[SIGCIS-Members] A new PhD on nationalism and information technology in the 1950s Finland

James Cortada jwcorta at us.ibm.com
Fri Nov 14 05:21:51 PST 2008


Petri, thank you for sharing this information.  What you did is really
quite important because we do not always know what is being written or
published in various countries and so if we can all share this kind of
information from our own countries it helps everyone.  I especially
appreciate the fact that you made it possible for us to download a copy of
the history.

Well done!

Jim (James) W. Cortada
IBM Institute for Business Value
3001 West Beltline Highway
Madison, WI 53713 USA
jwcorta at us.ibm.com
608-270-4462


                                                                                                               
  From:       Petri Paju <petpaju at utu.fi>                                                                      
                                                                                                               
  To:         members at sigcis.org                                                                               
                                                                                                               
  Date:       11/14/08 03:15 AM                                                                                
                                                                                                               
  Subject:    [SIGCIS-Members] A new PhD on nationalism and information technology in the 1950s Finland        
                                                                                                               






Hi all,

For your information, here's a new book that deals with history of
information technology and nationalism in the 1950s Finland, with a
title: "Building 'Ilmarinen's Finland': The Committee for Mathematical
Machines and computer construction as a national project in the 1950s"
(540 pages, in Finnish).

- Ilmarinen is a character, a blacksmith, in the Finnish national epic,
the Kalevala, and later used as a symbol of technical skills. I also
deal and continue with the scientist's international interactions that
were a major part of making this 'national project' in the forthcoming
article in IEEE Annals of the history of computing (4/2008).


The thesis can be found electronically (a PDF file) in:
https://oa.doria.fi/handle/10024/37737

And here's the abstract for it (there's an almost ten page Summary in
the end of the PDF file):

The dissertation “Building ‘Ilmarinen’s Finland’: The Committee for
Mathematical Machines and computer construction as a national project in
the 1950s” examines the history of information technology and
nationalism in the 1950’s Finland. The study focuses on the Committee
for Mathematical Machines (1954-1960), which was designated to acquire
the country’s first computer, and its associates and asks, how was the
Committee justified, especially from the perspective of the national
good, and what kind of motives did the actions of the Committee
manifest. The motives studied are the Committee’s goals in the field of
computing, in developing science and technology in society, and in
imagining Finland anew. The materials for the study consist of a
multifaceted collection of sources from Finland, Sweden and Germany.

The Committee chose to duplicate a G1a computer from Göttingen, Western
Germany. In Finland the computer was named ESKO. However, the copying
was delayed several times and eventually produced an old-fashioned
computer. In addition to building the ESKO, the Committee early on
intended to create a national computing center in Helsinki. This master
plan can be regarded as a scientific and technological policy prior to
state involvement in such matters in Finland.

The projects of the Committee greatly benefitted the field, particularly
the companies of IBM Finland and the Finnish Cable Works, which started
a computing center similar to that planned by the Committee. This
business unit later evolved into a part of the Nokia Corporation. The
term ‘Ilmarinen’s Finland’ is used to argue that technology did not just
become a ‘national project’ in postwar Finland, but was explicitly made so.


--
Petri Paju, FT, tutkija, Turun yliopisto
-- Ph.D. Researcher, Univ. of Turku
http://users.utu.fi/petpaju/
_______________________________________________
This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of
SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/
and you can change your subscription options at
http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/attachments/20081114/82b1436c/attachment-0001.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: graycol.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 105 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/attachments/20081114/82b1436c/attachment-0002.gif>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: ecblank.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 45 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/attachments/20081114/82b1436c/attachment-0003.gif>


More information about the Members mailing list