The Abbot Payson Usher Memorial Prize, established in 1961 and named for Dr Abbott Payson Usher, is an award given annually by

Society for the History of Technology The Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) is the primary professional society for historians of technology. SHOT was founded in 1958 in the United States, and it has since become an international society with members "from some thirty-five ...

for the best scholarly work on the history of technology published during the preceding three years under the auspices of the Society.https://www.historyoftechnology.org/about-us/awards-prizes-and-grants/abbot-payson-usher-prize/ (accessed February 2019) Recipients include some of the most highly regarded historians of technology, including such pioneering figures as Robert S. Woodbury,

Silvio Bedini Silvio A. Bedini (January 17, 1917 – November 14, 2007) was an American historian, specialising in early scientific instruments. He was Historian Emeritus of the Smithsonian Institution, where he served on the professional staff for twenty-fiv ...

, Robert Multhauf, Eugene S. Ferguson,

Cyril Stanley Smith Cyril Stanley Smith (4 October 1903 – 25 August 1992) was a British metallurgist and historian of science. He is most famous for his work on the Manhattan Project where he was responsible for the production of fissionable metals. A graduate ...

and others. The prize also indicates shifts in the field's emphasis over more than five decades from early technical studies of individual machines; the subsequent prominence of science, systems, and industrial research in the work of

Thomas P. Hughes Thomas Parke Hughes (September 13, 1923 – February 3, 2014) was an American historian of technology. He was an emeritus professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania and a visiting professor at MIT and Stanford. He received his Ph.D. ...

, George Wise, Bruce Seely and others; the rise of politics, gender and colonialism; and the recent shift to cultural histories of technology by Edward Jones-Imhotep and others. Pamela O. Long's Usher-prize-winning "Openness of Knowledge" was one basis for her awards as

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the a ...

and

MacArthur Fellow The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 indi ...

Past recipients

Source
Abbot Payson Usher Memorial Prize
* 2021: Robyn d’Avignon, "Spirited Geobodies: Producing Subterranean Property in Nineteenth-Century Bambuk, West Africa", ''Technology and Culture'' 61:2 Supplement (2020), S20-S48 * 2020: Daniel Williford, "Seismic Politics: Risk and Reconstruction after the 1960 Earthquake in Agadir, Morocco", ''Technology and Culture'' 58:4 (October 2017): 982–1016 * 2019: Eden Medina, "Forensic Identification in the Aftermath of Human Rights Crimes in Chile: A Decentered Computer History", ''Technology and Culture'' 59:4 (Supplement, 2018): S100–S133 * 2018: Whitney Laemmli, "A Case in Pointe: Romance and Regimentation at the New York City Ballet", ''Technology and Culture'' 56 (January 2015): 1-27 * 2017: Edward Jones-Imhotep, "Malleability and Machines: Glenn Gould and the Technological Self", ''Technology and Culture'' 57 (April 2016): 287-321 * 2016: Edward J. Gillin, "Prophets of Progress: authority in the scientific projections and religious realisations of the Great Eastern steamship", ''Technology and Culture'' 56 (October 2015): 928-956 * 2015: Jung Lee, "Invention without Science: 'Korean Edisons' and the Changing Understanding of Technology in Colonial Korea", ''Technology and Culture'' 54 (October 2013): 782-814 * 2014: Chris Evans and Alun Withey, "An Enlightenment in Steel? Innovation in the Steel Trades of Eighteenth-Century Britain", ''Technology and Culture'' 53 (July 2012): 533-560 * 2013: Thomas S. Mullaney, "The Moveable Typewriter: How Chinese Typists Developed Predictive Text during the Height of Maoism", ''Technology and Culture'' 53 (October 2012): 777-814 * 2012: Tiina Männistö-Funk, "The Crossroads of Technology and Tradition: Vernacular Bicycles in Rural Finland, 1880-1910", ''Technology and Culture'' 52 (October 2011): 733-756 * 2011: David Biggs, "Breaking from the Colonial Mold: Water Engineering and the Failure of Nation-Building in the Plain of Reeds, Vietnam", ''Technology and Culture'' 49 (July 2008): 599-623 * 2010:

Peter Norton Peter Norton (born November 14, 1943) is an American programmer, software publisher, author, and philanthropist. He is best known for the computer programs and books that bear his name and portrait. Norton sold his software business to Syman ...

, "Street Rivals: Jaywalking and the Invention of the Motor Age", ''Technology and Culture'' 48 (April 2007): 331-359 * 2009: Crosbie Smith and Anne Scott, "'Trust in Providence': Building Confidence into the Cunard Line of Steamers", ''Technology and Culture'' 48 (July 2007): 471-96 * 2008: Eric Schatzberg, "''Technik'' Comes to America: Changing Meanings of Technology before 1930", ''Technology and Culture'' 47 (2006): 486-512 * 2007: Carlo Belfanti, "Guilds, Patents, and the Circulation of Technical Knowledge: Northern Italy during the Early Modern Age", ''Technology and Culture'' 45 (2004): 569-89 * 2006: Lissa Roberts, "An Arcadian Apparatus: The Introduction of the Steam Engine into the Dutch Landscape", ''Technology and Culture'' 45 (2004): 251-76 * 2005: William Storey, "Guns, Race, and Skill in Nineteenth-Century South Africa", ''Technology and Culture'' 45 (2004): 687-711 * 2004: Kenneth Lipartito, "Picturephone and the Information Age: The Social Meaning of Failure", ''Technology and Culture'' 44 (2003): 50-81 * 2003: Amy Slaton, "'As Near as Practicable': Precision, Ambiguity, and the Social Features of Industrial Quality Control", ''Technology and Culture'' 42 (2001): 51-80 * 2002: Wiebe E. Bijker and

Karin Bijsterveld Karin Theda Bijsterveld (born 12 October 1961) is a Dutch historian. She is a professor of Science, Technology, and Modern Culture at Maastricht University. Bijsterveld is active in the field of sound studies. The Royal Netherlands Academy of Art ...

