Publications
The list of selected staff publications may be searched by keyword or author and can be sorted by year.
A history of the evolving instrumentation needs of science and the various programs proposed and/or put in place by the federal government to help meet those needs.
A compilation of works addressing the history of U.S. federal agency efforts to advance scientific research since World War II.
A historical assessment of President Ronald Reagan’s environmental record.
A study of how engineering changed from a craft-oriented occupation to a professional occupation in the United States during the nineteenth century.
An evaluation of the American Society of Civil Engineers’ sesquicentennial exhibition, which explores the profound—and frequently unappreciated—contributions of public works to the functioning of modern society.
A brief history of the world’s largest engineering organization and how its missions have evolved in accord with shifting public values.
Discusses how and why environmental history should be integrated into exhibitions developed at both cultural and scientific institutions. The essay is a revised version of the author’s presidential address before the American Society for Environmental History.
A biography of the New York City engineer who championed the contributions of engineers to city planning during the first two decades of the twentieth century.
A review essay of Dennis L. Soden’s edited book, The Environmental Presidency, which deals with the changing attitudes and actions toward natural resources among America’s chief executives.
Examines the combined efforts of the nation’s leading scientific and engineering societies to provide technically trained staff to the U.S. Congress and its support agencies.
A biographical sketch of the chemical engineer renowned for his contributions to the refining of gasoline and aviation
fuels.
A collection of essays addressing the history of tunnels and tunneling from ancient times to the present, including discussions of the politics and construction of the Channel Tunnel and the ill-fated Super-conducting Super Collider. This richly illustrated volume also includes a detailed account of the Smithsonian’s Tunnels! exhibition.
A biographical sketch of the civil engineer best known for his work on the Panama Canal.
A collection of essays that explore the reciprocal influences of technology and the environment during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
A review essay of Mark Wyman’s book, Hard Rock Epic: Western Miners and the Industrial Revolution, 1860–1910.
A historical assessment of President Jimmy Carter’s environmental record. Recipient of the Society for History in the Federal Govern-ment’s 1999 Charles Thomson Prize.
A discussion of two prize-winning documentaries—Kelly Duane’s Monumental: David Brower’s Fight for Wild America and Bonnie Kreps’s Arctic Dance: The Mardy Murie Story—and the contributions of film biographies to the teaching of environmental history.
Reflections on the research opportunities that exist for those historians willing to analyze the interconnections between technology and the natural environment.
A biographical sketch of the San Francisco engineer best known for his work on the controversial dam built in Yosemite National Park’s Hetch Hetchy valley.
Reflections on how popular opinions about the appropriate role of public enterprises have devolved since the founding of the American Public Works Association in 1937, and how historical inquiry can contribute to society’s understanding of this trend and its consequences.
A study of the Stabroek Market in Georgetown, Guyana, and of clocks and bells on other public buildings in the republic.
A study and description of a rare and important American mill clock purchased by NMAH.
Attitudes to public timekeeping in present-day Guyana. Perception of time in the British colonies.
