If the campus libraries were to dump the overfill for their history, engineering, and science sections into one room, it might look something like David Hounshell’s office.

It is an ordered chaos. Moving boxes of materials aside to be able to navigate the room, the professor—trained in engineering and history—can show you that this third of this wall is devoted to the history of science. These three sagging shelves barely hold the Cold War histories. This section: R&D. Over here, a healthy assortment of biographies. And the entire expanse of the west wall is miscellaneous, purportedly alphabetized in some fashion, though the books have grown so thick that he’s had to resort to double-shelving, one row in front of the other, to fit them all.

For a committed cross-disciplinarian interested above all else in studying the intersections of history, science, technology, and business, these are the tools of the trade.

Knowing that, if you’re a random visitor closing the door behind you in a room likely not much more than 12 by 12, you might be able to overcome your claustrophobia and read some of the book titles. If you look closely, you may notice that more than a few of them are authored by him.

Hounshell’s work—the agglomeration of all these varied books and fields—was recently honored by the Society for the History of Technology. At its 50th anniversary in Washington, D.C., it awarded Hounshell with its highest recognition, the Leonardo da Vinci Medal, for his contributions to the field.
—BRADLEY A. PORTER (HS’08)