ICOHTEC International Committee for the History of Technology 1968 - 2008 Edited by ‘Wolfhard Weber Bochum 2009For our symposium in Victoria, Canada, in 2008 ICOHTEC asked some members of the Board and the Executive Committee with a long experience to present personal reflections about our activities. Those presentations were supplemented by some other contributions for the International Congress of History of Science and Technology in Budapest, Hungary, in 2009. I gratefully acknowledge the help of James Williams and Hans-Joachim Braun in solving some problems in language editing. The copyright is exlusively with each author. second, enlarged edition Bochum, Germany, July 2009 wr ieohtec.org>CONTENTS List of Symposia R. Angus Buchanan, Bath: From Cold War Peacemakers to Environmental Crusaders: The Development of ICOHTEC over Forty Years. ... Vasily Borisov, Moscow: Memory of Semyon V. Shukhardin. Alexandre Herlea, Belfort: ICOHTEC and History of Technology in France .... Slawomir Lotys7, Zielona Gora: Eugeniusz Olszewski: Engineer, Historian and Cofounder of the Committee... Carroll Pursell, Sidney: ICOHTEC - Some Recollections and Observation: Bernardo Revuelta Po, Madrid: José Antonio Garcia-Diego, President of ICOHTEC..... Eberhard Wachtler, Dresden: Why ICOHTEC ? .. HansJoachim Braun, Hamburg: Giant and Dwarf? The SHOT-ICOHTEC Relationship and Other Matters .. Timo Myllyntaus, Turku: ICOHTEC - Today and Tomorrow Officers 1968 - 2009... Executive Office, mectings 1979, 2002, 2005 Kaluga Symposium 1976. ImpressionsList of Symposia 1968 to 2009 PARIS, France, 1968 PONT A MOUSSON, France, 1970 MOSCOW, USSR, 1971 JABLONNA, Poland, 1973 TOKYO, Japan, 1974 KALUGA, USSR, 1976 EDINBURGH, UK, 1977 STIRLING, UK, 1977 FREIBERG, Germany (East), 1978 SOFIA, Bulgaria, 1979 BUCHAREST, Romania, 1981 SMOLENICE, Czechoslovakia, 1982 LERBACH, Cologne, Germany (West), 1984 BERKELEY, USA, 1985 DRESDEN, Germany (East), 1986 MADRID, Spain, 1988 HAMBURG/MUNICH, Germany (West), 1989 PARIS, France, 1990 VIENNA, Austria 1991 UPPSALA, Sweden, 1992 [with SHOT] ZARAGOZA, Spain, 1993 BATH, UK, 1994 BUDAPEST, Hunga-y, 1996 LIEGE LUIK, Belgium, 1997 LISBON, Portugal, 1998 BELFORT, France, 1999 PRAGUE, Czech Republic, 2000 MEXICO CITY, Mexico, 2001 GRANADA, Spain, 2002 St. PETERSBURG / MOSCOW, Russia, 2003 BOCHUM, Germany, 2004 BENING, China, 2005 LEICESTER, UK, 2606 COPENHAGEN, Denmark, 2007 VICTORIA, BC, Canada, 2008 BUDAPEST, Hungary, 2009 Pp.to,ICOHTEC and History of Technology in France by Alexandre Herlea, Université de Technologie Belfort Montheliard France is one of the countries in which the history of technology originated. This the 1960s and 1970s, although its origins go back to the rena the writings and publications of that period we can find several recent historical field found a place in academia only in issance. In ferences to technology and its evolution. After the renaissance, interest in technology became stronger in France in the 17" and 18" centuri of this is the foundation of the Evidence cadémie des Sciences in 1666 and the interest. of the — French Government in technology which, from Colbert onwards, realized the importance of technology for eco- nomic development. There were also the foundation of the collection of scientific and technological objects (‘cabinet’), the establishment of the first institutions dedicated to tech- nology and its development, teaching and conservation (Hotel de Mortagne, the ancestor of the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers: CNAM) and the writings of the great thinkers like Descartes and the encyclopedians Diderot et d> Alembert.!0 Although the technical literature in France is very rich there was, however, no 10 Ty this context we can mention pul ons like ‘Machines approuvées par Mrs. de 1° Académie des Sciences? Perfections des Arts et Métiers’ by Duhamel de Monceau, . ind d* Alem! collection of Vaucanson’s technical dra the 18" Century onwards, the national exhibitions and. periodi letin de la Se 1° Encouragemen ‘Bulletin de la Société Ind cncyclopédlie ils like ‘Annales des Mines’, pour Industrie Nationale’, Journal des Arts and {rielle de Mulhouse’, 20particular interest in the history of tecl Beckmann, J.H.M. Poppe). Only from the middle of the 19° century onwards was there explicit interest in the history of the technology proper in France although it would be premature to call this a new branch of history already. This interest in the history of technolo; nology like in Germany (. en among engineers, and sociologists and it teaching at an advanced level, popular museums.!! At that time the first studi visible tion, and monographs on the economists, historians, philosophe in different area me out!2 