For over 250 years American technology has been regarded as a unique hallmark of American culture and an important factor in American prosperity. Despite this American history has rarely been told from the perspective of the history of technology. A Social History of American Technology fills this gap by surveying the history of American technology from the tools used by the earliest native inhabitants to the technological systems -- cars and computers, aircraft and antibiotics -- we are familiar with today. Cowan makes use of the most recent scholarship to explain how the unique characteristics of American cultures and American geography have affected the technologies that have been invented, manufactured, and used throughout the years. She also focuses on the key individuals and ideas that have shaped important technological developments. The text explains how various technologies have affected the ways in which Americans work, govern, cook, transport, communicate, maintain their health, and reproduce. Cowan demonstrates that technological change has always been closely related to social development, and explores the multiple, complex relationships that have existed between such diverse social agents as households and businesses, the scientific community and the defense establishment, artists and inventors. Divided into three sections -- colonial America, industrialization, the 20th century -- A Social History of American Technology is ideal for courses in American social and economic history, as a correlated text for the American history survey, as well as for courses that focus on the history of American technology. It offers students the unique opportunity to learn not only how profoundly technological change has affected the American way of life, but how profoundly the American way of life has affected technology.

A Social History of American Technology

Business & Money

Cowan, Ruth Schwartz

Economics

Oxford University Press

History

Historical Study & Educational Resources

Surrounded by electronic gadgets, today's woman spends as much time doing housework as did her colonial sister. This fascinating book explains why. Ruth Shwartz Cowan shows how the workload has acutally increased for woman with the introduction of each new invention designed to save time.

More Work For Mother

Parenting & Relationships

Basic Books

In this classic work of women's history (winner of the 1984 Dexter Prize from the Society for the History of Technology), Ruth Schwartz Cowan shows how and why modern women devote as much time to housework as did their colonial sisters. In lively and provocative prose, Cowan explains how the modern conveniences—washing machines, white flour, vacuums, commercial cotton—seemed at first to offer working-class women middle-class standards of comfort. Over time, however, it became clear that these gadgets and gizmos mainly replaced work previously conducted by men, children, and servants. Instead of living lives of leisure, middle-class women found themselves struggling to keep up with ever higher standards of cleanliness.

More Work For Mother: The Ironies Of Household Technology From The Open Hearth To The Microwave

Oral histories recount the transition from an Eastern European society ruled by Talmudic laws to a less strictly regulated American society

Our Parents Lives

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Psychology & Counseling

The secrets locked in our genes are being revealed, and we find ourselves both enthused and frightened about what that portends. We look forward to curing disease and alleviating suffering―for our children as well as for ourselves―but we also worry about delving too deeply into the double helix. Abuses perpetrated by eugenicists―from involuntary sterilization to murder―continue to taint our feelings about genetic screening. 
Yet, as Ruth Schwartz Cowan reveals, modern genetic screening has been practiced since 1960, benefiting millions of women and children all over the world. She persuasively argues that new forms of screening―prenatal, newborn, and carrier testing―are both morally right and politically acceptable. Medical genetics, built on the desire of parents and physicians to reduce suffering and increase personal freedom, not on the desire to “improve the human race,” is in fact an entirely different enterprise from eugenics. 
Cowan’s narrative moves from an account of the interwoven histories of genetics and eugenics in the first half of the twentieth century, to the development of new forms of genetic screening after mid-century. It includes illuminating chapters on the often misunderstood testing programs for sickle cell anemia, and on the world’s only mandated premarital screening programs, both of them on the island of Cyprus. 
Neither minimizing the difficulty of the choices that modern genetics has created for us nor fearing them, Cowan bravely and compassionately argues that we can improve the quality of our own lives and the lives of our children by using the modern science and technology of genetic screening responsibly.

Heredity and Hope: The Case for Genetic Screening

Harvard University Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cowan, Ruth Schwartz. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Cowan, Ruth Schwartz

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cowan, Ruth Schwartz. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

A Social History of American Technology

A Social History of American Technology

More Work For Mother

More Work For Mother: The Ironies Of Household Technology From The Open Hearth To The Microwave

Our Parents Lives

Heredity and Hope: The Case for Genetic Screening