• DOI:10.2307/3103251
• Corpus ID: 31522811

The "Industrial Revolution" in the home: household technology and social change in the 20th century.

@article{Cowan1976TheR,
  title={The "Industrial Revolution" in the home: household technology and social change in the 20th century.},
  author={Ruth Schwartz Cowan},
  journal={Technology and culture},
  year={1976},
  volume={17 1},
  pages={
          1-23
        }
}

• R. Cowan
• Published 1976
• History, Economics
• Technology and culture

When we think about the interaction between technology and society, we tend to think in fairly grandiose terms: massive computers invading the workplace, railroad tracks cutting through vast wildernesses, armies of woman and children toiling in the mills. These grand visions have blinded us to an important and rather peculiar technological revolution which has been going on right under our noses: the technological revolution in the home. This revolution has transformed the conduct of our daily lives, but in somewhat unexpected ways. The industrialization of the home was a process very different from the industrialization of other means of production, and the impact of that process was neither what we have been led to believe it was nor what students of the other industrial revolutions would have been led to predict.