Free What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly Page B

ancient technologies were, how they were often first choices where power and modern resources were scarce. It seemed to me as if no technologies ever disappeared. I was challenged on this conclusion by a highly regarded historian of technology who told me without thinking, “Look, they don’t make steam-powered automobiles anymore.” Well, within a few clicks on Google I very quickly located folks who are making brand-new parts for Stanley steam-powered cars. Nice shiny copper valves, pistons, whatever you need. With enough money you could put together an entirely new steam-powered car. And of course, thousand of hobbyists are still bolting together steam-powered vehicles, and hundreds more are keeping old ones running. Steam power is very much an intact, though uncommon, species of technology.
    I decided to see how many old technologies a postmodern urban citizen living in a cosmopolitan city (like San Francisco) could lay his hands on. One hundred years ago, there was no electricity, no internal combustion engines, few highways, and little long-distance communication except via the post office network. But through that postal network you could order almost anything manufactured from the Montgomery Ward catalog. The faded newsprint of my reproduction catalog had the air of a mausoleum of a long-dead civilization. However, it became quickly and surprisingly clear that most of the thousands of items for sale 100 years ago, as cataloged by this wish book, were still for sale now. Although the styling is different, the underlying technology, function, and form are the same. A leather boot with doodads is still a leather boot.
    I set myself the challenge of finding all the products on a sample page from the 1894-95 Montgomery Ward catalog. Flipping through its 600 pages, I selected one fairly typical page that featured agricultural implements. These types of obsolete tools would be far harder to find today than, say, the stove pots, lamps, clocks, pens, and hammers that populate the rest of the pages. Farm tools seemed like certain dinosaurs. Who needs a hand-powered corncob sheller, or a paint mill, whatever that was? If I could purchase these obsolete tools from the agricultural era it would strongly suggest not much was gone.

    Catalogs of Durable Goods. On the left, page 562 of the 1894-95 Montgomery Ward catalog offering farm implements by mail order. On the right, the equivalent brand-new items offered by various sources on the web in 2005.
    Of course it’s a no-brainer to find antiques on eBay. My test was to find newly manufactured versions of this equipment, since this would show that these species were still viable.
    The results stunned me. In a few hours I was able to find every single item listed on this page of a century-old catalog. Each old tool was available in a new incarnation and sold on the web. Nothing was dead.
    I haven’t done the research to find out the reason for the survival of each item, but I suspect that most of these tools share a similar story. While working farms have shed these obsolete tools entirely and are almost completely automated, many of us still garden with very primitive hand tools simply because they work. As long as backyard tomatoes taste better than farmed ones, the primeval hoe will survive. And apparently, there’s pleasure in harvesting some crops by hand, even in bulk. I suspect a few of these items may be bought by the Amish and other back-to-the-landers who find virtue in doing things without oil-fed machinery.
    But maybe 1895 is not old enough. Let’s take the oldest technology of all: a flint knife or stone ax. Well, it turns out you can buy a brand-new flint knife, flaked by hand and carefully attached to an antler-horn handle by tightly wound leather straps. In every respect it is precisely the same technology as a flint knife made 30,000 years ago. It’s yours for fifty dollars, available from more than one website. In the highlands of New