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From Millwrights to Shipwrights to the Twenty-First Century: Explorations in a History of Technical Communication in the United States (review)

1999; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 40; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/tech.1999.0183

1097-3729

Teresa Kynell,

Maritime and Coastal Archaeology

Reviewed by: From Millwrights to Shipwrights to the Twenty-First Century: Explorations in a History of Technical Communication in the United States * Teresa C. Kynell (bio) From Millwrights to Shipwrights to the Twenty-First Century: Explorations in a History of Technical Communication in the United States. By R. John Brockmann. Cresskill, N.J.: Hampton Press, 1998. Pp. xxii+464; figures, tables, notes/references, index. $32.50. John Brockmann’s From Millwrights to Shipwrights to the Twenty First Century combines solid scholarship with wit and provides in its abundant endnotes and citations a rich source for future research projects. This thoroughly researched study takes the reader literally from the grinding of grain [End Page 879] during the American Revolution and the early nineteenth century (a process unchanged, we learn, from ancient Roman times) to Ford, Chevrolet, and IBM, all with the corresponding transitions in the discipline of technical communication. Between these paradigms evolved a variety of technical breakthroughs in machine process and description, from Oliver Evans and his “visionary projections” of ever new automated processes in milling through the ship designers of the famous clipper ship era in the 1850s. We learn of John W. Griffiths, Donald McKay of Sea Witch and Staghound fame, and his younger brother Lauchlan McKay, whose masterful treatise The Practical Shipbuilder displayed technical graphics on the physics of water pressure on ship rudders as well as the precise angles and offsets of ship construction. Interestingly, today’s millwrights, skilled machinists, and fabricators trace their professional competencies to the millwrights of centuries past, who literally ground meal using waterpowered shafts and worm gears. Throughout these detailed chapters, Brockmann explores oral, visual, and written technical communication, examining patents granted from 1797 through 1990 and researching the evolution of technical manuals and “how to” directions from nineteenth-century sewing machines and mower-reapers to early-twentieth-century automobiles such as Ford and Chevrolet. I particularly appreciated the often humorous quotes at the beginning of chapters: “A good manual is not a narrative. . . . Nobody ever reads a manual cover to cover—only mutants do that” (p. 223). The book does take a considerable leap from Oliver Evans in 1818 to Joseph D. Chapline in the 1950s, from “projections” about steam and waterpower to computer manuals for the ENIAC. Brockmann does clearly demonstrate the exponential growth of computer instructions via input-output programs, electrostatic memory, and, ultimately, the then-revolutionary IBM personal computer. But he acknowledges early in the book that his is an eclectic history, made up of varying threads; Brockmann hopes that technical communicators will follow some of the many threads that remain. In part 2 Brockmann reminds us that his goal was to “sketch out” three themes in American technical communication history: the importance of visual communication, the birth and influence of genres, and how technical communicators dealt with technological change “within the constraints of genre” (p. 385). He suggests that because “simply recording technical communication accomplishments of the past” (p. 386) doesn’t always help us understand or deal with contemporary concerns, historical analogy is one of the best methods upon which to base decisions. He then applies such an analogy in a chapter on IBM document design strategies—task-orientation and minimalism. This interesting chapter provides a useful look at the inherent principles of task-orientation and minimalism, though sometimes the distinctions become difficult to follow. Despite the difficulty, however, [End Page 880] and the inevitable problems with some of the older graphics and reproductions of written correspondence, the book emerges as a solid social history of technical communication in America. It is a research effort that will prove beneficial to historians of technology and students studying the still evolving history of the discipline of technical communication. Teresa C. Kynell Dr. Kynell received her Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Technical Communication from Michigan Technological University. She is associate professor and interim head of the English department at Northern Michigan University. Her book Writing in a Milieu of Utility: The Move to Technical Communication in American Engineering Programs, 1850–1950 (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex, 1996) was reviewed in the October 1998 issue of T&C. Footnotes * Permission to reprint a review published here may be obtained only...