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Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology, 1880-1940
How did electricity enter everyday life in America? Using Muncie, Indiana—the Lynds' now iconic Middletown—as a touchstone, David Nye explores how electricity seeped into and redefined American culture. With an eye for telling details from archival sources and a broad understanding of cultural and social history, he creates a thought-provoking panorama of a technology fundamental to modern life. Emphasizing the experiences of ordinary men and women rather than the lives of inventors and entrepreneurs, Nye treats electrification as a set of technical possibilities that were selectively adopted to create the streetcar suburb, the amusement park, the "Great White Way," the assembly line, the electrified home, and the industrialized farm. He shows how electricity touched every part of American life, how it became an extension of political ideologies, how it virtually created the image of the modern city, and how it even pervaded colloquial speech, confirming the values of high energy and speed that have become hallmarks of the twentieth century. He also pursues the social meaning of electrification as expressed in utopian ideas and exhibits at world's fairs, and explores the evocation of electrical landscapes in painting, literature, and photography. Electrifying America combines chronology and topicality to examine the major forms of light and power as they came into general use. It shows that in the city electrification promoted a more varied landscape and made possible new art forms and new consumption environments. In the factory, electricity permitted a complete redesign of the size and scale of operations, shifting power away from the shop floor to managers. Electrical appliances redefined domestic work and transformed the landscape of the home, while on the farm electricity laid the foundation for today's agribusiness.
495 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
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569 people want to read
About the author
David E. Nye
31 books7 followersDavid E. Nye is Professor of American History at the University of Southern Denmark. The winner of the 2005 Leonardo da Vinci Medal of the Society for the History of Technology, he is the author of Image Worlds: Corporate Identities at General Electric, 1890-1930 (1985), Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology, 1880-1940 (1990), American Technological Sublime (1994), Consuming Power: A Social History of American Energies (1997), America as Second Creation: Technology and Narratives of New Beginnings (2003), and Technology Matters: Questions to Live With (2006) published by the MIT Press.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 24, 2009
The descriptions in this book of the first days of electric light are worth the price of the book. A bit wonky at times, but a good history of electricity -- a commodity that we take for granted.
August 31, 2014
A. Synopsis: This book traces the development of electrification in the US from 1880 to 1940. Nye focuses on five distinct stages; street and commercial lighting (1880s), streetcars (1888), factories (middle 1890s), domestic (after 1910), and farms (after 1935). Throughout these stages Nye is concerned with the general publics conception of the meaning of electrification (ex. A belief in a utopian future). “Electrifying” was both a process and an attribute. America understood the electricity as both. Some general trends include strengthening cultural links to the city (trolleys, radio), the rise of the suburbs (transportation), centralized communal services were rejected in favor of personal control with electrical appliances, electrification increased factory production and changed building design
B. What was electricity?
1. Despite its ubiquity it defied easy definition
2. groups that related differently to electricity
a) Genteel intellectuals: These were mostly antimodernists who viewed electrification as a means of subjection and destruction (electricity as social power)
b) Technical elite: Viewed electricity as an instrument of social reform (the engineers), physicians using electricity (x-rays) to improve health
c) General public: They embraced electricity as an item of consumption. They were encouraged by popular fiction (Tom Swift). Speech became filled with connections of the human body to electricity (ex. Vacation to recharge batteries, polar opposite, go out like a light)
d) Businessmen: Saw electricity as a way to make money. Giant corporations formed like GE and Westinghouse.
C. Examples of how electrification changed peoples lives--Middletown (Muncie Indiana)
1. 10% of the homes were electrified in 1910, 70% in 1930.
2. Libraries loaned more books as a result, electrical appliance sales soared after WWI
3. The standard of cleanliness increased because more people took baths (easier hot water), more clothes were washed, washing dishes was easier
4. Commercial radio began in the 1920s. This linked Muncie to a national popular culture.
D. Street and commercial lighting (1880s)
1. Electric lighting began with theater marquees, shop windows and street lights
2. World fairs became show places for this new technology.
a) In 1894 the Chicago World’s Fair had more lights than all the rest of the country
b) The World’s Fair also had the first electrical transportation (sidewalks, trolleys, elevators)
3. One problem was the tangle of wires and unsightly poles, advertising signs began to encroach on the streets
4. City lighting became a form of cultural expression that could enhance natural effects (Niagara Falls). Broadway became the Great White Way.
