Wiki for Dr. McClurkens Courses

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===== Readings from Smith and Clancy =====

“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

When reading the essay regarding Colonial Radio Company, I couldn't help but notice how the person speaking was more concerned about the efficiency than the girls. The speaker glosses over the fact that the workers are girls, not women, but girls. The company is training girls how to become machines, but cheaper machines. They made a comparison that girls try to make house work more time effective, and that the company is doing the same by training the girls to move and assemble with less waisted energy and motion. They aren’t teaching them skills they can take with them when they leave the company, but rather small, efficient work that allows to produce more radios at a better cost.  --- //[[abrooks6@umw.edu|Brooks Anna R.]] 2017/03/29 21:09//

Reading through the Clippings from the //Electrician and Mechanic// Magazine section was entertaining. Seeing that there were amateurs out there building their own stations within their home in order to use telegraphs as a hobby was interesting as I cannot really think of anything to compare that to today outside of people building their own "gaming" computers to play with friends or possibly a person building a potato battery. When electricity first came out, people were infatuated with the idea, and it awakened the fire of invention in a lot of people who decided to make their own mini-inventions to either share with their friends or to use as a hobby. I admire that.  --- //[[kmcgowan@umw.edu|McGowan Khayla J.]] 2017/03/29 21:15//

This excerpt showed how important skilled workers became in the field of wireless telegraphy and electricity. The industry valued and trusted trained workers over amateurs who tried to teach themselves how to do wireless. There was such a fuss over amateurs being involved that many pushed for regulations of wireless telegraphs. Amateurs were heavily criticized and judged as seen in this quote on page 360, "[W]hat thinking person can feel any but the deepest pity for the poor, deluded amateur (mentioned in "The Nation") whose reason for breaking up the official work of a revenue cutter was merely to show that he had a stronger spark." They cited that these amateurs were preventing the navy, army, and other companies from doing their jobs because they were sending out "displeasing" language. Some even wanted to get rid of wireless telegraphy altogether. -Nicole Spreeman

While reading from Smith and Clancy, I found it interesting that many people would try and set up telegraph stations in their own home. The fact that people could be in touch with a family member on the other side of a city was astonishing to them. This made me wonder however, has this sort of thing been done recently? While I think Kayla has a good idea, I think that there is more to it than a gaming computer. People have always been fascinated by communication. whether it's in a written form of audible form. We create new ways to communicate to make life easier. We developed writing to help keep stock of goods, we developed codes so that our enemies wouldn't know what we were saying. Telegraphs were created so we could communicate massive distances almost instantly. With the emergence of new technology, comes the passion of hobbyists. The people who have built ham radios, custom computers, custom cars and even drones. Which raises the question of what's next? -Thomas Lanier

I was on the same page as Anna when I read this. While I think the company would focus on both genders being efficient, the fact that it was girls because of their efficiency at housework and chores was once again frustrating. It goes back to the same idea that women are temporary workers and therefore do not require the same amount of effort. -Madison White
===== Ruth Cowan, Social History of American Technology =====

“…To be like a machine was to be inhuman (209).” I found this idea from the Romanticism period to be relatable to today’s use of technology. A common complaint about technology today is that it deprives us of our creativity, critical thinking, and our ability to connect and create intimate relationships, the very qualities Romanticism stood for. Cowan regurgitated Henry David Thoreau’s words, “passion, freedom, and creativity,” to describe what machinery “robs” us of. It is interesting that people in this 1800’s saw the same dangers of technology that are present today, even though it was a completely different time and different technologies. -Kelsey Dean

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//

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//

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.

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

===== Nye, 133-137 =====

I found it interesting (and a little ironic) that the decline of the streetcar was not because the industry had not tried to improve their products, but because of a lack of planning and an incorrect prediction. The streetcar industry continued to make improvements despite the decline of the industry, until streetcars had all by disappeared. Despite how effective the system was to move large crowds and the fact that essentially eliminated social class differences (within the streetcar), the streetcar system was blamed for the congestion of traffic as the number of automobiles increased. I find this even more ironic, because today, public transportation such as buses, are pushed for because they will potentially lessen traffic (especially during rush hour) because they will lessen the number of cars on the road. - Shannon Keene

It also can't be over looked that Street cars are more or less for transport within a city, and during the early 1900's more and more upper to middle class families are moving from the cities to the suburbs to live which streetcars don't necessarily have routes to. In Europe there is far less sprawl into the suburbs like you have in America.If all the upper and middle classes move out and buy cars to get them to and from the city for work that only leaves poor and working class riding street cars in the city. In addition to poor planning is it any wonder that the street car industry declined and for the most part went under. - Laura B. Downs

It’s interesting that the streetcar failed in spite of technical innovations. The owners of streetcar businesses did everything they could to improve the product, and to add new features such as maneuverable cars and sleeping cars. However, a recurring theme in this class is that the technical merit of an invention does not guarantee success. Unfortunately, improving a product does not equate to making a product more successful. In this instance, larger market trends were too powerful for the streetcar to compete against. The rise of the automobile and a lack of funding led to streetcars largely going out of use. -Nick Skibinski

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

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