No More Slide Rules – The Costs and Benefits of Innovation

Time Required

1-1 ½ class periods

Overview

Ongoing innovation and technological development result in a dynamic churning of the productive sectors of the economy, a process that economist Joseph Schumpeter has called “creative destruction.” As new processes and products replace old, the demand for labor changes. One of the costs of innovation is job loss; workers whose labor was once valuable find themselves unemployed. We’re often very aware of this cost, particularly if the change in demand for labor is sudden.

Teacher Preparation:

  1. Read through the attached handouts and visuals:

    • The Railroad Letter – Once purported to be an authentic communication between Governor Martin Van Buren and President Andrew Jackson, the so-called “railroad letter” appeared in economic history textbooks as evidence of Americans’ resistance to technological progress. Although it has recently been determined to be a fake (see U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, at http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/vanburen.htm), it does accurately reflect a persistent theme in American history: the resistance to innovation by workers in displaced industries. As Richard Alm and Michael Cox comment in their book, Myths of Rich and Poor,

    Van Buren’s concerns may seem comical now . . . [but they] echo in present-day America, where advocates of saving jobs call on government to enact measures to protect workers from the vagaries of the free-enterprise system. Indeed, there are almost always proposals to thwart layoffs . . .[and] plant closings. . . . (134)

    • Slide Rule Letter – A parody of the railroad letter, using a more contemporary innovation.
    • Slide Rule History – Hewlett Packard’s and Texas Instruments’ production of the pocket calculator in the early 1970s ended the manufacturing of slide-rules almost overnight.
    • Prompt – The scenario describes the political fallout for a fictitious senator who chose to make no response to the pleas of slide rule makers facing unemployment as an innovation, the pocket calculator, makes their product obsolete. The scenario provides the prompt for an authentic task or performance assessment.
  2. Read through the procedure options below. Determine whether a teacher-directed classroom exercise with the handouts that follow or a more autonomous, student-directed, research-based project is better-suited to your class and curriculum goals.
    • All necessary handouts for the teacher-directed classroom exercise follow these procedures.
    • For the student-directed research project, browse the starting source suggestions. Investigate whether the sources you want to use are available in the school library or online. Create handouts and/or data packets and/or a list of web links, depending on the sophistication of students and the availability of adequate source material. Online and database searches may provide additional source material.

Procedure Options:

Teacher-directed classroom activity

  1. Distribute either the railroad letter or the slide rule letter and slide rule history handout. Read and discuss with students.
  2. Brainstorm a list of the benefits that Americans at all levels of society have enjoyed as a result of innovations in rail transportation (or computers and microprocessors).
  3. Assign students to write a response from President Jackson to Martin Van Buren (or from Senator Sanders to the Slide Rule Makers Association) as if these people were magically alive today and had witnessed the changes in the economy since they received the letter in question.
    • Prepare for the written assignment by discussing with the class:
      • What could you say to convince the letter writers that support for the railroad (computers) was in their best interests and in the best interests of the country?
      • What evidence could you offer?

Student-directed authentic task

  1. Distribute the slide rule letter and the slide rule history handouts. Give students time to read the handouts and then discuss the plight of the slide-rule makers.
    • How should the Senator respond to the slide rule makers’ request? Why?
    • What kind of data could the Senator look for in trying to decide whether to support the slide rule makers’ demand that the government stem the tide of computer technology and innovation? (Examples might include job destruction and creation numbers, job growth by industry, product prices, production costs, how quickly innovations spread, etc.)

  2. Distribute the “Prompt” handout and read through with students. Review the task and answer questions about the report that student teams are to produce. Explain whether findings are to be presented orally, in written form, using a graphic, etc.

    • Distribute handouts and data packets or a “Places to Start” source list to help students get started with their investigations.

Suggested Sources

Cox, W. Michael and Richard Alm. Myths of Rich and Poor. New York: Basic Books, 1999. Chapter 6, “The Upside of Downsizing,” and Chapter 8, “The Economy at Light Speed,” are both recommended. Chapter 6 includes several charts showing the changes in employment in different industries as a result of innovation; also see p. 132 to make a handout on the rate of re-employment of workers who lose their jobs to technology. Chapter 8 contains a useful discussion (pp. 161-2) on how quickly innovations enter people’s lives; this makes a powerful and informative 1-page handout.

Census Bureau documents (Department of Commerce) (These are available in the reference section of many libraries. Recent issues may also be available in CD format or downloadable online. Note, however, that sophisticated search and download skills may be necessary. Students may find it much easier to work with the print materials.)

Bureau of Labor Statistics documents (Department of Labor)

President’s Council of Economic Advisors

The Railroad Letter

To President Andrew Jackson

The canal system of this country is being threatened by the spread of a new form of transportation known as “railroads.” The federal government must preserve the canals for the following reasons:

One. If canal boats are supplanted by “railroads,” serious unemployment will result. Captains, cooks, drivers, hostlers, repairmen and lock tenders will be left without means of livelihood, not to mention the numerous farmers now employed in growing hay for horses.

Two. Boat builders would suffer and tow-line, whip and harness makers would be left destitute.

Three. Canal boats are absolutely essential to the defence [sic] of the United States. In the event of the expected trouble with England, the Erie Canal would be the only means by which we could ever move the supplies so vital to waging modern war.

As you may well know, Mr. President, “railroad” carriages are pulled at the enormous speed of 15 miles per hour by “engines” which, in addition to endangering life and limb of passengers, roar and snort their way through the countryside, setting fire to crops, scaring the livestock and frightening women and children. The Almighty certainly never intended that people should travel at such breakneck speed.

