Updated 17 January 2024
It is not possible to nominate publications for the Abbott Payson Usher Prize. The Prize Committee selects the winner from the scholarly work published under the auspices of SHOT in the preceding three years.
Established in 1961, the Abbott Payson Usher Prize was established to honor the scholarly contribution of the late Dr. Usher and to encourage the publication of original research of the highest standard. It is awarded annually to the author of the best scholarly work published during the preceding three years under the auspices of the Society for the History of Technology. The prize consists of a cash award and a certificate.
| Lino Camprubí (2023-2025) – Chair |
| Christopher Jones (2022–2024) |
| Emmanuel Lukio Mchome (2024-2026) |
For more information, please contact the committee chair or Jan Korsten, SHOT Secretary, [email protected].
| 2023 | Leor Halevi, Vanderbilt University What Hath Allah Wrought? The Global Invention of Prescriptive Machines for the Islamic Consumer, 1975–2010,” Technology and Culture vol. 62 no. 3, 2021, p. 741-779 |
| 2022 | Robert MacDougall, Western University Canada Sympathetic Physics: The Keely Motor and The Laws of Thermodynamics in Nineteenth Century Culture,” Technology and Culture vol. 60 no. 2, 2019, p. 438-466 |
| 2021 | Robyn d’Avignon, New York University “Spirited Geobodies: Producing Subterranean Property in Nineteenth-Century Bambuk, West Africa,” Technology and Culture 61:2 Supplement (2020), S20-S48 |
| 2020 | Daniel Williford, University of Wisconsin Madison For “Seismic Politics: Risk and Reconstruction after the 1960 Earthquake in Agadir, Morocco,” Technology and Culture 58:4 October 2017, 982-1016 |
| 2019 | Eden Medina, “Forensic Identification in the Aftermath of Human Rights Crimes in Chile: A Decentered Computer History,” Technology and Culture 59:4 Supplement (2018), S100-S133 |
| 2018 | Whitney Laemmli, “A Case in Pointe: Romance and Regimentation at the New York City Ballet,” Technology and Culture 56 (January 2015): 1-27 |
| 2017 | Edward Jones-Imhotep, “Malleability and Machines: Glenn Gould and the Technological Self,” Technology and Culture 57 (April 2016): 287-321 |
| 2016 | Edward Gillin, “Prophets of Progress: Authority in the Scientific Projections and Religious Realizations of the Great Eastern Steamship,” Technology and Culture 56 (October 2015): 928–56 |
| 2015 | Jung Lee, “Invention without Science: ‘Korean Edisons’ and the Changing Understanding of Technology in Colonial Korea,” Technology and Culture 54 (October 2013):782-814 |
| 2014 | Chris Evans and Alun Withey, “An Enlightenment in Steel? Innovation in the Steel Trades of Eighteenth-Century Britain,” Technology and Culture 53 (July 2012): 533-560 |
| 2013 | Thomas S. Mullaney, “The Moveable Typewriter: How Chinese Typists Developed Predictive Text during the Height of Maoism,” Technology and Culture 53 (October 2012): 777-814 |
| 2012 | Tiina Männistö-Funk, “The Crossroads of Technology and Tradition: Vernacular Bicycles in Rural Finland, 1880-1910,” Technology and Culture 52 (October 2011): 733-756 |
| 2011 | David Biggs, “Breaking from the Colonial Mold: Water Engineering and the Failure of Nation-Building in the Plain of Reeds, Vietnam,” Technology and Culture 49 (July 2008): 599-623 |
| 2010 | Peter Norton, “Street Rivals: Jaywalking and the Invention of the Motor Age,” Technology and Culture 48 (April 2007): 331-359 |
| 2009 | Crosbie Smith and Anne Scott, “‘Trust in Providence’: Building Confidence into the Cunard Line of Steamers,” Technology and Culture 48 (July 2007): 471-96 |
