Ocean V. Arboniés Flores' Preliminary Examination
PhD student Ocean V. Arboniés Flores will present their dissertation proposal, "Casa Lee UNIVAC: An Archival Ethnography of Albert E. Lee & Son, Inc.'s Distribution of Electronic Computers in Puerto Rico, 1950s-1970s." Their preliminary examination committee includes Associate Professor Dr. Melissa Ocepek (Chair), Assistant Professor Dr. Zoe LeBlanc, Professor Dr. Jenny L. Davis, and Associate Professor Dr. Jose Atiles.
Abstract
Computer and computing histories have yet to examine the dissemination and adoption of early computing technology in the Caribbean's colonial territories. This dissertation will address this gap by examining the mid-twentieth-century dissemination and adoption of UNIVAC computers in Puerto Rico through the activities of the firm Albert E. Lee & Son, Inc., the sole certified UNIVAC distributor in the archipelago, and its data-processing subsidiary, Casa Lee UNIVAC. Drawing on historical and archival research in Puerto Rico and the United States, the study will trace Albert E. Lee & Son, Inc.'s social and organizational history from the 1950s through Sperry Rand's acquisition of Casa Lee UNIVAC in the early 1970s. It will reconstruct the firm’s relationships with US computer manufacturers and with the institutions that adopted UNIVAC computers and related technologies locally. Rather than treating the dissemination of early electronic computers as a direct process of technology transfer from US manufacturers to Puerto Rican users, this study will examine how the operation of the US colonial state of exception in Puerto Rico between the 1950s and 1970s impacted local businesses like Albert E. Lee & Son, Inc. and its engagement with the US data processing industry. Methodologically, the study will use an ethnographic historical analysis of the firm, drawing on archival ethnography and critical bibliography. These approaches will treat organizational archives as sites for reconstructing a firm’s institutional priorities, bureaucratic practices, political constraints, and forms of tacit knowledge. By situating Puerto Rico's early computer history within the broader histories of US colonialism, American enterprise, and the development of a US-driven data-processing industry, this dissertation will examine how local commercial actors mediated the dissemination and adoption of computing technologies within Puerto Rico’s colonial milieu.
Questions? Contact Ocean V. Arboniés Flores.