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--- 325:questions:week_10_questions_comments-325_17 [2017/03/30 14:08] – [Ruth Cowan, Social History of American Technology] jmcclurken
+++ 325:questions:week_10_questions_comments-325_17 [2019/10/30 22:30] (current) – 192.65.245.60
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 ===== Readings from Smith and Clancy =====
+Referring to: "How Electricity Effects Economy in the Home and Adds to the Happiness of the Family (Prizewinning Essay 1917)"
+This brief essay is a clear example of promotional literature that urges readers of the necessity to install electric lighting within the household. **Fern Van Bramer paints this image in the reader’s mind of a happier and more comfortable way of life that “may be on a plane with the home of a millionaire” (362). However, there is a noticeable amount of exaggeration, as a means of marketing the idea of improved quality of life from electricity. For example, Bramer notes that a husband will come home to a wife “unwearied from her household duties because she uses electricity in her work” and children playing with electric toys, crucial to their future career development, if they desire “something better than “blind alley” jobs that lead to nowhere” (362).** While there is no direct correlation that exists between female domestic fatigue and access to technology, nor increased career potential for children tinkering with electric toys, all of these idealistic images facilitate the portrait of the modern American household, and our nation’s long-term love affair with innovation.  --- //[[htaylor2@umw.edu|Taylor Heather L.]] 2017/03/29 13:12//
 “A bright home is usually a happy home” I found this quote to be very funny. The way this is written is saying that light is so important and that wives deprive their husbands from coming home to a dark house. A home is seen as a happier and more welcoming place if there are lights on inside. Electricity is important to happy families. Describes the wife not being tired from the household duties because she uses electricity. And the kids playing with an electric toy. -Megan Liberty
 **“The instructive merits of some of these toys is a feature not to be overlooked by parents who want to see their sons enter something better than “blind alley” jobs that lead to nowhere.”** (362) This quote interested me because it shows that parents who gave their sons electric toys hoped that these toys would inspire the son to not settle for less in taking jobs that wouldn’t ask much of them or allowing them to be successful, calling it a “blind alley”. In my opinion the blind alley refers to the dark street the father would not walk to after dinner because they prefer the well-lit corner as referred to in the paragraph before. - Jessie Cavolt
+I also find that quote to be very interesting and I think that Jessie sums up the section well. I think that the metaphor that he mentions is a very interesting insight on the deeper meaning behind these toys.~Kendell Jenkins
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+When I read this article by Ruth Cowan, I like how **she points out that the definition of  technology can have several meanings depending on how an individual interprets it. She explains that even word itself was not specifically even used it until 1829 for the Elements of Technology (204). In this text, the author interprets the word to mean “the application of the sciences to the useful arts” (204).** The interesting thing though is that people at this time associated the term ‘technology’’ as relation to ideas or connecting it something else. She goes on to say technology can really be defined by anything in this world such as nature, social status, skill, politics, etc. . .  (204). I think it is interesting that overtime society has attached labels to technological concepts or technological innovation. When it comes to gender, technology was extremely divided by if a man or a woman were socially accepted to use machines within the household. Overtime, the idea of technology has evolved through the industrial period to romanticism era as well. Technology is such a huge influence in the world today, that I think people forget how far we have come since the ideas of certain technologies were born. Technology has brought issues like gender equality to light as well new technological advances that have made the world a petter place to live in general. - Rachel Kosmacki
-When I read this article by Ruth Cowan, I like how she points out that the definition of  technology can have several meanings depending on how an individual interprets it. She explains that even word itself was not specifically even used it until 1829 for the Elements of Technology (204). In this text, the author interprets the word to mean “the application of the sciences to the useful arts” (204). The interesting thing though is that people at this time associated the term ‘technology’’ as relation to ideas or connecting it something else. She goes on to say technology can really be defined by anything in this world such as nature, social status, skill, politics, etc. . .  (204). I think it is interesting that overtime society has attached labels to technological concepts or technological innovation. When it comes to gender, technology was extremely divided by if a man or a woman were socially accepted to use machines within the household. Overtime, the idea of technology has evolved through the industrial period to romanticism era as well. Technology is such a huge influence in the world today, that I think people forget how far we have come since the ideas of certain technologies were born. Technology has brought issues like gender equality to light as well new technological advances that have made the world a petter place to live in general. - Rachel Kosmacki
  Cowan makes use of the most recent scholarship to explain how the unique characteristics of American cultures and American geography have affected the technologies that have been invented, manufactured, and used throughout the years. She also focuses on the key individuals and ideas that have shaped important technological developments. The text explains how various technologies have affected the ways in which Americans work, govern, cook, transport, communicate, maintain their health, and reproduce. Daryl Murray
-In Ruth Cowan’s //Social History of American Technology//, she addresses the intersection of gender in technological past. Specifically, she asserts that after the Romantic period, engineers saw technology as a way to control nature. Within that framework, engineers saw women as the opposite of themselves, further expanding on the “separate spheres” mentality. While Jefferson saw women along with their work as geared toward the home, engineers expanded on it. Cowan argues that engineers saw women as “opposites.” Men symbolized “technology and she nature-although more pastoralized rather than nature in the raw.” (217) However, she also argues that factory work for many Romantic era writers were unmanly and therefore were best suited for women and children.  --- //[[ejames@umw.edu|James, Emily B.]] 2017/03/29 19:30//
