Overview

In the history of electronic communication, the last quarter of the nineteenth century holds a special place, for it was during this period that the telephone, phonograph, electric light, wireless, and cinema were all invented. In When old Technologies Were New, Carolyn Marvin explores how two of these new inventions--the telephone and the electric light--were publicly envisioned at the end of the nineteenth century, as seen in specialized engineering journals and popular media. Marvin pays particular attention to the telephone, describing how it disrupted established social relations, unsettling customary ways of dividing the private person and family from the more public setting of the community. On the lighter side, she describes how people spoke louder when calling long distance, and how they worried about catching contagious diseases over the phone. A particularly powerful chapter deals with telephonic precursors of radio broadcasting--the ""Telephone Herald"" in New York and the ""Telefon Hirmondo"" of Hungary--and the conflict between the technological development of broadcasting and the attempt to impose a homogenous, ethnocentric variant of Anglo-Saxon culture on the public. While focusing on the way professionals in the electronics field tried to control the new media, Marvin also illuminates the broader social impact, presenting a wide-ranging, informative, and entertaining account of the early years of electronic media.

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9780195063417

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Reviews

Deserves close reading by historians of the modern media. Drawing on contemporary popular and professional sources, Carolyn Marvin challenges the traditional view of the social origins of electric media....An important addition. --Journal of American History The originality of her analysis and thoughtful questions provide a valuable perspective on this critically important period in the history of American technology. --American Historical Review Marvin's work is substantial, and her exploration of primary sources laudable. Her collection of anecdotes and significant historical residues is itself rewarding. Add to that her provocative theoretical discussions and you have a work worthy of a scholar's attention. --Journalism History This most informative book helps the modern reader to comprehend the speed at which electricity-dependent technologies have altered human perceptions of humankind and the world. --Choice A wide-ranging, informative, and entertaining account of the early years of electric and electronic development, this book re-thinks the traditional artifactual and institutional approaches to media history. --Electrical Review Deserves close reading by historians of the modern media. Drawing on contemporary popular and professional sources, Carolyn Marvin challenges the traditional view of the social origins of electric media....An important addition. --Journal of American History The originality of her analysis and thoughtful questions provide a valuable perspective on this critically important period in the history of American technology. --American Historical Review Marvin's work is substantial, and her exploration of primary sources laudable. Her collection of anecdotes and significant historical residues is itself rewarding. Add to that her provocative theoretical discussions and you have a work worthy of a scholar's attention. --Journalism History This most informative book helps the modern reader to comprehend the speed at which electricity-dependent technologies have altered human perceptions of humankind and the world. --Choice A wide-ranging, informative, and entertaining account of the early years of electric and electronic development, this book re-thinks the traditional artifactual and institutional approaches to media history. --Electrical Review A solidly researched study. --Library Journal One has only to think of society's alarms and excursions on the theme of nuclear energy or recombinant DNA to see the relevance and timeliness of the author's engaging sociotechnological insights. --Kirkus Reviews Could provide a model for other historians....Throughout the book Marvin chooses arresting and funny examples to illustrate her points....she has applied traditional historical techniques rigorously and well and used a number of new methods with interesting results. --ISIS

Marvin (U. of Penn., Annenberg School of Communications) turns a scholar's eye to the social and cultural history of late 19th-century technologies - specifically, the electric light, the telegraph, the telephone, the radio, and phonograph. Gleaning from popular and professional sources of the day, she assembles a lively picture of emerging elites and benighted publics in America and elsewhere. Electrical engineers were keen for recognition as an expert elite, distancing themselves from craftsmen by founding professional societies and journals and coining suitably arcane jargon. The public at large, divided between enlightened laymen (urban, educated, white and male) and the rest (hicks, non-white, and women) perpetuated cultural cliches and Victorian mores. We learn, for example, of Persian nomads who turned telegraph wire into bracelets, and of women's natural addiction to the telephone given their inherent loquaciousness. The inventions themselves raised societal concerns. The potential for political control, for deliberate deception or abuse through communications channels, was early recognized. So was the potential for physical harm, in the form of electric shocks, weapons of war, or capital punishment. But physical benefit might also accrue - especially electrical power to boost virility. The electric light became a source of public spectacle and personal adornment long before it invaded homes. Some saw the new communications media as a threat to social boundaries; others envisioned a new one-world democracy. In many ways, Marvin's multiple visions of technologies born just a century ago are a sharp reminder that la plus ca change. . . One has only to think of society's alarms and excursions on the theme of nuclear energy or recombinant DNA to see the relevance and timeliness of the author's engaging sociotechnological insights. (Kirkus Reviews)

Deserves close reading by historians of the modern media. Drawing on contemporary popular and professional sources, Carolyn Marvin challenges the traditional view of the social origins of electric media....An important addition. --Journal of American History<br> The originality of her analysis and thoughtful questions provide a valuable perspective on this critically important period in the history of American technology. --American Historical Review<br> Marvin's work is substantial, and her exploration of primary sources laudable. Her collection of anecdotes and significant historical residues is itself rewarding. Add to that her provocative theoretical discussions and you have a work worthy of a scholar's attention. --Journalism History<br> This most informative book helps the modern reader to comprehend the speed at which electricity-dependent technologies have altered human perceptions of humankind and the world. --Choice<br> A wide-ranging, informative, and entertaining account of the early years of electric and electronic development, this book re-thinks the traditional artifactual and institutional approaches to media history. --Electrical Review<br>

Author Information

Carolyn Marvin is Associate Professor of Communication, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania.

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