Background
Thompson, Emily was born on February 20, 1962 in Pittsburgh. Daughter of George John and Majorie Haseman Thompson.
( In this history of aural culture in early-twentieth-cen...)
In this history of aural culture in early-twentieth-century America, Emily Thompson charts dramatic transformations in what people heard and how they listened. What they heard was a new kind of sound that was the product of modern technology. They listened as newly critical consumers of aural commodities. By examining the technologies that produced this sound, as well as the culture that enthusiastically consumed it, Thompson recovers a lost dimension of the Machine Age and deepens our understanding of the experience of change that characterized the era. Reverberation equations, sound meters, microphones, and acoustical tiles were deployed in places as varied as Boston's Symphony Hall, New York's office skyscrapers, and the soundstages of Hollywood. The control provided by these technologies, however, was applied in ways that denied the particularity of place, and the diverse spaces of modern America began to sound alike as a universal new sound predominated. Although this sound -- clear, direct, efficient, and nonreverberant -- had little to say about the physical spaces in which it was produced, it speaks volumes about the culture that created it. By listening to it, Thompson constructs a compelling new account of the experience of modernity in America.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262701065/?tag=2022091-20
Thompson, Emily was born on February 20, 1962 in Pittsburgh. Daughter of George John and Majorie Haseman Thompson.
She graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Surgery in Physics in 1984, and from Princeton University, with a Doctor of Philosophy in the history of science in 1992.
She teaches at Princeton University. She was Associate Professor of History at University of California, San Diego, from 2005 to 2006. Emily Thompson"s book is a welcome addition to this growing body of literature.
The book shows how American scientists and engineers, in the early twentieth century, developed tools and techniques to measure and control the behavior of sound.
As these men gained technological mastery over physical environments, they transformed the nation"s aural landscape and brought a new sense of uniformity and efficiency to daily life.
( In this history of aural culture in early-twentieth-cen...)
(Soundscape of Modernity by Thompson. MIT Press,2002)
Member of American, Studies Association, Society For the History of Technology, History of Science Society.