On his blog, The Occasional CEO, Eric Schultz reports of his recent meeting with our VP for Collections and Exhibitions Greg Galer. The resulting post, “Beware the Dominant Narrative” asks us to consider if the Industrial Revolution was in fact the Industrial Evolution.
Eric writes, “Greg’s 2002 Ph.D. thesis at MIT was titled ‘Forging Ahead: The Ames Family of Easton, Massachusetts and Two Centuries of Industrial Enterprise 1635-1861‘. In it, he traced the trajectory of one Oliver Ames, born in 1779 and trained as a blacksmith, who took up the business of making shovels and in the process evolved from ‘artisan and craftsman to industrialist.’ In this superb work, Greg (echoing and reinforcing the writings of Philip Scranton) concluded that the Industrial Revolution was no revolution at all. ‘It was a gradual and fluid evolution from one way of doing business to another’ led by men who maintained many of their artisan traditions and long-held beliefs about family and community.”
Eric continues to explore the dominant narrative concept as it applies in our world today. Read the full article…
