Devin Kennedy

Devin Kennedy is Assistant Professor of History and the Evelyn and Herbert Howe Bascom Professor of Integrated Liberal Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He holds a PhD in the History of Science from Harvard and an AB from Princeton in Comparative Literature. Kennedy works across business and economic history, the histories of science and technology, and science and technology studies. His research has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Association for Computing Machinery, and the New-York Historical Society.

His first book Coding Capitalism: Computers and the Remaking of the Postwar US Economy (Columbia University Press, July 2026) offers a new account of computing since 1947, situating developments in computer science and technology in the context of US economic history. The book shows how computer science–often before it had that name–cut its teeth addressing problems among the manufacturing and financial industries that were early adopters of computer systems.

Kennedy is involved with multiple groups on campus studying artificial intelligence and its human dimensions. He is an Inaugural fellow of the Center for the Humanistic Study of Artificial Intelligence and Uncertainty. At the Center, Kennedy is working on several papers on the history of theoretical computer science including the history of computational complexity theory, the history of the universal approximation theorem, and on the relationship between mathematical intuitionism and computer science.

Education

Ph.D. Harvard (History of Science)
A.B. Princeton (Comparative Literature)

Books

Coding Capitalism: Computers and the Remaking of the Postwar US Economy

Devin Kennedy. Coding Capitalism: Computers and the Remaking of the Postwar US Economy. Columbia University Press, 2026.

Long before Google, Amazon, or Microsoft, computer technology shaped how people worked, how markets operated, and how businesses became big. After World War II, military officials and their partners in industry looked to the newly invented electronic computer as they sought to cut costs, speed up labor, manage supply chains, and—they hoped—bring stability to the postwar economy. Their efforts would shape early computer science and the first applications of computer technology in manufacturing and business, with profound consequences for workers and managers alike. By the 1960s, practices originally developed to improve industrial efficiency were being used by Wall Street, influencing how markets worked and even how traders thought. Digital technology became central to finance, tying together far-flung trading floors and automating decision making—with alarming consequences, including the 1987 Black Monday crash. Devin Kennedy offers a new history of the digital economy, showing how the computer emerged from—and transformed—capitalism in the United States. He traces how computer science and technology were made by industry, which molded computation to manage factories, financial markets, and entire firms. Drawing on the archives of businesses, computer researchers, regulators, and financial institutions, Coding Capitalism retells the story of the postwar economy and the computer, revealing how midcentury business laid the foundations of the digital world. Bridging business and economic history with the history of science and technology, this book uncovers the prehistory of big tech and demonstrates how capitalism has shaped computing since its invention.

Selected Publications

•  “Silent Partners: Indirect Investment and Financialization in the United States, 1950- 1975.” Journal of American History 111, No. 4 (March 2025): 712-734.
• “Introduction to Computing Capitalisms”, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 42, no. 3 (July-September 2020): 5-10. (With Gerardo Con Diaz).
• “The Machine in the Market: Computers and the Infrastructure of Price at the New York Stock Exchange, 1965–1975.” Social Studies of Science 47, no. 6 (December 1, 2017): 888–917.

Invited Talks & Research Presentations

•  [upcoming]“Where is AI Research?” AI Meets Society Symposium, University of Wisconsin-Madison, February 21, 2026
• “The Nature of the Problem: Computational Complexity from Factories to Theoretical Computer Science 1954-1976” History of Science Society Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, November 2025.
• “Wired for Profit: Computing and the Decentralized Firm, 1955-1970” Business History Conference. Atlanta, March 14, 2025
• “The Boundary of Responsibility” Computer Scientists and Societal Vulnerability to Technology,” American Historical Association Annual Meeting. New York, January 3, 2025

Advisor To

• Yu-Hsuan Wang
• Yuji Xu

Selected Awards

• Inaugural Faculty Fellow, Center for the Humanistic Study of Artificial Intelligence and Uncertainty, UW-Madison, 2026
• Herbert and Evelyn Howe Bascom Professorship in Integrated Liberal Studies, UW-Madison, 2024-26
• National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend, 2024

History Courses

• History 201 – The Historian’s Craft: “The History of Data and Data Science” – Syllabus 2021 (pdf)
• History of Science 150 – The Digital Age – Syllabus 2024 (pdf)
• History of Science 202 – The Making of Modern Science – Syllabus 2022 (pdf)
• History of Science 350 – Special Topics—Science and Technology in the Global Cold War – Syllabus 2020 (pdf)
• History of Science 555 – Undergraduate Seminar in History of Science – “Digital Capitalism” – Syllabus 2021 (pdf)
• History of Science 720 – Methods and Historiography in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology – Syllabus 2025 (pdf)
• History 952 – The Atomic Bomb in American, Japanese & Global History – Syllabus 2025 (pdf)