Domesticating Electricity:
Technology, Uncertainty and Gender, 1880–1914
Graeme Gooday
Science and Culture in the Nineteenth Century
978 1 85196 975 3: 234x156mm: £60.00/$99.00
978 1 85196 580 9
This is an innovative and original socio-cultural study of the history of electricity during the late Victorian and Edwardian periods. Gooday shows how technology, authority and gender interacted in pre-World War I Britain. The rapid take-up of electrical light and domestic appliances on both sides of the Atlantic had a wide-ranging effect on consumer habits and the division of labour within the home. Electricity was viewed by non-experts as a potential threat to domestic order and welfare. This broadly interdisciplinary study relates to a website developed by the author on the history of electricity.
Sample pages
Readership
History of Science, Nineteenth Century Studies, Gender Studies
Contents
Introduction
1 Understanding the Domestication of Electricity
2 The Uncertain Identity of Electricity
3 Electricity as Danger
4 Electricity as Safety
5 Electricity as the Future
6 Aestheticizing Electricity
7 Personifying Electricity
Conclusion
Reviews
'Quotations from period newspapers and advertisements, numerous notes and references, some black-and-white photos and cartoon sketches, and a practical index add significantly to this book's value as a reference work. Recommended.'
– CHOICE
' ... this work masterfully articulates an aspect of modern everyday culture that has been surprisingly overlooked from an interdisciplinary perspective.'
– Colleen Marie Pauza, The British Society for Literature and Science
(read the full review here)
'In his study of the domestication of electricity, Graeme Gooday has made an important contribution to the history of electrification and, more generally, to the history of technology.'
– Paul Israel, Isis
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