Making the Perfect Record: From Inscription to Impression in Early Magnetic RecordingMain MenuAboutAbstract for “Making the Perfect Record,” American Literature 85.4 (December 2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2370230, Duke U PIntroductionIntroduction to Making the Perfect Record: From Inscription to Impression in Early Magnetic RecordingNotesNotes for “Making the Perfect Record,” American Literature 85.4 (December 2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2370230, Duke U PMediaMedia for “Making the Perfect Record,” American Literature 85.4 (December 2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2370230, Duke U PAcknowledgmentsAcknowledgments for “Making the Perfect Record,” American Literature 85.4 (December 2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2370230, Duke U PTechnical InformationTechnical Information for “Making the Perfect Record,” American Literature 85.4 (December 2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2370230, Duke U PReferencesReferences for “Making the Perfect Record,” American Literature 85.4 (December 2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2370230, Duke U PJentery Sayersbecbfb529bffcfafdfad6920ed57b30ccdca5339This essay is part of the “New Media” special issue of American Literature (volume 85, number 4, December 2013). See http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2370230. Version 1 of the site is (c) 2013 by Duke University Press.
Textbook Hero
12013-10-14T11:24:29-07:00Jentery Sayersbecbfb529bffcfafdfad6920ed57b30ccdca53392495Textbook iterations of technological development often privilege the lone inventorplain2013-12-19T16:06:55-08:00Jentery Sayersbecbfb529bffcfafdfad6920ed57b30ccdca5339For more on the textbook hero, see Hounshell (1975, 1), who argues: “Most professional historians of technology recognize . . . textbook accounts as myths and discount their simplistic treatment of what is really a complex story of invention, development, and innovation. They wish the history of technology to be given more prominence in general textbooks, but first to be freed of old myths.”
12013-11-16T22:12:19-08:00Jentery Sayersbecbfb529bffcfafdfad6920ed57b30ccdca5339NotesJentery Sayers7Notes for “Making the Perfect Record,” American Literature 85.4 (December 2013), http://10.1215/00029831-2370230, Duke U Pplain84242013-12-27T07:16:10-08:00Jentery Sayersbecbfb529bffcfafdfad6920ed57b30ccdca5339
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12013-10-14T18:17:11-07:00Mystifying the Technical Particulars6Popular representations of science and technology often not only give the impression that scientists work alone but also mask the particulars of how technology actual worksplain2013-12-19T16:00:16-08:00Consider the 1851 Crystal Palace Exposition in London, the ephemeral lavishness of which fascinated Walter Benjamin, namely due to correlations between such lavishness and free trade. There are also Thomas Edison’s demonstrations of electric light at the 1881 Paris Exhibition and the phonograph at the 1889 Paris Centennial of the French Revolution. The list goes on, and one persuasive interpretation of these demonstrations is that they foster myths of the lone inventor, often a textbook hero of some entrepreneurial class in US culture. Such myths reduce a set of complex activities (e.g., the labors of production, research, and advertising) to a single product borne by a genius scientist or engineer. They also bolster bootstrap narratives of upward mobility not unlike a Horatio Alger story. Moreover, the mystification of a technology enables what Matthew Kirschenbaum (2008) calls a “medial ideology,” or mass attention to the formal qualities of a given medium at the expense of a technology’s material particulars. In the case of the telegraphone, the aesthetic appeal of magnetic wire’s perfect record overshadowed the physical limitations of the technology’s hardware and the labor involved in creating it. In many ways, the telegraphone was vaporware at the turn of the century.
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12013-10-14T18:17:11-07:00Mystifying the Technical Particulars7On Popular Representations of Science and Technologyplain2013-12-26T10:54:34-08:00
