Current Research

My interests lie in 19th- and 20th-century developments in technology, especially electricity, electronics, radio, computing, and tabulating, concentrating on the institutional aspects of innovation and product development. My particular focus in research is on developments after 1945.

Brief Curriculum Vita

Education
Ph.D. (History of Science and Technology), University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1974

M.S. (Physics), University of Vermont, Burlington, 1962

B.S. (Physics), Providence College, Providence, Rhode Island, 1959

Recent Professional Positions

Professor Emeritus, University of Minnesota

Director, Charles Babbage Institute for the History of Information Technology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1981-1993; 1999-2006

ERA Land-Grant Chair in History of Technology, 1989-1993; 1999-2006

Professor, History of Science and Technology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1995-2005

Professor, Department of Computer Science, 1995-2005

Selected Publications
Transforming Computer Technology: Information Processing for the Pentagon, 1962-1986, with Judy E. O’Neill, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

“New Engineering Companies and the Evolution of the United States Computer Industry,” Business and Economic History, 22, Second Series, (1993): 181-193.

“High-Technology Calculation in the Early 20th Century: Punched Card Machinery in Business and Government,” Technology and Culture, 31 (October 1990): 753-779.