, "Walking through Plans: Technology, Democracy and Gender Identity", ''Technology and Culture'' 41 (2000): 485-515 * 2001: John K. Brown, "Design Plans, Working Drawings, National Styles: Engineering Practice in Great Britain and the United States, 1775-1945", ''Technology and Culture'' 41 (2000): 195-238 * 2000: Matthew W. Roth, "Mulholland Highway and the Engineering Culture of Los Angeles in the 1920s", ''Technology and Culture'' 40 (1999): 545-575 * 1999: Joy Parr, "What Makes Washday Less Blue? Gender, Choice, Nation, and Technology Choice in Postwar Canada", ''Technology and Culture'' 38 (1997): 153-186 * 1998: David Mindell, "'The Clangor of That Blacksmith's Fray': Technology, War, and Experience Aboard the USS Monitor", ''Technology and Culture'' 36 (1995): 242-70 * 1997: Eric Schatzberg, "Ideology and Technical Choice: The Decline of the Wooden Airplane in the United States, 1920-1945", ''Technology and Culture'' 35 (1994): 34-69 * 1996: Gabrielle Hecht, "Political Designs: Nuclear Reactors and National Policy in Postwar France", ''Technology and Culture'' 35 (1994): 657-85 * 1995: Jameson W. Doig and David P. Billington, "Ammann's First Bridge: A Study in Engineering, Politics, and Entrepreneurial Behavior", ''Technology and Culture'' 35 (1994): 537-70 * 1994: John Law, "The Olympus 320 Engine: A Case Study in Design, Development, and Organizational Control", ''Technology and Culture'' 33 (1992): 409-40 * 1993: Barton Hacker, "An Annotated Index to Volumes 1-25", ''Technology and Culture'' (1991) ; and Pamela O. Long, "The Openness of Knowledge: An Ideal and Its Context in 16th-Century Writings on Mining and Metallurgy", ''Technology and Culture'' 32 (1991): 318-55 * 1992: Bryan Pfaffenberger, "The Harsh Facts of Hydraulics: Technology and Society in Sri Lanka's Colonization Schemes", ''Technology and Culture'' 31 (1990): 361-97 * 1991: Robert Gordon, "Who Turned the Mechanical Ideal into Mechanical Reality?" ''Technology and Culture'' 29 (1988): 744-78 * 1990: Laurence F. Gross, "Wool Carding: A Study of Skills and Technology", ''Technology and Culture'' 28 (1987): 804-27 * 1989: Larry Owens, "Vannevar Bush and the Differential Analyzer: The Text and Context of an Early Computer", ''Technology and Culture'' 27 (1986): 63-95 * 1988: Judith A. McGaw, "Accounting for Innovation: Technological Change and Business Practice in the Berkshire County Paper Industry", ''Technology and Culture'' 26 (1985): 703-25 * 1987: Bruce E. Seely, "The Scientific Mystique in Engineering: Highway Research at the Bureau of Public Roads, 1918-1940", ''Technology and Culture'' 25 (1984): 798-831 * 1986: Donald MacKenzie, "Marx and the Machine", ''Technology and Culture'' 25 (1984): 473-502 * 1985: Eda Fowlks Kranakis, "The French Connection: Giffard's Injector and the Nature of Heat", ''Technology and Culture'' 23 (1982): 3-38 * 1984: Walter G. Vincenti, "Control-Volume Analysis: A Difference in Thinking between Engineering and Physics", ''Technology and Culture'' 23 (1982): 145-74 * 1983: George Wise, "A New Role for Professional Scientists in Industry: Industrial Research at General Electric, 1900-1916", ''Technology and Culture'' (1980): 408-29 * 1982: Harold Dorn, "Hugh Lincoln Cooper and the First Détente", ''Technology and Culture'' 20 (1979): 322-47 * 1981:

, "The Electrification of America: The System Builders", ''Technology and Culture'' 20 (1979): 124-61 * 1974: Carl Mitcham and Robert Mackey for their bibliography of the philosophy of technology, first published as a supplement to ''Technology and Culture'' 14 (1973) and then separately by the University of Chicago Press. * 1974: R. L. Hills and A. J. Pacey "The Measurement of Power in Early Steam-Driven Textile Mills", ''Technology and Culture'' 13 (1972): 25–43 * 1972:

, "Art, Technology and Science: Notes on their Historical Interaction", ''Technology and Culture'' 11 (1970): 493-549 * 1969: Eugene S. Ferguson, "Bibliography of the History of Technology", an expansion of a series of articles originally published in ''Technology and Culture'' (1962-1965) and constituting no. 5 in the Monograph Series of the History of Technology, published jointly by SHOT and MIT Press * 1968: Carl W. Condit, "The First Reinforced-Concrete Skyscraper: The Ingalls Building in Cincinnati and Its Place in Structural History", ''Technology and Culture'' 9 (1968): 1-33 * 1965: Robert P. Multhauf, "Sal Ammoniac: A Case History in Industrialization", ''Technology and Culture'' 6 (1965): 569-86 * 1962: Silvio A. Bedini, "The Compartmented Cylindrical Clepsydra", ''Technology and Culture'' 3 (1962): 115-41 * 1961: Robert S. Woodbury, "The Legend of Eli Whitney and Interchangeable Parts", ''Technology and Culture'' 1 (1960): 235-53

References

{{reflist

External links

The Abbot Payson Usher Prize - List of Winners
History of science awards Awards established in 1961 American history awards American science and technology awards

Past recipients

See also

References

External links