Our Own Devices: How Technology Remakes Humanity

by Edward Tenner

  32. Ibid., 208–16.

  33. Ibid., 217–28; William E. Cooper, “Introduction,” in William E. Cooper, ed., Cognitive Aspects of Skilled Typewriting (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1983), 6.

  34. Cooper, “Introduction,” 7; Dvorak et al., Typewriting Behavior, 237.

  35. Gardey, “Standardization,” 323–39; Cooper, “Introduction,” 8.

  36. Lippman, American Typewriters, 41–43.

  37. Allan G. Bromley, “Analog Computing Devices,” in William Aspray, ed., Computing Before Computers (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1990), 156–85.

  38. Jay Hersh, “The Tyranny of the Keyboard,” in http://www.tifaq.org/articles; “DEC Terminals,” in http://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford.

  39. See Edward Tenner, Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences (New York: Vintage Books, 1997), 222–29.

  40. Joy M. Ebben, “It’s Not Just with Keyboards,” Occupational Health & Safety, vol. 70, no. 4 (April 2001), 65ff.; Pamela Mendels, “Protecting Little Hands,” New York Times, January 9, 2000.

  41. Donald A. Norman and Diane Fisher, “Why Alphabetic Keyboards Are Not Easy to Use: Keyboard Layout Doesn’t Much Matter,” Human Factors, vol. 24, no. 5 (October 1982), 509–19; Donald R. Gentner and Donald A. Norman, “The Typist’s Touch,” Psychology Today, vol. 18, no. 3 (March 1984), 66–72; S. J. Liebowitz and Stephen E. Margolis, “The Fable of the Keys,” Journal of Law and Economics, vol. 33, no. 1 (April 1990), 1–26.

  42. Scot Ober, “Review of Research on the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard,” Delta Pi Epsilon Journal, vol. 34, no. 4 (Fall 1992), 167–82; Scot Ober, “Relative Efficiencies of the Standard and Dvorak Simplified Keyboards,” Delta Pi Epsilon Journal, vol. 35, no. 1 (Winter 1993), 1–13, and references cited in each article; Peter J. Howe, “Different Strokes Catch On,” Boston Globe, January 15, 1996; Jennifer B. Lee, “Keyboards Stuck in the Age of NumLock; Defunct Keys and Odd Commands Still Bedevil Today’s PC User,” New York Times, August 12, 1999.

  43. Neal Taslitz, telephone interview, August 17, 2002.

  44. John Markoff, “Microsoft Sees New Software Based on Pens,” New York Times, November 9, 2000; “Newtonian Marketing Lessons,” Advertising Age, August 15, 1994, 20.

  45. Frank R. Wilson, The Hand: How Its Use Shapes the Brain, Language, and Human Culture (New York: Pantheon Books, 1998), 309–10; Lisa Guernsey, “For Those Who Would Click and Cheat,” New York Times, April 26, 2001.

  46. Monaco, “Difficult Birth,” 15.

  47. Lucy C. Bull, “Being a Typewriter,” Atlantic Monthly, vol. 76, no. 458 (December 1895), 822–31.

  CHAPTER NINE

  1. Vincent Canby, “Nobody’s Spared in Dame Edna’s One-Man Show,” New York Times, October 24, 1992; Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, “Behind the Superman, an All-Too-Human Thinker,” New York Times, November 23, 1998; Marc Winoto, “Ways of Walking,” New Scientist, vol. 164, no. 2218 (December 25, 1999), 87.

  2. “The Adventure of the Golden Pince-nez,” in The Annotated Sherlock Holmes, ed. William S. Baring-Gould, 2 vols. (New York: Potter, 1967), vol. 2, 356, 364; Frank DeCaro, “Dame Edna Speaks Her Mind, and Yours,” New York Times, October 3, 1999.

  3. Hugh R. Taylor, “Racial Variations in Vision,” American Journal of Epidemiology, vol. 133, no. 1 (January 1981), 62–80; Seang-Mei Saw et al., “Epidemiology of Myopia,” Epidemiologic Reviews, vol. 18, no. 2 (1996), 176–77; Richard A. Post, “Population Differences in Visual Acuity,” Social Biology, vol. 29, no. 3–4 (Fall—Winter 1982), 319–43; Jane E. Brody, “In Debate on Myopia’s Origins the Winner Is: Both Sides?” New York Times, June 1, 1994.

