Hierarchies in the Circuitry:
Women, Information Technology and Scholarship (WITS) at Illinois
by Sharon Irish, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Image: Courtesy of Sahron Irish

Fifteen years later: Whither Restructuring in the American Electric Utility System?
A postscript to Power Loss: The Origins of Deregulation and Restructuring in the American Electric Utility System © 2013
by Richard F. Hirsh

The process of restructuring the American electric utility system has not been kind to its advocates. Begun about fifteen years ago, the opening of markets and increased competition in the formerly tranquil, monopolistic system had been expected to yield innovative services and lower costs, just as deregulation of other industries had done earlier. Instead, the restructuring process resulted in poorly designed markets in California and elsewhere, scandals involving independent generating and marketing companies, the bankruptcy of a major utility firm, and–worst of all in the minds of many–higher prices for electricity. The traditional holders of political and economic control–power company managers–have lost significant clout as the century-old "utility consensus" continues to dissolve. Much of the flux that characterized the utility system in the late 1990s persists today.  More

Image: Courtesy of Carol M. Highsmith's America, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

The Pill at Fifty
Scientific Commemoration and the Politics of American Memory
An essay by Heather Prescott (reprinted from Technology and Culture)

On December 31, 2010, the National Museum of American History’s blog, “O Say Can you See,” published a list of the top ten most popular original blog posts from the year. At number six was the entry on the museum’s exhibit “Better than Nature: The Pill”, mounted in anticipation of the Pill’s 50th anniversary. Media coverage of the 50th anniversary of the Pill offers a telling view of what Richard Hirsh describes as the “real world” role of historians of technology. As the most popular form of reversible birth control, the Pill has touched the lives of millions of Americans; its anniversary saw people introduce diverse and sometimes contradictory stories of the Pill’s past, vying through history to understand the significance and meaning of the Pill in American society.  More...

Image: Courtesy of Bryan Calabro, via Wikimedia Commons

Inside "La Tour Eiffel en 1900"

The October issue of Technology and Culture features a striking image of a blimp flying by the Eiffel Tower c. 1900. The image comes from Gustav Eiffel's La Tour Eiffel en 1900, written to defend the tower's appeal as a main attraction for the 1900 World Exposition in Paris.

Peter Soppelsa and Blair Stein explain in the "On the Cover" essay, that Eiffel "documented the tower's continuing development after its 1889 debut, including its importance for scientific experiments in wireless transmission, meteorology, long-range photography, and aviation. Eiffel addressed the book to the tower's critics, who claimed that its relevance and grandeur had faded since 1889."

We've put together a slide show to offer a glimpse inside La Tour Eiffel en 1900, and the images Eiffel used to assert the tower's evergreen modernity, and its role as both site and symbol of France's scientific, industrial, and aesthetic prowess.

These images are provided courtesy of the University of Oklahoma History of Science Collections. The History of Science Collections of the University of Oklahoma Libraries is one of the premier research collections in its field. Holdings of nearly 100,000 volumes from every field and subject area of science, technology and medicine range chronologically from Hrabanus Maurus, Opus de universo (1467) to current publications in the history of science. You can find over 80,000 high resolution images from hundreds of scientific and technological texts, including La Tour Eiffel en 1900, in the online galleries.   View slideshow