Ursula Franklin

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Ursula Franklin bigraphy, stories - Canadian metallurgist, research physicist, author, and educator

Ursula Franklin : biography

16 September 1921 –

Ursula Martius Franklin, (born September 16, 1921 in Munich, Germany), is a Canadian metallurgist, research physicist, author and educator who has taught at the University of Toronto for more than 40 years.Lumley, Elizabeth (editor) (2008), Canadian Who’s Who 2008. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p.439. She is the author of The Real World of Technology, which is based on her 1989 Massey Lectures, and The Ursula Franklin Reader: Pacifism as a Map, a collection of her papers, interviews, and talks. Franklin is a practising Quaker and has been active in working on behalf of pacifist and feminist causes. She has written and spoken extensively about the futility of war and the connection between peace and social justice.Franklin (Reader), pp.2–5. Franklin has received numerous honours and awards, including the Governor General’s Award in Commemoration of the Persons Case for promoting the equality of girls and women in Canada and the Pearson Medal of Peace for her work in advancing human rights. In 2012, she was inducted into the Canadian Science and Engineering Hall of Fame. A Toronto high school, Ursula Franklin Academy, has been named in her honour.Lumley, p.439.

Franklin is best known for her writings on the political and social effects of technology. For her, technology is much more than machines, gadgets or electronic transmitters. It is a comprehensive system that includes methods, procedures, organization, "and most of all, a mindset".Franklin (Real World), p.12. She distinguishes between holistic technologies used by craft workers or artisans and prescriptive ones associated with a division of labour in large-scale production. Holistic technologies allow artisans to control their own work from start to finish. Prescriptive technologies organize work as a sequence of steps requiring supervision by bosses or managers.Franklin (Real World), pp.18–20. Franklin argues that the dominance of prescriptive technologies in modern society discourages critical thinking and promotes "a culture of compliance".Franklin (Real World), p.24.

For some, Franklin belongs in the intellectual tradition of Harold Innis and Jacques Ellul who warn about technology’s tendency to suppress freedom and endanger civilization.Rose, Ellen. "An Interview with Heather Menzies (2003)." Antigonish Review. January 1, 2004, p.113. Franklin herself acknowledges her debt to Ellul as well as to several other thinkers including Lewis Mumford, C.B. Macpherson, E. F. Schumacher and Vandana Shiva.see Franklin (Reader) p.213 as well as the more complete list on pp.367–368.

Career

Ursula Franklin began her career during World War II, but was imprisoned in a Nazi work camp because her mother was Jewish. She spent the rest of the war helping to repair bombed buildings. In 1948, Franklin received her Ph.D. in experimental physics at the Technical University of Berlin and emigrated to Canada the following year. She completed post-doctoral studies at the University of Toronto (U of T) and worked for 15 years at the Ontario Research Foundation. In 1967, Franklin became the first female professor in the U of T’s department of metallurgy and materials science.

A U.S. nuclear weapons test in 1953. Franklin helped end such above-ground testing.

Franklin was a pioneer in the field of archaeometry, which applies modern materials analysis to archaeology. She worked for example, on the dating of prehistoric bronze, copper and ceramic artifacts.Sheinin, p.839. In the early 1960s, Franklin investigated levels of strontium-90—a radioactive isotope in fallout from nuclear weapons testing—in children’s teeth. Her research contributed to the cessation of atmospheric weapons testing. Franklin has published more than a hundred scientific papers and contributions to books on the structure and properties of metals and alloys as well as on the history and social effects of technology.Franklin (Reader), p.369.

As a member of the Science Council of Canada during the 1970s, Franklin chaired an influential study on conserving resources and protecting nature. The study’s 1977 report, Canada as a Conserver Society, recommended a wide range of steps aimed at reducing wasteful consumption and the environmental degradation that goes with it.Science Council of Canada. (1977) Canada as a Conserver Society: Resource Uncertainties and the Need for New Technologies. Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada, pp.71–88. The work on that study helped shape Franklin’s ideas about the complexities of modern technological society.Franklin (Reader), pp.137–138.