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The Age of Edison; Electric Light and the Invention of Modern America
by Freeberg, Ernest
- Used
- Very Good
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Very Good/Very good
- ISBN 10
- 1594204268
- ISBN 13
- 9781594204265
- Seller
-
Silver Spring, Maryland, United States
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About This Item
New York: The Penguin Press, 2013. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. [14], 354 pages. Frontis. Illustrations. Notes. Index. This is one of the Penguin History of American Life. Ernest Freeberg is an American historian in 19th and 20th-century American culture, currently a Distinguished Humanities Professor and Departmental Chair of History at the University of Tennessee. In 2002, he was awarded the John H. Dunning Prize. Dr. Freeberg's research interests center on the cultural and intellectual history of the United States in the 19th and early 20th century. The Age of Edison, explores the impact of electric light on the development of modern American culture. His Democracy's Prisoner: Eugene V. Debs explores imprisonment of the socialist and the role played in promoting civil liberties in America. Democracy's Prisoner won the Langum Prize in American Legal History and the Oboler Award from the American Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Roundtable. The author begins as the inventor struggles to find a suitable filament for his bulb. Freeberg then takes us on a tour of the electric world as it emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He shows us how light affected many other aspects of American life, including shopping, transportation, leisure, education and medicine. Freeberg also examines how the spread of light across the country came to symbolize not just American inventiveness, but for many, cultural superiority. The author notes that, for a while, light was the property of the well-to-do, then of urban dwellers and, finally, of rural Americans, many of whom did not have electricity until the rural electrification projects of the New Deal. Freeberg also shows the gradual growth of the profession of electrician, the standardization of products and the rise of university degrees in electrical engineering.
Synopsis
The late nineteenth century was a period of explosive technological creativity, but arguably the most important invention of all was Thomas Edison’s incandescent lightbulb. Unveiled in his Menlo Park, New Jersey, laboratory in 1879, the lightbulb overwhelmed the American public with the sense of the birth of a new age. More than any other invention, the electric light marked the arrival of modernity. The lightbulb became a catalyst for the nation’s transformation from a rural to an urban-dominated culture. City streetlights defined zones between rich and poor, and the electrical grid sharpened the line between town and country. “Bright lights” meant “big city.” Like moths to a flame, millions of Americans migrated to urban centers in these decades, leaving behind the shadow of candle and kerosene lamp in favor of the exciting brilliance of the urban streetscape. The Age of Edison places the story of Edison’s invention in the context of a technological revolution that transformed America and Europe in these decades. Edison and his fellow inventors emerged from a culture shaped by broad public education, a lively popular press that took an interest in science and technology, and an American patent system that encouraged innovation and democratized the benefits of invention. And in the end, as Freeberg shows, Edison’s greatest invention was not any single technology, but rather his reinvention of the process itself. At Menlo Park he gathered the combination of capital, scientific training, and engineering skill that would evolve into the modern research and development laboratory. His revolutionary electrical grid not only broke the stronghold of gas companies, but also ushered in an era when strong, clear light could become accessible to everyone. In The Age of Edison , Freeberg weaves a narrative that reaches from Coney Island and Broadway to the tiniest towns of rural America, tracing the progress of electric light through the reactions of everyone who saw it. It is a quintessentially American story of ingenuity, ambition, and possibility, in which the greater forces of progress and change are made visible by one of our most humble and ubiquitous objects.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Ground Zero Books
(US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 77673
- Title
- The Age of Edison; Electric Light and the Invention of Modern America
- Author
- Freeberg, Ernest
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Very Good
- Jacket Condition
- Very good
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- First Printing [Stated]
- ISBN 10
- 1594204268
- ISBN 13
- 9781594204265
- Publisher
- The Penguin Press
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 2013
- Keywords
- Thomas Edison, Electricity, Light Bulb, Charles Brush, Electrification, Illumination, Invention, Technology Development, Patents, Streetlamps, Standardization
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Ground Zero Books
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About Ground Zero Books
Founded and operated by trained historians, Ground Zero Books, Ltd., has for over 30 years served scholars, collectors, universities, and all who are interested in military and political history.
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