  4. Douglas Fox, “Blinded by Bread,” New Scientist, vol. 174, no. 2337 (April 6, 2002), 9; Loren Cordain et al., “An Evolutionary Analysis of the Aetiology and Pathogenesis of Juvenile-Onset Myopia,” Acta Ophthalmologica Scandinavica, vol. 80, no. 2 (April 2002), 125–35.

  5. Anneliese A. Pontius, “In Similarity Judgments Hunter-Gatherers Prefer Shapes over Spatial Relations in Contrast to Literate Groups,” Perceptual and Motor Skills, vol. 81, no. 3, pt. 1 (December 1995), 1027–41.

  6. Jah M. Enoch, “The Enigma of Early Lens Use,” Technology and Culture, vol. 39, no. 2 (April 1998), 278–91.

  7. “Lenses and Eyeglasses,” Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, vol. 7, 538; Nicholas Horsfall, “Rome Without Spectacles,” Greece & Rome, vol. 42, no. 1 (April 1998), 49–56.

  8. Dora Jane Hamblin, “What a Spectacle! Eyeglasses, and How They Evolved,” Smithsonian, vol. 13, no. 12 (March 1983), 102–3; Vincent Ilardi, “Renaissance Florence: The Optical Capital of the World,” Journal of European Economic History, vol. 22, no. 3 (Winter 1993), 508–10.

  9. Ilardi, “Renaissance Florence,” 512–36.

  10. Dennis Simms, electronic mail, August 25, 2002; Vincent Ilardi, telephone interview, August 24, 2002. See D. J. Bryden and D. L. Simms, “Spectacles Improved to Perfection and Approved by the Royal Society,” Annals of Science (U.K.), vol. 50, no. 1 (1993), 1–32.

  11. Henri Jean Martin, The History and Power of Writing, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 32; John Dreyfus, “The Invention of Spectacles and the Advent of Printing,” The Library, 6th ser., vol. 10, no. 2 (June 1988), 94–106; Lynn White, Jr., “Technology Assessment from the Stance of a Medieval Historian,” American Historical Review, vol. 79, no. 1 (February 1974), 1–13.

  12. Heinz Herbert Mann, Augenglas und Perspektive: Studien zur Ikonographie zweier Bildmotive (Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 1992), 43–57.

  13. Ibid., 30–32, 35–39; Jean-Claude Margolin, “Des Lunettes et des Hommes ou la Satire des Mal-voyants au XVIe Siècle,” Annales E.S.C., vol. 30, no. 2–3 (March—June 1975), figs. V—IX.

  14. Margolin, “Des Lunettes et des Hommes,” 375–93.

  15. German text: “Was heissen Fackeln / Liecht oder Brilln / Wann die Leute nich sehen wölln.” Claude K. Deischer and Joseph L. Rabinowitz, “The Owl of Hein-rich Khunrath: Its Origin and Significance,” Chymia, vol. 3 (1950), 243–50; Mann, Augenglas, 92–94, 99–100.

  16. Jill Bepler, “Cultural Life at the Wolfenbüttel Court, 1635–1666,” A Treasure House of Books: The Library of Duke August of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (Wolfenbüttel: Herzog August Bibliothek, 1998), 140–46.

  17. Michael Scholz-Hänsel, El Greco, Der Großinquisitor: Neues Licht auf die Schwarze Legende (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1991), 47–60.

  18. Ibid., 67–72.

  19. Richard Corson, Fashions in Eyeglasses (Chester Springs, Pa.: Dufour, 1967), 63.

  20. Ibid., 69–74.

  21. Ibid., 69–70; Rita Reif, “Fashions in Glasses, Sights for Sore Eyes,” New York Times, December 21, 1997; “On the Nose: Spectacles and Other Optical Fashions,” exhibition text, New-York Historical Society (I am grateful to Margaret K. Hofer of the Society for providing a copy); Billie J. A. Follensbee, “Rubens Peale’s Spectacles: An Optical Illusion?” History of Opththalmology, vol. 41, no. 5 (March—April 1997), 417–24.

