Although telephones were instated into the home as a business communication tool, the women of the house soon appropriated the technology for “sociability” - checking in with family and friends, gossiping, chatting and connecting with the community. Ana and Camila aptly chit-chat about how this phenomenon became so pronounced over the years that it shaped the evolution of phones and outlined the ways in which we use phones now.
Join us over at Patreon and follow us on Twitter @OurFriendComp And Instagram @ourfriendthecomputer
Main research and audio editing was done by Ana. Music by Nelson Guay (SoundCloud: fluxlinkages)
OFtC is a sister project of the Media Archaeology Lab at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
References:
Fisher, C. S. 1992. America calling: A social history of the telephone to 1940. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Hanson, E. 1995. The telephone and its queerness. In Cruising the performative: Interventions into the representation of ethnicity, na tionality, and sexuality, edited by E. A. Case. Bloomington: Indi ana University Press.
Moyal, A. 1992. The gendered use of the telephone: An Australian case study. Media, Culture, and Socieh J 14:51-72.
O'Keefe, G., and Sulanowski, B.1995. More than just talk: Uses, gratifications, and the telephone. Journalism and Mass Communications Quarterly 72(4):922-933.
Rakow, L. 1992. Gender on the line: Women, the telephone, and community life. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Arafeh, S. 2000. Chapter Five: Women, Telephones, and Subtle Solidarity: A Counternarrative. Counterpoints Journal. Peter Lang AG. https://www.jstor.org/stable/42976096?read-now=1&seq=26#page_scan_tab_contents
Retrowow. 80s mobile phones. https://www.retrowow.co.uk/retro_collectibles/80s/mobile_phone.html#:~:text=The 8500X had an alphabetic,than the 8000X and 8000S.
Sallyedelstein. 2015. The Telephone and the Housewife. Envisioning The American Dream https://envisioningtheamericandream.com/2015/12/22/the-telephone-and-the-housewife/
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