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Twisted Rails, Sunken Ships: The Rhetoric of Nineteenth Century Steamboat and Railroad Accident Investigation Reports, 1833-1879
R. John Brockmann
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Baywood's Technical Communications Series, Series Editor: Charles H. Sides
You can read the
Introduction for free right now, just click here.
IN PRAISE OF
"'Who is to blame?' the public asks when accidents happen. In the Age of Steam, scientists and engineers saw an accident as the final outcome of a causal chain, not just an Act of God. But technology was complex, and attributing personal blame within a large organization, like a railroad company, was complex too. This fascinating book charts the growing involvement of the public inquiry and the press in the attribution of blame. It shows how a combination of science, self-interest, and moral indignation created the 'investigation culture' that we have today. The roots of today's safety bureaucracy lie in the Age of Steam. This book is essential reading for cultural historians, lawyers, engineers, everyone interest in transportation and safety issues."
—Mark Casson, Professor of Economics University of Reading, United Kingdom
"Brockmann's textual analysis of the various reports is insightful."
—Stephanie Orphan, Editor, C&RL News, April, 2005
"In her 1989 study Control Through Communication: The Rise of System in American Management, JoAnne Yates described the importance of advances in communication as businesses moved forward in nineteenth century America. Now R. John Brockmann, in Twisted Rails, Sunken Ships: The Rhetoric of Nineteenth Century Steamboat and Railroad Accident Investigation Reports, 1833-1879, continues this historical focus, with the attention to detail we have come to expect from this scholar. Brockmann's book demonstrates how writers of every variety and persuasion have attempted to describe disasters while being pressured to tell the story the 'correct' way.
"The technological advances of the Industrial Revolution in nineteenth century America brought with them, as such advances do today, great technological disasters. In Twisted Rails, Sunken Ships, R. John Brockmann offers us a remarkably comprehensive and detailed historical study of technical communication, just as he did in his earlier book, From Millwrights to Shipwrights. Anyone interested in how technical communicators deal with disaster-whether of the nineteenth century or of more recent vintage-will want to own this book."
—Jack Jobst, Michigan Technological University
"Mr. Brockman has written an interesting book illustrating the change over time in the 'rhetoric' describing major steamboat and railroad accidents in the 19th century. . . . each chapter is well illustrated from contemporary sources and the author's exhibits and tables. This is primarily a reference work-but interestingly written too."
—Doug McGrew, S&D Reflector Volume 42, Number 2, June, 2005
"In his fascinating book, Brookmann shows the role of the press and the public inquiry in steam accident investigation, in the process returning to the roots of today's familiar investigation culture. A comprehensive and detailed historical study of technical communication, the book offers us also the possibility for comparative research on railroad accidents in Europe.
Bringing together new questions concerning the history of transport and safety, this book is not only essential reading or historians of technology but also highly recommended to cultural historians and indeed lawyers."
—Paul Van Heesvelde, The Journal of Transport History, 27/1, 2006
"Brockman is most effective at exploring the public's reaction to steamboat accidents and how they helped to create new genres of accident reports and, for the general public, sensationalist disaster literature. Historians interested in the evolution of technical writing and accident reporting will find a wealth of information here, and technical writers like Brockman will find these books informative and enjoyable. Historians interested in changing conceptions of technological risk and safety and the evolution of corporate liability will want to consult these books as well."
From a paired review of Exploding Steamboats, Senate Debates, and Technical Reports and Twisted Rails, Sunken Ships
— Robert S. Cox and Rachel K. Onuf, Journal of the Early Republic, 26 (Winter 2006)
"In Twisted Rails, Sunken Ships, R. John Brockmann offers us a remarkably comprehensive and detailed historical study
of technical communication. Anyone interested in how technical communicators deal with disaster—whether of the nineteenth
century or of more recent vintage—will want to read this book."
—Educational Book Review, June-July 2007
ABOUT THE BOOK
Contemporary disaster investigation reports into the shuttle, Three Mile Island, or the World Trade Center did not happen by chance, but were the result of an evolution of the discourse communities involved with investigating technological accidents. The relationships of private companies, coroners, outside experts, and government investigators all had to be developed and experimented with before a genre of investigation reports could exist. This book is the story of the evolution of these investigation discourse communities in published reports written between 1833 and 1879. Specifically we will look at the interactions between three different types of investigation reports: the findings of the coroner's jury, defensive explanations from involved companies, and reports by scientists. Using the reports generated by seven different accidents on railroads and steamboats between 1833 and 1876 we will be able to observe the changes in how these reports interacted and changed over the course of the nineteenth century:
- The Explosion of the Steamboat New England in the Connecticut River, 1833
- The Explosion of the Locomotive Engine Richmond near Reading Pennsylvania, 1844
- The Explosion of the Steam Boat Moselle in Cincinatti, 1838
- The Camden and Amboy Railroad Collision in Burlington, New Jersey, 1855
- The Gasconade Bridge Collapse on the Pacific Railroad in Missouri, 1855
- The Eastern Railroad Collision in Revere, Massachusetts, 1871
- The Ashtabula Railroad Bridge Collapse in Ohio, 1876
The final chapter goes beyond just these reports to look at Charles Francis Adams Jr.'s book, Notes on Railroad Accidents, in which this leader of the Massachusetts Railroad Commission reviewed progress in accident investigations over the course of the nineteenth century as well as his personal involvement in the investigations. This book closes with the publication of this key technical text since one of the results of this book is that the Federal Government through the creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) directed all subsequent investigations.
Intended Audience: Technical communication writers; teachers and students of technical communications; historians of technology, as well as steamboat history and railroad history buffs.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Professor R. John Brockmann has been a member of the English Department, Concentration in Business and Technical Writing, University of Delaware, for 20 years. He received the Jay R. Gould Award for Excellence in Teaching technical communication from the Society for Technical Communication in 2003. He was elected a Fellow of the Society for Technical Communication in 1995, and received the "Joseph T. Rigo Award, 1986," from the Association of Computing Machinery, Special Interest Group for Documentation of Computers (ACM SIGDOC), for his "significant contributions to the knowledge and understanding of software technical writing." In 1983 he was co-recipient of the "Best Collection of Essays in Technical Communication" award from the National Council of Teachers of English, for his first book (also published by Baywood). His earlier books on the history of technical communication include Exploding Steamboats, Senate Debates and Technical Reports: The Convergence of Technology, Politics and Rhetoric in the Steamboat Bill of 1838 (Baywood 2002) and From Millwrights to Shipwrights to the 21st Century: Historical Consideration of American Technical Communication (Hampton Press, 1998).
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