Conferences With the Engineers: The Innovative Pedagogy and Career of Sada Harbarger, 1884–1942

Journal of Technical Writing and Communication Jan 2024

Conferences With the Engineers: The Innovative Pedagogy and Career of Sada Harbarger, 1884–1942

Mike Duncan University of Houston - Downtown

Abstract

While Sada Harbarger is primarily known as the author of the first genre-based technical communication textbook, 1923's English For Engineers, I argue through extensive archival materials that her innovative conferencing with engineering students and interdisciplinary writing efforts, rather, drove her interwar success at Ohio State. Her rural agricultural background and acquaintance with the engineering faculty, combined with her literature training, led to OSU's engineering faculty demanding successfully that English promote her without reference to her textbook. Harbarger is also a notable early example of navigating being a female professor teaching engineering writing in a male-dominated English literature department.

Journal: Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
Published: 2024-01-01
DOI: 10.1177/00472816221148476
Open Access: Closed
Topics: genre theory technical communication

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