Technology and Culture

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 427 chronology of the scientific study and use of the daguerreotype. This material is an important addition to the held of photohistory, for it is a topic that has largely been ignored, even in such classics as Beaumont Newhall’s The Daguerreotype in America. Barger and White discuss the work of the expected—Draper, Fizeau, and Becquerel—but also in­ clude the work ofthose rarely noted—Donne, Moser, Bunsen, Zenken, and others. They convince us that the daguerreotype played an im­ portant role in mid-19th-century science experimentation. Although the authors do an admirablejob of documenting science, they fall short of putting it into perspective. They fail to talk about science infrastructure and why scientists in the 19th century were interested in this field. Observations such as “the study of light phe­ nomena and optics was an active field of research throughout the 19th century” (p. 99) are not followed up. Greater insight into 19th-century science motivation and the shaping ofcultural concerns is needed here. The Daguerreotype is strong in its detailed exploration of daguerre­ otype image formation and structure (e.g., showing that mercury is mostly gone from a daguerreotype after a few years). Unfortunately, Barger and White get bogged down in an attempt to teach light theory and real science. It is safe to say that few nonscientists will understand statements like “these monomers migrate to form embry­ onic precursors that, after sufficient growth, become stable nuclei” (p. 152) or even the references to elements such as silver, mercury, and bromine by their periodic symbols. One of the problems in writing about science is keeping the subject simple enough that nonscientists can still read and understand the material. The narrow focus of these works confirms that most photohistori­ ans have yet to break from their historiographical niches. With few exceptions—David Nye’s Image Worlds is one—most photography books appeal narrowly to art historians, photography buffs, or photohistorians. Perhaps in the future research will be couched in a broader perspective and directed to a larger community of scholars. Peter Liebhold Mr. Liebhold is a museum specialist in the Division of Engineering and Industry at the National Museum of American History. His current research examines the culture of work and its relation to technological change. We Will Rise in Our Might: Workingwomen’s Voicesfrom Nineteenth-Century New England. By Mary H. Blewett. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991. Pp. xii + 221; illustrations, bibliography, index. $32.50 (cloth); $10.95 (paper). Popular images of technology as an inhuman and autonomous force are reinforced by historical surveys that paint technological change on a canvas so broad as to reduce humans to small blots of 428 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE information, one individual indistinguishable from the next. Work­ ers, machinists, operatives, mill owners, managers, consumers, and the various other groups who experienced industrialization firsthand rarely are called by name. Mary Blewett has been studying the people of the Industrial Revolution who lived and worked in the mills and factories of Massachusetts. Her work fights the anonymity of the workers by putting into print their words, work, and lives. The Last Generation (University of Massachusetts Press, 1990) was a set of oral histories of textile workers in Lowell. This latest volume removes the historical gags from the mouths of the female workers in the shoe industry in Lynn, whose larger history Blewett investigated in Men, Women, and Work (University of Illinois Press, 1988). We Will Rise in Our Might reprints the private writings, public documents, and published memoirs—essentially the primary resources—that the author used in the 1988 history. In this book we hear the complaints and pleasures of the women who spent their days stitching together shoes. We hear their ruminations about the proper role of women in society, and the rights of women as workers. We hear their dreams about building a future for themselves and their families, as well as their daydreams about family, friends, and lovers left behind when they traveled to Lynn to find work in the shoe factories. And we hear their angry cries for reform in the industry and demands for fairer pay. Thebookis organized...