Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology, 1880-1940 | 
 enlarge | Author: David E. Nye
Publisher: The MIT Press
Category: Book
List Price: $34.00
Buy New: $19.87
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Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 306498
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 495
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 0262640309
Dewey Decimal Number: 973
EAN: 9780262640305
ASIN: 0262640309
Publication Date: July 8, 1992
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Minor shelf wear. Otherwise bright and tioght. Smoke-free environment. Benefits our daughter's Tuition Fund. Our books are carefully packaged.
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Product Description
Winner of the 1993 Edelstein Prize sponsored by the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) and Winner, Abel Wolman award given by the Public Works Historical Society and American Public Works Association, 1990.
How did electricity enter everyday life in America? Using Muncie, Indiana, as a touchstone, David Nye explores how electricity seeped into and redefined American culture. With an eye for telling details and a broad understanding of cultural and social history, he creates a thought-provoking panorama of a technology fundamental to modern life.
Emphasizing the experiences of ordinary men and women rather than the lives of inventors and entrepreneurs, Nye treats electrification as a set of technical possibilities that were selectively adopted to create the streetcar suburb, the amusement park, the "Great White Way," the assembly line, the electrified home, and the industrialized farm. He shows how electricity touched every part of American life, how it became an extension of political ideologies, how it virtually created the image of the modern city, and how it even pervaded colloquial speech, confirming the values of high energy and speed that have become hallmarks of the twentieth century. He also pursues the social meaning of electrification as expressed in utopian ideas and exhibits at world's fairs, and explores the evocation of electrical landscapes in painting, literature, and photography.
Electrifying America combines chronology and topicality to examine the major forms of light and power as they came into general use. It shows that in the city electrification promoted a more varied landscape and made possible new art forms and new consumption environments. In the factory, electricity permitted a complete redesign of the size and scale of operations, shifting power away from the shop floor to managers. Electrical appliances redefined domestic work and transformed the landscape of the home, while on the farm electricity laid the foundation for today's agribusiness.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Plug it in, turn it on October 11, 2005
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
This book is about how electricity transformed America. Nye explores how electricity changed the home (it was now cleaner and safer than gas), the factory, and transportation (it made the subway and inter-urban trolley-car systems possible). Americans embraced this new source of energy quickly and convincingly. The mantra, however, that electric appliances would free the housewife was not true: men did not take to the appliances as readily and (surprise!) women suddenly were doing chores (vacuuming) that men used to do (beat the rugs). There is a lot of detail in the book, but not much that is new or not obvious. For that reason it was somewhat dull.
 A fantastic history of the development of electricity June 8, 2000
12 out of 16 found this review helpful
Did you know, in the early days of electricity, the power went off at 11:00 pm each night? Or that electricity was billed at a flat rate of $1 per day? Or that most homes had only one or two outlets and a light bulb hanging from a string?This book is a compendium of both fascinating facts and substantial histories of the development of residential electrical usage in our country. I love old houses and historical information, and perhaps because of that, I found this book to be a fascinating read. Some parts of it were a wee bit dry, where he delved into some of the more technical aspects of this modern utility, but the majority of the book was a treasure. After reading this book, and gaining an better understanding of the history of electricity, I'd say, without hesitation, that introducing the modern convenience of electrical current into our homes may be the most significant discovery of the last 500 years.
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