"The Use of Technology and Science"

卡特里娜飓风和决堤使路易斯安那州和周边地区的基础设施受到了全国和国际社会的关注。本文调查了技术和劳动力在新奥尔良、南部地区商品和基础设施制造中的重要性。该项目特别关注工程师在承担新奥尔良公共工程项目时使用技术来管理劳工，包括修建堤坝和水道、铁路和自来水厂。这些劳工中有许多是被奴役的男人和女人；这个项目将他们的经验带到了最前线。该项目以个人叙述、立法、市政和监狱记录等档案资料为基础。这些来源将技术和劳动力置于工作合理化的历史性变化的背景下。该项目将奴隶制男女的经历集中在公共工程的社会和技术建设中，以促进商品和城市基础设施的生产和分配，从而对技术研究作出贡献。在这里，技术的使用和经验确实产生了一个地区。它们还塑造了自由、工作和身份的实践和意义。这篇论文改变了对技术用户的学术研究，展示了当市场和消费者之外的条件被考察时，研究结果如何变化。

Hurricane Katrina and the breaking of the levees brought national and international attention to Louisiana and the surrounding areas' infrastructure. This dissertation investigates the significance of technology and labor in the making of New Orleans, southern regional commodities, and infrastructure. The project focuses in particular on engineers' use of technology to manage laborers in undertaking the public works projects of New Orleans, including the construction of levees and waterways, railroads, and waterworks. Many of these laborers were enslaved men and women; this project brings their experiences to the forefront. This project is based on archival sources such as personal narratives, legislative, municipal, and penitentiary records. These sources situate technology and labor within the context of historical changes in the rationalization of work. The project contributes to technology studies by centering the experiences of men and women in slavery within the social and technological construction of public works to facilitate the production and distribution of commodities and urban infrastructure. Here, the use and experience of technologies literally produce a region. They also shape the practices and meanings of freedom, work, and identity. This dissertation transforms scholarship on technology users, showing how research findings change when conditions beyond markets and consumers are examined.