+In Ruth Cowan’s //Social History of American Technology//, she addresses the intersection of gender in technological past. **Specifically, she asserts that after the Romantic period, engineers saw technology as a way to control nature. Within that framework, engineers saw women as the opposite of themselves, further expanding on the “separate spheres” mentality.** While Jefferson saw women along with their work as geared toward the home, engineers expanded on it. Cowan argues that engineers saw women as “opposites.” Men symbolized “technology and she nature-although more pastoralized rather than nature in the raw.” (217) However, she also argues that factory work for many Romantic era writers were unmanly and therefore were best suited for women and children.  --- //[[ejames@umw.edu|James, Emily B.]] 2017/03/29 19:30//
-Cowan makes several interesting points about technology and how it has evolved over time. In my opinion, the doctors that were hesitant about the sphygmomanometer had a similar hesitancy that people today do when a new product comes out. Everyone is always unsure as to whether this new piece of technology will be beneficial to society or if it will perform similarly or better than the item currently in its place. I also found it interesting to see how people viewed technology based on the time period specifically the differences of opinions about technology in the Industrialization period and during Romanticism.   -Emma Baumgardner
+**Cowan makes several interesting points about technology and how it has evolved over time. In my opinion, the doctors that were hesitant about the sphygmomanometer had a similar hesitancy that people today do when a new product comes out. Everyone is always unsure as to whether this new piece of technology will be beneficial to society or if it will perform similarly or better than the item currently in its place.** I also found it interesting to see how people viewed technology based on the time period specifically the differences of opinions about technology in the Industrialization period and during Romanticism.   -Emma Baumgardner
-One of the things that struck me immediately in this reading were the negative reactions to the invention of the blood pressure cuff. Cowan states that physicians in opposition of the invention claimed that it “pauperize[d their] senses and weaken[ed] clinical acuity” and would “deal a death blow to the painstaking study of the pulse” (202). This kind of negative reaction seems to be perfectly in line with negative reactions to almost every single piece of technology invented. The clashing reactions warred between scientific advancement and maintaining the art form, which isn’t as surprising as Cowan suggests (203). Even now, with the advancement of the Internet and phone technology, there are differing camps of reactions. Half consists of those that oppose the technologies and their effects on the grounds that they negatively impact the art of “real” communication, while there are those that support them simply because they are new and exciting examples of humanity’s technological prowess. - Megan P.
+One of the things that struck me immediately in this reading were the negative reactions to the invention of the blood pressure cuff. Cowan states that physicians in opposition of the invention claimed that it “pauperize[d their] senses and weaken[ed] clinical acuity” and would “deal a death blow to the painstaking study of the pulse” (202). This kind of negative reaction seems to be perfectly in line with negative reactions to almost every single piece of technology invented.** The clashing reactions warred between scientific advancement and maintaining the art form, which isn’t as surprising as Cowan suggests** (203). Even now, with the advancement of the Internet and phone technology, there are differing camps of reactions. Half consists of those that oppose the technologies and their effects on the grounds that they negatively impact the art of “real” communication, while there are those that support them simply because they are new and exciting examples of humanity’s technological prowess. - Megan P.
-People are generally creatures of habit. Change is often hard to accept and can even be feared. This is evident in the ways that people react to new technology. Although inventions are often made to make things more efficient and make peoples lives easier, people do not always accept them. The example from Cowan-the sphygmomanometer-is just one example. It was meant to make the act of checking a person blood pressure easier, but people did not see it that way. They felt it took more than it gave and was useless because they already had something that did the same thing. While people eventually did warm up to the new piece of technology-evident by it prominent use today-it was originally met with opposition. This is true of many pieces of technology as well. However, ask the technology improves and gains in use, people slowly begin to become more accepting of it. --Kasey Mayer
+**People are generally creatures of habit. Change is often hard to accept and can even be feared. This is evident in the ways that people react to new technology. Although inventions are often made to make things more efficient and make peoples lives easier, people do not always accept them. The example from Cowan-the sphygmomanometer-is just one example. It was meant to make the act of checking a person blood pressure easier, but people did not see it that way.** They felt it took more than it gave and was useless because they already had something that did the same thing. While people eventually did warm up to the new piece of technology-evident by it prominent use today-it was originally met with opposition. This is true of many pieces of technology as well. However, ask the technology improves and gains in use, people slowly begin to become more accepting of it. --Kasey Mayer
+The shift from Romanticism to Modernism in art shows how different America's cultural landscape was becoming. It was moving from a world of constant admiration for nature to one of awe at manmade structures and systems, from the Brooklyn Bridge to plumbing. These changes in artistic subjects help show us when America began to focus more openly on dominating nature through machines and less on using nature itself to dominate.  --- //[[lmccuist@umw.edu|Lindsey McCuistion]] 2017/03/30 09:13//
 ===== Nye, 133-137 =====
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 **
 This article is indicative of the ruthless nature of technological displacement.** The article mentions how “the private toll road, the canal system and the railroad overtook one another” (133). It goes on to talk about how automobiles and buses displaced the street car (134). My takeaway from this article is the complacency of the streetcar companies in the face of obvious flaws and hypocrisies in regards to their business model. **I think this anecdote about the rise and fall of the streetcar makes a profound statement about the importance of businesses being able to recognize trends and be adaptable. The business of technology is unforgiving to companies that do not think forward and plan ahead.** -Yousef Nasser