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In When Old Technologies Were New
Carolyn Marvin explores how two 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. From imaginative experimentation
to widespread anxiety over the transformation of traditional
class, family, and gender relations, Marvin examines the
public reaction to electrical invention, how professional
electric engineers tried to control new media, and how the
"new technologies" affected a vast network of
social habits and customs in a wide-ranging, informative,
and entertaining account.
Carolyn Marvin is Associate Professor
of Communications at the Annenberg School at the University
of Pennsylvania.
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