E. Streetcars (1888)
1. The interurban streetcar established new economic and cultural linkages between city and country (a vehicle of urban change)
2. Most of the street railways were built as private (not public) ventures on old horsecar lines
3. The growth of streetcars stimulated a wide range of industries as more people could come to the stores
4. This also stimulated class conflict as only the MC and UC could afford the fairs and move out of the city
5. The roles of women were transformed. The streetcar provided choices for the woman to make and provided employment possibilities
6. Rural effects were even greater than urban effects as small towns lost business to the larger cities
7. Trolley parks emerged on the outskirts of the city. Ex. Coney Island where streetcars were transformed into roller coasters
F. Factories (middle 1890s)
1. No institution was in more rapid transition in the 1890s than the factory
2. The light brought productivity and safety (over the gas light), yet it also allowed for round the clock shifts
3. Electrical power made possible entirely new factory forms (previously waterpower dictated the size and location of the factory)
4. How did workers respond to the new machines in the factories? There were new perils for the workers to adjust to (electrification). High turnover rate. Welfare Capitalism emerges to offset worker dissatisfaction (by returning some of the profit)
G. Domestic electrification (after 1910)
1. By 1920 most homes were wired
2. The new electrical households were billed as tools to personal freedom
3. The costs of building these new homes (electricity and plumbing) caused the builders to construct simpler homes (no more single purpose rooms like sewing, or foyer)
4. Electrical devices created more work for mother. Example, for a time all washing was done by commercial laundries. The electric washing machine brought this work back to the home.
H. Farms, rural electrification (after 1935)
1. Agriculture was the last major US sector to be electrified
2. Rural electrification in America lagged behind European nations because it threatened traditional values (the moral, natural farm)
3. The belief was that with electrification, the farm would lose its natural cycles
4. During the 1930s rural electrification became a social program
a) This offset the high cost factor of rural electrification
b) TVA (1933) and REA (got transmission lines to the farms in 1935) brought the government into competition with the electrical industry
5. What was the human meaning to TVA and REA?
a) Rural schools received electricity for the first time
b) Electrical appliances increased productivity on the farm. Lighting increased hours of work.
B. What was electricity?
1. Despite its ubiquity it defied easy definition
2. groups that related differently to electricity
a) Genteel intellectuals: These were mostly antimodernists who viewed electrification as a means of subjection and destruction (electricity as social power)
b) Technical elite: Viewed electricity as an instrument of social reform (the engineers), physicians using electricity (x-rays) to improve health
c) General public: They embraced electricity as an item of consumption. They were encouraged by popular fiction (Tom Swift). Speech became filled with connections of the human body to electricity (ex. Vacation to recharge batteries, polar opposite, go out like a light)
d) Businessmen: Saw electricity as a way to make money. Giant corporations formed like GE and Westinghouse.
C. Examples of how electrification changed peoples lives--Middletown (Muncie Indiana)
1. 10% of the homes were electrified in 1910, 70% in 1930.
2. Libraries loaned more books as a result, electrical appliance sales soared after WWI
3. The standard of cleanliness increased because more people took baths (easier hot water), more clothes were washed, washing dishes was easier
4. Commercial radio began in the 1920s. This linked Muncie to a national popular culture.
D. Street and commercial lighting (1880s)
1. Electric lighting began with theater marquees, shop windows and street lights
2. World fairs became show places for this new technology.
a) In 1894 the Chicago World’s Fair had more lights than all the rest of the country
b) The World’s Fair also had the first electrical transportation (sidewalks, trolleys, elevators)
3. One problem was the tangle of wires and unsightly poles, advertising signs began to encroach on the streets
4. City lighting became a form of cultural expression that could enhance natural effects (Niagara Falls). Broadway became the Great White Way.
