Material Experiments

Environment and Engineering Institutions in the Early American Republic

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4828622
AutoresAnn Johnson (0009-0006-9758-9211, University of South Carolina, autor de correspondencia)
Año2009
Volumen24
Número1
Páginas53-74
Fecha de publicación2009-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaOsiris (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0369-7827 • E-ISSN: 1933-8287
EditorialUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/605969
PMID20027769
OpenAlexW2033868073
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas13

In nineteenth-century America, strength of materials, an engineering science, focused on empirical research that yielded practical tools about how to predict the behavior of a wide variety of materials engineers might encounter as they built the nation's infrastructure. This orientation toward "cookbook formulae" that could accommodate many different kinds of timber, stone, mortar, metals, and so on was specifically tailored for the American context, where engineers were peripatetic, materials diverse, and labor in short supply. But these methods also reflected deeper beliefs about the specialness of the landscape and the providential site of the American political experiment. As such, engineers' appreciation of natural bounty both emerged from and contributed to larger values about exceptionalism and the practical character of Americans

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Architectural engineering · Art · Civil engineering · Environmental ethics · Exceptionalism · Political science · Politics · Sociology · American Environmental and Regional History · Computer Science · Engineering · History · History of Science and Natural History · Law · Philosophy