Taming the American Car

Is there any technology that we love more than our cars? Drawing on the history of automobile regulation in the United States, Dr. Lee Vinsel talks about the rules of the road that fueled innovation in the face of competition, constraints and working for the common good in his informal talk, “Taming the American Car.”

Lee Vinsel studies human life with technology, with particular focus on the relationship between government, business, and technological change. His first book, Moving Violations: Automobiles, Experts, and Regulations in the United States, was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in July 2019. Since 2015, with his collaborator Andy Russell, Vinsel has organized and led The Maintainers, a global interdisciplinary research network that examines maintenance, repair, and mundane work with technology. Vinsel’s work has been published in several major history journals and has appeared in or been covered by Aeon, the New York Times, The Atlantic, Guardian, Le Monde, and other popular outlets.

This January 23, 2019 science cafe program was the first of a series funded in part by a National Science Foundation grant (#1611953) whose principal investigator was Karen Rader, historian of science Virginia Commonwealth University’s College of Humanities and Sciences in Richmond, Virginia.