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Seminar assignments - Seminar 1

Scientific Technology and Modern Society (Ryerson University)

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Questions:

Notes:
Federal Highway Act of 1921 was pivotal in road building in the interwar years.
Rural budget for road building was second largest budget in interwar years at 36.3 billion (1921-
1941) these roads soon become obsolete forcing governments to spend even more money on the
road network.
Previous designs where based off of roads for horse drawn carriages, which had to be abandoned
due to weight and speed differences, as well as the tendencies of drivers to drive on the middle of
the road.

1. In what ways did urban railways in the late 19th century and cars in inter-war years of the
20th century (1918-1939) change rural and urban geography, and why were the effects
opposite in these two settings?
In the late 19th century railways allowed for decentralization of cities as people could
live far away near railway hubs and still be able to commute.
Due to the high mobility of cars, people that were previously forced to live in high
density areas due to railway lines and available work, were now capable of living outside the city
in suburbia and commuting to work, this was an effective decentralization of cities.
In retrospect, villages and rural areas that had always been forced to be isolated, where now able
to centralize all of their essential organizations like schools, and markets into larger more
consolidated institutes.
Previously railway lines in the 19th century had forced people to live at railway hubs, and port
towns to form mega cities.
In retrospect railways and cars allowed people to move further and further away from the city
and still be able to function.

2. Did urban traffic congestion begin with the car? How bad was traffic congestion in the
1920s, and what does this tell you about the car?

Number of motorist grew from less than 500,000 in 1910 to 8.1 million in 1920.
For every 3.1 driving age Americans, there was one registered vehicle.
In 1940 a complete rehaul of the old system had to be done, in fact it had to be changed so much
that all previous knowledge of traffic infrastructure was obsolete, and completely new
technologies had to be developed for the sole purpose of highway design.

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3. How did commerce become reorganized during the inter-war years?

Governments were overstressed with financial problems after the war from shortages of
materials, inflation, unemployment after the war, and the prohibition which eliminated the
biggest source of money liquor taxes. The American City Bureau unified commerce
nationwide with a goal of creating an efficient industrial machine by advising chambers in
different cities by giving expert advice, which was especially useful for chambers too small to
afford paying salaried experts.

Street parking and zoning certain areas for certain purposes allowed traffic to flow better, stop
the congestion in commerce areas.

4. What role was played by chambers of commerce, engineers, and urban planners, and when
did these groups come into existence or become involved in city planning?
New York zoning ordinance in 1916 first one of its kind
1920s early traffic engineering became a profession (miller mclintock)

1913 Harland Bartholomew was asked to come up with universal city plans

5. What were some of the measures introduced to relieve congestion up to and including the
Great Depression, e.g. to reorganize towns and cities?
Zoning, moving industries out of town.

4. What social changes followed from designating public roads as motor roads? What were the
responses of pedestrians, engineers, and car drivers to these changes?
Jaywalking became illegal, social engineering turned using the roads by foot as a social no no.
Boy Scouts mobilized to hand out pamphlets.
As traffic grew and became a threat to pedestrians jaywalking became illegal.

5. Why did Taylorism intrude into the every-day lives of ordinary people? What did civil
engineers in the Progressive Era (1880-1930) see as their new role, and why? How did this
change our social expectations, and can this in any way be seen as problematic or even
ominous?

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7. What is the Theory of Natural Monopoly and why did apply to systems technologies and
public utilities? Should systems technologies be seen as different from public utilities?
Public utilities became known as natural monopolies
Beginning with Mill, nineteenth-century economists showed that certain enterprises tended to
become monopolies. If more than one firm entered one of these fields, in time only one firm
would survive.

Most nineteenth-century Americans believed in the necessity of competition to the well-being of

consumers. Yet railroading repeatedly proved to be an environment in which direct competition
seldom lasted. The evidence of this problem was in well before there was a satisfactory
explanation, and critics of the railroads supplied this lack by accusing the rail barons of
treachery. Yet when Charles Francis Adams took charge of Massachusetts railroad commission
in 1869, he had already developed a thesis that in railroading competition cannot succeed, and
ought not to be attempted, since on the rails competition and the cheapest possible
transportation are wholly incompatible.
Richard Ely said, converted an inestimable number of municipal reformers to the idea that gas
and water socialism, or at least limited franchises, should be a cardinal tenet of city reforms.
Ely called for government ownership of public utilities, and by 1900 most cities owned their
water works. While most other utilities remained in private hands then as now, states and cities
began to regulate their municipal services. After 1907, state public service commissions
proliferated rapidly.

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