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The Perversity of Things: Hugo Gernsback on Media, Tinkering, and Scientifiction: Index

The Perversity of Things: Hugo Gernsback on Media, Tinkering, and Scientifiction

Index

Index

Note: Entries in bold refer to articles by Hugo Gernsback reprinted in this book. Page numbers with an n indicate footnotes.

acids: use in experiments, 47, 49, 174; use in wireless components, 60n1, 129–34

Adams, Henry, 254n

Aerophone Number, The (1908), 65–66

After Television—What? (1927), 319–321

Aitken, Hugh, 33, 47, 62n2, 212n, 263n8

Alexander Wireless Bill, The (1912), 108–9

aliens. See extraterrestrial life

alternative energy sources, 211, 248–49, 282–83

amateur experimenter communities: in the era of broadcast radio, 256–68, 312–18, 323–24, 327–32; and federal regulations, 27–33, 135n2, 168–69, 190–92; and the emergence of science fiction, 2, 9–10, 19–20, 43; and wireless telegraphy, 93, 108–9, 125–28; anticorporate views of, 34–43, 195n2, 265–66, 323–24, 327–29. See also readership

Amateur Radio Restored (1919), 190–93

Amazing Stories [magazine], 49–52, 57–59, 269n; editorial goals of, 287–95; fiction published in, 55; notoriety of, 2–3, 9n17

American Jules Verne, An (1920), 227–31

American Marconi Company. See Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company

American Radio Relay League, 70n2, 258–59

architecture, 20–21, 113–14, 245–48

Are We Intelligent? (1923), 276–77

Aristotle, 45

Armstrong, Edwin, 316n1

Arrhenius, Svante, 80, 216n3

art. See illustrations, Gernsback magazines and

Ashley, Mike, 9, 24, 237n1, 248n3, 269n1, 348n3

Asimov, Isaac, 58

Astounding Science Fiction [magazine], 354n

AT&T Corporation (American Telephone and Telegraph Company), 49, 159n, 328n

Audion. See vacuum tube

automobile: mobile communications and, 5, 28, 64n, 132, 159–60, 168; industry and invention of, 166, 270, 283, 296, 348–49

Bacon, Francis, 44n102, 55, 225

Bacon, Roger, 54, 289

Bakelite (plastic), 99n, 164n

Baron Münchhausen’s New Scientific Adventures, 44–45, 51, 53, 106n, 136n3, 155n

Baron Münchhausen’s New Scientific Adventures, Part 5 (1915), 138–51

battery technology, 13, 204; use in wireless telegraphy, 95n, 163, 297–98, 330n

Bazin, André, 43

Bell, Alexander Graham, 33, 303

Bellamy, Edward, 55, 129n2, 288

Benson, Thomas W., 115n1, 337n2

Bijker, Wiebe, 99n

Bleiler, E. F., 56, 227n2

Bleiler, Richard, 9n17

Born and the Mechanical Inventor, The (1911), 99–100

Branly, Édouard, 63n3, 134n, 255n

broadcast regulation. See wireless telegraphy: legislation concerning

broadcasting, 194n, 200n1, 261–62; Gernsback’s experiments with, 41–42, 307–8; predictions for, 196–99, 251–52, 322–24; via television, 278, 344–46. See also radio (broadcast era)

Brown, Howard V., 20–21, 213

Campbell, John W., 354

carborundum (silicon carbide), 118n6, 300, 302n6

Chambless, Edgar, 210n4

Cheng, John, 9, 51–52, 58, 290n4, 294n1

Chu, Seo-Young, 53n

circulation of Gernsback magazines, international 15–16, 20–22

Civil War, 56, 194n

Clarke, Arthur C., 22–23

class, 28–29, 32–33. See also labor movements; upward mobility

code. See Morse code; wireless: communication protocols

Coggeshall, Louis, 1, 15, 41

Cohen, Octavus Roy, 337

coherer, 63n3, 64n5, 134n; manufacture and maintenance of, 1–2, 118n6; obsolescence of, 43

condenser, 61, 95, 239, 240, 297n2, 313; variable condenser, 121, 302n6, 317–18

continuous wave transmitters, 33, 35, 171n, 263n8. See also vacuum tube

craft, 8, 34, 37n87, 166n, 347n

critical making, 10, 45, 49. See also tinkering

crystal detector. See detector

Czitrom, Daniel, 32

da Vinci, Leonardo, 54, 55, 289

Daniels, Josephus, 190n, 257

Dark Age of Science, The (1925), 282–83

De Forest, Lee, 15, 70, 100n4; Audion and, 129n2, 132n, 308, 316n1; relationship with Gernsback, 70n4

Deadwood Dick. See dime novels

deafness, 156, 218–24, 303

decoherer. See coherer

Delany, Samuel R., 5, 8, 50, 227n2, 293n

detector: crystal or cat’s whisker, 117–18, 120–21, 299–302; early history of, 62n2, 63n3, 66n, 129n2, 212n; Gernsback’s modifications of, 130n3, 132n, 133n, 299–300, 302n6; speculative future versions of, 150–51. See also coherer; Radioson; vacuum tube

Detectorium, The (1926), 299–302

Dick, Steven J., 216n4

dime novels, 28–29, 55–57, 153n2, 210n3, 227–28, 269n

Douglas, Susan J., 25, 100n3

dreaming, 106–7, 232–36

Drown, Eric, 9, 28–29, 32, 46

Dynamophone, 39, 62–64

Dynamophone, The (1908), 62–64

Edison and Radio (1926), 309–11

Edison, Thomas: and Gernsback, 202n, 225n1; as the prototypical inventor, 33, 162, 167; description of laboratory, 202–7; fictional representations of, 83n2, 179, 210n3; inventions and speculations by, 37, 197n, 212n, 210–12; views on invention, 44, 45, 208–9; views on the radio industry, 309–11

editorial assistants. See Hornig, Charles; Lasser, David A.; Secor, Harry Winfield; Sloane, T. O’Conor

