MIT OpenCourseWare

Browse materialsMIT STS.036 · Spring 2008

Technology and Nature in American History

Subjects: Engineering · History · Science · Technology

Art: Lantern Slide - Cross-Section of Watt's Rotative Double-Acting…, Circa 1782 · Public domain

Instructor: Jamie Pietruska
Term: Spring 2008
Level: Undergraduate
What's inside: 1 lecture note · 12 readings · 15 other files · 2 web pages
Materials open: MIT OCW

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About this course

Source: MIT OpenCourseWare STS.036 Technology and Nature in American History, Spring 2008, Jamie Pietruska — original course page on ocw.mit.edu ↗. License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Study order: MIT's own listing order, section by section. Taken from MIT's published course files, downloaded from ocw.mit.edu on September 23, 2026. How RedLectern is built.

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Prerequisites are not listed here. Check MIT's own syllabus for this course.

How this course was organized

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Materials by section

Grouped by section, as MIT organized them. Not sequenced or ordered.

Readings

12 files

Lecture Notes

Assignments

8 files

MIT OpenCourseWare, Jamie Pietruska, STS.036 Technology and Nature in American History, Spring 2008.

License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · Edition: Spring 2008 · Open the original course on OCW ↗

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Technology and Nature in American History

Before you start

What's here, and what isn't

Not included here

Materials by section

Readings

Lecture Notes

Assignments

Lecture 1: Course overview and introductory lecture

Lecture 2: Discussion: defining Technology and Nature

Lecture 3: A brief history of ecological change in North America in the eighteenth century

Lecture 4: Discussion

Lecture 5: Discussion

Lecture 6: Imposing an industrial order on the antebellum landscape

Lecture 7: Discussion

Lecture 8: “Devilish iron horse” and “Aeolian harp”: artistic responses to industrialization

Lecture 9: Discussion

Lecture 10: View film: The Iron Road . Directed by Neil Goodwin. PBS: The American experience, 1990, 60 min.

Lecture 11: Discussion

Lecture 12: View films: The Plow That Broke the Plains . Directed by Pare Lorentz, 1936, 25 min. ( View and download at the Internet Archive.) The River . Directed by Pare Lorentz, 1938, 31 min. (View and download ( Part 1 , Part 2 ) at the Internet Archive).

Lecture 13: Discussion

Lecture 14: Networking nation and nature: a case study of weather telegraphy, 1870-1891

Lecture 15: Discussion

Lecture 16: Conservation and the scientific management of nature

Lecture 17: Discussion

Lecture 18: View film: Cadillac Desert . Directed by Jon Else and Linda Harrar, 1997, 60 min.

Lecture 19: Discussion

Lecture 20: Discussion

Lecture 21: Levittown and the building of the suburban family ideal

Lecture 22: Discussion

Lecture 23: How food became fast, or, industrial agriculture in the twentieth century

Lecture 24: Discussion

Lecture 25: Student presentations

Lecture 26: Student presentations (cont.)