미국 엔지니어의 정체성을 찾아서: 전문가와 기업 사이에서

Abstract

I want to deal with question of how to position the American engineers as a professional between the 1880s and the 1920s. The character of American engineers could be seen in their relationship to big business or, to corporate capitalism in America. The relationship between the American engineers and corporate business was a big problem for the engineers. They had always conflicted with big business in how to get along until the end of the 19th century. I will trace the historical process of making the American engineers through the rise of professionalism, the growth of the big business, and the preoccupation of four major engineering societies[American Society of Civil Engineers, American Institute of Mining Engineers, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and American Institute of Electrical Engineers]. These four ‘founder’ societies made use of three strategies. First, in the traditional sense, it was professionalization among the elite engineers in the Eastern region. Their members usually held stable positions. They had consulting status or, in many cases, they were the entrepreneur running their firms. Second, the ‘founder’ societies tried to require high and strict qualifications like the American Bar Association or the American Medical Association. As a result, they distinguished the status of engineer from that of a draftsman or technician. Third, they were less interested in autonomy as a profession, than they were in business and business values. Thus, they became composed of more and more business-oriented engineers. However, some elite engineers were against this way of thinking. While Maurice L. Cooke was a mechanical engineer, a Taylorite, and had worked for the secretary of the ASME for a long time, he played an important role in “the revolt of the engineers.” Although he accepted elitism among engineers, he asserted that the division between engineer and business should be respected. He also maintained that engineers must be independent from the interests of big business. He believed that engineers should not be dependent on business, that they be professional in terms of being autonomous, democratic, and ethics-minded. Even though he suggested his ideas to these ‘founder’ societies, his action was in vain. He finally became actively involved in the American Association of Engineers(AAE) which was founded in 1915. Most members of the AAE came from rank-and-file engineers. With Frederick H. Newell he helped to strengthen the AAE’s activities. There could be, at least, three interpretations on ‘the revolt of the engineers.’The first perspective sees that since the early period of the 20th century ‘the revolt of the engineers’ ended as a tempest in a teapot. And the case of the AAE was a perfect example. The second perspective sees that the American engineers have resisted regularly against big business in their own way. The failure of the revolt was due to the engineers or the innovative engineers, who were the pioneers or leaders of ‘the revolt of the engineers’ rather than having been pressured by big business. The last perspective agrees that ‘the revolt of the engineers’ has occurred regularly. However, it emphasized the social roles of the engineering societies or engineering professionalism. It also suggests that the failure of ‘the revolt of the engineers’ could give some opportunity for another kind of resistance, and in turn, sometimes this could raise the issue on the material base of the rank-and-file engineers. The pivotal point is the balance between business and professionalism. If the engineer is a real professional he/she must be in a position which allows him/her to decide things independently. Unlike lawyers or doctors, the majority of the engineers in America were the employees of big business. In other words, they were industrial engineers. Because of the diverse strata of the engineering groups, the more they wanted to disclose their identities the more the conflict among them grew. Thus, American engineers had maintained their status of a “fragmented profession” as Monte Calvert asserted.