| 2008 | Eric Schatzberg, “Technik Comes to America: Changing Meanings of Technology before 1930,” Technology and Culture 47 (2006): 486-512 |
| 2007 | Carlo Belfanti, “Guilds, Patents, and the Circulation of Technical Knowledge: Northern Italy during the Early Modern Age,” Technology and Culture 45 (2004): 569-89 |
| 2006 | Lissa Roberts, “An Arcadian Apparatus: The Introduction of the Steam Engine into the Dutch Landscape,” Technology and Culture 45 (2004): 251-76 |
| 2005 | William Storey, “Guns, Race, and Skill in Nineteenth-Century South Africa,” Technology and Culture 45 (2004): 687-711 |
| 2004 | Kenneth Lipartito, “Picturephone and the Information Age: The Social Meaning of Failure,” Technology and Culture 44 (2003): 50-81 |
| 2003 | Amy Slaton (Drexel University), “‘As Near as Practicable’: Precision, Ambiguity, and the Social Features of Industrial Quality Control,” Technology and Culture 42 (2001): 51-80 |
| 2002 | Wiebe E Bijker (Universiteit Maastricht) and Karin Bijsterveld (Universiteit Maastricht), “Walking through Plans: Technology, Democracy and Gender Identity,” Technology and Culture 41 (2000): 485-515 |
| 2001 | John K. Brown (University of Virginia), “Design Plans, Working Drawings, National Styles: Engineering Practice in Great Britain and the United States, 1775-1945,” Technology and Culture 41 (2000): 195-238 |
| 2000 | Matthew W. Roth, “Mulholland Highway and the Engineering Culture of Los Angeles in the 1920s,” Technology and Culture 40 (1999): 545-575 |
| 1999 | Joy Parr, “What Makes Washday Less Blue? Gender, Choice, Nation, and Technology Choice in Postwar Canada,” Technology and Culture (1998) |
| 1998 | David Mindell “The Clangor of that Blacksmith’s Fray,” Technology and Culture 36 (1995) |
| 1997 | Eric Schatzberg, “Ideology and Technical Choice: The Decline of the Wooden Airplane in the United States, 1920-1945,” Technology and Culture 35 (1994): 34-69 |
| 1996 | Gabrielle Hecht, “Political Designs: Nuclear Reactors and National Policy in Postwar France,” Technology and Culture 35 (1994): 657-85 |
| 1995 | Jameson W. Doig and David P. Billington, “Ammann’s First Bridge: A Study in Engineering, Politics and Entrepreneurial Behavior,” Technology and Culture 35 (1994): 537-70 |
| 1994 | John Law, “The Olympus 320 Engine: A Case Study in Design, Development, and Organizational Control,” Technology and Culture 33 (1992): 409-40 |
| 1993 | Barton Hacker, “An Annotated Index to Volumes 1-25,” Technology and Culture (1991); and Pamela O. Long, “The Openness of Knowledge: An Ideal and its Context in 16th Century Writings on Mining and Metallurgy,” Technology and Culture 32 (1991): 318-55 |
| 1992 | Bryan Pfaffenberger, “The Harsh Facts of Hydraulics: Technology and Society in Sri Lanka’s Colonization Schemes,” Technology and Culture 31 (1990): 361-97 |
| 1991 | Robert Gordon, “Who Turned the Mechanical Idea into the Mechanical Reality?” Technology and Culture 29 (1989): 744-78 |
| 1990 | Laurence F. Gross, “Wool Carding: A Study of Skills and Technology,” Technology and Culture 28 (1987): 804-27 |
| 1989 | Larry Owens, “Vannevar Bush and the Differential Analyzer: The Text and Context of an Early Computer,” Technology and Culture 27 (1986): 63-95 |
| 1988 | Judith A. McGaw, “Accounting for Innovation: Technological Change and Business Practice in the Berkshire County Paper Industry,” Technology and Culture 26 (1985): 703-25 |
| 1987 | Bruce E. Seely, “The Scientific Mystique in Engineering: Highway Research at the Bureau of Public Roads, 1918-1940,” Technology and Culture 25 (1984): 798-831 |
| 1986 | Donald MacKenzie, “Marx and the Machine,” Technology and Culture 25 (1984): 473-502 |