  22. James R. Gregg, The Story of Optometry (New York: Ronald Press, 1965), 130–31; “Durchs Glas den Rehbock Geniessen,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March 12, 2001; Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA)—Europadienst, release March 8, 2001.

  23. Gregg, Story of Optometry, 132–33, 179–201; Hermann von Helmholtz, Popular Lectures on Scientific Subjects (New York: Appleton, 1873), 197–226.

  24. “Education,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, 14th ed.; David Vincent, The Rise of Mass Literacy: Reading and Writing in Modern Europe (Cambridge, Eng.: Polity, 2000), 1–26.

  25. Roy Porter, “Reading Is Bad for Your Health,” History Today, vol. 48, no. 3 (March 1998), 11–16.

  26. Suzanne Hahn, “Die Schulhygiene zwischen naturwissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis, sozialer Verantwortung und ‘vaterländischem Dienst’: Das Beispiel der Myopie in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts,” Medizinhistorisches Journal, vol. 29, no. 1 (1994), 23–38; Emil Ludwig, Gifts of Life: A Retrospect (Boston: Little, Brown, 1931), 3–1
9.

  27. Hermann Cohn, The Hygiene of the Eyes in Schools, trans. W. P. Turnbull (London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1886), 54–83; James C. Albisetti, Secondary School Reform in Imperial Germany (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), 123–24.

  28. Albisetti, Secondary School Reform, 130–39; Roy Porter, Companion Encyclopedia of the History of Medicine (London: Routledge, 1993), 585–600.

  29. Hermann Cohn, Lehrbuch der Hygiene des Auges (Vienna: Urban & Schwarzenberg, 1892), 252–68.

  30. Hahn, “Schulhygiene,” 33–38.

  31. Ernest Hart, “Spectacled Schoolboys,” Atlantic Monthly, vol. 72, no. 433 (November 1893), 681–84.

  32. Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., s.v. “four”; Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, s.v. “four-eyes” and “four-eyed.”

  33. “Spectacles,” Saturday Review, vol. 50, no. 1295 (August 21, 1880), 234; John F. Kasson, Houdini, Tarzan, and the Perfect Man: The White Male Body and the Challenge of Modernity in America (New York: Hill & Wang, 2001), 30–31.

  34. “Spectacles,” 235; L. D. Bronson, Early American Specs: An Exciting Collectible (Glendale, Calif.: Occidental Publishing, 1974), 34; Corson, Fashion in Spectacles, 215; Lyned Isaac, “Speculating Through Spectacles: A Material Culture Study of Eyeglasses in Late Nineteenth Century Australia” (M.A. thesis, Department of History, Monash University, 1993), 40–59, 69–72. I am grateful to the School of Historical Studies, Monash University, for providing a copy of this excellent thesis.

  35. Corson, Fashions in Eyeglasses, 106; “Gli Occhiali di Corbu,” Abitare, no. 307 (May 1992), 244–46.

  36. Quoted in Richard Bernstein, “Isaac Babel May Yet Have the Last Word,” New York Times, July 11, 2001.

  37. Henry Allen, “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Specs,” Washington Post, December 16, 1991.

  38. Nick Ravo, “Altina Schinasi Miranda, 92, Designer of Harlequin Glasses,” New York Times, April 21, 1999; “Take Another Look at Glasses,” Glamour, September 1992, 298–301; David Shields, “Optical Illusions,” Vogue, April 1993, 120 ff.

  39. Joseph L. Bruneni, Looking Back: An Illustrated History of the American Ophthalmic Industry (Torrance, Calif.: Ophthalmic Laboratories Association, 1994), 78–82, 138.

  40. Ibid., 42.

  41. Anahad o’Connor, “Harold Ridley, Eye Doctor, 94, Early Developer of Lens Implants,” New York Times, June 6, 2001.

  42. Susan Ferraro, “Patients Are Blindsided,” New York Daily News, February 25, 2001; Bob Garfield, “The Focus Thing,” Washington Post, January 7, 2001.

  43. Laura Johannes, “Is End of Reading Glasses in Sight?” Wall Street Journal, March 29, 2001.

  44. Saw et al., “Epidemiology of Myopia,” 175; Jane Gwiazda and Lynn Marran, “The Many Facets of the Myopic Eye: A Review of Genetic and Environmental Factors,” Vision Science and Its Applications, vol. 35 (2000), 393.

