Reinforced Concrete and the Modernization of American Building, 1900-1930 (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology)
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: May 23, 2001
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 272
ISBN-13: 9780801865596
Subjects: Construction industry; Impact of science & technology on society; Social history; Reinforced concrete constructi; History - General; Technology; Architecture; United States; Science/Mathematics; USA; Reinforced concrete construction; Methods & Materials; Public, Commercial, or Industrial Buildings; History / United States / General; History; Construction - General
First sentence: There is a persistent tendency among educational analysts and historians to divide early-twentieth-century engineering fields into those based on conventional shop procedures-the so-called cut-and-try approaches to engineering-and those that developed more "scientific" methods.
Description: "Examining the proliferation of reinforced-concrete construction in the United States after 1900, Amy E. Slaton explores how scientific approaches and occupations displaced traditionally skilled labor and how the technology of concrete buildings - little studied by historians of engineering, architecture, or industry - offers a case study in the modernization of American production.".

"Based on a wealth of data - including university curricula, laboratory and company records, organizational proceedings, blueprints, and promotional materials, as well as a body of physical evidence such as tools, instruments, building materials, and surviving reinforced-concrete buildings - this book argues that modern mass production in the United States came about not simply in answer to manufacturers' search for profits, but as a result of a complex of occupational and cultural factors."--BOOK JACKET.