SHOT Usher Prize

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.

For more information, please contact the committee chair or Bernie Carlson, SHOT Secretary, 434.987.6230, shot@virginia.edu.

2012	Tiina Männistö-Funk, "The Crossroads of Technology and Tradition: Vernacular Bicycles in Rural Finland, 1880-1910," Technology and Culture 52:733-756 (October 2011)
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 49:599-623 (July 2008)
2010	Peter Norton, "Street Rivals: Jaywalking and the Invention of the Motor Age," Technology and Culture 48:331-359 (April 2007).
2009	Crosbie Smith and Anne Scott, "'Trust in Providence': Building Confidence into the Cunard Line of Steamers," Technology and Culture vol. 48 (July 2007) No. 3: 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," (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