Completed Projects
Listed below are some projects that individuals and institutions
have completed in the IT History area WHICH DID NOT RECEIVE ITHS
FUNDING. To see projects completed that did receive ITHS funding, CLICK
HERE. By placing notice of these projects on its pages, ITHS
is not endorsing them, although all submissions are reviewed
for appropriateness before being posted.
Historical
Calculating a Natural World: Scientists, Engineers, and Computers During the Rise of US Cold War Research
Description: Calculating a Natural World utilizes the history of computing as a metonymic lens into the emerging infrastructure for Cold War Research and Development in the United States. Carried out using the mode of institutional history and analysis, the book examines how individuals at various levels within an organization, and across organizations went about remaking the social apparatus, and one very powerful technology that was associated with Cold War research. In many respects, the digital electronic computer provides an ideal vehicle for this kind of study. It was an expensive technology, with broad military, scientific, and commercial implications, that was brought to fruition precisely during the early Cold War years. The project develops its case studies around some of the most famous computer development projects of this period, including the ENIAC, the IAS Computer, and Project Whirlwind, as well as other organizations, including Share and IBM, that were essential to the early history of electronic computing in the US. The study also provides new insights into the process of innovation, and how the institutional pluralism of Cold War military, commercial, and academic institutions created a unique space for the accelerated pace of innovation in computing during this period.
Methodology: Archives based historical research / Social theory / Historical narrative
Deliverables: The book, Calculating a Natural World, was published with MIT Press (Inside Technology Series). Other related articles have appeared in professional journals.
Project timeline: September 1994 - October 2006
Contact:
Atsushi Akera
Department of Science & Technology Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
akeraa@rpi.edu
Archival
International Records Held by the Charles Babbage Institute
Description: CBI has nearly 200 different collections. Three of CBI's
largest collections are the Burroughs Corporation Records, Control Data
Corporation Records, and the National Bureau of Standards Computer
Literature Collection.
These U.S.-based collections might suggest that CBI's archival records are
heavily concentrated on the U.S. In fact, CBI records also contain an
abundance of rich materials on international computing.
Record collections include those concerning the International Federation of
Information Processing, reports on Western European and Japanese computing
developments held in the National Bureau of Standards materials, information
on international sales operations and foreign subsidiaries in the Burroughs
collection, a miscellany of materials on western Europe and particularly the
United Kingdom held in the International Computing Collection, international
records concerning the international aspects of the Y2K phenomenon, record
collections on the Soviet Union, Russian and Eastern Bloc Computing, and
reference materials especially on computing in Europe.
More information: http://www.cbi.umn.edu/newsletter/article6.html
Charles Babbage Institute
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