Chronicles of Mechanical Engineering in the United States ed. by Thomas H. Fehring and Terry S. Reynolds

Abstract

Reviewed by: Chronicles of Mechanical Engineering in the United States ed. by Thomas H. Fehring and Terry S. Reynolds Peter Liebhold (bio) Chronicles of Mechanical Engineering in the United States Edited by Thomas H. Fehring and Terry S. Reynolds. New York: American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 2021. Pp. xvi + 405. A fiftieth anniversary is a milestone of longevity that many organizations never achieve. It takes a lot to maintain leadership continuity, overcome economic challenges, and keep membership involved for half of a century. To mark the golden anniversary of the History and Heritage Committee of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the society commissioned Chronicles of Mechanical Engineering in the United States. This book is a collection of over seventy vignettes, mostly biographical and thematic with a few landmark stories. In a surprising organizational decision, 90 percent of the entries—many written by Fritz Hirschfeld between 1976 and 1980—are reprints from the last fifty years of the ASME journal Mechanical Engineering. The book editors, Thomas Fehring and Terry Reynolds, contribute short chapter heads. Organized into eight topical chapters, Fehring and Reynolds do not argue a grand theory of engineering through their selection of articles. The simple goal of this book is to celebrate the achievements of engineers and the ASME. Other historians have followed a different approach: Bruce Sinclair's Centennial History of ASME explored the role of engineers and professional societies through the tensions of professionalizing the group. Eugene Ferguson's Engineering and the Mind's Eye railed against engineering's dependency on academic mathematical modeling and suggested the need for practical experience. Henry Petroski argued in Success through Failure that engineering success leads to overconfidence and catastrophe and that humility and insight stem from disaster. The intended audience for Chronicles of Mechanical Engineering is a bit mysterious. Fehring and Reynolds explain the articles lack academic rigor (footnotes, bibliography, etc.) and are not for historians. They suggest the collection of stories presents an important learning opportunity for the general public. But what if the sum is less than the parts? The real audience here is ASME members reifying the importance of their organization. Most historians agree that technology played a critical role (both positive and negative) in the development of the United States. As the nation matured and society transitioned from agrarian to industrial, engineers acted as innovators and agents for change. In this crucible of transformation, engineers were at the center, developing machines, engines, and the infrastructure of modern society. A book that broadly tells the history of engineering is a great opportunity for presenting epiphany moments, helping readers learn from the past and understand the complexity of life moving forward. [End Page 649] A challenge for the book is whether old versions of history are still useful. Some of the entries may be old but are interesting and resonate today. Frank Wicks's "First Flights" uses the birth of powered flight to provide insight into the failure of a government-supported academic engineer (Samuel Langley) and the success of untrained independent tinkerers (Frank and Wilbur Wright). Charles Beardsley's retrospective on the Hydrolevel case is one of the few essays that are not celebratory. Instead, he details how the ASME, a voluntary standards-setting organization, got into serious antitrust troubles through conflicts of interest. Reprinting classics can be challenging, and not all the entries weather well. Written for audiences of the day, most do not address questions of race, class, or gender. In fact, one of the most surprising problems in this book is diversity. ASME should be painfully aware of STEM stereotypes and the need to bring women and people of color into their organization. This book could have reinvented the ASME through a revisionist history that highlights both old heroes and the contributions of people overlooked in the past. Today, ASME membership is 53 percent white, 16 percent Latino, 14 percent Asian, and about 82 percent male. But the book is mostly a "great man" history highlighting only two women (Lilian Gilbreth and Emily Roebling) and no people of color. The editors acknowledge that "the articles are generally not critical and that they focus primarily on engineering success rather than failure." The concept...