'Viele Wenige machen ein Viel' - Eine Kleingeschichte der Wasserkraft im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert

• Applicant: Dr. Christian Zumbrägel
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2017 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 389626439

Utilizing the energy of flowing water for milling purposes shaped the character of our preindustrial cultural landscape for centuries. Although much has been written about the early applications of waterpower, we know comparatively little about the continued usage of smalscale plants in the 19th and 20th centuries. Historians of later times have, moreover, tended to focus their attention on the predominant fossil-based energy regime or the large-scale harnessing of flowing waters for the production of waste amounts of electricity—known as "white coal". Less impressive and perhaps backward, the long-proven energy production of "old Technologies", like small-scale grain and hammer mills driven by waterwheels has been widely neglected. My research aims at recovering the technological transformation of small hydraulic power engines during the time of turbinization and electrification by comparing different waterscapes on a local level. It seeks to determine, whether and to what extent, owners of existing small mechanical mills modified their own operations when faced with innovative opportunities in energy distribution. Historians discussing such modifications have mostly highlighted radical shifts, e.g. from old and inefficient wooden waterwheels to efficient coal-powered steam engines or rationally designed water turbines. This dissertation revises mainstream narratives of hydropower history by taking the appropriation of small-scale engines in their daily life as its point of departure. By contrast, I argue that "old Technologies" made a significant contribution to the energy supply until well into the 20th century by turning electricity generators as well as delivering direct mechanical power to their own operations, particularly in rural territories of the German "energy landscapes", which lacked accessibility to civilization and infrastructure. The shift from traditional hydraulic prime-movers to "modern" turbine-technology was not a clear-cut, linear transition but rather a gradual process with many by-paths and "reverse salients", generating a number of hybrids. Referring to a cultural history of technology I trace the persistence and widespread adoption of "old Technologies" in the age of scientific turbine-research and -innovations. This fusion of science, environmental and technological history introduces a more user-focused perspective inside technology studies and reveals how attention to users and the practical aspects of appropriating technolog can illuminate the history of hydropower in the 19th and 20th century.

• DFG Programme: Publication Grants