Workshop of the World: A Selective Guide to the Industrial Archeology of Philadelphia by the Oliver Evans Chapter of the Society for Industrial Archeology

Abstract

technology and culture Book Reviews 159 human picture of the individual and offers a great deal of insight into the period in which he lived. George H. Daniels Dr. Daniels is professor of history and chairman of the Department of History at the University of South Alabama. He has published articles on Alabama business history and has in progress a study of an early Alabama industrialist. Workshop of the World: A Selective Guide to the Industrial Archeology of Philadelphia. By the Oliver Evans Chapter of the Society for Indus­ trial Archeology. Wallingford, Pa.: Oliver Evans Press, 1990. Pp· 300; illustrations, notes, bibliography, site index. $25.00 (paper). In concert with its annual conferences, the Society for Industrial Archeology usually produces a useful inventory of historic engineer­ ing and industrial sites within the host city or region. For the 1990 meeting in Philadelphia, the society’s local chapter assembled a lengthy list of historic sites covering most, but certainly not all, of the self-proclaimed “workshop of the world.” Working as a decentralized team under the overall leadership of John Bowie, about twenty members took responsibility for an inventory of separate districts and neighborhoods. With widely disparate backgrounds, the individual team members necessarily brought their own interests and skills to the project, and, unfortunately, this meant that coverage within the inventory would not be of uniform quality or depth. Given the size of Philadelphia and the richness of its industrial heritage, almost inevi­ tably an inventory of this type must be more of a “sampler” than an all-inclusive listing. In fact, Bowie acknowledges this with the caveat: “No effort was made for this study to be comprehensive. Instead the publication is intended to be a guidebook to some of Philadelphia’s industrial sites and neighborhoods for those people interested in exploring and seeing them” (p. i-4). For historians who may not be interested in arranging field trips and site visits, the inventory still has much to offer. In particular, Philip Scranton’s “Context and Overview” provides a succinct yet scholarly introduction to the city’s industrial history which explains how “from roughly 1880 through 1920, Philadelphia’s industrial districts supported an array of mills and plants whose diversity has scarcely been matched anywhere in the history of manufacturing” (p. ii-2). Drawing from a perspective akin to that developed in his book Proprietary Capitalism (Cambridge, 1983), Scranton explains how the city supported a few major factories such as the Baldwin Loco­ motive Works but was “far better known as an incubator for small enterprises,” with almost seven hundred separate companies operat­ ing in the textile industry alone at the turn of the 20th century. In providing a context for why and how Philadelphia nurtured such a 160 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE small-scale, entrepreneurial industrial culture, Scranton’s introduc­ tion lends greater meaning to the several-score site descriptions that constitute the bulk of the inventory. In sum, this is not a perfect publication, and criticisms can be made concerning both site selection and the volume’s format. But as an initial attempt to delineate the industrial archeology of one of the world’s premier early-20th-century manufacturing centers, it de­ serves recognition. And given the relative lack of knowledge concern­ ing Philadelphia as a cauldron of industrial development, Workshop Of the World warrants praise in helping to further our understanding of American technology. Donald C. Jackson Dr. Jackson is assistant professor of history at Lafayette College and book review editor of IA: The Journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology. Cradle to Grave: Life, Work, and Death at the Lake Superior Copper Mines. By Larry Lankton. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Pp. xi + 319; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $39.95. In Cradle to Grave, Larry Lankton has written a history of copper mining on the Keweenaw Peninsula of northern Michigan. He exam­ ines the origins and growth of copper mining between roughly 1840 and 1920 and to a lesser extent the decline of the industry in the years since 1920. He aims at a ‘“social history of technology’—one that works that particular space where machine and man meet, and where industry and society connect...