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Kline'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.
Kline fills a real gap in our understanding of the ways rural Americans incorporated technology into their daily lives.
His social historical-technological approach makes any historical study of technology ultimately much more valuable.
Kline's work is a welcome addition to this body of scholarship.
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.
Careful, meticulously researched, and well written.
This extremely thorough presentation presents a clear picture of how industries changed, and were changed by, farm families.
Consumers in the Country makes important contributions to scholarship in the history and theory of technology and the social history of rural life.
Well-researched, entertaining, and generally convincing.
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.
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.
A welcome addition.
Kline displays a confident grasp of technology. He really understands how things work and he has the ability to explain this to readers. This is a rare and valuable quality. He also has an exemplary understanding of the social dimension of technology, throwing new light on the relationship between farm people and modernizers.
About
Book Details
Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x 9
Pages
384
ISBN
9780801871153
Illustration Description
7 halftones, 4 line drawings
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
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
Acknowledgments
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
Index
