Plotnick discusses the uses of early push buttons to call servants, and the growing tensions between those who work with their hands and those who command with their fingers; automation as “automagic,” enabling command at a distance; instant gratification, and the victory of light over darkness; and early twentieth-century imaginings of a future push-button culture. Push buttons, Plotnick tells us, have demonstrated remarkable staying power, despite efforts to cast button pushers as lazy, privileged, and even dangerous.
Push buttons pop up on everything from blenders to aeroplanes. Yet, as Rachel Plotnick reveals in this unusual technological history, the mechanism had an explosive impact on culture from its debut in the 1880s to the 1920s and beyond.
—Nature—Thought provoking, not least for engineers who employ them as the main point of relationship between the output of their work and the ultimate user.
—Engineering & Technology—An engrossing cultural history.
—London Review of Books—Loaded with sharp observations and prescient pronouncements about how pushing (and clicking, tapping, and swiping) became our way of life.
—Los Angeles Review of Books—This volume is a valuable contribution to our understanding of technology, interface design, and the history of science… Highly recommended.
—CHOICE—Plotnick discusses the uses of early push buttons to call servants, and the growing tensions between those who work with their hands and those who command with their fingers; automation as “automagic,” enabling command at a distance; instant gratification, and the victory of light over darkness; and early twentieth-century imaginings of a future push-button culture. Push buttons, Plotnick tells us, have demonstrated remarkable staying power, despite efforts to cast button pushers as lazy, privileged, and even dangerous.
Push buttons pop up on everything from blenders to aeroplanes. Yet, as Rachel Plotnick reveals in this unusual technological history, the mechanism had an explosive impact on culture from its debut in the 1880s to the 1920s and beyond.
—Nature—Thought provoking, not least for engineers who employ them as the main point of relationship between the output of their work and the ultimate user.
—Engineering & Technology—An engrossing cultural history.
—London Review of Books—Loaded with sharp observations and prescient pronouncements about how pushing (and clicking, tapping, and swiping) became our way of life.
—Los Angeles Review of Books—This volume is a valuable contribution to our understanding of technology, interface design, and the history of science… Highly recommended.
—CHOICE—
