Borg Auto Mechanics

Technology and Expertise in Twentieth-Century America
Erscheinungsjahr 2007
ISBN: 978-0-8018-9326-1
Verlag: Johns Hopkins University Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 0 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm

Reihe: Studies in Industry and Society

The history of automobiles is not just the story of invention, manufacturing, and marketing; it is also a story of repair. Auto Mechanics opens the repair shop to historical study—for the first time—by tracing the emergence of a dirty, difficult, and important profession.

Kevin L. Borg's study spans a century of automotive technology—from the horseless carriage of the late nineteenth century to the "check engine" light of the late twentieth. Drawing from a diverse body of source material, Borg explores how the mechanic’s occupation formed and evolved within the context of broad American fault lines of class, race, and gender and how vocational education entwined these tensions around the mechanic’s unique expertise. He further shows how aspects of the consumer rights and environmental movements, as well as the design of automotive electronics, reflected and challenged the social identity and expertise of the mechanic.

In the history of the American auto mechanic, Borg finds the origins of a persistent anxiety that even today accompanies the prospect of taking one's car in for repair.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Borg, Kevin L.

Fachgebiete

• Technische Wissenschaften Verkehrstechnik | Transportgewerbe Fahrzeugtechnik
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein
• Technische Wissenschaften Technik Allgemein Technikgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Technology's Middle Ground
1. The Problem with Chauffeur-Mechanics
2. Ad Hoc Mechanics
3. Creating New Mechanics
4. The Automobile in Public Education
5. Tinkering with Sociotechnical Hierarchies
6. Suburban Paradox: Maintaining Automobility in the Postwar Decades
7. "Check Engine": Technology of Distrust
Conclusion: Servants or Savants? Revaluing the Middle Ground
Notes
Essay on Sources
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Borg, Kevin L.
Kevin L. Borg is an associate professor of history at James Madison University.