Mechanical Arts & Merchandise: Industrial Espionage and Travellers’ Accounts as a Source for Technical Historians by A. P. Woolrich, and: Ferrner’s Journal 1759/1760: An Industrial Spy in Bath and Bristol ed. by A. P. Woolrich

Abstract

146 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE the rubric “power,” Stapleton has systematically included works on hydraulic power and prime movers, but he has omitted Louis C. Hunter’s Waterpower in the Century of the Steam Engine (Charlottes­ ville, Va., 1979). One may question whether the kind of guidelines Stapleton has fol­ lowed are always adequate, however. For example, I would argue that conceptual rather than technical guidelines are necessary to trace the most important literature on the history of engineering the­ ory because so much of it lies outside the immediate purview of his­ tory of technology. Be that as it may, Stapleton’s bibliography is a useful guide to a complex and often disparate body of scholarship. Eda Kranakis Dr. Kranakis is a member of the Science Dynamics Department at the University of Amsterdam. She is currently completing a monograph on suspension bridges in France and the United States during the first half of the 19th century. Mechanical Arts & Merchandise: Industrial Espionage and Travellers’ Ac­ counts as a Source for Technical Historians. By A. P. Woolrich. Eind­ hoven: De Archaeologische Pers (Zeelsterstraat 147, NL-5652 EE Eindhoven, The Netherlands), 1986. Pp. vi+154; illustrations, notes, appendixes, bibliography. FI 27.50 (cloth)+handling; FI 20.00 (paper)-(-handling. Ferrner’s Journal 1759/1760: An Industrial Spy in Bath and Bristol. Ed­ ited by A. P. Woolrich. Translated by A. den Ouden. Eindhoven: De Archaeologische Pers, 1986. Pp. iv+55; illustrations, notes, index. FI 7.50 (paper)+handling. A. P. Woolrich believes that historians of technology have under­ utilized travelers’ accounts as sources. He provides us with a gen­ eral essay on their virtues and uses (focusing on European accounts in the 18th and early 19th centuries) and with an edition of the jour­ nal of the representative of a Swedish merchant in the metals busi­ ness. Woolrich promises soon to publish a full bibliography of travelers’ accounts, and he has a useful preliminary list appended to Mechanical Arts fc? Merchandise. Travelers’ accounts are certainly a magnificent source for the his­ tory of technology, and there are relatively few modern editions com­ pared to the number of accounts available. Often they contain detailed, critical descriptions of particular sites and processes—de­ scriptions that may have no parallel in the records of owners, opera­ tors, or inventors. Equally important, they may illuminate our under­ standing ofthe international flow oftechnical information, national or cultural differences in technological style and viewpoint, and tech­ nological transfer. Woolrich is interested in travelers’ accounts mostly for the specific information they contain. He argues that the history of technology TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 147 has become dominated by the study of “the impact of technology on society” and that the “history of the techniques of manufacture” has been relatively neglected. He thinks that much of what has been written about techniques has been “bad history” because it has not recurred to primary sources. Recognizing the dearth of techni­ cal information in company records and personal papers, Woolrich maintains that travelers’ accounts are an excellent alternative. He states that they are often “the observations of trained contemporar­ ies” and may serve as an important check on received history or as the basis for developing new information. As Woolrich demon­ strates with the Ferrner account, the names, dates, and locations re­ corded by a traveler may be combined with contemporary maps, illustrations, and local records to improve our knowledge of impor­ tant industrial sites and processes. At the same time, Woolrich recognizes that travelers’ accounts must be viewed critically by historians. In the instance of Ferrner’s journal, Woolrich notes a number of features that constrain our free use of the text: difficulties in translation, contradictions of appar­ ently established facts, and the survival of the journal in a polished “literary” version without the original notes from which it was de­ rived. But Woolrich’s criticism is largely that of a user of the accounts and does not inform his role as editor. He is either unconcerned about or innocent of modern editing standards. In Mechanical Arts & Merchandise, he gives almost no hint of the issues that arise in pre­ senting travelers’ accounts so that they can be used...