Narrative disconnect: where do our ideas about invention come from?

Our studies of invention are dominated by a narrative that sees independent inventors replaced as the source of technical novelty by corporate research labs. Born of practical considerations, this narrative has become so normative that some studies are hemmed in by it without their authors even being aware of it. Refusal to update the old concept of invention creates a gap between what we tell students about how invention happened and what our research says. Indeed, young historians are so estranged by the old narrative that they don’t even frame their work as a contribution to the study of invention. The dominant invention narrative reproduces several problematic focuses of the field: the individual, particular American industries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a particular understanding of what institutions make important contributions to technology, and what technology is. By updating the narrative, we stand to enrich a deeply embedded and alienating narrative that shapes where and how we look for technical change.