Thomas P. Hughes

Thomas Parke Hughes (born September 13, 1923 in Richmond , Virginia , † February 3, 2014 in Charlottesville ) was an American historian of science and technology . He was a professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania and held intermittent visiting professorships at MIT and Stanford University .

Live and act

Hughes received his Ph.D. in 1953. at the University of Virginia . Together with John B. Rae , Carl W. Condit and Melvin Kranzberg, he was responsible for establishing the Society for the History of Technology and he was the recipient of its highest honor, the Leonardo da Vinci Medal . Since 1982 was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . In 2003 he was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society and the National Academy of Engineering .

He made a decisive contribution to the concepts of technological momentum , technological determinism , the large-scale technical system and the social construction of technology and introduced systems theory into the history of technology.

His book American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm was a Pulitzer Prize finalist.

Works (selection)

• Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930 . Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 1983, ISBN 0-8018-4614-5 .
• Together with Wiebe E. Bijker and Trevor J. Pinch (eds.): The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology . MIT Press, Cambridge, MA 1987.
• Together with Renate Mayntz (Ed.): The Development of Large Technical Systems . Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main; Westview Press, Boulder, CO 1988.
• American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm, 1870-1970 . Viking, New York, NY 1989.
• Together with Agatha C. Hughes. Lewis Mumford: Public Intellectual . New York 1990.
• Rescuing Prometheus . 1st ed. New York: Pantheon Books, 1998.
• Human-Built World: How to Think About Technology and Culture . University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL 2004, ISBN 0-226-35933-6

literature

• Trevor Pinch: Thomas Parke Hughes (obituary) . In: Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society . tape 160 , no. 3 , 2016, p. 295-301 .

Web links

• University of Pennsylvania faculty home page

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hughes, Thomas . In: The Daily Progress . Retrieved June 23, 2014.
2. ↑ Thomas Parke Hughes . Stanford University website. Retrieved June 23, 2014.
3. ↑ The Leonardo da Vinci Medal ( Memento of the original from July 18, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Society for the History of Technology website . Retrieved June 23, 2014. 
4. ^ Member History: Thomas P. Hughes. American Philosophical Society, accessed October 6, 2018 (English, with short biography). 
5. ^ Member Directory: Thomas Parke Hughes. National Academy of Engineering, accessed October 6, 2018 .