The Abbot Payson Usher Memorial Prize, established in 1961 and named for Dr Abbott Payson Usher, is an award given annually by Society for the History of Technology for the best scholarly work on the history of technology published over the preceding three years under the auspices of the Society.
Source: Abbot Payson Usher Memorial Prize
2015: Jung Lee, "Invention without Science: 'Korean Edisons' and the Changing Understanding of Technology in Colonial Korea," Technology and Culture 54 (October 2013):782-814
2014: Chris Evans and Alun Withey, "An Enlightenment in Steel? Innovation in the Steel Trades of Eighteenth-Century Britain," Technology and Culture 53 (July 2012): 533-560
2013: Thomas S. Mullaney, "The Moveable Typewriter: How Chinese Typists Developed Predictive Text during the Height of Maoism," Technology and Culture 53 (October 2012): 777-814
2012: Tiina Männistö-Funk, "The Crossroads of Technology and Tradition: Vernacular Bicycles in Rural Finland, 1880-1910," Technology and Culture 52 (October 2011): 733-756
2011: David Biggs, "Breaking from the Colonial Mold: Water Engineering and the Failure of Nation-Building in the Plain of Reeds, Vietnam," Technology and Culture 49 (July 2008): 599-623
2010: Peter Norton, "Street Rivals: Jaywalking and the Invention of the Motor Age," Technology and Culture 48 (April 2007): 331-359
2009: Crosbie Smith and Anne Scott, "'Trust in Providence': Building Confidence into the Cunard Line of Steamers," Technology and Culture 48 (July 2007): 471-96
2008: Eric Schatzberg, "Technik Comes to America: Changing Meanings of Technology before 1930," Technology and Culture47 (2006): 486-512
2007: Carlo Belfanti, "Guilds, Patents, and the Circulation of Technical Knowledge: Northern Italy during the Early Modern Age," Technology and Culture 45 (2004): 569-89
2006: Lissa Roberts, "An Arcadian Apparatus: The Introduction of the Steam Engine into the Dutch Landscape," Technology and Culture 45 (2004): 251-76
2005: William Storey, "Guns, Race, and Skill in Nineteenth-Century South Africa," Technology and Culture 45 (2004): 687-711
2004: Kenneth Lipartito, "Picturephone and the Information Age: The Social Meaning of Failure," Technology and Culture 44 (2003): 50-81
2003: Amy Slaton (Drexel University), "'As Near as Practicable': Precision, Ambiguity, and the Social Features of Industrial Quality Control," Technology and Culture 42 (2001): 51-80
2002: Wiebe E Bijker (Universiteit Maastricht) and Karin Bijsterveld (Universiteit Maastricht), "Walking through Plans: Technology, Democracy and Gender Identity," Technology and Culture 41 (2000): 485-515
2001: John K. Brown (University of Virginia), "Design Plans, Working Drawings, National Styles: Engineering Practice in Great Britain and the United States, 1775-1945," Technology and Culture 41 (2000): 195-238
2000: Matthew W. Roth, "Mulholland Highway and the Engineering Culture of Los Angeles in the 1920s," Technology and Culture 40 (1999): 545-575
1999: Joy Parr, "What Makes Washday Less Blue? Gender, Choice, Nation, and Technology Choice in Postwar Canada," Technology and Culture (1998)
1998: David Mindell "The Clangor of that Blacksmith's Fray," Technology and Culture 36 (1995)
1997: Eric Schatzberg, "Ideology and Technical Choice: The Decline of the Wooden Airplane in the United States, 1920-1945," Technology and Culture 35 (1994): 34-69
1996: Gabrielle Hecht, "Political Designs: Nuclear Reactors and National Policy in Postwar France," Technology and Culture 35 (1994): 657-85
1995: Jameson W. Doig and David P. Billington, "Ammann's First Bridge: A Study in Engineering, Politics and Entrepreneurial Behavior," Technology and Culture 35 (1994): 537-70
1994: John Law, "The Olympus 320 Engine: A Case Study in Design, Development, and Organizational Control," Technology and Culture 33 (1992): 409-40
1993: Barton Hacker, "An Annotated Index to Volumes 1-25," Technology and Culture (1991); and Pamela O. Long, "The Openness of Knowledge: An Ideal and its Context in 16th Century Writings on Mining and Metallurgy," Technology and Culture 32 (1991): 318-55
1992: Bryan Pfaffenberger, "The Harsh Facts of Hydraulics: Technology and Society in Sri Lanka's Colonization Schemes," Technology and Culture 31 (1990): 361-97
1991: Robert Gordon, "Who Turned the Mechanical Idea into the Mechanical Reality?" Technology and Culture 29 (1989): 744-78
1990: Laurence F. Gross, "Wool Carding: A Study of Skills and Technology," Technology and Culture 28 (1987): 804-27
1989: Larry Owens, "Vannevar Bush and the Differential Analyzer: The Text and Context of an Early Computer," Technology and Culture 27 (1986): 63-95
1988: Judith A. McGaw, "Accounting for Innovation: Technological Change and Business Practice in the Berkshire County Paper Industry," Technology and Culture 26 (1985): 703-25
1987: Bruce E. Seely, "The Scientific Mystique in Engineering: Highway Research at the Bureau of Public Roads, 1918-1940," Technology and Culture 25 (1984): 798-831
1986: Donald MacKenzie, "Marx and the Machine," Technology and Culture 25 (1984): 473-502
1985: Eda Fowlks Kranakis, "The French Connection: Giffard's Injector and the Nature of Heat," Technology and Culture 23 (1982): 3-38
1984: Walter G. Vincenti, "Control-Volume Analysis: A Difference in Thinking between Engineering and Physics," Technology and Culture 23 (1982): 145-74
1983: George Wise, " A New Role for Professional Scientists in Industry: Industrial Research at General Electric, 1900-1916," Technology and Culture (1980): 408-429
1982: Harold Dorn, "Hugh Lincoln Cooper and the First Detente," Technology and Culture 20 (1979): 322-47
1981: Thomas P. Hughes for The Electrification of America: The System Builders, Technology and Culture 20 (1979): 124-61
1974: Carl Mitcham and Robert Mackey for their bibliography of the philosophy of technology.
1972: Cyril Stanley Smith for Art, Technology and Science: Notes on their Historical Interaction, Technology and Culture 11 (1970): 493-549
1969: Eugene S. Ferguson for Bibliography of the History of Technology, an expansion of a series of articles originally published in Technology and Culture (1962-1965)
1968: Carl W. Condit for The First Reinforced-Concrete Skyscraper: The Ingalls Building in Cincinnati and Its Place in Structural History, Technology and Culture 9 (1968): 1-33
1965: Robert P. Multhauf for "Sal Amoniac: A Case of History of Industrialization,Technology and Culture 6 (1965): 569-86
1962: Silvio A. Bedini for The Compartmented Cylindrical Cledsydra, Technology and Culture 3 (1962): 115-41
1961: Robert S. Woodbury for The Legend of Eli Whitney and Interchangeable Parts, Technology and Culture 1 (1960): 235-53
In conjunction with Dr. Arnold J. Pacey, the society wrote, '‘The Measurement of Power in Early Steam Driven Textile Mills’'. James Watt based the premiums for using his patent steam engine on the power theoretically developed. Mill owners did not want to pay more than necessary, particularly when they were starting a new venture that might not have its full complement of machinery. The problem of determining the actual power output of the steam engine was solved around 1800 through the development of the ‘indicator’, a device that recorded the pressure of the steam in the cylinder against the movement of the piston. John Southern realised that the power of the engine could be calculated from the area of the graph described by the indicator.
