Week 10 - Engineering Change Flashcards
Identify the significance of the professionalization of engineering and recognize how it changed everyday people’s lives through the spread of new technologies, including municipal works, the modern factory system, and the automobile.
engineers were crucial in the advancement and development of the automobile;
engineers were responsible for large scale and government financed infrastructure projects, including roads, bridges, dams, and natural resources extraction;
engineers helped to improve human health outcomes for some populations in coordination with emergent medical theories that advocated for ventilation, germ control, sanitation, and disease prevention in urban contexts, including practices in schools, factories, and hospitals.
Identify ‘engineering’ as a professional category that influenced (and worked with) other industries to enact physical and social change.
- widespread growth and professionalization of engineering as a vocational profession across practically every industry was a significant and revolutionary development of the twentieth century
Identify and recognize the theme ‘engineering change’ as one that speaks to the complex consequences of science, and its impact on human social dynamics and power.
approach to the history of science and technology that calls attention to the persistent and ongoing change that humans experienced in the last two centuries, change that was largely driven by the application of ‘big science’, or science that was implemented in the national interest
‘engineering’ is a thematic term used to discuss the ongoing effort of humans in the twentieth century to engineer society, but in a manner that was–at times–disturbing
Identify a general historical timeline of the automobile.
- Ford Model T developed in early 1900s, first practical and affordable car. Average family could afford one due to Ford’s assembly line methods
- the technology that built the first commercial automobiles at the turn of the twentieth century (1900), was the result of a full century of innovation and development around steam power from the late 1700s.
- The availability of mass produced cars and trucks became a reality for the American farmer in the 1920s. This cemented the shift to the automobile in the United States. However, rates of automobile ownership in Canada lagged behind the United States, though they equalized in the 1940s. As Davies (1989) outlines, Ontario led the automobile revolution in terms of ownership in the 1930s (Davies, 1989).
- Fordism, initiated by the car manufacturer in the first years of the 1900s, influenced the standardization of the factory system around the assembly line-model. This manner of segmented manufacturing–where individual tasks happen at various points on the assembly line–is now a standard model of production throughout the industrialized world.
List and identify the ways in which the automobile presented a kind of social, physical, and cultural revolution.
- the automobile established other industries, for example rubber production and infrastructure design & development;
- boasted existing industries, for example steel and oil;
- decline of other industries;for example carriage making died as a viable commercial pursuit and rail eventually declined as a mode of popular transportation in the USA, for example, though it remained important for manufacturing;
- declined the ways in which animals were used by humans, specifically horses, for transportation and work;
- cultural change, for example drive-in restaurants encouraged cuisine in places like the United States, drive-in movie theatres begin to pop-up in the 1950s;
- urban planning and engineering shifted the design of physical spaces to accommodate cars, for example parking facilities, and large roadways to accommodate automobiles, this happened at a rapid pace after the end of WWII, when more resources were available after the war;
- an explosion in leisure tourism, which encroached on rural populations and contributed to environmental change;
- the tone and pace of urban sprawl quickened and influenced residential settlement patters as the working and middle classes fled to suburbs;
- changes in dating patterns for young people as the car offered a private space to engage in intimate relations away from parents and teachers;
- an increase in traffic accidents and fatalities, which precipitated the legislation and policing of driving behaviours.
List and identify the criticisms and unforeseen bi-products of the automobile when it first emerged.
One of the
unforeseen by-products of the automobile’s
appeal was the increasing number of
restrictions and regulations imposed upon
the Canadian public. The growing array of
regulatory detail created one of the great
paradoxes of the automobile: a vehicle
ostensibly designed to increase freedom and
personal mobility could become a means for increased restriction
Summarize and describe the ways in which the automobile revolutionized the life of Canadians as outlined by Davies.
Given the
pattern of concentration, it was to be
expected that the urban environment would
exhibit striking examples of that change. In
everything from sound and smell, to housing
design, to street patterns and congestion, the
automobile profoundly affected urban life.
Although the potential for increased mobility
was immediately recognized, the degree to
which it ultimately would alter established
patterns of temporal and spatial reality
(patterns based on 19th-century
transportation technology) went
unappreciated. The automobile irreversibly
altered stable established forms of interaction
between the rural and urban environments.
Similarly the presence of the automobile
required a greater level of societal control
than had previously existed, in turn bringing
about far-reaching developments. The
effects of regulation spread beyond the
motoring public, and all city dwellers were
subject to restriction forced by the
automobile. The automobile was fraught with
irony, particularly evident in the paradox of
freedom versus regulation — a technology
that traded heavily on the possibilities of
personal liberation, simultaneously
introduced an escalating level of restriction
on personal conduct.
Identify why “reckless walking” was discouraged and explain what this reveals about technological adaptation.
Thus, motorists argued, the
problem rested not with the automobile but
with the person on the street. Early in 1923
the Ontario Motor League alleged that 70 to
90 per cent of “so-called” automobile
accidents in which pedestrians were injured
were the fault of the victims
By 1925
the Canadian Motorist argued that “reckless
walking” must be discouraged and
“pedestrian traffic, like all other traffic,
regulated.”79 It was not surprising, therefore,
that the journal should smile upon legislation
passed in Connecticut that made “reckless
walking” an indictable offence.80 The logical
extension of this attitude regarding
pedestrian education, and one increasingly
favoured by many, was the regulation of the
pedestrian.
