100 Years of Science and Technology in Texas ed. by Leo J. Klosterman, et al

Abstract

970 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE War II brought spaceflight within the technical capabilities of the engineers. The 1955 debut of Walt Disney’s widely hailed television show, “Man in Space,” which used former German rocket experts as consultants, signaled a new proselytizing role for popular culture in its relationship to spaceflight. The final essay is Michael L. Smith’s “Back to the Future: EPCOT, Camelot, and the History of Technology.” Smith argues that Disney World, by intertwining a nostalgic view of the past and utopian visions of the future, all accomplished through an “engineering” that pre­ sents technology as magic, makes the task of historians of technology much more difficult. The popular vacation destination, he believes, is “a showcase of impediments that we must overcome in order to see clearly the dynamics of technological change in American culture” (p. 70). Neither Smith nor the other authors in this volume suffer from any such lack of vision. All clearly comprehend that everything to do with technology, whether it is the behavior of engineers and engi­ neering schools or popular attitudes about everyday materials like plastic or exotic possibilities like spaceflight, is a cultural subject. Al­ though this perspective may not be as “new” as Sinclair’s title would suggest, the papers he has brought together are fine exemplars of the approach, and the American Philosophical Society is to be com­ mended for publishing them. Joseph J. Corn Dr. Corn teaches the history of technology at Stanford University. He most recently edited Imagining Tomorrow: History, Technology, and the American Future (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1986) and is currently working on a history of the maintenance and repair of automobiles. 100 Years ofScience and Technology in Texas. Edited by LeoJ. Klosterman, Loyd S. Swenson, Jr., and Sylvia Rose. Houston: Rice University Press, 1986. Pp. xii+391; illustrations, notes, bibliography, appen­ dixes, indexes. $29.95. Published for the Sigma Xi centennial in 1986, 100 Years of Science and Technology in Texas opens with a brief history of Sigma Xi in Texas. Prior to World War II the scientific research society of Sigma Xi estab­ lished in Texas only two chapters—at the University ofTexas at Austin in 1914 and Rice Institute in 1938—and one club—at Texas Techno­ logical College in 1931. After the war, when “science and technology assumed a growing importance in Texas” (p. 4), Sigma Xi increased the number of its chapters, clubs, and members in the state. While Sigma Xi members naturally appear in the historical essays and among the authors of 100 Years ofScience and Technology in Texas, the volume looks beyond the honor society to the broader topic of the history of science and technology in Texas from the 19th century to 1986. TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 971 Twenty-six scientists, engineers, and historians contributed twentythree essays to this anniversary publication. There are two introduc­ tory essays. The main text is divided into two uneven parts. Part one consists of a single essay on science and technology in Texas before World War II. Part two contains twenty essays that survey, discipline by discipline, science and technology in Texas. Since many of these essays begin with background material dating back to the 19th century, the first part becomes redundant and largely unnecessary, though its introduction to early petroleum production is not available elsewhere in the volume. The essays in part two are grouped into four general categories: earth and space sciences, physical sciences, life sciences, and social sciences. Appendixes provide a timeline of Texas science and technology and a list of colleges and universities. Also, there are two indexes, name and subject. Margaret S. Bishop’s article on geology is one of the best in book. It is informative and well written. Bishop provides the reader with a discussion of selected research topics that have interested geologists doing work in Texas, including Cretaceous stratigraphy, salt domes, Permian Basin, and lignite. Her story begins with 19th-century state and federal geological surveys. Among the other articles is one by Richard A. Geyer tracing ocean­ ography in Texas from the oyster mortality problem of 1940 and including a discussion of defense-funded research. David S. Evans’s essay...