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| week_10_questions_comments-325_25 [2025/10/30 12:04] – [Ruth Cowan, Social History of American Technology] 76.78.172.126 | week_10_questions_comments-325_25 [2025/10/30 13:26] (current) – [Ruth Cowan, Social History of American Technology] 199.111.65.11 |
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| Having read "Colonial Radio Saves Wasted Motion" from 1934 was a very interesting read considering the time it took place. By '34, the US is in the grips of the Great Depression and money is tight. This company, Colonial Radio, seems to be not only employing women into the workforce, unique for the time, but also training them so that they wouldn't use wasted motion in their work. Compared to other lessons about factory work, where the companies could better hire workforce that is untrained and unskilled, this group focuses on training them for a bit on how to better build these radios, which could apparently translate to being used outside the workforce. - David Y. | Having read "Colonial Radio Saves Wasted Motion" from 1934 was a very interesting read considering the time it took place. By '34, the US is in the grips of the Great Depression and money is tight. This company, Colonial Radio, seems to be not only employing women into the workforce, unique for the time, but also training them so that they wouldn't use wasted motion in their work. Compared to other lessons about factory work, where the companies could better hire workforce that is untrained and unskilled, this group focuses on training them for a bit on how to better build these radios, which could apparently translate to being used outside the workforce. - David Y. |
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| | For the reading on “How Electricity Effects Economy in the Home” from 1917, I was intrigued by its assumption that electricity would automatically make all aspects of family life far better despite it not really providing any real data on this. I would love to do more research into the electric toys that supposedly provide children with “instructive merits” that will keep them from “blind alley” jobs when they grow older, since this is quite a huge claim to make. - Noah Rutkowski |
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| ====== Ruth Cowan, Social History of American Technology ====== | ====== Ruth Cowan, Social History of American Technology ====== |
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| I honestly found this reading to be one of the most interesting ones from the entire semester so far. I loved the discussion of how religion and colonization impacted views on what counts as “natural,” and I found their application to technology to be fascinating in their contradictions and limitations. Since I’m an English major, I’ve only ever looked at Romanticism through the lens of literature, but I really liked getting to see its wider effects on attitudes about technology over time. - Noah Rutkowski | I honestly found this reading to be one of the most interesting ones from the entire semester so far. I loved the discussion of how religion and colonization impacted views on what counts as “natural,” and I found their application to technology to be fascinating in their contradictions and limitations. Since I’m an English major, I’ve only ever looked at Romanticism through the lens of literature, but I really liked getting to see its wider effects on attitudes about technology over time. - Noah Rutkowski |
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| | This reading highlights how technological change is never purely about machines but by its social systems that shape and are shaped by those machines. Her analysis shows that domestic technologies, like washing machines or refrigerators, didn't actually reduce women's labor as much as they changed its nature, reflecting deeper cultural expectations about gender and work. This connects to our class theme by illustrating that technology often reinforces existing social structures rather than automatically creating progress or equality.-- Caitlyn Edwards |
| ====== Nye, 133-137 ====== | ====== Nye, 133-137 ====== |
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