Twisted Rails Sunken Ships - Baywood's Technical Communications Author:R. John Brockmann Contemporary disaster investigation reports into the shuttle, Three Mile Island, or the World Trade Center did not happen by chance, but were the result of an evolution of the discourse communities involved with investigating technological accidents. The relationships of private companies, coroners, outside experts, and government investigators ... more »all had to be developed and experimented with before a genre of investigation reports could exist. This book is the story of the evolution of these investigation discourse communities in published reports written between 1833 and 1879. Specifically we will look at the interactions between three different types of investigation reports: the findings of the coroner's jury, defensive explanations from involved companies, and reports by scientists. Using the reports generated by seven different accidents on railroads and steamboats between 1833 and 1876 we will be able to observe the changes in how these reports interacted and changed over the course of the nineteenth century:
* The Explosion of the Steamboat New England in the Connecticut River, 1833
* The Explosion of the Locomotive Engine Richmond near Reading Pennsylvania, 1844
* The Explosion of the Steam Boat Moselle in Cincinatti, 1838
* The Camden and Amboy Railroad Collision in Burlington, New Jersey, 1855
* The Gasconade Bridge Collapse on the Pacific Railroad in Missouri, 1855
* The Eastern Railroad Collision in Revere, Massachusetts, 1871
* The Ashtabula Railroad Bridge Collapse in Ohio, 1876 The final chapter goes beyond just these reports to look at Charles Francis Adams Jr.'s book, Notes on Railroad Accidents, in which this leader of the Massachusetts Railroad Commission reviewed progress in accident investigations over the course of the nineteenth century as well as his personal involvement in the investigations. This book closes with the publication of this key technical text since one of the results of this book is that the Federal Government through the creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) directed all subsequent investigations. Intended Audience: Technical communication writers; teachers and students of technical communications; historians of technology, as well as steamboat history and railroad history buffs.« less