as well as more ambitious publications on the history of technology in general.!3 development of technology in several branches c: But the most remarkable are those works which represent the beginnings of a history of technology proper which means the integration of technical facts and of the evolution of technology in the works on historical development. This came out in the context of Auguste Comte’s positivism and of Paul Mantoux’ Marxism. The latter and his famous book ‘The Industrial Revolution in the 18" Century’ published in Paris in 1906 are the most representative.!4 It was also in France where in 1935 Lucien Febvre in ‘Les Annales’! published a manifesto to set up a new field in history, the history of technology. A whole volume is dedicated to this new field in which one can not only find the definition of the contents of the history of technology in its relationship to socio-economic and __ political development and therefore the integration of this internal technological development into general history, but also defining its aims and the path to pursue in order to achieve them. 1 Teaching : CNAM, the ‘grandes écoles .» Figuier - ‘Les Merve Arts and Manufactures CNAM, 12. On paper by Blanchot, on tools and mechanisms by Frémont, on horses by Lefebvre des Noettes, ete. Mines, Ponts et Cha -s de 'Industrie’, museum ws 13 “Les Origines de la Technologie’ by A. Espinas (1897). 14 We can also quote the studies by Ch. Ballot on ‘L’Introduction du Machinisme dans I'Industrie ngaise’ which were published after his death in 1999. bn ¢ journal of the “Ecole des Annales’, headed by Mare Bloch. 2In this vision L. Febvre is influenced by the ideology of the left which has put its distinct mark on the thoughts of a large part of the French intelligentsia and which dominated the “Ecole des Annales” of which Febvre was one of the main representatives, as well as by the history of sciences which had been well-established in France at the beginning of the 20* century (Paul Tannery) and which experienced a remarkable development in the 1930s. In fact L. Febvre’s approach is related with the development of labour history. promoted by left-wing historians and of the history of science which developed as an internal history of various scientific branches, mainly mathematics and physics.6 Tn 1929 Aldo Mieli founded the ‘International Academy of History of Science’ ([AHS), an international organization for the development of the History of Science where France was to play an important role thanks also to the activities of the mathematician Petre Sergescu, a Romanian refugee in France, who was elected President of LAHS after the Second World War. In this position he significantly contributed to the creation, in 1947, of the International Union for History and Philosophy of Science (IUHPS) as part of UNESCO. TUHPS has two divisions: Division of History of Sciences (DHS) and Division of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Sciences (DLMPS). It is as part of DHS that ICOHTEC was founded in 1968 as an independent scientific section. Lucien Febvre’s manifesto did not have an immediate impact in France and the subsequent publications dealing with the history of technology continued in the pre-1935 tradition.!7 Not before the 1960/1970s was the history of technology finally established in France 46 In the first half of the 20* century we also have to take note of several other breakthroughs and developments at an international level important for the history of technology which had a large impact in France. Relevant in this context are the ‘Newcomen Society” founded in England in 1904 which published its “Transactions’, the ‘Deutsches Museum’ founded in Munich, Germany, in 1908 and the Association of German Engineers (VDD which also expressed an interest in the historical development of science, technology and industry. Finally, in the United States Lewis ‘Mumford published his famous work ‘Technology and Civilization’ in 1932, the first attempt to analyze bistory along the lines of the two dominant techniques: energy and materials. 17 We can quote the ‘History of wood constructions in Rouen’ by Quenedy or the monographs dealing with the automobile, with railways, airplanes or ships written by Dallfixs and Geofroy or, again, those on Haudricourt and Delamarre on agriculture. 