E. Streetcars (1888)
1. The interurban streetcar established new economic and cultural linkages between city and country (a vehicle of urban change)
2. Most of the street railways were built as private (not public) ventures on old horsecar lines
3. The growth of streetcars stimulated a wide range of industries as more people could come to the stores
4. This also stimulated class conflict as only the MC and UC could afford the fairs and move out of the city
5. The roles of women were transformed. The streetcar provided choices for the woman to make and provided employment possibilities
6. Rural effects were even greater than urban effects as small towns lost business to the larger cities
7. Trolley parks emerged on the outskirts of the city. Ex. Coney Island where streetcars were transformed into roller coasters
F. Factories (middle 1890s)
1. No institution was in more rapid transition in the 1890s than the factory
2. The light brought productivity and safety (over the gas light), yet it also allowed for round the clock shifts
3. Electrical power made possible entirely new factory forms (previously waterpower dictated the size and location of the factory)
4. How did workers respond to the new machines in the factories? There were new perils for the workers to adjust to (electrification). High turnover rate. Welfare Capitalism emerges to offset worker dissatisfaction (by returning some of the profit)
G. Domestic electrification (after 1910)
1. By 1920 most homes were wired
2. The new electrical households were billed as tools to personal freedom
3. The costs of building these new homes (electricity and plumbing) caused the builders to construct simpler homes (no more single purpose rooms like sewing, or foyer)
4. Electrical devices created more work for mother. Example, for a time all washing was done by commercial laundries. The electric washing machine brought this work back to the home.
H. Farms, rural electrification (after 1935)
1. Agriculture was the last major US sector to be electrified
2. Rural electrification in America lagged behind European nations because it threatened traditional values (the moral, natural farm)
3. The belief was that with electrification, the farm would lose its natural cycles
4. During the 1930s rural electrification became a social program
a) This offset the high cost factor of rural electrification
b) TVA (1933) and REA (got transmission lines to the farms in 1935) brought the government into competition with the electrical industry
5. What was the human meaning to TVA and REA?
a) Rural schools received electricity for the first time
b) Electrical appliances increased productivity on the farm. Lighting increased hours of work.
February 19, 2014
Very interesting social history of the adoption of electrification in America. Serves as a nice historical parallel to social science treatments of domestication of technologies in everyday life, here looking at the influence of electricity on the city and transportation, the factory, and home life. Nye tries to explain the social contexts in which technologies are taken on and how those contexts shape the technological system (social determinism) but he can't escape the argument that electricity fundamentally changes everything it touches (a technological determinism argument).
Nye's discussion of the influence of electrification on the metaphors that infiltrate language is brief but compelling, illustrating how common parlance reveals the effects and impacts on the way electrification changed the way we see the world and our place in it.
Nye's discussion of the influence of electrification on the metaphors that infiltrate language is brief but compelling, illustrating how common parlance reveals the effects and impacts on the way electrification changed the way we see the world and our place in it.
February 5, 2008
This is one of those books that you read in school, and you remember it opening your eyes a bit. I deal a lot with technology, and this book made it very clear that inserting technology into the human experience is not always for the best. Good things happen, but there is always a price.
September 9, 2024
awesome read, I found this in a bookstore called the Frenchman in new orleans, just in case anyone is looking for a copy 😂
this work is a sociological look at electrification in the US based on what normal people experienced wrt electricity which was fascinating. I had no idea the dire straights citizens of the US were in compared to a country like denmark... although unfortunately I was not surprised. reading this led to interesting conversations with elders as well. I loved the bits where he delved into art and how the popular art of the times reflected people's attitudes towards electricity, and I'm really grateful to have read it in the Internet age where I can simply search what the pieces look like. his mention Peter Blume's
Light of the World struck me in particular after I saw the painting, and I read another analysis about the mustachioed figure representing a ventriloquist dummy and it really had me thinking for a while on it...
this is an engaging read and something id feel comfortable suggesting to any readers of nonfiction, the prose is engaging and never dry like you may expect from an academic text.
this work is a sociological look at electrification in the US based on what normal people experienced wrt electricity which was fascinating. I had no idea the dire straights citizens of the US were in compared to a country like denmark... although unfortunately I was not surprised. reading this led to interesting conversations with elders as well. I loved the bits where he delved into art and how the popular art of the times reflected people's attitudes towards electricity, and I'm really grateful to have read it in the Internet age where I can simply search what the pieces look like. his mention Peter Blume's
Light of the World struck me in particular after I saw the painting, and I read another analysis about the mustachioed figure representing a ventriloquist dummy and it really had me thinking for a while on it...
this is an engaging read and something id feel comfortable suggesting to any readers of nonfiction, the prose is engaging and never dry like you may expect from an academic text.
July 2, 2024
A well written history of a unique historical transition.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews