Technology and Culture

IEEE Prize 635 THE IEEE LIFE MEMBERS PRIZE IN ELECTRICAL HISTORY The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Life Members Prize in Electrical History, which consists of $500 and a certificate, was established to encourage the publication of scholarly research in the field of electrical history. The Life Members of the IEEE who support this award also sponsor the IEEE History Fellow­ ship and summer internships for student historians. The Life Mem­ bers Prize is awarded annually on the recommendation of the SHOT Awards Committee to the author of the best paper in electrical history published during the previous calendar year. The 1987 IEEE Prize Subcommittee consisted ofJames E. Brittain (chair), Hugh G. J. Aitken, and Bernard S. Finn. Thomas J. Misa was awarded the 1987 prize for his paper, “Military Needs, Commercial Realities, and the Development of the Transistor, 1948—1958,” pub­ lished in Military Enterprise and Technological Change, edited by Merritt Roe Smith (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1985, pp. 253—87). The citation for the 1987 Life Members Prize reads as follows: In his paper, Thomas J. Misa provides a stimulating analysis of the important role of the military services, especially the Army Signal Corps, during the developmental phase of the revolution­ ary solid-state electronics technology based on the transistor in­ vented at the Bell Telephone Laboratories. He gives a careful examination of the tension that existed between perceived mili­ tary requirements and those of civilian-sector users of the new technology. Misa finds that military sponsors exerted a strong influence on the pace of development and on the size and struc­ ture ofthe emerging solid-state electronics industry. He concludes that the development of the transistor serves as a paradigm for other recent innovations in which military enterprise has altered significantly the environment of technological change. * * * To be considered for the prize, authors should submit three copies of their papers to the chair of the prize subcommittee. Alternately, papers may be nominated for consideration by another party. The deadline for the submission or nomination of 1988 papers for the prize to be awarded in 1989 is May 15, 1989. ...