22and recognized as an academic field, an independent scholarly discipline inside the university. This was mainly due to two important personalities: Maurice Daumas and Bertrand Gille, who held the first two professorships in the history of technology at prestigious institutions: the CNAM (M. Daumas 1969) and the Collége de France (B. Gille 1976). To these two scholars we owe the two mayor French works on the history of technology: The ‘Histoire Générale des Techniques’ in five volumes, published between 1962 and 1978 under the direction of M. Daumas, and the ‘Histoire des Techniques’ (1978) by B. Gille. With the assistance of the Centre National dela Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) Maurice Daumas also founded the ‘Centre de Documentation d° Histoire des Techniques’ (CDHT) at CNAM of which J. Payen was the director for twenty years, a great scholar who died prematurely in 1998 and who, with his wide intellectual range, did much for the history of technology in France. In the 1970s and 1980s the history of technology also developed in France because of the activities of other scholars like D. Woronoff and L. Bergeron from the ‘Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales’ (EHSS), F. Caron of the Sorbonne-Paris IV, P. Benoit of the Sorbonne- Paris I, G. Emptoz, who in the late 1980s worked for several years at the CNAM and later at the University of Nantes, etc.. L. Bergeron and D. Woronoff not only contributed to the development of the history of technology, but also to that of other fields close to it, especially industrial archaeology. I’. Caron, this great economic historian, gave the history of technology the place it deserved in economic history. He made it clear that it is impossible to separate the analysis of the economic and of the technical systems and suggested the term ‘modéle technique’ which he defined as a rearrangement, a syuthesis of these two systems. In 1987 the first advanced study degree (Diplome d’Etdes Approfondies: DEA) was created in the history of technology in France and started by the collaboration of three institutions: the CNAM (J. Payen, G. Emptoz, A. Herlea), 1’EHESS (L. Bergeron, D. Woronoff) and Sorbonne University-Paris IV (F. Caron). The 1960s and 1970s were also the decades in which the history of technology and its neighboring fields like industrial archaeology were 2Bacademically established in other parts of the western world starting with the United States, England and West Germany.|8 The position of the history of technology in the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe was completely different because it was an internal history of technology, in which the relevant economic, social and political aspects were completely dominated by marxist-leninist ideology and which was supported only to the extent to which is was useful for political propaganda. To this we have to add that the archives were under the control of the political police and that the mentality of secrecy was widespread in the communist countries. Moreover contacts and information between historians of technology in the west and in the east suffered from the Cold War and from impeded communication and research. In this context the foundation of ICOHTEC was an initiative of great importance. It exceeded the requirements of the history of technology and also stressed the great values of liberty, solidarity and justice and pointed out the moral dimension of scholarly work and its ethics. The idea of setting up an international group for advancing the history of technology started in 1962 during the TUHPS/DHS congress at Comell University in the USA during which several historians of technology, particularly M. Kranzberg and E. Olszewski, launched this idea. This was taken up at the IUHPS/DHS congress in 18-The United States have to be mentioned first because of the activities of several universities regarding this discipline: Apart from Melvin Kranzberg, founding father of the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) in 1958 and of its prestigious journal ‘Technology and Culture’ (1960) and of ICOHTEC (1968), we have to mention: E. Ferguson and G. Bassala (University of Delaware), Th. P. Huges (University of Pennsylvania), E. Layton (Minnesota University), MR. Smith OMIT), C. Pursell (Case Western Reserve University and later University of California at Santa Barbara), B. St. Claire (Georgia Tech), D. Lewis (Auburn University), R. Multhauf (Smithsonian Institution), etc, In the second generation, consisting of disciples of the above mentioned who took charge in the 1980s, were D. Hounshell, a disciple of both Hughes and Ferguson, and G. Giebelhaus, a disciple of Melvin Kranzberg. In both England and the Federal Republic of Germany. the history of technology developed at several large universities and technical museums: Imperial College (R. Hall and N. Smith), University of Bath (R.A. Buchanan), University Kent at Canterbury (D. Cardwell), Science Museum London, [ron Bridge Museum (N. Cossons), Deutsches Museum - Munich (F. Klemm) and several large universities and institutes