The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933

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, and the way they listened was 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. The Soundscape of Modernity is published by The MIT Press, 2002, and is available from the Press at http://mitpress.mit.edu/0262201380.