The engineering profession has made a significant and distinguished contribution to Chinese society over the past century. It is a contribution, however, which has received little attention from historians apart from the lives of a handful of the most notable engineers. This paper intends to remedy the deficiency by providing an overview of engineers' origins and development in China from 1949 to 1989. In this paper, the author attempts to analyze the developmental history of Chinese engineers by combining technology, culture and society to explore the factors affecting the development of engineers in socialist China. By reviewing the literature and empirically investigating biographical and bibliometric data, this dissertation not only demonstrates the development of the Chinese engineering profession, but also reveals characteristics of engineers' education, career patterns and social status from 1949-1989.