of technology (Technische Hochschulen/Universtiten). Around 1980 the history of technology in Germany was strengthened by the efforts of several yourg professors like W. ‘Weber (U Bochum), U. Troizsch (U Hamburg), HJ. Bram (HSU Hamburg), W. Konig (TU Berlin), W. Kaiser (RWTH Aachen) or U. Wengenroth (TU Munich).Warszaw/Cracow in 1965 at which several sessions were devoted to the history of technology, before it finally materialized at the TUHPS/DHS congress organized by M. Daumas in Paris in 1968. During this congress, on August 27", the General Assembly passed the statutes of ICOHTEC; they were later amended twice in 1974 and 1985 and substantially changed in 1993. The first independent ICOHTEC Symposium 1970 was organized also in France (Pont-a-Mousson) by M. Daumas with the help of CNRS on the theme of transfer of technology.!9 The administrative bodies of ICOHTEC were the executive committee and the bureau (officers), both of which were elected by the general assembly (at the beginning almost only by way of national representation) at the congress of the IUHPS/DHS. The first officers were four founder members: L. Olszewski (president), M. Kranzberg (vice-president), $.V. Shoukardin (vice-president), M. Daumas (secretary general). A contribution which should not be forgotten came from Italy: L. Bulferetti and C. M: i were presidents of ICOHTEC from 1974 to 1981 and obtained“money from the Italian government which was a substantial financial reserve for ICOHTEC. The Canadian J. Abrams, who succeeded M. Daumas in 1974 as secretary general, also played an important role. Thad the privilege to know three founder members, M. Daumas, M. Kranzberg and E, Olszewski, of whom the former two, especially M. Daumas, played the most important role in my career. I will never forget the readiness and generosity with which Daumas received me at the CNAM in 1972. I was a young Romanian refugee, who had escaped from his native country, a mechanical engineer teaching thermo- dynamics and energy machinery in Romania, and had an interest, more like a hobby, in the history of technology. I was impressed by the way in which my students were interested in the historical references I made during my lectures and by the educational value of this approach. 19 The proceedings were published ‘L’Acquisition des Techniques par les Pays Non-initiateurs’ by M. Daumas, Paris 1978. 25‘The history of technology was little developed in Romania at that time. The only university which had a ‘ecturer in that field was the Polytechnical University of Bucharest; the lecturer was D. Todericiu, who later participated at the first ICOHTEC symposium 1970. He did not return to Romania and stayed in France as a refugee. At CNAM, at which I was employed in the autumn of 1972 by M. Daumas, I attended the courses and lectures which he and his close collaborator J. Payen gave. I prepared my PhD thesis under their guidance and wrote my first publication - a piece I contributed to the ‘Histoire Générale des Techniques’. I stayed at CNAM for more than twenty years, until 1995, when I left, accepting an offer from the Université de Téchnologie de Belfort Montbéliard (UTBM). I have to thank M. Daumas and his letters of recommendation which he sent to several of his colleagues in the United States that I was able to prepare a sabbatical for one year at some of the great US universities (Princeton, Penn, Harvard, MIT) and at the Smithsonian Institution, after I obtained my PhD (1977) and received a grant from NATO to do research in the United States. T will never forget the generosity with which M. Kranzberg greeted me, when I participated at the SHOT 1977 conference in Pittsburgh where I met a large number of first-class American historians of technology. J remember that the first two persons I met before the meeting started were M.R. Smith from MIT and J. Williams. I also want to emphasize that as well M. Daumas as M. Kranzberg who were rather left wing people (Daumas was a socialist, Kranzberg was a ‘New deal democrat’), they always supported me, although my political convictions were quite different. I rested in a staunch anticommunism and in reservations concerning the socialist option, the origin, in my opinion, of communism and national-socialism, these two degenerations of socialism which I condemned with equal determination. M. Daumas was a militant in the organization linked to the French Popular Front and M. Kranzberg was very active in the fight against the Nazis. But both of them were strictly opposed to any kind of totalitarianism.E i : Tt was once again M. Daumas and M. Kranzberg to whom I owe the opportunity of taking part in an ICOHTEC life, institution of which I am a member of the executive