Enough: Staying human in an engineered age by Bill McKibben

John Turney — Fri, 09 May 2003 23:00:00 +0000

Student books : House of magic

John Turney — Fri, 10 Oct 1997 23:00:00 +0000

GENERAL Electric, proprietor of the first corporate research laboratory in
the US, used the lab to boost its image as well as improve its products. By
1930, it was known as GE’s “house of magic”, a phrase coined by a gushing radio
journalist. The techies who worked there were, of course, “wizards”.

Some of them felt uncomfortable about this, but the company’s PR people
couldn’t resist. Before long, it was using the name for its exhibits at events
such as the Chicago exposition of 1943, exhibits which shamelessly combined
gee-whizzery with popular entertainment. The whole effort framed an image of
unproblematic technical progress which corporations strove to keep intact for
the following thirty years. By the 1960s, it had unravelled.

The story is told in one of the more engaging essays in this slightly
puzzling collection from nine American social historians, edited by Ronald
Walter. Puzzling, because several of the essays are mainly about the 19th
century, and several say almost nothing about science. Scientific Authority
and Twentieth-Century America (Johns Hopkins, £29, ISBN 0801853893)
opens and closes with involuted, academic essays that assume acquaintance with
intellectual trends to which none of the authors really does justice. In between
are pieces on social science, germ theory, health behaviour and farming
research. Two or three of them are rather good. Why they are all in the same
book still beats me.

John Turney, Author at New �Ӱ�ԭ��

Enough: Staying human in an engineered age by Bill McKibben

Student books : House of magic