| 1985 | Eda Fowlks Kranakis, “The French Connection: Giffard’s Injector and the Nature of Heat,” Technology and Culture 23 (1982): 3-38 |
| 1984 | Walter G. Vincenti, “Control-Volume Analysis: A Difference in Thinking between Engineering and Physics,” Technology and Culture 23 (1982): 145-74 |
| 1983 | George Wise, ” A New Role for Professional Scientists in Industry: Industrial Research at General Electric, 1900-1916,” Technology and Culture (1980): 408-429 |
| 1982 | Harold Dorn, “Hugh Lincoln Cooper and the First Detente,” Technology and Culture 20 (1979): 322-47 |
| 1981 | Thomas P. Hughes, “The Electrification of America: The System Builders,” Technology and Culture 20 (1979): 124-61 |
| 1980 | Stuart W. Leslie, “Charles F. Kettering and the Copper-cooled Engine,” Technology and Culture 20 (1979): 752-76 |
| 1979 | Lynwood Bryant, “The Development of the Diesel Engine,” Technology and Culture 17 (1976): 432-46 |
| 1978 | Otto Mayr, “Yankee Practice and Engineering Theory: Charles T. Porter and the Dynamics of the High-Speed Steam Engine,” Technology and Culture 16 (1975): 570-602 |
| 1977 | William H. TeBrake, “Air Pollution and Fuel Crisis in Pre-Industrial London, 1250-1650,” Technology and Culture 16 (1975): 337-59 |
| 1976 | Russell I. Fries, “British Responses to the American System: The Case of the Small-Arms Industry after 1850,” Technology and Culture 16 (1975): 377-403 |
| 1975 | Paul Uselding, “Elisha K. Root, Forging and the ‘American System,'” Technology and Culture 15 (1974): 543-68 |
| 1974 | Carl Mitcham and Robert Mackey for the bibliography of the philosophy of technology, first published as a supplement to Technology and Culture 14 (1973) and then separately by the University of Chicago Press |
| 1973 | R. L. Hills and A. J. Pacey, “The Measurement of Power in the Early Steam-driven Textile Mills,” Technology and Culture 13 (1972): 25-43 |
| 1972 | Cyril Stanley Smith, “Art, Technology and Science: Notes on their Historical Interaction,” Technology and Culture 11 (1970): 493-549 |
| 1971 | James E. Brittain, “The Introduction of the Loading Coil: George A. Campbell and Michael I. Pupin,” Technology and Culture 11 (1970): 36-57 |
| 1970 | James E. Packer, “Structure and Design in Ancient Ostia: A Contribution to the Study of Roman Imperial Architecture,” Technology and Culture 9 (1968): 257-88 |
| 1969 | Eugene S. Ferguson, “Bibliography of the History of Technology,” an expansion of a series of articles originally published in Technology and Culture (1962-1965) and constituting no. 5 in the Monography Series of the History of Technology, published jointly by SHOT and MIT Press |
| 1968 | Carl W. Condit, “The First Reinforced-Concrete Skyscraper: The Ingalls Building in Cincinnati and Its Place in Structural History,” Technology and Culture 9 (1968): 1-33 |
| 1967 | John G. Burke, “Bursting Boilers and the Federal Power,” Technology and Culture 7 (1966): 1-23 |
| 1966 | Thomas Esper, “The Replacement of the Longbow by Firearms in the English Army,” Technology and Culture 6 (1965): 382-93 |
| 1965 | Robert P. Multhauf, “Sal Amoniac: A Case of History of Industrialization,” Technology and Culture 6 (1965): 569-86 |
| 1964 | Ladislao Reti, “Francesco di Giorgio Martini’s Treatise on Engineering and Its Plagiarists,” Technology and Culture 4 (1963): 287-98 |
| 1963 | Norman B. Wilkinson, “Brandywine Borrowings from European Technology,” Technology and Culture 4 (1963): 1-13 |
| 1962 | Silvio A. Bedini, “The Compartmented Cylindrical Cledsydra,” Technology and Culture 3 (1962): 115-41 |
| 1961 | Robert S. Woodbury, “The Legend of Eli Whitney and Interchangeable Parts,” Technology and Culture 1 (1960): 235-53 |