committee from 198] onwards without any interruption. In 1981 in connection with the TUHPS/DHS congress organized this year in Bucharest, M. Daumas secured my nomination as French representative in the ICOHTEC executive committee, a position with special prestige. This was very useful for me at that moment as well for very practical reasons; it made it easier for me to obtain a Romanian Visa (I became a naturalized Frenchman in 1977 and had lost my Romanian citizenship) and in meantime this protected me during my stay in Bucharest, where I would have experienced a lot of trouble because of my political activities in Paris. I was the representative of France in the ICOHTEC executive committee until 1993, when, at the congress at Zaragoza, the state of national representatives was abolished, following a change in the ICOHTEC statutes and the transformation of ICOHTEC into an academic organization of the classical type, that means consisting of individual members while still remaining an independent scientific section of IUHPS/DHS.2 M. Kranzherg helped me again, especially in supporting my election as member of the SHOT Advisory Council in 1986 (the proposition was made by Tom Hughes and David Lewis) and-in supporting the publication of the proceedings of the 1990 ICOHTEC symposium, which I organized in Paris with the help of J. Payon?!, In 1991 he also invited me to Atlanta to give two papers to members of his seminar at Geocda Ted During the symposium in Paris which took place at the CNAM at the grounds of the old monastery Saint Martin de Champs, the participants, more than 150, attracted by the scholarly works of ICOHTEC but also by the charms of the city of Paris, enjoyed the guided tour through the city, the visits of the CNAM museum and the museum at La Villette, as 20 The new elected officers were: R.A. Buchanan (President), C. Pursell (Vice-president), H. J. Braun (Secretary General) and A. Herlea (Treasurer). 21 Proceedings: ‘Science-Technology Relationship, Relation Science-Technique’, by A. Herlea, San Francisco, 1993. awell as the reception at the town hall offered by the Vice-Mayor of Paris in charge of culture and education, A. Perissol.22 I have not missed one of the ICOHTEC symposia from 1981 to nowadays. In ICOHTEC I have found an academic society of the first order not only as regards professionalism and the intellectual quality of its members but also the lively and friendly atmosphere of its symposia and sessions; an organization consisting of open and warm people. I have found many friends in this group. But it has also to be noted that there were differences depending on the country in which the symposium took place. I remember the unpleasant and close atmosphere of surveillance in Bucharest during the TUHPS/DHS Congress in 1981. During a reception which I organized in my mother's apartment, at which M. Daurnas, Mr. and Mrs. Hughes, ‘Mr. and Mrs. Hiebert and L. von Mackensen participated, a car of the secret police parked in front of the house; the close observation continued during the following excursion by car in the countryside around Bucharest. Besides, a friend, an old colleague of my faculty, advised me not to return to Romania again if I wanted to avoid serious problems. I followed this advice until the fall of the Berlin Wall. I found the same unpleasant and insincere atmosphere in Dresden in 1986 during the symposium on the theme ‘Technological Sciences in History’. I remember a speech during a reception in honor of Manfred von Ardenne which impressed me in an unpleasant way. Delivered by this eminent scientist of the German Democratic Republic, a 22-The list of participants is impressive not only because of its number, but also because of their high scholarly reputation. As far as foreign ICOHTEC members are concerned there were first- rate scholars like M. Krandberg, HJ. Braun, J.A. Garcia-Diego, S. Balan, W.D. Lewis, J. ‘Williamns, B. Hacker, G. Hollister Short, A. Keller, H. Janetschek, 8. Strobanova, A. Stranges, L. Sofonea, P. Milner. Non ICOHTEC menibers included ‘T. Hughes, J. Gimpel, D. Edgerton. H.W. Schiitt, B. Schroeder-Gudehus, M Levin, French participants included, apart from J. Payen and G. Emptox , both of them ICOHTEC members who had taken part in many former ICOHTEC symposia, F. Caron, D. Woronoff, JJ- Salomon, J. Dhombres, J. de Noblet, A. Picon, G. Schneder, A. Guillerme, P. Mounier-Kuhn, Y. Desforges, P. Benoit, B, Latour, G. Escudier, P. Brouzeng, B. Jacomy, M. Goupil, S. Debarbat, J. Cazenave, J. Ramunni, G. Ribeill as well as several professors of science and technology disciplines at CNAM: M. Cazin (mechanics), MLY. Beard electronics), J. Gosse (thermodynamics), M. Pluvoise (engines), JP. Guetté (chemisty), F. Davoin (physics). The presence of these colleagues made it possible also to have a clase look at the internai historical development of technology. 