Archive for September, 2005
blogging difficulties
Friday, September 30th, 2005Archy and Mehitabel
Friday, September 30th, 2005Microfilm!
Thursday, September 29th, 2005reading response – Afternoon
Thursday, September 29th, 2005At least his intentions were good…
Thursday, September 29th, 2005reading response – New Writing Space
Thursday, September 29th, 2005Bush and Borges
Wednesday, September 28th, 2005Decisions, Decisions
Wednesday, September 28th, 2005Alice in the garden of forking paths
Wednesday, September 28th, 2005Women and Typewriters
Wednesday, September 28th, 2005I found it interesing that Vannevar Bush’s “As We May Think” subtly reflects and confirms, through language, McLuhan and Gitelman’s points about women and typewriters. Here’s what I’m talking about:
McLuhan, 1964: “The same kind of autonomy and independence which Charles Olson claims that the typewriter confers on the voice of the poet was claimed for the typewriter by the career woman of fifty years ago… The reader will recall earlier mention that when the first wave of female typists hit the business office in the 1800s, the cuspidor manufacturers read the sign of doom. They were right. More important, the uniform ranks of fashionable lady typists made possible a revolution in the garment industry…” (259).
Gitelman, 1999: “For its part, secretarial typing forms the classic case of the sexual division of labor. Office work once done wholly by men was later done wholly by women, the typewriter reportedly having played a central role in this dramatic reversal… automatic telegraphy was cheap; perforating, transmitting, and receiving machines could be handled by low-paid ‘ girls’ instead of by more highly paid male ‘first-class operators,’ as the distinction was often drawn. The word ‘automatic’ in this context denoted an increased efficiency because it was mechanical, and a decreased skill level for operation that was pointedly feminized.” (maybe I’m blind, but I can’t read the page numbers for these… so you’re going to have to just trust me here).
These were written decades after Bush’s “As We May Think.” Published in 1945, Bush’s article talks about the future, but the language he uses reflects what McLuhan and Gitelman said about gender and the typewriter.
Bush, 1945: 1. “At a recent World Fair a machine called a Voder was shown. A girl stroked its keys and it emitted recognizable speech” (40). 2. “The other element is found in the stenotype, that somewhat disconcerting device encountered usually at public meetings. A girl strokes its keys languidly…” (40). 3. “Such machines will have enormous appetites. One of them will take instructions and data from a whole roomful of girls armed with simple key board punches…” (41).
It’s interesting because I doubt Bush even realized that he was doing this… but his language definitely reinforces the conventions (or perhaps the realities?) of his era… i.e. that “girls,” not men, are meant to operate typing machines.
McLuhan, 1964: “The same kind of autonomy and independence which Charles Olson claims that the typewriter confers on the voice of the poet was claimed for the typewriter by the career woman of fifty years ago… The reader will recall earlier mention that when the first wave of female typists hit the business office in the 1800s, the cuspidor manufacturers read the sign of doom. They were right. More important, the uniform ranks of fashionable lady typists made possible a revolution in the garment industry…” (259).
Gitelman, 1999: “For its part, secretarial typing forms the classic case of the sexual division of labor. Office work once done wholly by men was later done wholly by women, the typewriter reportedly having played a central role in this dramatic reversal… automatic telegraphy was cheap; perforating, transmitting, and receiving machines could be handled by low-paid ‘ girls’ instead of by more highly paid male ‘first-class operators,’ as the distinction was often drawn. The word ‘automatic’ in this context denoted an increased efficiency because it was mechanical, and a decreased skill level for operation that was pointedly feminized.” (maybe I’m blind, but I can’t read the page numbers for these… so you’re going to have to just trust me here).
These were written decades after Bush’s “As We May Think.” Published in 1945, Bush’s article talks about the future, but the language he uses reflects what McLuhan and Gitelman said about gender and the typewriter.
Bush, 1945: 1. “At a recent World Fair a machine called a Voder was shown. A girl stroked its keys and it emitted recognizable speech” (40). 2. “The other element is found in the stenotype, that somewhat disconcerting device encountered usually at public meetings. A girl strokes its keys languidly…” (40). 3. “Such machines will have enormous appetites. One of them will take instructions and data from a whole roomful of girls armed with simple key board punches…” (41).
It’s interesting because I doubt Bush even realized that he was doing this… but his language definitely reinforces the conventions (or perhaps the realities?) of his era… i.e. that “girls,” not men, are meant to operate typing machines.