the Hagley Cen

The organization “Junior Achievement” was first conceived in 1916 when three wealthy, influential men decided that American youth needed to be educated on the values of hard work, thrift, and the developing hierarchy of corporate management. From that beginning, however, the organization’s purpose evolved to promote the American system of free enterprise and eventually entrepreneurialism to the youth of the United States and several other countries. In his dissertation project Maxwell Greenberg, PhD student in history and educational policy at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, charts the history of Junior Achievement from its inception to 1998, when it had successfully exported its model and values to the former Soviet bloc. Greenberg’s work demonstrates how the history of education must look beyond the school as an institution to gain a broader understanding of the diverse locations and organizations involved in the education of every individual and every generation. In support of his work, Greenber

The “attention economy” has gotten lots of press in recent years as tech companies and advertising firms have begun to perceive human attention as a limited resource and to fight for their share of the potential revenue to be generated by it. However, the concept of human attention as an economically valuable resource goes back well beyond digital technologies at least to the early years of mass media and motivational psychology. In his dissertation project, Jacob Saindon, PhD candidate in geography at the University of Kentucky, explores the historical and spatial aspects of the American attention economy in its present digital form and its analog predecessors. Using historical collections held in the Hagley Library, including the Batten, Barton, Durstine, and Osborn (BBD&O) collection, Saindon illuminates the relationships between digital “spaces,” human perception, and the material world. In support of his work, Saindon received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Societ