IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Fall 2014 - 29

number of people needed for what had been labor intensive manual tasks and required advanced skills to understand and operate. Going forward, railroad unions were
often hesitant to back new technologies unless improvements to worker safety were clearly demonstrated.
for all the technological advances they represented,
the transcontinentals also wrought unanticipated ecological and social change to the western landscape. Many
of these problems, such as the overgrazing of grasslands
in the arid western plains or the decimation of bison
herds, are better understood with the benefit of hindsight,
although some late 19th century commentators recognized the problems as they were unfolding. In the former,
the railroads allowed thousands of cattle to be shuttled
around from one region to another during their lifecycle.
Prime grasslands were burdened with more animals than
they could naturally accommodate, which quickly led to
the degradation of the land.
In the latter, the railroads made possible the rapid
westward movement of settlers and sportsmen who
hunted the bison not so much for sustenance but as a
way to obtain hides and rid the area of an obstacle to cattle grazing. The loss of bison would in turn have ripple

effects through the American Indian tribes that depended
on the animals for protein, hides, and other products. As
White notes, "The railroads seemed unable to achieve a
balance between too much and too little. They enabled
farmers and miners to produce far more cattle, wheat,
and silver than the world needed." Unregulated growth
was "dumb growth" that would only cause problems by
distorting economic markets.
In attempting to focus on the ways in which the
transcontinental railroads and associated technologies
impacted Americans in the late 19th century, I have
glossed over the content of large sections of Railroaded.
Richard White provides insight and detail into a variety of topics, including how the growth of the railroads
influenced and affected nascent corporate structures, the
anti-monopolist movement, financial markets, and the
development of labor organizations. He takes great pains
to untangle the complicated relationship, one of benefits
and losses, between the government and railroads. Closing each chapter, White also treats the reader to vignettes
of railroad folks - station masters, laborers, family
members - whose personal stories help to humanize a
period of our history often described in superlatives.

BOOK REVIEW

DAVID MATHER

The Color Revolution
by Regina Blaszczyk. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 2012, 368 pp.

f you've ever delighted in seeing ridiculous new
color names for clothing, furniture, or other products, you're already familiar with an enduring
mystery of color theory that touches far-reaching philosophical questions: how color names relate
to our visual perceptions. This conundrum surfaces
in contemporary American society as a complicated
mix of science, industry, and poetry that accompanies
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2014.2352993
Date of publication: 17 September 2014

such concoctions as Neon Sorbet or Metallic Creamsicle. Even when marveling at the absurdity of these
labels, we accept the obvious truth that language is
governed by a high degree of arbitrariness. Increasingly whimsical naming of hues is one facet in the
sweeping history of business and industrial interests
around coloration in last 150 years, as chronicled in
Regina Blaszczyk's The Color Revolution.
The main theme threaded through this scholarly
cultural treatment is the emergence, from the mid19th century to the mid-20th century, of a newly

David Mather is the Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Architecture at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. He is currently completing a book-length study of visual movement in early Italian futurism.
Email: mather@mit.edu.
IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

fALL 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Fall 2014