Steven Walton
He
Steven Walton is an associate professor of history in the Industrial Heritage and Archaeology (IHA) program at Michigan Tech University, and identifies primarily as a historian of technology, which along with material culture are the topics he has taught in the IHA graduate program. His recent publications include articles on the iron ore washing industry in nineteenth-century Pennsylvania (for which he won the 2019 SIA Vogel Prize); the display of captured World War I trophies in America; “arsenal zones” of military-industrial production (early modern); and cannon foundries in the Early American Republic. He co-edited the diary of an artist and architect in antebellum America and wrote two essays (with Tim Scarlett) on “Technology” in Bloomsbury’s Cultural History of Objects series; and with his colleagues at Michigan Tech, the Historic Resource Survey and Archaeological Overview & Assessment for the Pullman National Historical Landmark in Chicago for the NPS. He is also the editor of the journal IA and the SIA executive secretary, and has been editor or co-editor of 8 edited collections on various topics.
Kyle Parker-McGlynn is working on his dissertation, which centers on digital industrial heritage and the role of augmented reality (AR) at industrial heritage sites, in the industrial Heritage and Archaeology program at Michigan Tech University. He has a background in geography and archaeology, as well as digital game design.
Documents
Sessions in which Steven Walton participates
Wednesday 31 August, 2022
Sessions in which Steven Walton attends
Sunday 28 August, 2022
Join the conference organisers and TICCIH board members for a welcome cocktail and some festive words of introduction, in the former forge of the École technique de Montréal, founded in 1909, now part of the Université du Québec à Montréal campus.
Monday 29 August, 2022
This roundtable will examine innovative and creative pedagogical approaches and partnerships that have created opportunities for experiential learning and community engagement, while enabling successful delivery of programs and courses in industrial heritage. In recent years and with the ongoing situation with the COVID-19 pandemic, undoubtedly online and distance teaching and learning are a top priority. The discussions will offer an analytical dialogue on digital learning strategies and ...
Industrial heritage and photography have a close relationship. Photography is a source for industrial archaeology. It sheds light on the links between people, their tools, their machines and their workplaces. Once the industrial activity is over, photography is also a tool for documenting and studying the sites. But far beyond that, captured by artists capable of transcending common representations, conferring on industrial remains the ugliness of an era that was thought to be over, photog...
Si la vallée du canal de Lachine a été le berceau de l’industrialisation canadienne, la géographie industrielle métropolitaine ne s’y est pas confinée, peu s’en faut, Outre les grandes concentrations d’entreprises des quartiers centraux, elle est constituée des réseaux infrastructuraux, d’une douzaine de centrales hydroélectriques et des ensembles manufacturiers disséminés dans une quinzaine de petites villes aujourd’hui intégrées dans l’aire métropolitaine. La conférence proposera un surv...
Tuesday 30 August, 2022
This session will allow us to explore, through nine international case studies, the different strategies for the development of industrial heritage as well as their impacts on communities and their territory. The analysis of museums, cultural spaces, itineraries and urban developments will be an opportunity to highlight the questions of identity, meaning, relevance and impact that animate all the actors of this heritage in transformation.
It is widely accepted that understanding a historic place is a critical first step to guide subsequent management and conservation. Industrial sites present a number of challenges as understanding their form, function, design, boundaries, and conservation often requires a high degree of technical expertise and experience. In Canada, gaining this expertise and information sharing is hampered by a limited number of institutions offering training in industrial archaeology and the lack of a na...
As a "continent” country, in which industrialization began as early as the 19th century, Canada has seen through deindustrialization and urban redevelopment, parts of this heritage have been either altered or destroyed. Yet, Canada still possesses a very significant industrial heritage. With Canada being a confederation, approaches to the protection and the safeguard of its industrial heritage differs throughout the provinces and territories of the country. The same is true of i...
Drawing on case studies from diverse social, cultural, and political contexts the papers in this session discuss the different responses to maintaining and assessing not only the physical sustainability of industrial heritage but also the sustainability of its social values and meaning.
Efforts to preserve industrial heritage occurs in a socio-economic and political context. But what is being preserved and for whom? And, relatedly, what is the relationship between industrial heritage sites and the deindustrialized working-class communities that often adjoin them? The keynote will consider the ways that the preservation of Montreal’s Lachine Canal, Canada’s premier industrial heritage site, has enabled gentrification processes that have forc...
Wednesday 31 August, 2022
This session brings together a set of studies focused on the uses adaptative reuses (and even replications) of industrial heritage in the larger context of its urban and social landscapes. Urban industrial memory, its social and territorial impacts, as well as its conservation and promotion, will be discussed from a variety of case studies ranging from Central and Southern Europe to Turkey, China and North America. The interdisciplinary approaches underlying each of the studies will also b...
Mega-events have been considered as a strategy to boost urban development, which shifts targets from expansion outside of the original city fabric to reuse of heritage. The bidirectional dynamic between mega-events and heritage has been emphasized, as the former brings both resources and contradiction, and nowadays, the latter is further exploited for future development, connecting its value with the need of society. However, the research on the coupling between ...
Rome Reloaded. Or Industrial Heritage Meets the ArtsSince the end of the Industrial Age, the treatment of its heritage has changed from demolition to preservation (Kierdorf/Hassler 2000). In Rome—which is usually not perceived as an industrial city—, over 60 related examples (Torelli Landini 2007) offer a wide field of research regarding visions for its future. Recently, the challenges to reload those artefacts have been accepted also by foreign...
Thursday 1 September, 2022
The Bata Company, which evolved from a small workshop in Zlin in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, today being part of the Czech Republic, at the end of the 19th century, became one of the best-known largest shoe producers in the world in the second half of the twentieth century. The company was not characterised by the unique organisational structure and implementation of disruptive innovations only. Also, it is connected with significant investments in the social life of its employees....
The proposed session will examine the unfolding relationship between industrial heritage and those left behind in adjoining deindustrialized working-class areas. The four papers seek to understand the socio-economic and political impact of recognizing the industrial past in the present. Two guiding questions will be asked. Can industrial heritage support those ‘left behind’ in deindustrialized areas where nothing, or very little, has filled the economic or cultural vacuum? Has industrial h...
This session addresses a perpetuating disjunction between conceptualisation of heritage and heritage making in heritage studies vis-a-vis heritage management and conservation of industrial heritage sites. There is an inevitable impact of this disjunction on advancing policy in people- and place-centred approaches to heritage futures. This session aims to explore ways in which tangible and intangible traces of the past can be utilised creatively in shaping desirable places to dwell and work...
This lecture will argue that the landscapes of industrial heritage that can be found in different parts of the world are directly related to the place-specific trajectories of deindustrialization. In other words: the different ways in which deindustrialization impacts on local communities has a direct bearing on the emergence of forms of industrial heritage. I will differentialte between deindustrialization paths and related industrial heritage regimes in a) Anglo-...
