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James C Williams
James C. Williams is a the recent past editor of ICON: Journal of the International Committee for the History of Technology (2011-2015), recent research professor at Stetson University, DeLand, Florida, and Emeritus Professor of History at De Anza College, Cupertino, California. He received his Ph.D. in the History of Technology and Public Historical Studies from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1985.
He has published numerous articles in the history of technology and public history, and his book Energy and the Making of Modern California (Akron, Ohio: University of Akron Press, 1997) won an American Society for State and Local History book award as “the definitive comprehensive history of the role that a wide variety of energy resources played in making California.”
As a practicing public historian, he managed the California History Center Foundation for several years, served as a consultant to corporations and local governments in issues dealing with the history of technology, environmental and toxic waste, and cultural resources management and historic preservation.
He was President of the International Committee for the History of Technology (ICOHTEC) (2009-2013) and was co-founder of Envirotech. He also was Treasure of the Society for the History of Technology for two terms, served on the board of the National Council on Public History, and was a founding member of the California Council for the Promotion of History, and served on its board and as its president and executive secretary for several years.
He is an avid sailor and jazz piano player and occasionally writes popular articles on sailing.
Phone: Mobile: 650-575-9825
Address: 25160 Harborside Boulevard
Punta Gorda, FL 33955
USA
He has published numerous articles in the history of technology and public history, and his book Energy and the Making of Modern California (Akron, Ohio: University of Akron Press, 1997) won an American Society for State and Local History book award as “the definitive comprehensive history of the role that a wide variety of energy resources played in making California.”
As a practicing public historian, he managed the California History Center Foundation for several years, served as a consultant to corporations and local governments in issues dealing with the history of technology, environmental and toxic waste, and cultural resources management and historic preservation.
He was President of the International Committee for the History of Technology (ICOHTEC) (2009-2013) and was co-founder of Envirotech. He also was Treasure of the Society for the History of Technology for two terms, served on the board of the National Council on Public History, and was a founding member of the California Council for the Promotion of History, and served on its board and as its president and executive secretary for several years.
He is an avid sailor and jazz piano player and occasionally writes popular articles on sailing.
Phone: Mobile: 650-575-9825
Address: 25160 Harborside Boulevard
Punta Gorda, FL 33955
USA
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I undertook this thesis in hopes of unraveling the development of the Bay Area's industrial base in the late-1960s and analyzing the real impact of federal contracts upon the region’s economy.
Whereas my original intention was to explore the political and philosophical attitudes propagated among the residents of a region largely dependent upon national defense programs, I discovered that the claim that the region was indeed dependent on defense spending had not been proven. Hence, my thesis focused on making this case.
Looking back on this thesis forty years later and after a lifetime of research, writing and teaching, I am amazed that I took on such a project as a young graduate student. Of course, it is plainly the work of a young scholar, one not nearly as informed in cliometrics as he should have been, and it is dry as a desert in some spots. But, it fulfilled the goal of providing the evidence that the San Francisco Bay Area – ironically a most liberal region found the counterculture and anti-war movements of the sixties – was, in fact, dependent economically on military and aerospace spending.
merchants and managers, members of this new class joined the sport and organised sailing or yacht clubs, each of which launched little fleets of sailing canoes or other small sailboats. During the first part of the twentieth century, sailing aficionados
and professional boat builders designed scores of small boats for recreational sailing, and with a greatly expanding middle class after World War II, the market for recreational sailboats (both small and large) grew explosively. Technological innovation played an essential role in the evolution and growth of sailing as play, from the introduction of fibreglass (GRP) boats and stitch-and-glue wood construction, to changes in rigging, hardware, electronics and other sailing paraphernalia. This essay, with a focus on the U.S., examines the growth of sailing as a recreational activity since the mid-nineteenth century and its transition from a craft-based to an industrial technology. It also suggests two aspects of consumer interaction with technology that are evident in sailing-based technology as play. First, the point of interaction between leisure sailors and boat builders – what the historian Ruth Schwartz Cowan might call the ‘consumption junction’ – played an important role in determining the success or failure of boats. Second, sailing boats and much boat building progressively became what historian Rachel Maines calls a ‘hedonised’ technology; put simply, the engagement with sailing of most sailors as well as small, amateur and, sometimes, semi professional boat builders is no longer a practical matter, one focused on efficient production and work, but a leisure activity focused on pleasure.
I undertook this thesis in hopes of unraveling the development of the Bay Area's industrial base in the late-1960s and analyzing the real impact of federal contracts upon the region’s economy.
Whereas my original intention was to explore the political and philosophical attitudes propagated among the residents of a region largely dependent upon national defense programs, I discovered that the claim that the region was indeed dependent on defense spending had not been proven. Hence, my thesis focused on making this case.
Looking back on this thesis forty years later and after a lifetime of research, writing and teaching, I am amazed that I took on such a project as a young graduate student. Of course, it is plainly the work of a young scholar, one not nearly as informed in cliometrics as he should have been, and it is dry as a desert in some spots. But, it fulfilled the goal of providing the evidence that the San Francisco Bay Area – ironically a most liberal region found the counterculture and anti-war movements of the sixties – was, in fact, dependent economically on military and aerospace spending.
merchants and managers, members of this new class joined the sport and organised sailing or yacht clubs, each of which launched little fleets of sailing canoes or other small sailboats. During the first part of the twentieth century, sailing aficionados
and professional boat builders designed scores of small boats for recreational sailing, and with a greatly expanding middle class after World War II, the market for recreational sailboats (both small and large) grew explosively. Technological innovation played an essential role in the evolution and growth of sailing as play, from the introduction of fibreglass (GRP) boats and stitch-and-glue wood construction, to changes in rigging, hardware, electronics and other sailing paraphernalia. This essay, with a focus on the U.S., examines the growth of sailing as a recreational activity since the mid-nineteenth century and its transition from a craft-based to an industrial technology. It also suggests two aspects of consumer interaction with technology that are evident in sailing-based technology as play. First, the point of interaction between leisure sailors and boat builders – what the historian Ruth Schwartz Cowan might call the ‘consumption junction’ – played an important role in determining the success or failure of boats. Second, sailing boats and much boat building progressively became what historian Rachel Maines calls a ‘hedonised’ technology; put simply, the engagement with sailing of most sailors as well as small, amateur and, sometimes, semi professional boat builders is no longer a practical matter, one focused on efficient production and work, but a leisure activity focused on pleasure.