Technology Then and Now, by Jennifer Dickert
Courtesy Flickr.com
Maytag advertisement, Courtesy Pudd LeBoy, Flickr.com
Dawn to Dusk: Technology in Everyday Life
From the dishwashers used to clean breakfast dishes to the television sets people watch at night after
work, technology touches almost every part of our daily lives today. It is easy to forget, however, that past
technology was once new and considered just as excitingand
frustratingas
the newest gizmo today
In the Home: Taking Technology to Heart
While "home is where the heart is," our homes are also
where much technological advancement began.
Household items such as vacuum cleaners, washers and
dryers, telephones, and air conditioners were invented to
make our lives easier. Not everyone, however, feels that
these changes were for the best.
While Evelyn Dorsey was "very happy to see new washers
come in," Annie Kinion still prefers her clothes "to be dried
on the outside."
“I ain’t never liked dishwashers. My daughter has a
dishwasher and everything you can name. She gets mad with
me ‘cause I wash the dishes. But I don’t know. It’s just habit,
you know.”
Annie
Kinion
From
disposable
diapers to
speed dialing, our everyday lives have been transformed by
technologies of every kind. Whether this change is good or
bad is for you to decide.
The next time you are in the kitchen, look around at all the
many technologies contained within this one room.
Dishwashers, ovens, and microwaves have transformed the
way we think about food.
When Fatima Basic first came to America from Bosnia she was
shocked to find that
"everything was in the kitchen. In [Bosnia] there is nothing in the
kitchen."
Similarly, Em Thi Vo recalls:
"We were very poor. Our house was built with bamboo tree so
our kitchen [was] very simple. [We] just had a wood fire so that's how we cooked. That was a change [when I
came to America]. The kitchen was huge. I was scared!"
Garland woodburning Stove,
courtesy Jimmy Brown, Flickr.com
For Evelyn Dorsey, in contrast, the transformation of the kitchen into "the hub of family life" was "ideal":
"I guess when I played paper dolls, [I] played house, [I] played with all kinds of cooking equipment and what
have you—makebelieve—
and the makebelieve
came to pass! Now we have beautiful great big kitchens with
islands and what have you. And we were lucky to have a little kitchen back then. You did live in the kitchen
[back then] but you didn't live in it as comfortable as you do today."
Times of war or natural disaster can render advances in household
technology useless. For example, during the Bosnian War, Fatima Basic
describes how an old wood burning stove saved her community:
“There were a lot of houses without electricity, so what we did is the
community would get together and one person had a wood stove [but] there
was no wood. You couldn’t buy anything even if you had money, so we had
to destroy furniture and wood floors, doors, books, anything we had to
burn to cook food because there was no electricity. And the whole
community would get together and cook one big meal to save energy. We
would burn furniture—anything we could get in our hands to burn.”
In the Workplace: From Fields to Cities
The workplace has seen perhaps the most dramatic changes in
technology in recent decades. Computers have replaced typewriters, and
copy machines have done away with carbon copies. Many jobs America's older generations once held
have been replaced by machines but should not be forgotten.
“Employment is easier to gain. The world just in general, there’s so many vast improvements in technology
that they apply down. Like my son off studying nuclear physics and that kind of thing. It’s brought into our
lives conversations that never would have existed when I was a child.”
Evelyn
Dorsey
The senior interviewees held a wide variety of jobs, from factory worker to computer store owner and even
rice cultivator. While each of these jobs are unique in both type and location, technology affected every
individual's work on a daily basis.
“Back then, twenty years ago, there’s only one season of rice, but now I’ve heard there are three seasons of
rice because of technology. Before, everything we used was by hand, including weeding out the grass, so the
process was slower. It is ninetyday
periods with technology.”
Em
Thi Vo, translated by Snow Rahlan
“This guy and I got together and we discussed what kind of business we could get into and finally settled on
computers, Hamilton Computer Supply Company. But then a few years ago, these chain computer stores
started moving in and they were combating us with prices. By them being a big chain company, they could get
the parts a whole lot cheaper than we could. We finally went out of business.”
