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Vogel Prize for 2008 2008 Vogel Prize winner is Patrick M. Malone Each year the SlA recognizes outstanding scholarship within the field of industrial archeology with its Robert M. Vogel Prize. The award honors the author of the best article to appear in the Society's journal, lA, within the past three years. Articles under consideration have a clearly stated thesis, a well-constructed narrative, and an understandable conclusion. The analysis of material culture plays an important role in articles considered for the prize, as does the use of high-quality illustrations. The prize consists of a cash award and a wooden foundry pattern and plaque engraved with the recipient's name. At the 2008 Annual Business Meeting in San Jose, the award was presented to Professor Patrick M. Malone's for his article, Surplus Water: Hybrid Power Systems and Industrial Expansion in Lowell, published in lA, Vol. 31, No.1 (2005), pp. 23-40. He has discerned that the sale and use of surplus water by the proprietor of locks and canals above and beyond the textile mill's normally contracted allotment was the key to business operations of the entire Lowell hydraulic system. Working in concert with stationary steam engines created the need for interconnected prime movers in a place where surplus was cheap, but not always available. As Professor Malone makes clear, not all rivers are suited for industrial development. Early nineteenth century industrialists looked for factory sites with both a substantial drop and an annually steady flow. They also strove to make use of additional or "surplus" water. Perhaps the pioneering leader in this quest was James B. Francis who served for many years as the agent and chief engineer of the Proprietors of Locks and Canals at Lowell. James B. Francis gained international fame for his successful development of sophisticated devices and techniques for the precise measurement of the water that was used by each of the mills in the interconnected Lowell canal system. He was the first investigator to gauge the importance of surplus water to the mill operations and developed a proportional system for the rates that the Locks and Canal Company would charge or the additional water flows that the mills would utilize. His work was directly responsible for the rapid replacement of breast wheels by far more efficient hydraulic turbines at the Lowell mills during the 1860's. As early as 1858, Francis has predicted, "The result of the surplus power at Lowell will be , I think, to run it in connection with steam." As Professor Malone concludes, it is probable that the industrial expansion of Lowell would have stalled in the 1870's without the use of surplus power. Professor Malone's article is cogent, well-written, and exhibit much original research. He has shined the light of inquiry on a previously neglected aspect of Lowell as one of America's earliest planned water-powered industrial communities. Lance Metz |
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About Robert M. Vogel Robert M. Vogel laid the foundations for the Society for Industrial Archeology. He was among the original founders of the SIA and sustained the organization in its earliest years. As the first editor of the Society for Industrial Archeology Newsletter, from 1971 to 1979, Robert stamped the SIA with his distinctive good humor and unbridled enthusiasm for industrial heritage preservation. In the 1960s, his seminal work on the New England textile mill and Hudson-Mohawk Valley surveys established important benchmarks for field recording and documentation, and led to the establishment of the Historic American Engineering Record. As an authority in the field and longtime curator of civil and mechanical engineering at the Smithsonian Institution, Robert generously shared his knowledge, inspiring countless others to champion, as he did so vigorously, the cause of "IA." For these reasons and others, the SIA was pleased to name its annual prize for outstanding scholarship in industrial archeology in his honor. History of the Award (extracted from SIAN Vol. 31/3-4 written by David Simmons) Since its earliest days, the SIA has striven to promote high scholarship. When the idea for a prize emerged in the early 1980s, then SIA President Ted Penn set about beating the bushes to find a sponsor. Eventually, the Norton Co., the abrasives manufacturer based in Worcester, MA, agreed to fund the Norton Prize for the best article published in IA over the previous three years. First awarded in 1982, the prize included a check for $100. Later the prize winners and the titles of their essays were listed on the back cover of IA. What had seemed noteworthy as a monetary prize in 1982, seemed paltry by 1997. At the annual conference in Houghton that year, outgoing Norton Prize chairman, Carter Litchfield, approached next year's chairman, David Simmons, to discuss the possibility of augmenting the check with a physical award. As it happened later that same fall, the Montgomery County Historical Society of Dayton, OH, announced the sale of a large number of wooden foundry patterns donated to them by a local company, the Platt Foundry. Simmons selected and purchased fifty patterns, measuring about 14 x 18 inches each, envisioning that this would be fifty years worth of awards (although not anticipating the possibility of an award to dual authors as has proven to be the case). The first of the new physical awards was given in 1998. After repeated reorganizations, the Norton Co. had lost interest in supporting the award. In 2001, the SIA Board of Directors decided that rather than seeking a new corporate sponsor, it would be most fitting to rename the award in honor of Robert M. Vogel in recognition of his role as one of the original founders of the SIA and of his many contributions to the society. The renaming has also prompted several members to make unsolicited contributions in support of the monetary prize, which has been raised to $250. Past Winners 1982 - Laurence F. Gross, "The Importance of Research Outside the Library: Watkins Mill, a Case Study." 1983 - C. C. Cooper, R. B. Gordon and H. V. Merrick, "Archeological Evidence of Metallurgical Innovation at the Eli Whitney Armory." 1984 - Bruce Seely, "Blast Furnace Technology in the Mid 19th-Century: A Case Study of the Adirondack Iron & Steel Company." 1985 - Terry S. Reynolds, "The Soo Hydro: A Case Study of the Influence of Managerial and Topographical Constraints on Engineering Design." 1986 - R. B. Gordon and M. S. Raber, "An Early American Integrated Steelworks." 1987 - Robert W. Passfield, "The Role of the Historian in Reconstructing Historic Engineering Structures: Parks Canada's Experience on the Rideau Canal, 1976-1983." 1988 - David R. Starbuck, "The Shaker Mills in Canterbury, New Hampshire." 1989 - Patrick M. Malone, "Little Kinks and Devices at Springfield Armory, 1892-1918." 1990 - Laurence F. Gross, "Building on Success: Lowell Mill Construction and Its Results." 1991 - Richard M. Candee "The 1822 Allendale Mill and Slow-Burning Construction: A Case Study in the Transmission of an Architectural Technology" 1992 - Thomas E. Leary "The Work of Rolling Rails in the 32" Mill at Bethlehem Steel's Lackawanna Plant: Industrial Archeology and Labor History" 1994 - Thomas E. Leary "Men and Tongs: The Belgian Rod Mill at the Washburn Wire Company, East Providence, Rhode Island" 1995 - David A. Simmons "Bridges and Boilers: Americans Discover the Wrought-Iron Tubular Bowstring Bridge" 1996 - Mary Rose Boswell "Documenting Laconia's Knitting Mills: A Comparison of Belknap Mills Corporation and Two Present-Day Knitting Mills" 1997 - Robert B. Gordon "Material Evidence of Ironmaking Techniques" 1998 - Terry S. Reynolds "Good Engineering, Poor Management: The Battle Creek Hydroelectric System and the Demise of the Northern California Power Company" 1999 - David B. Landon, Timothy A. Tumburg "Archeological Perspectives on the Diffusion of Technology: An Example from the Ohio Trap Rock Mine Site" 2000 - David A. Simmons "The Continuous Clatter': Practical Field Riveting" 2001 - John K. Brown "When Machines Become Gray and Drawings Black and White: William Sellars and the Rationalization of Mechanic Engineering (Vol. 25, No. 2) 2002 - David Salay "... as important and vital to successful mining, as the sap is to the tree: The Dorrance Colliery Fan Complex, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. |