When Old Technologies Were New: Thinking about Electric Communication in the Late Nineteenth Century

In When Old Technologies Were New Carolyn Marvin explores how two inventions -- the telephone and the electric light -- were publicly envisioned at the end of the nineteenth century, as seen in specialized engineering journals and popular media. From imaginative experimentation to widespread anxiety over the transformation of traditional class, family, and gender relations, Marvin examines the public reaction to electrical invention, how professional electric engineers tried to control new media…