The Revolt of the Engineers

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The Revolt of the Engineers

• Summary by David E. Goldberg
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Urbana, IL 61801

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Text

• Layton, Jr., E. T. (1986). The revolt of the
  engineers Social responsibility and the American
  engineering profession. Baltimore, MD Johns
  Hopkins University Press.

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Topics

• Engineer and business.
• Evolution of a profession.
• Ideology of engineering.
• Revolt of the civil engineers.
• Scientific management and reform.
• Morris Cooke
• Return to Normalcy
• Depression and New Deal

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Engineer Scientist Businessman

• Veblen Assumed conflict would force engineers to
  become social revolutionaries!
• 1816 30 engineers
• 1850 2000 engineers
• 1880-1920 7000 to 136,000 engineers

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Key Conflict

• Bureaucratic loyalty vs. Independence of
  professionalism.
• Professional values
• Autonomy
• Colleagual control of professional work
• Social responsibility
• Professionalism vs. egalitarianism.

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Business Influence on Engineering

• Educationally Board of Trustees, curriculum.
• Hierarchically in Companies price of
  advancement.
• Rise results in loss of ID as engineers.
• Censorship of engineering publication.
• Companies supporting travel to engineering
  society meetings.

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Evolution of a Profession

• Professionally oriented Single society
  represents all.
• Industry oriented Societies that serve needs of
  specific industries.
• Scientifically oriented Require individuals with
  creative ability to do original work.

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Origins Follow Scientific Society

• 1829 Franklin Institute.
• 1839 First effort to form engineering society on
  top of Franklin Institute.
• 1848 Boston Society of Civil Engineers
• 1852 American Society of Civil Engineers.
• Two early majors AIME and ASCE (biz vs.
  professionalism)

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ASCE

• Elitist tendencies alienate
• Local engineers
• Engineers in industry
• Young engineers
• Maintain autonomy rather than expand influence

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AIME

• American Institute of Mining Engineers
• Those practically engaged in mining, metallurgy,
  or metallurgical engineering.
• One-man band Rossiter W. Raymond.
• Engineer as a kind of businessman.
• Resisted code of ethics.

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ASME

• 3 Founders
• Sweet artisan
• Holly businessman
• Thurston educator
• Inclusive membership, but elite governance of the
  society.

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AIEE

• Formed to compete with British society.
• First president was president of Western Union.
• But scientific advance in electricity brought
  rapid professionalism of AIEE.

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Proliferation of Societies

• Unhappiness with business v. professionalism
  calibration.
• Business toward proliferation, professionalism
  toward unification.

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Ideology

• Engineers not philosophers.
• No coherent metaphysical system.
• Many assumptions about the world taken as
  self-evident.
• System
• Materialistic physics and material surroundings.
• Idealistic Ethical imperatives and moralism.
• Biz v. Science again!!

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Herbert Spencer

• Social darwinism.
• Laissez faire.
• Highly influential in late 1800s.
• Spencer an engineer.
• Could not reconcile with idealism.

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Engineers Priests of Social Good

• ASCEs Morrison We are the priests of material
  development, of the work which enables other men
  to enjoy the fruits of the great sources of power
  in Nature, and of the power of mind over matter.
  We are priests of the new epoch, without
  superstitions.

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Self Image

• Important social role.
• Logical thinkers.
• Concerned over status of engineers.
• Seek scientific solutions to all things.
• Similarity with reformers
• Middle ground between labor and capital.
• Nostalgia for individualism of the frontier.
• Not the same faith in democracy.

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Struggle for Status

• AIEE took lead.
• Code of Ethics 1906-1912.
• Public policy forays largely unsuccessful.
• Local vs. Center Locals were fairly strong. 1912
  rule limits local power.
• New grade of member allowed businessmen in.
• Shift from professionalism to biz mid teens to
  20s.

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Revolt of the Civils

• Overproduction of Civil degrees.
• Complancy of ASCE.
• No interest in unification.
• Newell Reclamation Service head, Orwellian
  designs. Committee on Engineering Cooperation.
• American Association of Engineers Grew to 20,000
  in just under 2 years.

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Engineering Council

• Answer to AAE, 1917.
• Served government.
• Didnt unify engineers, but neither did AAE.

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Frederick Taylor

• Scientific management.
• Early engineers approach to management.
• Time and motion study of industrial engineering.
• All task, no relationship.
• Threatened both labor and management.
• Efficiency methods used in education!!
• Morris Cooke efficiency and democracy.

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Herbert Hoover

• Engineering method personified.
• Progressive but not radical.
• Efficiency will eliminate waste. Engineering
  write large.
• But had constrained view of what engineers could
  do.
• President of Federated American Engineering
  Societies 1920.

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Planning vs. the Individual

• Scientific management and technocracy led to
  planning at the center.
• Other engineers emphasized the individual and
  enterprise.
• Depression look inward
• ECPD 1932 licensure as way of controlling
  supply.
• Unions