From "useful knowledge" to "habits of industry" : gender, race, and class in nineteenth-century technical education / Nina E. Lerman.

Format:

Book

Manuscript

Microformat

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Lerman, Nina E., 1961-

Contributor:

McGaw, Judith A., 1946- advisor.

University of Pennsylvania.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Penn dissertations--History and sociology of science.

History and sociology of science--Penn dissertations.

Local Subjects:

Penn dissertations--History and sociology of science.

History and sociology of science--Penn dissertations.

Physical Description:

xii, 330 leaves ; 29 cm

Production:

1993.

Summary:

To study the knowledge--skill, know-how, craft--required to use or design technology, one must seek surviving representations of that knowledge. Such representations often carry meanings in narrow contexts: a mechanical drawing, for example, offers insight into engineering or metalwork. But technological knowledge must be understood broadly, encompassing not only the precise filing of the machinist, but also the operator's understanding of what makes a machine run smoothly, and the fingertip familiarity with fabrics and fastenings of a woman taught to sew as soon as she was old enough to hold a needle. Technical education, defined broadly as the transmission of technological knowledge, provides a wide array of representations for study. Technical education is intended to prepare children for their work as adults. Offerings in technical education--by institutions ranging from asylums to schools of design--chart the full terrain of technological knowledge, and allow exploration of how different kinds of technological knowledge have been perceived in relation to one another.

This dissertation studies the alternatives in technical education offered in nineteenth-century Philadelphia, and the ways in which changing ideas about gender, race, and class shaped these alternatives. The introduction surveys definitions and discussions of technological knowledge, and argues for technical education as an important locus for examining these ideas. Chapter 1 surveys the practices and meanings of American apprenticeship before the advent of more centralized institutions of technical education. Chapters 2 through 4 compare the technical content and designated audiences of various educational programs in three periods: the 1820s, the 1850s, and the 1880s. These chapters explore changing attitudes toward technical education during a century of rapid industrialization, the kinds of technological knowledge provided to different groups of people, and the social roles played by different kinds of knowledge. The concluding chapter suggests how relationships between social hierarchies and hierarchies of technological knowledge can be used to illuminate American attitudes toward work, workplaces, and workers; toward education and the socialization of children; and toward the social functions of class, race, and gender.

Notes:

Supervisor: Judith A. McGaw.

Thesis (Ph.D. in History and Sociology of Science) -- Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, 1993.

Includes bibliography.

Local Notes:

University Microfilms order no.: 93-21433.

OCLC:

244970029