ELECTRIFYING AMERICA
SOCIAL MEANINGS OF A NEW TECHNOLOGY
By David E. Nye
The MIT Press, 1990, 479 pages
Reviewed by Michael Beach
Most Significant Arguments
There are several threads that Nye speaks to that catch my attention. Like other readings we have been through, the adoption of electrical technology was not universal, nor was it predictable. The growth of electrical generation went from localized private utilities, to companies generating their own power to match business needs then sharing with others for revenue and load balancing, to more generalized consumption, to private and public monopolies. In that case the power generation went from the small and specific application, to the large and general application. In the case where electric motors were attached to factory main drive shafts, then to clustered machines, then to each machine, the power application went from a larger use to a smaller use. Nye makes good business and technology arguments as to why each of those happened in that way, but the point I got was that technological application and change often follows a different path then is originally conceived.
The other position that comes off clear in the Nye work is the idea of people using technology as a way to make order of nature. Electricity itself is a power in nature that is unseen and not well understood. That said, people were able to generate it, store it, channel it, and convert it to other useful forms of natural power such as heat, light and motive force. In fact there were even two competing forms of electricity (DC and AC), so not only was electricity managed, but it was also defined in two different ways.
Comparison with Other Readings
In the last chapter Nye argues that histories of technologies generally speak from the insider’s point of view, and yet most people who interact with it are not insiders. Most of us do not work in a power plant, or even use large scale manufacturing electrical devices. In this work he touches on those who interacted with electricity from the business and delivery of technologies associated with electricity, but he also works to show examples of the perception of regular people. For example, amusement parks were created in many cases by the trolley car businesses as a way to increase electrical use during traditionally low-use times (nights and weekends). How did a person experience that business need? It became both the pleasure of the inexpensive trolley ride as a diversion itself, but then at the end of the ride was a sort of wonderland also driven in large part by electricity. Like the Users book we read by Oudshoorn and Pinch, Nye shows how user (and non-user) preference helped to drive the technology of electricity. An example of this was when the electric companies took to selling appliances to encourage home use of electricity during off-peak hours. The manufacturers pushed large appliances at first, laundry appliances, stoves, etc., because they drew the most electrical power. In fact, if people purchased appliances, they purchased them differently than what the business people pushed for. Clothes irons were most popular at first, not washers and dryers. Another example was the order of electrification. Rural areas were the last to be offered electrification. This was because of the infrastructure investment required for a scarce and physically distant population (miles per drop, not drops per mile).
The other area similar to past readings I found interesting was how labor at factories was affected. The technology was becoming more efficient and driving up quality by migrating from external drive to a centralized shaft/gear system, to clusters of equipment sharing a more local drive, to a motor on each machine. Then the further adoption of the assembly line where the person was stationary and the parts moved to them. The workers did a repetitious act and were essentially a portion of the bigger machinery. We read similar assessments about this in a number of the other works. Nye shows more of some of the human effect on workers such as boredom and the resulting higher labor turnover. He also links the migration toward time-centered action to the availability of clocks in homes.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Throughout the work there are places where Nye mentions that other factors could also have influenced the outcomes he shows as a result of electrification, but he doesn’t actually say much about what those other factors might be. For example he mentions early access to trolleys in the city before automobiles, and the electrification of downtown businesses as one reason people may have been moving away from rural areas and toward urban, and later suburban areas. In all the chapters on “The Great White Way” there was this nice analogy to human reaction to technology in general. As he noted in the conclusion we at first see it as a mystery, then in terms of either practicality and/or profit, then finally in a sort of love/hate relationship. In a more modern-day example, many of us complain about what a microwave oven does to food, yet we wonder how we ever lived without the technology. In the case of at electric signs that began to advertise businesses, they were at first a novelty, but eventually became an eye-sore. Nye makes this transition argument well in a number of places, but the idea doesn’t always hold true. For example we still have lighted signs today and continue to have some of the same love/hate. On the other hand, there are places that make a spectacle of electricity still and we have not grown out of it as Nye suggests. Ask anyone who has ever gone to Las Vegas, or who continue to attend amusement parks. Much like the Users book I think this work would appeal to students of STS, policy makers, advocates, technology designers, technology planners and historians. I could see interest in those who also look into behavioral economics.
RSS Feed