98descendent of an old aristocratic family, it was a plea for the ‘wonderful achievements’ of DDR in all fields including politics. But it was also in Dresden that during an excursion on a steamboat on the river Elbe some ICOHTEC members joined a group playing jazz. Jazz concerts have become a pleasant part of ICOHTEC symposia. During the symposium in Smolenice (1982), as well as in Lerbach (1984)24 I remember especially the friendship I contracted with HJ. Braun, G. Hollister-Short, W. Weber, M. Rose, R. Stranges, W. Koenig, K. Zeithammer and others which was reinforced during the following years. I also remember some strange and unpleasant situations regarding participants from Eastern Europe. The Romanian L. Sofonea, an indefatigable and erudite traveler, a picturesque figure who was always present at ICOHTEC symposia, had to perform miracles in order to obtain the funds which enabled him to participate. There was I. Voronkov, the representative of the Soviet Union, who was accompanied by a ‘shadow’, who never left him and who always looked uneasy. In Smolenice he was provoked by the theme of Soviet rule by a group of colleagues including G. Hollister-Short, C. Poni, the representative of Italy who had never afterwards participated at an ICOHTEC symposium again, and myself. At Lerbach, when the discussions, during a session at which the attitude of the Soviet Union towards its satellites after World War II was discussed, particularly the technology transfer and the theft und plunder practiced under the name of ‘compensation for the war’ became too insistent, the answer was not given by I, Voronkov, but by his ‘shadow’ in a particularly aggressive language. It required all the tact and skill of M. Kranzberg to avoid that the situation got out of control. To my knowledge this kind of incident did not happen again. S. Balan (President of ICOHTEC 1981 - 1989) a former Romanian cabinet minister member of the nomenclature but a high level scientist who did not believe in communism, exhibited a remarkable diplomatic skill in talking a lot and_ saying nothing; his “wooden language’ was perfect. Se ‘Sources for the History of ‘Technology’, Prague 1982. ‘Energy in History". Dasseldorf 1984,At the TUHPS/DHS congress in Hamburg-Munich (1989) HJ. Braun organized a session on ‘Failed Innovations’ and J.A. Garcia-Diego®5 was elected new ICOHTEC President. The latter had successfully organized the ICOHTEC symposium in Madrid in 1988.26 His foundation, which enjoyed a comfortable financial situation, from then onwards contributed to the well-functioning of ICOHTEC by supporting the participation at ICOHTEC Symposia by a considerable number of members who, being young scholars or coming from countries with ‘weak currencies’, were not able to raise the necessary funds. A. Goicolea, who succeeded Garcia-Diego as President of the J. Turriano Foundation, continued this practice of support with much devotion and professionalism, particularly during the symposium which he co- organized in Granada in 2002. ‘The 1991 symposium was organized by H. Janetschek in Vienna%; in Uppsala in 1992 ICOHTEC joined for the first time a SHOT conference. In 1993 ICOHTEC met in Zaragoza, as part of the 19° TUHPS/ DHS congress. Together with J. Payen I organized a session on ‘energy and transport in technological systems since the Industrial Revolution’. At Zaragoza new ICOHTEC statutes passed which provided, among others, that the president could serve only for one term; the bureau, formed by 5 officers, and the executive committee of twelve members became the governing body of ICOHTEC.*§ It has to be pointed out that from that time onwards HJ. Braun was the driving force behind ICOHTEC, its real strong man. He started the monthly ICOHTEC Newsletter, now being sent by Stefan Poser. To improve the quality of the contents of the symposia, a program committee, which constituted itself anew after each symposium, was created at the Zaragoza congress. ICON, the new ICOHTEC journal was founded in 1993, the editors 25 President of the “Foundation Juanelo Turriano’. 26 Proceedings: ‘Civil Engineering 1750-1850". 27 Proceedings: “The Development of Technology in Traffic and Transport Systems’. 28-The new elected officers were R.A. Buchanan (Presiden), C. Pursell (Vice-president), H. J. Braun (Secretary General), A. Herlea (Treasurer), G. Hollister-Short (Editor). 