Les sources de l'histoire des techniques. Acteurs et documents

14e workshop international TPTI

21 septembre 2023, Paris

 

It is widely recognized that the history of technology relies on a wide variety of sources (Gille, 1978).
The historian is confronted with research materials that are both voluminous and incomplete (Daumas, 1962; 1969). Identifying materials and manufacturing processes, tracing the evolution of technical objects, understanding their uses, their values, and the discourses that support them requires different types of documents : writings, iconographic sources, objects, production sites, ethnographic surveys, but also mesure drawings, physico-chemical analyses, reconstruction or reconstitution of processes, etc) is necessary (Bret et al., 2000, Corcy et al., 2002, Ravier-Mazzocco, 2012, Dillmann & L’Héritier, 2016).

One of the main goal of this Workshop was to reflect on the actors behind the constitution of thoses collections. The aim was to bring to light the conditions of collection, sorting, classification, circulationand conservation of sources.

For what reasons are the traces of technical activities preserved? For what reasons are they discarded, doomed to oblivion and destruction? Which sources are privileged? In which places? For which public are the collections constituted (practitioners, amateurs, laymen)? What ideas, what ideologies, what policies underlie these choices?

Up to know, the archives of important administrations and institutions (academies and museums relating to science and technology, institutions linked to inventive activity, labor museums, large companies) have been the subject of close study. But many collections from institutions or private initiatives remain poorly known or unexplored (for France, see, for example, the Réseau des musées et collections techniques, REMUT, the archives of learned societies, etc.).
It was therefore proposed to pay close attention to:

• The poorly known or unexplored corpus;
• The role of practitioners (craftsmen, workers, industrialists), users, amateurs;
• The role of communities of practitioners (workers’ associations, sociétés conpagnonniques, etc.);
• Territorial dynamics.

In so doing, the workshop sought to shed light on the contribution of “technicians” (mentioned by Lucien Febvre as early as 1935) as well as that of amateurs to the construction of technical knowledge and its patrimonialization

 

PROGRAM

Introduction. Valérie Nègre (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)

Session 1. Diversité des acteurs

- De la collection de cartes postales à l’étude du patrimoine maritime : parcours d’un collectionneur, chercheur et conservateur, François Beaudouin (1920-2013). Léa Surrel (Musée national de la Marine), Eric Rieth (Directeur de recherche émérite au CNRS, Musée national de la Marine).
- Ciencias y técnicas en el Museo maritimo de Asturias. José Ramón Garcia Lopez (Director del Museo Marítimo de Asturias, Luanco, Espagne).
- Une collection privée contemporaine de dessins de compagnons. Jean-Michel Mathoniere (Chercheur indépendant).
- Ce récurrent mal d’archive en Argentine : les archives de l’entreprise Bunge & Born (1884-1950). Juan Araujo (Masterant, Erasmus Mundus TPTI).
- Le fonds Carlhian au Getty Research Institute. Les archives d’entreprises et la décoration intérieure. Pour une histoire matérielle de l’architecture. Juan Pablo Pekarek (Doctorant, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, IHMC).

Session 2. Les sources inédites des techniques

- Pour une étude de la charronnerie à l'époque romaine : corpora de sources et aspects méthodologiques. Michel Molin (Professeur émérite d'Histoire romaine, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, Laboratoire Pléiade UR7338).
- Les archives des sciences et des techniques dans les fonds anciens des Archives nationales, Moyen Âge, Ancien régime. Maia Pirat (Chargée d’Études documentaires, Archives nationales).
- Dessiner l’orfèvrerie, les archives graphiques des ateliers Lapparra. Clara Villani (Doctorante, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, IHMC).
- Écrire le savoir-faire des indiennes : les coloristes et leurs cahiers. Camille Mommessin (Masterante Histoire et civilisations, Faculté des sciences historiques de l’Université de Strasbourg).