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Hilary Anne Ward
English 9990: Preparation for the QE

The history of technical communication is primarily a history of writing at work. Since its inception as a writing course within the engineering department of agricultural and mechanical (A&M) colleges founded by the Morrill Act (1862; 1877), technical communication has struggled to attain legitimacy as an academic field by positing theories, methodologies, pedagogies and ethics that “can be applied to the workplace” (Anderson). When the first technical writing courses began within engineering departments in 1908, the term technical writing referred to the workplace writing of engineers; the corresponding “Engineering English” courses emphasized “the usefulness of English in advancing the professional practice” of engineering (Harabager). Then, as the Taylor system of “scientific” management (1895-1947) lead to fine-grained specialization in the engineering workplace, including the separation of clerical and managerial from manual labor, technical writing differentiated from engineering and grew into an aspiring communications profession comparable to radio broadcasting and journalism [cite Longo]. The academic field of technical communication instituted graduate-level courses to support the profession; after World War II, technical communication programs had migrated from engineering departments to the Rhetoric and Compositions programs within English departments in which technical communication is new most often housed (Connors).