Günter Dinhobl (Hrsg.): Sonderband 7. Eisenbahn/Kultur – Railway/Culture (2004)
I. Für eine Kulturgeschichte der Eisenbahn / Towards a cultural history of railways - Michael Cotte: Railways and Culture: An Introduction
Michael Cotte 1. General Approaches of Historians The Question of Links between the History of Technology and Culture The general question of “Railways and Culture’’ has always belonged to two main fields. For the history of technology, railways created a paradigmatic theme for observing the innovations and the improvements in mechanical and steam-engine technologies devoted to transportation, and moreover to describe the implementation of a new technical system at the core of the “Industrial Revolution”. From the viewpoint of economical and social history, railways largely documented the typical features shaping the new industrial society from the mid - 19th to the early 20th century. They were outstanding examples for studying the management of complex companies, transportation economy, territorial development, the social groups of railwaymen, the growing of industrial capitalism, the extent of administrative control, the anthropology of consumers etc. Nevertheless, merging two such promising fields quickly raises some difficulties, because they belong to two opposite fields. Purposes, hypotheses, methods are different when dealing with an “internal history” and a “contextual history”. “Railways” bear material features that enable us to understand the genesis of a complex human artefact. Of course, railways remain as an outstanding historical example for the first mechanical powering of transportation. Within this paper the term “Culture" belongs to the immaterial concepts of human history, based on peoples’ habits, social behaviours, education, intellectual references, political organisations etc. Therein lies the difficulties in crossing such studies - but also the enrichment! Consequently there are many ways of approaching the subject and we must be aware of complex methodological patterns. This kind of confrontation can bear exceptional opportunities to understand the complexity of the relationships between technology and human beings. If the subject is well documented by case studies, it will call special attention to the cultural background and the intellectual patterns needed for the technical development of railways. Reciprocally, the railways’ technology shaped a range of new social and commercial behaviours and new cultural trends among railwaymen and consumers. Did railways perform a perfect demonstration of progress? Did they base the core of the new industrial capitalism? Of course, railways offer exceptional issues for a global history of technology, as an axle of the first European industrialisation. For the material aspects, railways pointed out some outstanding examples of innovations and technical diffusions. For economic and social change, railways were directly linked with an array of features creating the “Industrial Civilisation” from 1830 to World War II. For more than one 44
