Intro/Outro: “Lattice,” by Tipper

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Discussed:

• American Bridge: Reinventing Building, Making History
• Gregory Dreicer
• Lattice bridge patented 1820 by Ithiel Town
• A.J. Davis
• Nationalism and national character (e.g. “American,” “British”)
• Wooden bridges and iron bridges
• Evolutionary analogies (“technology evolves”)
• Evolutionary hierarchies
• Industrialization myths
• Industrialization of construction
• Invention of the beam
• Uniform parts
• Knowledge types: “technology” and “science”
• Howe truss, patented 1840
• Warren truss, patented 1848
• Invention as networked, transnational process
• Lo-TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism, Julia Watson
• Britannia Bridge, Robert Stephenson
• Railway boom and Bezos’ “good bubble”
• Railway construction labor
• Tom F. Peters’, Manhattan grid, redundancy
• Structural redundancy and Key Bridge, Baltimore
• Iron as symbol
• Covered bridges
• Techno-utopianism
• History of engineering and design
• Myth of abundance of wood in the US