Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology, 1880-1940

David E. Nye

Mit Press, Jul 8, 1992 - History - 479 pages

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.David E. Nye teaches American history at the University of Copenhagen. He has published books on Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, as well as Image Worlds, a study of photography and corporate identities at General Electric.

What people are saying

Review: Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology, 1880-1940

User Review  - Robert Bryce - Goodreads

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.

About the author

David E. Nye is Professor of American Studies at the Danish Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of Southern Denmark. Recipient 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), all published by the MIT Press.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology, 1880-1940; History of science and technology
• Author: David E. Nye
• Edition: reprint, illustrated
• Publisher: Mit Press, 1992
• ISBN: 0262640309, 9780262640305
• Length: 479 pages
• Subjects: History / United States / General; Science / Energy; Science / General; Science / Philosophy & Social Aspects; Technology & Engineering / General; Technology & Engineering / Social Aspects