Final Examination Study Guide
Part I
This part of the final exam will consist of identification-type questions (drawn from the lectures, readings, and films) in which you will be asked to do two things: first, to identify the item in question; second, to explain its historical significance. Your response need not be long. One paragraph will do. Be specific and concrete, providing dates, geographical location/s if relevant, and the reason/s why the item is historically important. If the item is a person, explain what he/she is known for and why it is important. If it is a concept, indicate whose idea it was (if possible) and provide an example; what specific historical event or moment does it describe? If it is a thing, identify it and provide an example of how it was used and why it was significant. In grading these questions, we will be looking for evidence that you have listened, read, and watched carefully.
| "The Day After Trinity" |
John Fitch |
| Industrial paternalism |
Long Island Parkway |
| Five-dollar Day |
Geigy |
| Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. |
Merrimack River |
| Washington Roebling |
The Agrarian Myth |
| Ferdinand de Lessups |
John Stevens |
| Morrill Land Grant Act (1862) |
Atomic Energy Commission |
| Samuel Slater |
Oliver Evans |
| Time-motion Studies |
The "Waltham-Lowell system" |
| Armory Practice |
Boston Manufacturing Company |
| Bush's frontier thesis |
Eli Terry |
| Simeon North |
John H. Hall |
| Clinton's 'big ditch' |
Elmer Sperry |
| The North River Steamboat |
The General Survey Act (1824) |
| Kelly-Bessemer process |
4 feet, 8.5 inches |
| Col. George Bomford |
"American system of manufactures" |
| Duryea brothers |
Col. Albert Pope |
| NACA |
"the physicist's war" |
| Manhattan Project |
Whirlwind/SAGE |
| Vannevar Bush |
Project Apollo |
| DARPA |
Edwin H. Armstrong |
| KDKA Pittsburgh |
"the skulking way of war" |
| Tench Coxe |
"let our workshops remain in Europe" |
| "pacing/soldiering" |
Taylorism |
| Fordism |
Radio Act of 1912 |
| Rachel Carson |
"the Mussolini of Detroit" |
| Altair 8800 |
Steve Wozniak |
| ARPANET |
The myth of Eli Whitney |
| Minie Ball |
Hawthorne's "Celestial Railroad" |
| The Agrarian Myth |
pig iron |
| Artisanal Production |
Ames Shovel Co. |
| Springfield Armory |
Albert Gallatin |
| "Lowell girls" |
West Point |
| Hudson River School |
"Mr. Smooth-it-away" |
| George W. Whistler |
"hello girls" |
| Ford Model T |
shortwave radio |
| Air Commerce Act (1926) |
Ford Trimotor |
| "Modern Times" (1936) |
Bell Labs |
| Gen. Leslie Groves " |
"the great arsenal of democracy" |
Currier & Ives, "Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way" (1868)
Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD)
The Kelly Act (1925)
Part II
In this part, you will be asked to write two (2) essays that will be drawn from the following questions. Each essay should be composed in a well-organized manner, with an introduction and a conclusion. We expect you to develop a well-reasoned argument supported by specific examples.
1. Which of the following has had the most impact on technological change in the past 200 years of American history: individual inventors/entrepreneurs, the federal government, or corporations?
2. On more than one occasion, Prof. Smith has referred to "government-in/government-out" as an important catalyst of technological change in the American economy.
a. Explain what this expression means.
b. Provide at least two examples of the govt.-in/govt.out scenario (one from the 19th century, one from the 20th century) and explain specifically how each made a difference to the larger American economy.
3. Clocks and time-keeping figure prominently in many discussions of American industrialization. Taking the points of view of the factory master, industrial workers, farm families, and shopkeepers in the community, discuss how increasing time orientation changed things roughly between 1800 and 1930. Whose point of view do you find most compelling? Why? [in responding to this question, you should, at the very least, use the Lowell mills, Harpers Ferry Armory, the railroads, Taylorism, and Fordism as reference points]
4. What is the co-called "military-industrial complex"? How did the phrase come about? To what extent does MIT participate in the MIC today (as opposed to fifty years ago)? Keeping in mind Langdon Winner's question, "Do Artifacts Have Politics," do you think military-industrial funding of university research affects the nature or shape of resulting scientific and engineering developments? How so/how not? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the MIC? Are you in favor of this complex: why or why not? [in addition to the materials assigned in class, you are encouraged to check the annual reports issued by MIT's Office of Sponsored Research for appropriate data]