International Committee for the History of Technology

The International Committee for the History of Technology (ICOHTEC) was founded at a meeting of the International Congress on the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine[1] in Paris in the summer of 1968. Its founding was the brainchild of Melvin Kranzberg, Professor of the History of Technology at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States. Kranzberg had already established the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) and its journal, Technology and Culture, but he felt that in the midst of Cold War tensions, there was a need for another forum that focused on crossing the artificial borders of the Iron Curtain. For Kranzberg, the History of Technology, a new discipline not yet burdened with ideological or political freight as were other branches of history, was an ideal arena where scholars from East and West could find common ground. Kranzberg was supported in this effort by Maurice Daumas from France, Eugene Olszewski from Poland, and S.J. Schuchardine from the USSR, among others. For the past several decades, ICOHTEC's principal activity has been an annual meeting,[2] where scholars from many countries and from many disclipines gather and share their work. Papers presented at the meetings are usually published in the Committee's annual journal ICON.[3]

Kranzberg’s vision was largely fulfilled in the meetings that followed, although exchanges among scholars were not always harmonious. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the breakup of the Soviet Union in the years that followed, ICOHTEC lost its original reason for being. But it has thrived in the following years and continues to have an active international membership and hold well-attended and intellectually lively meetings. One reason is the perception that its sister society, SHOT, remains somewhat biased toward U.S. membership in spite of efforts to reach out more to an international audience.