Taking advantage of my Washington DC proximity, I made a trip to the National Mall again today – this time taking in the American History Museum. While it needs some serious updating, the one exhibit that I was most inspired by was the one on the Information Age.
Ignoring for a moment, the blatant misuse of the term information (most of the technologies supported the exchange of data, not information), I made some rather significant discoveries. While everyone seemed to zip past one multi-wall equipment display and exclaim simply, "That's the first computer", I spent considerable time watching the various video clips discussing the operation of the ENIAC.
I began to realize that with the hundreds of light indicators and the hundreds of vacuum tubes, the fault possibilities for the basic operation of this device were endless. Most of the effort to execute a calculation was in testing the soundness of the parts and pieces, before a calculation could be initiated.
But from that display and others I later saw an interesting thread of artifacts I hadn't noticed before. Most of the justification and financing that initiated these technologies came from an unexpected industry: the military.
Militaristic technologies are generally associated to things like weapons: the advent of gunpowder and nuclear weapons. I had not really previously considered the other contributions that have seamlessly been absorbed into our daily lives without recognition.
The more I reflected on this I suddenly realized that even as a product of a lower-middle-income family, my exposure to technology was a direct result of the military. I often watched my father replace vacuum tubes when he would work on our televisions. I remember fondly helping to organize the colorful components into the end of cardboard flutes, that my father carefully soldered onto boards which became the 'guts' of our own stereo system and electronic organ (thanks to the contribution of Heathkit to the early electronic do-it-yourself market). These skills he had...a direct result of the military. My father was responsible for the electronics that ran the interiors of planes — not to fly them, but to drop bombs.
We often hear about how the space industry has contributed to our technological evolution. After today, I'm not so sure that contributions from the military haven't been greater. Certainly, there are far more individuals who have been employed by military dollars than space dollars. Those individuals who have served in the military and were trained in electronics (and today, in computer technology) eventually roll back out into the public market and collectively make significant contributions to our economy. Perhaps, the 'less-sexy' demeanor of the military has caused these facts to be diminished.
I guess what struck me more was that this specific association of technological evolutions to the military was not directly called out by the exhibit, but was left to individuals to deduce on their own, if that connection was ever to be made. I suppose it would not be popular if such a correlation were to be 'featured', but that doesn't diminish the facts.
Conversely, war often saved or boosted seemingly non-militaristic companies. Due to their core competency of efficient production, Ford was commissioned to build a plant similar to the ones that put out automobiles, but this plant was to manufacture planes for WWII. Indeed, it was during WWI that Henry Ford changed his pacivist approach when he saw he could capitalize on the war effort by providing vehicles for the war. Who's to speculate that if it were not for the 'spoils of war' that Ford might not have been in a position later to bring forth the T-Bird and Mustang, which both contributed significantly to the American historical landscape?
The few military-specific contributions that I saw today, I'm sure pale in comparison to the many more that could be added to the list which came forth as a result of the Gulf War and those that are in progress now.
Attempts to uncover additional non-weaponry technological contributions from the military produced limited results. In fact, in a 2003 BusinessWeek article, it is postulated that the tide has turned and now the military benefits from existing commercial development. I would clearly be interested in a new exhibit that followed this thread of technological evolution as related to the military (or a History Channel piece would do).
Feel free to contribute anything you uncover.
BOB JACOBSON is fascinated by the experience of experience. A planner and technologist, Bob has a Ph.D. in Urban Planning & Design from UCLA. He's been a policy researcher, technology CEO, science writer, and consultant. As a Fulbright Scholar, he studied cellular telephony's impacts on transborder communities in the Nordic Arctic Circle. Bob edited Information Design (MIT Press 2000) and is now writing a book on the theory and practice of creating edifying, transformative experiences.
PAULA THORNTON says, "Understanding human behavior (economics), optimizing interactions (design) and facilitating conversations (markets), are the means to achieve strategic differentiation. This is the focus of our discipline. It is not a 'nice to have'‚ and is not, like documentation once was, an afterthought. It is the means by which to start a strategic discussion and the means by which to drive a tactical initiative. All design should be evidence-based."
