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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Productivity Machines: German Appropriations of American Technology from Mass Production to Computer Automation

Productivity Machines: German Appropriations of American Technology from Mass Production to Computer Automation

Schlombs, Corinna

Paperback

Series: History of Computing

Technology & Engineering

ISBN10: 0262537397
ISBN13: 9780262537391
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: Oct 1 2019
Pages: 368
Weight: 1.28
Height: 1.00 Width: 6.00 Depth: 8.90
Language: English
How productivity culture and technology became emblematic of the American economic system in pre- and postwar Germany.

The concept of productivity originated in a statistical measure of output per worker or per work-hour, calculated by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. A broader productivity culture emerged in 1920s America, as Henry Ford and others linked methods of mass production and consumption to high wages and low prices. These ideas were studied eagerly by a Germany in search of economic recovery after World War I, and, decades later, the Marshall Plan promoted productivity in its efforts to help post-World War II Europe rebuild. In Productivity Machines, Corinna Schlombs examines the transatlantic history of productivity technology and culture in the two decades before and after World War II. She argues for the interpretive flexibility of productivity: different groups viewed productivity differently at different times. Although it began as an objective measure, productivity came to be emblematic of the American economic system; post-World War II West Germany, however, adapted these ideas to its own political and economic values.

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