| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 88.1

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 88.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The Languages of Edison's Light. By Charles Bazerman. (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1999. xviii, 416 pp. $39.50, ISBN 0-262-02456-X.)

While many historians have examined Thomas Edison's work on electrification and how it reshaped American life, Charles Bazerman gives us a unique view of Edison as an inventor and challenges us to rethink our conceptions about the nature of invention. He argues that Edison's engagement with and manipulation of existing cultural forms were integral to his invention and marketing of electrical lighting during the late 1870s and early 1880s. In short, electrical lighting could not succeed without its inventor giving it "meaning and value." Bazerman focuses on Edison's astute manipulation of the press, his connections to the New York financial world, his adroit navigation of the patent system, his marketing strategies to generate demand for electrification, his frequent public demonstrations, and his dealings with urban politicians. Through a skillful and exhaustive reading of Edison's papers, Bazerman shows that cultural processes and rhetorical strategies were important parts of technological innovation itself. . . .

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