Industrial Archeology at the Smithsonian Institution

Although it was not until recently that we knew what to call it, the concepts of had been recognized for years at the Smithsonian, albeit lying more or less dormant and without much indulgence in field activity. In 1963 a series of emanations from England -mainly a visit from Kenneth Hudson and the appearance of his book, Industrial Archaeology-brought us suddenly to the realization that not only was there a proper name for the study of technological history based upon investigation of the physical remains of industry (in its broadest sense) but that the English had already embraced it in a vigorous manner as a new, or, rather, greatly re-energized, form of scholarly discipline. In fact, Hudson rightly calls industrial archeology the fieldwork aspect of the history of technology. There was already a strong precedent in this country for the field recording of structures, in the existence since the mid-Depression of the National Park Service's Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS). During its thirty-odd-year career the HABS has generated records consisting of measured drawings, photographs, and historical data on thousands of buildings for which no original drawings or other documentation survived. As the HABS charter covers essentially structures having only architectural or straight historical significance, the entire vast area of early industrial/technical monuments had been left largely untouched. Many historians at the Smithsonian's Museum of History and Technology felt an urgent need to inaugurate a similar program that would cover this particular vital segment of American development, although under a less formal organizational arrangement than that of HABS

Archaeology · Art · Geography · Institution · Interim · Political science · American Environmental and Regional History · Engineering · Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies · Law · Museums and Cultural Heritage

• Industrial Heritage in Archaeology

  Open Access•Bode Morin•Encyclopedia Of Global Archaeology•2018

  Add to list