National Projects, International Cooperation: Transnational development of the icebreaker, 1890-1954

Beschreibung

Referent: Saara Matala, Assistant Professor at Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden

Icebreakers are gigantic, sophisticated machines that carry a state flag and the fame of heroic missions. As tangible objects of competence and prowess, many of these ships have become symbols of technological nationalism. Their history is often narrated as a story of a national engineering feat.

This study follows the development and adoption of icebreaker innovations by analysing material artefacts and engineering networks. In specific, it focuses on three icebreakers: Ymer (1933), the first diesel–electric icebreaker, was a feat of Swedish electrical engineering, while the US 'Wind' class (1942–1946) icebreakers demonstrated the capability of the superpower to penetrate polar ice and the Finnish Voima (1954) marked the entrance of a peripheral country into the high-tech industry.

While all of these icebreakers were ships of national importance, the study shows that they resulted from international cooperation, close state-industry interaction, and widespread transnational networks of engineers. These networks were vital in the early development of these expensive and complex vessels when it was still impossible to test design ideas in ice model basins and simulations. In that way, the study also explores the engineering profession as balancing old and new solutions: How to manage risk when aiming for a technical breakthrough?

This lecture is based on the article: Aaro Sahari and Saara Matala. "Of a titan, winds and power: Transnational development of the icebreaker, 1890-1954." International Journal of maritime history 33, no. 4 (2021): 722-747. The article has open access and is available through the link: journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/08438714211062493

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