A Hammer in Their Hands
A Hammer in Their Hands: A Documentary History of Technology and the African-American Experience Carroll W. Pursell (Editor)
Publisher: The MIT Press
ISBN: 0262661993
DDC: 608.996073
Edition: Paperback; 2006-09-01
Summary:
Scholars working at the intersection of African-American history and
the history of technology are redefining the idea of technology to
include the work of the skilled artisan and the ingenuity of the
self-taught inventor. Although denied access through most of American
history to many new technologies and to the privileged education of
the engineer, African-Americans have been engaged with a range of
technologies, as makers and as users, since the colonial era. A
Hammer in Their Hands (the title comes from the famous song about
John Henry, "the steel-driving man" who beat the steam drill)
collects newspaper and magazine articles, advertisements for runaway
slaves, letters, folklore, excerpts from biography and fiction, legal
patents, protest pamphlets, and other primary sources to document the
technological achievements of African-Americans. Included in this
rich and varied collection are a letter from Cotton Mather describing
an early method of smallpox inoculation brought from Africa by a
slave; selections from Frederick Douglass's autobiography and Uncle
Tom's Cabin; the Confederate Patent Act, which barred slaves from
holding patents; articles from 1904 by Booker T. Washington and W. E.
B. DuBois, debating the issue of industrial education for
African-Americans; a 1924 article from Negro World, "Automobiles and
Jim Crow Regulations"; a photograph of an all-black World War II
combat squadron; and a 1998 presidential executive order on
environmental justice. A Hammer in Their Hands and its companion
volume of essays, Technology and the African-American Experience (MIT
Press, 2004) will be essential references in an emerging area of
study. Published in cooperation with the Lemelson Center for the
Study of Invention and Innovation at the Smithsonian Institution
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