Prediscursive Technical Communication in the Early American Iron Industry

Johnson, Carol Siri, “Prediscursive Technical Communication in the Early American Iron Industry,” Technical Communication Quarterly, 15(2), pp. 171–189, 2006.

This article examines the discourse community surrounding the charcoal iron industry between 1760 and 1860 in North America. It suggests that, prior to industrialization, technical communication took place in a prediscursive setting, an oral and physical world that we can just manage to glimpse even as we watch it recede. The letters of Robert Erskine written in 1770 illustrate the prediscursive methods of technical communication. By the 1860s, a flood of governmental, professional, and commercial publications appeared, each signifying the disappearance of this prediscursive world. This transition from prediscursive to discursive methods may mark one of the largest changes in the history of technical communication.

The Steel Bible: A Case Study of 20th Century Technical Communication

Johnson, Carol Siri, "The Steel Bible: A Case Study of 20th Century Technical Communication," Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 37(3), pp. 281-303.

The “steel bible” emerged in 1919 and went through eleven editions in eighty years. In its evolution we can see the shift from individual to group authorship, an increasing use of visual elements, and a physical change from a small, hand-held volume to a weighty desktop reference. In a textual analysis, we can see that it was essentially static, changing only by additions and deletions, as the industry evolved. The eventual closing of hundreds of plants and the migration of the industry to other countries can be seen in change of publisher, the sudden absence of photography, and the international references. Originally, the steel bible came from the factory floor and the words of the plant managers but by the 1990s, it was a highly-abstracted representation of knowledge. In the steel bible, we can see the history of the industry and the maturing of technical communication in the 20th century.