The SIA 33rd Annual Conference for 2004 in Providence Rhode Island & the Blackstone Valley
Thursday, June 10, 2004 to Sunday, June 13, 2004
Sponsored by the Southern New England Chapter of the Society for Industrial Archeology
Exploring the Industrial Heritage of the Blackstone Valley and Narragansett Bay

Paper Sessions, Saturday, June 12, 2004
Paper Sessions & the annual business meeting & lunch will be held in the Rhode Island Convention Center located just west of the Marriott Hotel.

PAPER SESSION ABSTRACTS

Session 1. – 8:30 to 10:00
Panel 1A. Comparing Workplaces
1. Angelina Long – Boomer Machinists in Savannah’s Cold War Shop
2. Roger Holden – Mule and Ring Spinning: A Trans-Atlantic Perspective
3. Mark Watson – International Context for Textile Sites: A Draft TICCIH Publication
Panel 1B. Historic Bridge Symposium
1. Dennis J. Connors – The Politics of Bridge Aesthetics: 1936 Railroad Elevation Project in Syracuse, NY
2. Patrick Harshbarger – Prestressed Concrete Bridges - A Comparative Study of the Adoption of a New Bridge Material in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Ohio in the 1950
3. William Vermes – Construction Tales from Shop Drawings, Lorain-Carnegie Bridge, Cleveland, Ohio
Break - 10:00 to 10:30
Session 2. – 10:30 to 12:00
Panel 2A. Emergency Shipyards During World War II in the San Francisco Bay Area
1. Christopher James Tassava – Prefabricating Victory: Shipbuilding at Richmond, California, 1940-1945
2. Fredric L. Quivik – Interpreting a Large Industrial Artifact: The Case of Whirley Cranes at Kaiser’s Richmond Shipyards
3. Robin Dearmon Jenkins – Ships of Steel, Workers for Victory: Work, Gender, and Race in the San Francisco Bay Area During WW II
Panel 2B. IA Buildings -- Big and Heavy
1. Todd Croteau – Fort Hamilton, RI: HAER Records Defensive and Production Uses
2. Sara E. Wermiel – Heavy Timber Framing in New England’s Late 19th Century Commercial and Industrial Buildings
3. Charles Parrott – Size Matters: The Image, Technology and Environmental Meaning of the Superlative Industrial Chimney in Victorian and Progressive Era America
Lunch: 12:15 to 1:15
Annual Business Meeting: 1:15 to 2:15
Session 3.- 2:30 to 4:50
Panel 3A. Museums on the Move
1. Didier O. Thomas - Planning the Museum Explaining the Boston renaissance: 1860-1910
2. Janet Davidson – Making "America on the Move" in the National Museum of American History
Panel 3B. Responding to Technologies
1. Jet Lowe – The Interlocking Control Tables of the Panama Canal: The Penultimate Merging of Railroad and Canal-Making Technology
2. Authur Ganson - A Personal Exploration of Engineering, Invention and Kinetic Sculpture
Break - 3:30 to 3:50
Panel 3A. Reconvened
3. Duncan Hay - Museum Artifacts: Evidence, Subject, or Window Dressing
4. Robert Casey – Recent Trends in the Industrial Museum Experience
Panel 3B. Reconvened
3. Brendan Foley, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute – Ancient Ceramic Industries: Evidence from the Deep Sea
Posters – Space will be available on a first-come, first-served basis to display posters, books for sale, drawings, artifacts or photographs on current research in industrial archeology during the paper sessions at the Rhode Island Convention Center.

Poster presenters must submit a brief description of their display, along with a request for reserved floor space or tabletop space, to Mary McCahon at (215) 752-2206 by May 10.

Posters can not be attached to the walls but may be displayed on easels. Posters should focus on visually displaying graphics and photographs of the work and have accompanying text labels. Poster presenters may be available at their display during the day to discuss their work with conference attendees.