The Phonograph and Gender
Introduction The year was 1977. Thomas Edison created the phonograph, a device he thought would be used for business and preserving important figures’ last words. Instead, it became the first music playing device. The phonograph is the Walkman 's, the CD player’s, the boombox’s, and the mp3 player’s ancestor. It was the very first. Although it was a machine, something women of the time were not typically associated with, they influenced the phonograph much more than the more technically minded men. With the domestication of the phonograph, women became its most important customer and influencer. Its designs were modeled around femininity and advertisements targeted the woman who wanted to be cultured and the ideal …show more content…
The Second Industrial Revolution began in the 1870s and continued on through the early 1900s. Men were gone from their homes, working in factories and maneuvering the business world. Women were left at home to tend to the children and household chores. They were the ones with the time to indulge in music, unlike their working husbands. As stated in Kenny William’s Recorded Music in American Life: The Phonograph and Popular Memory (1890-1945), “This white-male domination reflected the nineteenth century’s growing separation of the sexes into distinct domains. The industrial revolution…relocated economic production away from the home, taking men into the factories and urban commercial centers and leaving women at home to raise the children, run the household…,”(Kenney 88-9). Gitelman says, “During the years 1895-1910, recorded sound was reconceived as a commodity for home consumption,” (Gitelman). Men were rarely home, so the phonograph became a product primarily consumed by women. (Gitelman). Not only were women in the right place physically to be the phonograph’s most important consumers, but they also were in the right place mentally. Women were meant to be listeners in the Victorian Era. They were “vessels of culture and models of self-cultivation,” and not meant to speak. Rather, they to be seen. (Naeem 461, Katz …show more content…
Kimmel writes that she believes the male salesmen do not know how to react towards women buying phonographs and that they misunderstand women. The Advance Agent is described as “disliked” by salesmen. The Advance Agent is there to look, not to buy. The Purchasing Agent is described as “more welcome” than the Advance Agent (Kimmel 73). Purchasing Agents were sent to stores to buy something specific by their husbands. However, if the price did not match what they were told to spend, Kimmel says they would have to leave and come back later. The Real Buyer is the last type of woman Kimmel describes. Kimmel describes the Real Buyer as wanting to buy a phonograph, but being unsure of exactly what she wants. Kimmel also says that salesmen should never talk about the mechanical aspects of a phonograph to a woman, as they “have no conception” of this (Kimmel 75). All women in Kimmel’s article are described as unsure, and only one comes in with the intention of buying a phonograph. One is described as deferring to her husband on all aspects. Kimmel also assumes the salesman was a man, although phonograph departments involved women all over the country. Women were also the primary decision makers regarding phonographs, as mentioned earlier. Kimmel’s article shows that there was a disconnect with what women were actually doing and what they were perceived as doing. (Kimmel
Introduction The year was 1977. Thomas Edison created the phonograph, a device he thought would be used for business and preserving important figures’ last words. Instead, it became the first music playing device. The phonograph is the Walkman 's, the CD player’s, the boombox’s, and the mp3 player’s ancestor. It was the very first. Although it was a machine, something women of the time were not typically associated with, they influenced the phonograph much more than the more technically minded men. With the domestication of the phonograph, women became its most important customer and influencer. Its designs were modeled around femininity and advertisements targeted the woman who wanted to be cultured and the ideal …show more content…
The Second Industrial Revolution began in the 1870s and continued on through the early 1900s. Men were gone from their homes, working in factories and maneuvering the business world. Women were left at home to tend to the children and household chores. They were the ones with the time to indulge in music, unlike their working husbands. As stated in Kenny William’s Recorded Music in American Life: The Phonograph and Popular Memory (1890-1945), “This white-male domination reflected the nineteenth century’s growing separation of the sexes into distinct domains. The industrial revolution…relocated economic production away from the home, taking men into the factories and urban commercial centers and leaving women at home to raise the children, run the household…,”(Kenney 88-9). Gitelman says, “During the years 1895-1910, recorded sound was reconceived as a commodity for home consumption,” (Gitelman). Men were rarely home, so the phonograph became a product primarily consumed by women. (Gitelman). Not only were women in the right place physically to be the phonograph’s most important consumers, but they also were in the right place mentally. Women were meant to be listeners in the Victorian Era. They were “vessels of culture and models of self-cultivation,” and not meant to speak. Rather, they to be seen. (Naeem 461, Katz …show more content…
Kimmel writes that she believes the male salesmen do not know how to react towards women buying phonographs and that they misunderstand women. The Advance Agent is described as “disliked” by salesmen. The Advance Agent is there to look, not to buy. The Purchasing Agent is described as “more welcome” than the Advance Agent (Kimmel 73). Purchasing Agents were sent to stores to buy something specific by their husbands. However, if the price did not match what they were told to spend, Kimmel says they would have to leave and come back later. The Real Buyer is the last type of woman Kimmel describes. Kimmel describes the Real Buyer as wanting to buy a phonograph, but being unsure of exactly what she wants. Kimmel also says that salesmen should never talk about the mechanical aspects of a phonograph to a woman, as they “have no conception” of this (Kimmel 75). All women in Kimmel’s article are described as unsure, and only one comes in with the intention of buying a phonograph. One is described as deferring to her husband on all aspects. Kimmel also assumes the salesman was a man, although phonograph departments involved women all over the country. Women were also the primary decision makers regarding phonographs, as mentioned earlier. Kimmel’s article shows that there was a disconnect with what women were actually doing and what they were perceived as doing. (Kimmel