  45. Gwiazda and Marran, “Myopic Eye,” 394–95; Naomi Lee, “A Close Look at the Cause of Myopia,” South China Morning Post, April 16, 2000; Roger Dobson, “The Future Is Blurred,” The Independent (London), May 20, 1999; Saw et al., “Epidemiology of Myopia,” 177.

  46. Joshua Wallman, “Nature and Nurture of Myopia,” Nature, vol. 371, no. 6494 (September 15, 1994), 201–2; John Schwartz, “In Sharpening Children’s Focus, Glasses May Fuzz the Future,” Washington Post, August 1, 1995.

  CHAPTER TEN

  1. Edward B. Becker, “Helmet Development and Standards,” excerpt from N. Yoganandan et al., eds., Frontiers in Head and Neck Trauma: Clinical and Biomedical (London: IOS Press, 1998), 1–2.

  2. M. D. W. Jeffreys, “Ibo Warfare,” Man, vol. 56 (June 1956), 77–79; E. W. Gudger, “Helmets from Skins of the Porcupine-Fish,” Scientific Monthly, vol. 30, no. 5 (May 1930), 432–42.

  3. “Helme,” Der neue Pauly, vol. 5, 327; Richard A. Gabriel and Karen S. Metz, From Sumer to Rome: The Military Capabilities of Ancient Armies (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), 54–58.

  4. Gabriel and Metz, From Sumer to Rome, 51, 60–63; Yigael Yadin, The Art of Warfare in Biblical Lands in the Light of Archaeological Discovery, trans. M. Pearlman (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1963), 40–44, 49.

  5. Walter Mayer, Politik und Kriegskunst der Assyrier (Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1995), 431, 461–63; Gabriel and Metz, From Sumer to Rome, 29–30.

  6. A. M. Snodgrass, Arms and Armour of the Greeks (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967), 48–51.

  7. Victor Davis Hanson, The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989), 71–75, 213–14.

  8. See A. K. Goldsworthy, “The Othismos, Myths and Heresies: The Nature of Hoplite Battle,” War in History, vol. 4, no. 1 (January 1997), 1–26; “Alternative Agonies: Hoplite Martial and Combat Experiences Beyond the Phalanx,” in Hans van Wees, ed., War and Violence in Ancient Greece (London: Duckworth and the Classical Press of Wales, 2000), 233–59; Hanson, Western Way of War, 58–59.

  9. Hanson, Western Way of War, 57–58; Snodgrass, Arms and Armour, 93–95.

  10. Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society (New York: Vintage Books, 1964), 29; Victor Duruy, History of Rome and of the Roman People, trans. M. M. Ripley (Boston: Dana Estes, 1883–86), vol. 5, sec. 2, 320; see the fascinating evolutionary diagrams prepared by Marcus Junkelmann in Römische Helme (Mainz: Sammlung Guttmann bei Philipp von Zabern, 2000), n.p.

  11. Adrian Goldsworth, Roman Warfare (London: Cassell, 2000), 53; Peter Connolly, “The Roman Fighting Technique Deduced from Armour and Weaponry,” Roman Frontier Studies 1989 (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1991), 358–63; Junkelmann, Römische Helme, 24–30.

  12. Junkelmann, Römische Helme, 32, 85.

  13. Ibid., 33.

  14. T. Philip D. Blackburn et al., “Head Protection in England Before the First World War,” Neurosurgery, vol. 47, no. 6 (December 2000), 1268, 1281; Christopher Knüsel and Anthea Boylston, “How Has the Towton Project Contributed to Our Knowledge of Medieval and Later Warfare?” in Veronica Fiorata, Anthea Boylston, and Christopher Knüsel, eds., Blood Red Roses: The Archaeology of a Mass Grave from the Battle of Towton AD 1461 (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2000), 169–88.

  15. Bashford Dean, Helmets and Body Armor in Modern Warfare, 2nd ed. (Tuckahoe, N.Y.: Carl J. Pugliese, 1977), 30, 34.

  16. Claude Blair, European Armour, Circa 1066 to Circa 1700 (London: B. T. Batsford, 1958), 31–32; A. V. B. Norman and Don Pottinger, English Weapons & Warfare, 449–1660 (London: Arms and Armour Press, 1979), 46–47.

