The language of work; technical communication at Lukens Steel, 1810 to 1925

Reference & Research Book News, Feb, 2009

The language of work; technical communication at Lukens Steel, 1810 to 1925.

Johnson, Carol Siri.

Baywood Publishing Co.

2008

200 pages

$49.95

Hardcover

Baywood's technical communications series

T10

Johnson (humanities, New Jersey Institute of Technology) has collected the written documents and communications of the Lukens Steel Company from 1810 to 1925 to chart the evolution of technologies such as carbon copies, typewriters and the letter press. While the majority of these artifacts are informal, they do provide insight on how managers, employees, customers and vendors communicated during the bulk of the 19th century, how women were able to join an industrial workforce and how standards of written contracts emerged. Filled with dozens of photographs of both the documents and the steel mill operations, this book should be of interest to students researching the history of technical writing.

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