Identify and recognize the timeline of the gasoline engine.
- gas stations, auto mechanics, road-side diners, motels became increasingly common
- size of average community spreading out - urban sprawl
Identify the benefits and limits of adaptation to the automobile.
- “demon machines” - people felt automobiles were destroying traditional American families
- automobile accidents
Identify the social changes that accompanied adaptation to the automobile (i.e. credit financing).
- no longer large piles of horse manure in the streets
- less flies, bacteria, diseases
- improved air quality
List and recognize the central causes and long-term effects of WWII. Identify and recognize the role of imperialism and the quest for resources in contributing to the outbreak of the war.
- unbridled military expansion by Germany, Japan, and, to a small extent, Italy.
- Food - German agriculture was really inefficiently organized into lots of small farms, and that meant that Germany needed a lot of land in order to be self-sufficient in food production. The plan was to take Poland, the Ukraine, and Eastern Russia, and then resettle that land with lots of Germans, so that it could feed German people. This was called the Hunger
Plan because the plan called for 20 million people to starve to death. Many would be the
Poles, Ukrainians, and Russians who’d previously lived on the land. The rest would be Europe’s Jews, who would be worked to death. - Japanese too, sought to expand their agricultural holdings by, for instance, resettling farmers in Korea
Identify and define blitzkerg style of warfare.
Identify the characteristics of total war and the significance of the home-front to WWII.
In the beginning, it was characterized by a new style of combat made possible by the
mechanized technology of tanks, airplanes, and especially, trucks.
a devastating tactic combining quick movement of troops, tanks, and massive use of air power
to support infantry movements. And in the very early years of the war, it was extremely
effective.
In a total war, when a nation is at war, not just its army, no such thing as non military target
Identify the role of modern industrial practices to WWII.
Identify the timeline of the Second World War and the geography of the central battlefields.
-1939-1945
- Nanking - slaughter of 100 000s of Chinese people by Japanese - still impacts relations between Japan and China
- after coming to power in 1933, with the standard revolutionary promises to return the homeland to its former glory, infused with quite a bit of paranoia and anti-Semitism, Germany
saw rapid re-militarization and eventually war.
The Nazis were able to roll over Poland, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands
and then all of France, all within about 9 months between the fall of 1939 and the summer of 1940.
So after knocking out most of central Europe, the Nazis set their sights on Great Britain, but they didn’t invade the island, choosing instead to attack it with massive air strikes.
The Battle of Britain was a duel between the Royal Air Force and the Luftwaffe, and while
the RAF denied the Nazis total control of British airspace, the Nazis were still able to bomb Great Britain over and over again in what’s known as the Blitz
Meanwhile, Europeans were also fighting each other in North Africa. The Desert campaigns
started in 1940 and lasted through 1942 - this is where British general “Monty” Montgomery
outfoxed German general Irwin “the Desert Fox” Rommel. It’s also the place where
Americans first fought Nazis in large numbers.
1941 was a big year for World War II. First, the Nazis invaded Russia, breaking a non-aggression
pact that the two powers had signed in 1939. This hugely escalated the war, and also made
allies of the most powerful capitalist countries and the most powerful communist one
The Nazi invasion of Russia opened the war up on the so-called Eastern Front, although and it led to millions of deaths, mostly Russian.
Also, 1941 saw a day that would “live in infamy” when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, hoping
that such an audacious attack would frighten the United States into staying neutral, which
was a pretty stupid gamble because: 1. The U.S. was already giving massive aid to the Allies and was hardly neutral and 2. The United States is not exactly famed for its pacifism or political neutrality.
1941 also saw Japan invading much of Southeast Asia, which made Australia and New Zealand
understandably nervous. As part of the British commonwealth, they were already involved in
the war, but now they could fight the Japanese closer to home
1942 - like the Battle of Midway
which effectively ended Japan’s chance of winning the war
Battle of Stalingrad. The German attack on Stalingrad, was one of the bloodiest battles in the history of war, with more than two million dead. The Germans began by dropping more than 1,000 tons of bombs on Stalingrad, and then the
Russians responded by “hugging” the Germans, staying as close to their front lines as possible
so that German air support would kill Germans and Russians alike.
This kind of worked, although the Germans still took most of the city. But then, a Soviet
counterattack left the sixth army of the Nazis completely cut off. And after that, due partly
to Hitler’s overreaching megalomania and partly to lots of people being scared of him,
the sixth army slowly froze and starved to death before finally surrendering.
Stalingrad turned the war in Europe and by 1944, the American strategy of “island hopping”
in the Pacific was taking GIs closer and closer to Japan. Rome was liberated in June by American
and Canadians; and the successful British, Canadian, and American D-Day invasion of Normandy was the beginning of the end for the Nazis.
So, by the end of 1944, the Allies were advancing from the West and the Russian Red Army was
advancing from the East and then, the last-ditch German offensive at the battle of the Bulge
in the winter of 1944-1945 failed
Mussolini was executed in April of 1945. Hitler committed suicide at the end of that month. And, on May 8, 1945 the Allies declared victory in
Europe after Germany surrendered unconditionally.
Three months later, the United States dropped the only two nuclear weapons ever deployed
in war, Japan surrendered, and World War II was over.
World War II saw modern industrial nations, which represented the best of the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution, descend into once unimaginable cruelty.
