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OverviewFrom 1900 to 1960, the introduction and development of four ""urbanizing"" technologies - the telephone, automobile, radio, and electric light and power - transformed the rural United States. But did these new technologies truly revolutionize rural life in the ways modernizers predicted? And how exactly - and with what levels of resistance and acceptance - did this change take place? In this work, Ronald Kline, aiming to avoid the trap of technological determinism, explores the changing relationships among the professionals, government agencies, sales people, and others who promoted these technologies and the farm families who largely succeeded in adapting the technologies to rural culture. Farm life was indeed transformed between 1900 and 1960, Kline concludes, but only as the result of a highly fractured and contested process: farm folk were much more than the passive, simple-minded and grateful recipients of urban technology the modernizers made them seem. Striving to negotiate the terms of the new communication, transportation and household technologies, farm people created novel ways of life, ones that lay between rural culture and suburban consumerism. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Ronald R. Kline (Bovay Professor in History and Ethics of Engineering, Cornell University)Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press Imprint: Johns Hopkins University Press Dimensions: Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.70cm , Length: 22.90cm Weight: 0.652kg ISBN: 9780801862489ISBN 10: 0801862485 Pages: 384 Publication Date: 23 June 2000 Recommended Age: From 17 Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate , Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: To order  Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us. Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction Part I: Urban Technology and Rural Reform Chapter 1. (Re)inventing the Telephone Chapter 2. Taming the Devil Wagon Chapter 3. Defining Modernity in the Home Chapter 4. Tuning In The Country Part II: A New Deal In Rural Electrification Chapter 5. Creating the REA Chapter 6. Struggling for Local Autonomy Chapter 7. Lights in the Country Part III: Postwar Consumerism Chapter 8. Completing the Job Chapter 9. (Re)forming Rural Life Conclusion. Consumers All? Appendix List of Abbreviations Notes Bibliographical and Methodological Note IndexReviewsKline's work is strong in a number of areas... The study is a well written and well researched compilation... and should be standard reading for those interested in the transformation of rural America in the twentieth century. -- Allen Shepherd Nebraska History Kline fills a real gap in our understanding of the ways rural Americans incorporated technology into their daily lives. -- Melissa Walker Journal of American History His social historical-technological approach makes any historical study of technology ultimately much more valuable. -- Tyler O. Walters Journal of Illinois History Kline's work is a welcome addition to this body of scholarship. -- Pamela Riney-Kehrberg Kansas History Consumers in the Country provides an important and very welcome venture into both the history of consumption patterns-an underdeveloped subject in our field-and nonurban people. -- Deborah Fitzgerald Technology and Culture Careful, meticulously researched, and well written. -- David Blanke Annals of Iowa This extremely thorough presentation presents a clear picture of how industries changed, and were changed by, farm families. Choice Consumers in the Country makes important contributions to scholarship in the history and theory of technology and the social history of rural life. -- Mark Finlay History: Reviews of New Books Well-researched, entertaining, and generally convincing. -- Brian Q. Cannon Western Historical Quarterly Kline does a fine job in describing the ways in which rural people made new technologies part of their lives, noting regional, class, and gender implications. His writing is clear, thoughtful, intelligent, and often highly amusing. -- Jeanette Keith Journal of Appalachian Studies Kline's presentation of farmers as historical actors who controlled acceptance of technology on their own terms is valuable and should inform future studies of agricultural communities. -- Barbara Handy-Marchello Great Plains Research 2003 A welcome addition. -- Pamela Riney-Kehrberg Kansas History <p> Consumers in the Country provides an important and very welcome venture into both the history of consumption patterns -- an underdeveloped subject in our field -- and nonurban people.--Deborah Fitzgerald Technology and Culture A welcome addition. -- Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, Kansas History Author InformationAuthor Website: http://bovay.ece.cornell.eduRonald R. Kline is a professor of history of technology at Cornell University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Science and Technology Studies and the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Tab Content 6Author Website: http://bovay.ece.cornell.eduCountries AvailableAll regions |
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