MacLeod Review
In her 2007 monograph Heroes of Invention,[1]Christine
MacLeod analyses the cultural role that inventors played in British society
during the Industrial Revolution. Beginning with the question of why so few
inventors are famous today, Macleod charts the rise of inventor’s status from
their mid eighteenth century status “synonymous with fraudster, cheat or
swindler, effectively a criminal”[2]
to their celebration as “a national benefactors by the political nation,”[3]and
finally to their decline in favor of heroic “gentlemen of science”[4]
at the start of the twentieth century. Primarily using James Watt as an
example, though also exploring other famous figures such as Jenner, Arkwright
and Davy, Macleod shows that the number of statues, biographies and honors
dedicated to inventors increased at an exponential rate following the public
acclaim for inventions like the smallpox vaccine, telegraph, steam engine, and
balloon flight. Praises usually reserved
only for military heroes were heaped on a number of engineers and mechanics
instead. This ubiquitous praise unusually came from all classes with William IV
funding a statue of Watt in Westminster Abbey, middle class traders happy to
privilege inventors over aristocrats and in one of her most engaging chapters,
working class belief that it was the work of the ordinary man that best served
the nation. Entering the classic British decline debate, she claims that any
technological or economic deterioration from this period is a result of
historiography and that the waning British acclaim for the inventor came not
from a technological decline but the reduced role of the individual in the
increasingly political and entrepreneurial economy.
Rather than
the rather large scope of other texts from this course, MacLeod has a fairly
narrow geographical and chronological focus. This serves her quite well as it
lends some credibility to her argument since she can concentrate on specific
events like the Great Exhibition and reform of the patent system as well as the
impact of individual figures on British culture. Additionally, like many other
texts from this course, MacLeod draws from an extremely wide array of
political, economic and literary texts to prove her thesis. Her conclusions
imply that the cultural history of technology is shaped not only by what
historical actors think, but also by changes in the technological process. Also
implicated is that inventors, by the merit of their individual inventions
contributed to political change, rather than previous texts which mostly
commented on technological systems. This was true in the case of Jenner’s
invention contributing greatly to demographic changes in Britain, as well as
the countless inventions that lent might to the military and economic successes
of the empire. They also shifted some cultural values, for the first time
implying that anyone who displayed the British virtues of hard work, diligence
and creativity could ascend to a place of honor.[5]
Her text, though extremely interesting does lack slightly in her gender
analysis especially since she frequently calls attention to how few females
were idolized in statues and biographies.
There is
already a large body of literature addressing the notion of technological and
economic decline in Great Britain immediately following the Industrial
Revolution. Though widely debated by historians, many consider the rises in
American and German political and economic status accompanied a decline in
Britain. Martin Wiener in particular has asserted that Britain faced an
industrial regression since the time of the Great Exhibition. MacLeod text
makes a welcome addition to that body of literature. Her hagiographic look at
inventors is definitely unique. Additionally, her use of Carlyle to define
heroes and hero-worship was extremely interesting. Since Carlyle’s works were
very popular over the course of the entire nineteenth century, she is able to
accurately use the actor’s categories to identify the rise and fall of
inventors. Biographies, popular in general in Victorian England, emphasizing
the priestly, prophetic, and literary qualities of engineers and mechanics
reached the point that some even attained celebrity status within their own
lifetime. Using Carlyle is an extremely savvy tactic and one of the most
enjoyable aspects of the book. Additionally, despite such a wide array of
sources, her narrow focus keeps her book very tightly bound. It is an
interesting read for anyone interested in economic and business history as well
as the history of technology.
No comments:
Post a Comment