The Revolt of the Engineers: Social Responsibility and the American Engineering Profession by Edwin T. Layton, Jr (review)

Abstract

The “Revolt of the Engineers” Reconsidered PETER MEIKSINS Recent scholarship on the history of American engineers has fo­ cused on the years surrounding World War I as crucially important to the formation of the modern engineering profession. This is hardly surprising, since these were the years during which the so-called revolt of the engineers (to use Edwin Layton’s phrase) took place. Mechanical and civil engineers in particular seemed to be searching for a rede­ finition of their place in society, to be seeking a more active role in solving the problems (both technical and social) of the day. Many of them seemed to have concluded that engineers, by reason of their training, experience, and social position, could develop a different, and superior, kind ofleadership than that exercised by business. Their search spawned a number of important “causes” (ranging from the scientific management movement to efforts to create a unified engi­ neering profession) and often turbulent debates about the meaning of engineering professionalism. But this activity rather rapidly came to an end in the probusiness prosperity of the 1920s. Looking back, historians have concluded that this was a kind of formative crisis within the engineering fraternity. It was during this period in their history that the engineers came to grips with funda­ mental questions about their relationship to business, their rightful degree of social responsibility, and the appropriate mode of organi­ zation for the profession as a whole. Consequently, a study of this period should yield important insights into the nature and social role of the engineering profession in 20th-century America. Unfortunately, there has been no unanimity as to what precisely those insights might be. In the most important analyses, two subtly Dr. Meiksins is associate professor of sociology at State University of New York College at Geneseo. The research for this article was supported by summer stipends from the SUNY Research Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities, whose assistance is gratefully acknowledged. The author also thanks Lynn Zimmer, Sarah Harrington, and the Technology and Culture referees for their support and con­ structive criticism. An earlier version of the paper was presented at the 1984 meeting of the Society for the History of Technology.© 1988 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved. 0040-165X788/2902-0001 $01.00 219 220 Peter Meiksins different views of the engineers’ social role have emerged. Both agree that American engineers eventually came to align themselves with the businessmen who employed them, but they disagree about why this occurred and whether it was inevitable. One school of thought is well represented by David Noble’s America by Design. Noble takes the position that the engineers’ “revolt” in the early 20th century was, in many respects, an anomaly. Although he notes that there was more than one theoretically possible form of professional identity for engineers, he concludes that the possibility of a serious challenge to the “marriage” of engineering and corporate business was small indeed.1 Engineering reformers such as Morris L. Cooke and Frederick Haynes Newell are characterized as “corporate liberals” who sought to combine reform with the requirements of corporate business. The growth immediately after World War I of the American Association of Engineers, with its reform rhetoric and its concern for the engineers’ material welfare, resulted largely from the very temporary, untypical experience of young engineers in the post­ war slump. Once prosperity returned, the association quickly de­ clined.2 In sum, Noble sees no real challenge to business hegemony over engineering in these types of protest. He concludes that the engineers’ dependence on industrial organizations made the “impo­ tence” of engineering reformers and their accommodation with American business virtually inevitable.3 The lesson of early20th -century engineering history, for Noble, is the forging of this accommodation, the willing subordination ofengineering to corporate ends, and the creation of a “domesticated” brand of engineer willing to serve, wittingly or unwittingly, as an arm of “capitalist reason.”4 A somewhat different view of the engineers emerges from the work of the historians of professional societies, particularly that of Edwin Layton and Bruce Sinclair. While conceding that an accommodation between business and engineering had been struck, they are...