May
Williamson
The introduction of computers into the workplace is perhaps the most influential change in office technolgy
Typewriter, courtesy Cody Geary, Flickr.com
MacBook Pro keyboard, courtesy Flickr.com
Fatima Basic’s husband and daughter,
courtesy Fatima Basic
over the past two decades. Many seniors expressed an opinion on
computers.
“It was a little hard getting use to the [computer] keyboard because it
was not at a right slant but it didn’t take long. I’m used to it [now], but I
still struggled. I really still like the typewriter better, as far as the
keyboard is concerned.”
May
Williamson
“Now I still don’t know too much
about computers, but I try. I was
taking a class here [at the
Greensboro Senior Center] not too long ago, but I got so tired because I
go to dialysis. I then come here and [am at] the computer and almost to
go to sleep, so I had to let that go for a while.”
Patrick
Perryman
“My daughter has a computer in the house, [but]I hardly ever use it.
She’s a doctor so she lives on it practically. I don’t know what she would
do without it.”
Annie
Kinion
Transportation
Seniors have gone from ground to air, traveled across the world, and seen the automobile evolve from
early “streamlined” Cadillacs and Chevrolets to sleek, compact cars. They remembered their parents' first
cars and their own, and elaborated on the impact that other types of transportation had on their lives.
“When I went to college, we always flew. I believe my first plane trip
must have been in the late fifties from Kansas City to St. Louis, just to
do it. It was the excitement. You don’t have the excitement [today].
You’re just getting on a plane and going now. [It] used to be an exciting
experience.”
Evelyn
Dorsey
“My own [car was] a ‘47 Chevy, secondhand.
I thought it was wonderful.
It was MINE!”
Evelyn
Dorsey
Patrick Perryman's method transportation has evolved over the
course of his life, and as technology has simultaneously evolved. He
describes his latest mode of transportation:
“I got this [motorized wheel] chair when I was at the nursing home,
although I don’t like it sometimes. All the sudden you’ll be going so fast
and you try to stop and you say ‘BOOM’ and you hit something. But
other than that I love it and wouldn’t do without it.”
Patrick
Perryman
RCA Victor Special, courtesy Jeff Jackson, Flickr.com
Entertainment: Movies, Television, and Music
Whether taking a Saturday trip to the Carolina Theater, watching TV after school, or dancing to the radio
with that special someone, entertainment technologies can both bring us together and take us away.
Seniors recall using movies, TV, and music as ways to explore other worlds and socialize with each other.
How might newer technologies like iPods and ondemand
movies change how entertainment shapes our
lives?
Motion pictures have evolved from early silent pictures on reels of film into spectacles with special effects
that are almost completely digital. The experience of hearing the film projector and changing the reels
between shows is lost to the youth of today.
“We went to the movies every Saturday morning and stayed all
morning long. I think that’s the way Mom and Dad got rid of us so
they could have some peace and quiet. But I enjoyed that.”
May
Williamson
“I bought the first TV when I was at home. Try to explore life, just
like we saw on TV.”
Alice
Johnson
“I read something like Buck Rogers, which was a comic, as a little
kid. [It] would go along with the Star Wars that the kids have
looked at when they grew up. All that was things of the future, you
know. And the future’s kind of here.”
Evelyn
Dorsey
Gospel, jazz, rockandroll,
Motown, and more—each provides
the soundtrack to which we lived our lives and relive our
memories: afternoons rummaging through 45s and LPs, or sitting
with siblings and friends listening to the radio, or dancing the night away. The way we listen to music
changes, but the joy we get from it plays on in our minds.
“We had a Victrola. As we got older, we had a stereo with the speakers and it was quite a change. I liked them
both, to tell you the truth. Of course the stereo and the speakers were more sophisticated, but the Victrola
played just as clear and as good.”
Annie
Kinion
“Oh, I loved to dance when I had legs. I was the best dancer in my neighborhood...I liked any music45
records,
the one’s with the big hole in the middle, and thirtythrees,
the big LP’s. Any kind of music, I really enjoyed.”
Patrick
Perryman
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