  17. Blair, European Armour, 105–7; A. W. Boardman, The Medieval Soldier in the Wars of the Roses (Stroud, Gloucester: Sutton Publishing, 1998), 129–31; Donald La Rocca, electronic mail, February 7, 2003.

  18. Blackburn et al., “Head Protection in England,” 1280–81; Dean, Helmets and Body Armor, 42–43; Blair, European Armour, 191–92.

  19. Richard A. Preston, Alex Roland, and Sydney F. Wise, Men in Arms: A History of Warfare and Its Interrelationships with Western Society, 3rd ed. (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991), 98.

  20. Dean, Helmets and Body Armor, 50–53; Blair, European Armour, 296–97.

  21. Ivor Noël Hume and Audrey Noël Hume, The Archaeology of Martin’s Hundred, 2 parts (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and Williamsburg, Va.: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 2001), part 1, 158; Harold L. Peterson, Arms and Armor in Colonial America, 1526–1783 (New York: Bramhall House, 1956), 103–51.

  22. Dean, Helmets and Body Armor, 56–57; R. D. Stiot, “Les Armures de Tranchées en Usage durant la Révolution et L’Empire et l’armure de Sapeurs Modèle 1833,” and “Les Armures de Sapeurs Modèle 1836 et Fabrication 1838,” Armes Blanches Militaires Françaises, vol. 28 (1983), n.p.; “Equestrian,” “Heavy Cavalry Helmets” (letter), Times (London), March 31, 1865.

  23. John W. Waterer, Leather and the Warrior (Northampton, Eng.: The Museum of Leathercraft, 1981), 32–43; Günter Gall, Leder im Europäischen Kunsthandwerk (Braunschweig: Klink
hardt & Biermann, 1965), 182–87; Dean, Helmets and Body Armor, 56.

  24. Kenneth Holcombe Dunsee, Engine! Engine! A Story of Fire Protection (New York: Harold Vincent Smith for the Home Insurance Company, 1939), 47–51. Dennis Smith, Dennis Smith’s History of Firefighting in America: 300 Years of Courage (New York: Dial Press, 1978), 34.

  25. Francis Bertin, Pascal Courault, and Joan Deville, Le Feu Sacré (Rennes: Éditions Ouest-France, 1994), passim; Jean-Claude Demory, Pompiers Militaires de France (Boulogne: E.T.A.I., 1997), 10–13, 16–17; W. Eric Jackson, London’s Fire Brigades (London: Longmans, 1966), 34, 46–48, 80, 82; Ludwig Baer, The History of the German Steel Helmet, 1916–1945, trans. K. Daniel Dahl (San Jose, Calif.: R. James Bender, 1985), 267; Robyn Cooper, “The Fireman: Immaculate Manhood,” Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 28, no. 4 (1985), 139–70.

  26. Dean, Helmets and Body Armor, 58–65.

  27. See the essays in Roger Cooter and Bill Luckin, eds., Accidents in History: Injuries, Fatalities, and Social Relations (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1997).

  28. David G. Herrmann, The Arming of Europe and the Making of the First World War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 17–21; John Ellis, Eye-Deep in Hell: Trench Warfare in World War I (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), 61–62; Dean, Helmets and Body Armor, 68–70.

  29. Dean, Helmets and Body Armor, 74–75.

  30. Petros Dintsis, Hellenistische Helme, 2 vols. (Rome: G. Bretschneider, 1986), vol. 1, 113–33, and vol. 2, supp. 9; Dean, Helmets and Body Armor, 9, 74–83.

  31. Dean, Helmets and Body Armor, 128–31, 193–96, 314.

  32. Baer, German Steel Helmet, 7–24.

  33. Dean, Helmets and Body Armor, 138.

  34. Baer, German Steel Helmet, 85–89.

  35. Dean, Helmets and Body Armor, 208–17; Stephen V. Grancsay, “Helmets and Body Armor in Modern Warfare,” in Arms & Armor: Essays from the Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, 1920–1964 (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1986), 286–87; “Helmets Presented a Challenge to Metal Workers,” Scientific American, vol. 171, no. 4 (October 1994), 153; Robert K. Southee, “The Steel Pot,” American Legion, vol. 119, no. 2 (February 1982), 24ff.