Practical mechanics, domestic technology, and the culture of modernity in Britain, c. 1870- 1940
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Cambridge
Department Name: History
Abstract
This project aims to examine the vibrant culture of amateur experimentation with new technological artefacts - principally
cameras, automobiles, and wireless sets - which took root at the turn of the twentieth century. It seeks to provide a new
optic on historiographical debates about the relationships between technology and gender, and about the 'domestication'
of technology in modern Britain. In doing so it hopes to provide insights into the culture of modernity in Britain more
broadly. By exploring the early culture of tinkering with cars, radios and cameras, this research hopes to provide an
account of new technology which stresses the richness of the relationships between humans and machines. It seeks to
move away from a historiographical tendency to foreground the production, 'diffusion', and representation of new
technologies, and instead observe actors as they creatively engaged with them. This will also, it is hoped, provide a new
way of thinking about the processes by which those technologies became 'domesticated'. A further aim of studying the
largely male pursuit of practical mechanics is to provide an insight into the emergence of middle-class, masculine
'technical' identities across this period. Again this will seek to correct a historiographical tendency to describe or assume
this identity without asking how or why it came into being. The emphasis in this research will thus be on the ways in
which actors made themselves as they tinkered with machines.
cameras, automobiles, and wireless sets - which took root at the turn of the twentieth century. It seeks to provide a new
optic on historiographical debates about the relationships between technology and gender, and about the 'domestication'
of technology in modern Britain. In doing so it hopes to provide insights into the culture of modernity in Britain more
broadly. By exploring the early culture of tinkering with cars, radios and cameras, this research hopes to provide an
account of new technology which stresses the richness of the relationships between humans and machines. It seeks to
move away from a historiographical tendency to foreground the production, 'diffusion', and representation of new
technologies, and instead observe actors as they creatively engaged with them. This will also, it is hoped, provide a new
way of thinking about the processes by which those technologies became 'domesticated'. A further aim of studying the
largely male pursuit of practical mechanics is to provide an insight into the emergence of middle-class, masculine
'technical' identities across this period. Again this will seek to correct a historiographical tendency to describe or assume
this identity without asking how or why it came into being. The emphasis in this research will thus be on the ways in
which actors made themselves as they tinkered with machines.
