From Sputnik to SCOT: The Historiography of American Technology

Abstract

From coast to coast, panic-stricken Americans pointed toward the nighttime sky, tracing the course of a small light arcing across the starry backdrop. Its source was Sputnik 1, a satellite launched into low orbit by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957. Weeks later, Sputnik 2 appeared. Carrying a dog named Laika, this second orb circled the globe until the following spring, steadily reminding Americans of the perils modern technology might hold. A stunned Congress hastily organized hearings to examine the shocking turn of events and weigh the American response. Over the next year and a half, Congress would authorize massive new expenditures for defense and for research and education in science and engineering. Responsibility for space technology fell to a newly created federal agency, the National Air and Space Administration (NASA), which would soon carry the competition for space supremacy to the moon. As the nation's leaders rallied to close what senators (and presidential hopefuls) Lyndon Johnson and John Kennedy soon branded the “missile gap,” a small band of historians gathered to consider their own response. Led by the indefatigable Melvin Kranzberg, then a professor of history at Case Western University, this handful of pioneers laid plans to create a new professional organization, which they christened straightforwardly as the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) (1). In January 1960, the inaugural issue of its journal appeared under the banner Technology and Culture, with Kranzberg serving as editor (2). The history of technology had formally coalesced as a distinct academic discipline on the American scene.