30were first G. Hollister-Short and later A. Keller; both played a very important role in ICOHTEC. After the fall of the Berlin Wall ICOHTEC faced the opposition of those who contested its old role and which had in mind the creation of a new society for the history of technology in Europe which, after the model of SHOT, was to be called EUROSHOT. This movement found a considerable followership in the Nordic countries, in the Netherlands and, to a smaller degree, in Great Britain and France. Regarding the latter, particularly some disciples of F. Caron have to be mentioned. Supported by several historians of science and technology of high standing like R. Fox, this movement also had a political aim, namely to become the leading organization in the history of technology in Europe. However, the EUROSHOT idea was not of long duration, especially in its aim to replace ICOHTEC. The latter continued to strengthen its useful activites, particularly after the change of statutes in 19938, when it became an academic society in the classical sense and continued to be an independent scientific section of IUHPS/DHS. In France ICOHTEC had many devoted supporters. Particularly the role of G. Emptoz has to be mentioned, one of the most important representatives of the history of technology in France who, from 1984 onwards, participated at most ICOHTEC symposia” and, since 1993, is a member of the editorial committee of ICON. Also P. Lamard from Belford Montbéliard University of Technology (UTBM) excelled himself in co-organizing the 1999 Belfort symposium®? and since 1996 has participated at practically all ICOHTEC conferences. He was elected member of the executive committee in 2008. Between 1993 and 1997 the ICOHTEC symposia, with one exception, took place annually: Bath (1994), Budapest (1996), Li¢ge (1997), the last one in conjunction with the 20° TUHPS/DHS 29 He first attended an ICOHTEC symposium in Lerbach in 1984 where he, together with Serge Benoit, presented a paper on the history of hydraulic energy, one of the most prominent topics in the history of technology in France at that time. 30 Proceedings: ‘La Technologie au Risque de Histoire’, by R. Belot, M. Cotte, P. Lamard, Paris 2000. This symposium benefited very much from the support of the UTBM President J. Bulabois. oN 31congress.3! During this congress, myself being member of the Scientific Committee, HJ. Braun and I organized a session on the history of materials research.82 From then until the [UHPS/DHS congress in Mexico City (2001) the ICOHTEC symposia met annually (Lisbon: Nueva Universidad Lisbon-Caparica, 1998), Belfort (UTBM, 1999), Prague (2000). In Mexico W. Weber and I organized a session on ‘Globalization and Technology Transfer’ and continued with that during the following symposia. A new ICOHTEC bureau (officers) and executive committee were then elected®? as well a new governing body of the DHS with JJ. Saldana, professor at the University of Mexico City, as Secretary General, who played a very imporiant role in the history of technology in Latin America. He organized the congress in Mexico City and had delivered the traditional Kranzberg Lecture of ICOHTEC (having started in 1998 with a lecture by A. Buchanan) in Prague 2000. After Mexico the ICOHTEC symposia took place in Granada (2002), St. Petersburg-Moscow (2003), Bochum (2004) and Beijing (2005), the latter as part of the 22" IUHPS/DHS congress. In order to strengthen the position of ICOHTEC in DHS I tried, as ICOHTEC president and with the help of JJ. Saldana, to change the name DHS into DHST (Division of History of Science and Technology). In the beginning this was not an easy undertaking, but in the end it was successful and at the IUHPS/DHS congress in Beijing the change of name was agreed upon by the delegates. From then onwards ICOHTEC has been one of the three independent scientific sections of TUHPS/DHST. Another innovation of the period was the organization, also in collaboration with JJ. Saldana, of a session on technology in conjunction with the T'UHPS/DLMPS Congress in Oviedo, Spain, in 31 New officers were elected at that congress: C. Pursell (President), A. Herlea (Vice-Presidend, HJ. Braun (Secretary General, Alex Keller (Editor), W. Weber (Treasurer). The latter distinguished himself by managing the ICOHTEC finances in a very strict and effective manner. 82 Proceedings: ‘Materials: Research, Development and Applications’, Brussels 2002. 