Martin Van Buren
Governor of New York
January 31, 1829


The Slide Rule Letter

April 1, 1973

To the Chairman, U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation:

We, the humble workers who manufacture slide-rules, ask you to address the threat posed by the relentless innovation in electronic calculating devices. We urge the creation of a Science and Technology Commission to protect working citizens from runaway technology.

We believe that if computing technology is allowed to spread, industries like ours will be destroyed. “Calculators,” for example, threaten not only our jobs, but the livelihood of tens of thousands who commonly use slide rules – those in occupations like surveying, engineering, drafting, construction, and mathematics and science education.

If we allow continued innovation in “calculators,” we will not only destroy the jobs of tens of thousands of workers, but will endanger the economic future of our nation. If generations of children are allowed to use these devices in school, they will surely never develop the mental skills that adults have traditionally accumulated through years of struggle with the mysteries of mathematics.

Thus, the harm will spread, undermining the ability of young people to enter even those jobs demanding the lowest levels of mathematical skill. How can we conduct our market economy if we cannot even trust our counter clerks to make correct change ?!

Finally, the spread of the computing technology will create serious divisions within our society. It is indeed a bitter pill to swallow that the calculators and computers that destroy our standard of living are toys for the wealthy – toys far beyond the means of the humble workers they replace.

As you may know, Mr. Chairman, “calculators” work faster than the brain and the manufacturers claim that they never make errors. Surely you must see that our civilization will be destroyed if we allow machines to do our thinking for us.

President,
Slide Rule Manufacturers of America

Slide Rule History

The slide rule was developed by William Oughtred, an English minister, in 1632. It allowed people to use the mathematical discovery of logarithms (by John Napier, in 1614) to solve complex calculations in surveying and engineering, as well as in mathematical and scientific studies.

Slide rule

Over the next 150 years, significant improvements made the slide rule an even more valuable tool.

By the 19th century, there were slide rule manufacturers throughout the industrialized world. A sampling includes:

Refinements in the 1960s and early 70s further enhanced the value of the slide rule to progress, production, and rising standards of living in the West. Perhaps the crowning achievement came in 1969 when Apollo 11 landed on the moon with the help of a slide rule!

Soon after this accomplishment, however, the 350 year old industry vanished – practically overnight. In 1971, Hewlett Packard produced the HP35, the first pocket calculator with trigonometric, logarithmic, exponential, and inverse functions. Priced at almost $400, its 1972 sales nonetheless signaled the end of the slide rule industry:

In the last decades of the 20th century, slide rules were mostly a forgotten relic. Today, they are collectibles. While there a number of websites devoted to explaining, identifying and trading slide rules – and there are many avid collectors – there is no slide-rule industry.

Prompt

Date

October, 1980

Situation

Right before the 1976 general election, a major newspaper in the capital city of your home state made an issue of the scheduled December closing of the entire slide rule division of the local technical equipment manufacturing firm. In the course of reporting the sad news that there would be no holiday celebrations at the homes of the slide rule makers, the media discovered and published a letter to Senator Sanders predicting this very catastrophe. Based on his well-publicized and long-held position that innovation paved the way to American wealth, the Senator had chosen not to answer the letter.

Displaying signs saying, “We Put America on the Moon – Put That in Your Pocket Calculator!” the slide-rule makers captured public sympathy. Naturally, the opposition candidate jumped on the issue. Her campaign ads portrayed the workers as patriotic Americans responsible for the success of Apollo 11 and the Senator as heartless and uncaring, willing to sacrifice the “working man” for science-fiction technology that would benefit only the wealthy.

The Senator immediately stated his heartfelt sympathy for the laid-off workers, but that didn’t quiet the uproar. Because the factory was one of the largest employers in the area, many people felt that as Chairman of the Senate’s standing committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, he could have prevented the hardship that affected so many. The election was close, but the slide-rule incident tipped the scales. After 18 years in Washington, Senator Sanders’ career of public service was over.

Last month (September, 1980), the Senator was contacted by a public affairs organization asking his cooperation in creating a television biography of his years in the Senate. In return, they have offered him a 15-minute segment to evaluate, with the advantage of hind-sight, his outspoken support of innovation and the circumstances that empowered a small group of slide-rule makers to end his powerful career.

The Senator accepted the offer and has hired an esteemed history professor and writer at State University to gather evidence and prepare a defense of his position on innovation. Senator Sanders still argues that the benefits of innovation outweigh the costs, and that those benefits are greatest for the poor and working classes. He sees this as his chance to right the historical record by constructing a clear and easy to understand comparison of the benefits and costs of the wave of computing innovations that destroyed the jobs of the slide-rule makers and ended his Senate career.

Your Role

It is the fall of 1980 and you are a graduate student at State University, working on your PhD. You are currently taking the esteemed history professor’s graduate seminar, entitled “The Post WWII American Economy.” The seminar participants have been divided into teams to gather the data and prepare a rough draft of the position paper the professor will write for Senator Sanders. The professor will choose the best draft, rewarding the team members with an A in the seminar and a listing as co-authors when the paper is published.

Directions

Begin by reading exhibits A (The Slide-rule Letter) and B (Slide-rule History). Exhibit B tells you what has happened in the slide rule industry since the 1976 election. (Remember that it is now 1980.)

Brainstorm a list of types of evidence you could use to construct a case comparing the benefits and costs of the stream of innovation that put the slide-rule makers out of work.

Beginning with the list of suggested sources (or the data packet) distributed by your teacher, compile evidence to build your case.