33-The new officers were A. Herlea (President), J. Williams (Vice-President), HJ, Braun Gecretay General), W. Weber (Treasures), Alex Keller (Editor), 822003. This session was called ‘Philosophy, Methodology and History of ‘Technology’ and I took part at this with a paper presentation. Another participant was C. Debru, President of the French National Committee on the History and Philosophy of Science. It was the first time we attended this congress and it is hoped that this will happen again. If this is the case it could be possible to change the name of the division DLMPS into DLMPST with the consequence that IUHPS would become IUHPST. Regarding the importance of the subject and of studies on the methodology, theory and philosophy linked to the evolution of technology, this seems to be inevitable to me. In Beijing a new team of ICOHTEC officers was elected*4 and a continuation of annual ICOHTEC symposia followed, which were held in Leicester (2006), Copenhagen (2007) and Victoria, British Columbia (2008). In Beijing a new generation represented by T. Myllyntaus made its entrance into the executive committee, the leading team which had only been slightly changed from 1993 onwards. Without doubt at the JUHPS/DHST congress in Budapest 2009, when the new elections will be held, this change will be continued. So after the generation of the founder members®5 and that of the second generation®> we witness a new generation of ITCOHTEC members taking office. They will continue the work, it is to be hoped, in a spirit of a reinforced dynamics befitting youth, which will assure the pursuance of ICOHTEC’s role in the promotion of the history of technology as was defined by its founder members. It is important to ensure a blend of continuity and change; it was in this spirit that at the Victoria symposium the executive committee decided to meet together with the former presidents. It seems to me that both change and continuity are particularly important today because we presently experience a certain shift in the subject matter of the history of technology, a loss of the sense of orientation of the field as an 34 Elected were: HJ. Braun (Presidend), J. Williams (Vice-President), T. Myllyntaus (Secretary General), W. Weber (Treasurer), Alex Keller (Editor). 35 M. Kranzberg, M. Daumas, A. Buchanan. 36 Eg, HJ. Braun, W. Weber, C. Purcell, J. Williams, G. Hollister-Short, A. Keller, G. Emptoz, A. Herlea. 88independent academic discipline, and of the status it gained in the 1960s and 1970s. This is particularly true of France, where a development has become visible which indicates that the space which the academic discipline of the history of technology has occupied, has hecome smaller and smaller in favor of on economic and social history of technology which unfortunately is ignoring the internal history of technology. Thus the need to return to the vision of ICOHTEC’s founding fathers, who emphasized that the technical, economical, social and political aspects are deeply interdependent and have all to be taken into consideration for a real History of Technology, becomes more and more urgent. ICOHTEC can play a role like in the 1970s and 1980s as an engine even more powerful today when the world is in a process of accelerated globalization. To conclude on the topic of ICOHTEC and the history of technology in France J have to emphasize again that France has played an eminent role not only in bringing the history of technology into existence and in strengthening the subject as an academic discipline, but also in establishing ICOIITEC as an international institution of that discipline. These two aspects were to a large extent promoted by the same scholars. It was L. Febvre who put together the first manifesto for anew discipline: the history of technology. It was M. Daumas, who, with the five volumes ‘General History of Technology’ which he edited a well as with other studies and works like ‘Le Cheval de César’, covered the first step of L. Febvre’s project for a history of technology. But for Daumas it was obvious that this is only the first step and he emphasized it clearly in his work, It was also a Frenchman, B. Gille, who introduced a conceptional base to the field by insisting on the notion ‘technological system’ defined as the totality of technical structures, technical ensembles and technical paths which existed at a given moment and which have to be compatible and coherent with each other. As to ICOHTEC, one of the founding fathers was French: Maurice Daumas. It was in France, in Paris, where ICOHTEC was founded and where the first independent ICOHTEC symposium took place at Pont- 4-Mousson, It was also in France that I organized two other independent ICOHTEC symposia, at CNAM in Paris and at UTBM in Belfort. 384France is the only country in which four ICOHTEC symposia took place. A sizeable number of sessions were organized by French historians of technology as contributions to the different ICOHTEC symposia and France was represented without any interruption in the ICOHTEC executive committee.37 37 M. Daumas, 1968-1981 (ollicer 1968-1974); A. Herlea since 1981 (officer 1993-2005); P. Bret since 2007; P. Lamard since 2008. 35