Editorially Speaking (1926), 294–95

Editorials (1909), 73–76

education. See science: education in

Edwards, Malcom J., 9n

Electric Duel, The (1927), 325–26

Electrical Experimenter [magazine], 18–20, 23, 27, 53, 115n1, 225n2. See also Science and Invention

Electro Importing Company, 1, 13–15, 40–41, 71n; devices manufactured by, 11, 64n4, 121n

Electro Importing Company Catalog, 1, 3, 5, 15, 64n4

electrolytic detector. See detector

e-mail, prefigurations of, 238, 253

Emerson, Lori, 49n120

energy sources, alternative, 211, 248–49, 282–83

ether, luminiferous, 6, 118n7, 256n1

experimentation. See amateur experimenter communities

Experimenter Publishing Company, 15

experiments [use care if replicating at home!]: building a better interrupter with liquid mercury, 60–61; remote starting a motor with the power of the voice, 62–64; building a television proof-of-concept or “light-relay,” 89; how to make a simple wireless telephone, 94–98; setting up a home wireless telegraph outfit, 118–28; building the most sensitive electrolytic detector ever designed, 129–34; listening to phonograph records through your teeth, 155–57; enabling hearing-impaired people to experience phonograph records, 218–24; wearing a helmet to avoid distractions, 284–86; building a crystal detector that can rival tube sets, 299–302

extrasensory perception, 44–45, 276–77, 319–21. See also sensation

extraterrestrial life, 16, 28, 44–45, 54–55, 80n7, 214–17. See also Mars

fandom, 2n, 4n4, 9–10, 24n55, 290; terminology within, 53, 259n. See also readership.

Faraday, Michael, 46, 167, 302n5

Federal Communications Commission (FCC), 108n

Federal Radio Commission, 41n98, 262n

Federal Trade Commission, 110

Fessenden, Reginald, 39, 62n2, 66n, 129n2, 130n2, 296n

Fezandié, Clement, 50, 55, 269n

Fiction versus Facts (1926), 291–93

Fleming, John Ambrose, 212n

forecasting. See prediction

Fort, Charles, 270n3

Foucault, Léon, 60n2

Freedman, Carl, 8, 53n135

Future of Radio, The (1919), 200–201

Future of Wireless, The (1916), 158–60

Galileo (Galileo Galilei), 17

gender, 9–10, 28, 29–31, 57–59, 294–95

General Electric, 34, 176, 192n, 328n

Germany: fictional depictions of, 177–88, 270n3; in World War I, 12–13, 135–37, 168, 172; reception of and in the Gernsback magazines, 4, 20; technology in, 18, 45–46, 83n2, 90n2, 212

Gernsback, Hugo: critical reception of, 5, 8–10, 22–24, 55; on scientifiction, 51–59, 287–95, 337–43, 351, 354; editorial practices of, 23–24, 51, 195n2, 290n4, 294–95, 354n1; educational theories of, 32–33, 47–48, 59, 232–36, 273–75, 288–90; life of, 11–15; patents and inventions by, 13, 38–43, 89n; political views of (see also class; labor movements; technocracy; upward mobility), 28, 30–33, 347–53; theories of media and technology (see also tinkering), 8, 25–26, 38–39, 45

Gernsback, Sidney, 40–41, 60n1, 299n3

Gibson, William, 54

Goble, Mark, 127n13

Grand Opera by Wireless (1919), 196–99

Great Depression, 7

Guillory, John, 44n102

Hagen, Wolfgang, 129n2

Hammond, John Hays, 216, 238n4

Hausmann, Raoul, 86n5

headphones: sound quality of, 48, 264n11; speculative proposals for, 105, 155–57, 232–36, 249–50, 307; use in wireless telegraphy, 62n2, 115n3, 132, 200

Hearing through Your Teeth (1916), 155–57

Heinlein, Robert A., 20

Herschel, John, 54, 295

Hertz, Heinrich, 270n2, 316

heterodyne principle, 39, 62n2, 296

Hintz, Eric S., 33–34, 265n

Homer, René, 15

Hoover, Herbert, 41n98, 108n, 260n, 262n

Hornig, Charles, 23, 24

How to Write “Science” Stories (1930), 337–41

Hughes, Eric, 116n

Hugo Awards, 2, 59

Human Progress (1922), 253–55

Hypnobioscope, 107

illustrations, Gernsback magazines and, 20–22, 162, 273–75. See also Paul, Frank R. and Brown, Howard V.

Imagination and Reality (1926), 303–4

Imagination versus Facts (1916), 161–62

Ingold, Tim, 166n

Internet, echoes of, 116, 324n

Interplanetarian Wireless (1920), 214–17

interrupter, 60–61, 126

invention, as distinct from science, 225–26; process of, 33–37, 44–47, 99–100, 163–64, 269–71. See also amateur experimenter communities; science fiction: as a form of invention; tinkering

ionosphere, 80n6, 331n

Is Radio at a Standstill? (1926), 296–98

Isolator, The (1925), 284–86

Israel, Paul, 34, 210n3

Jackson, Steven J., 100n2

Jacoby, Harold, 215

Jenkins, Charles Francis, 271, 278, 345n1

Jenkins, Henry, 290n3

Kaempffert, Waldemar, 18n44

Killing Flash, The (1929), 333–36

Kittler, Friedrich, 43–44

Knight, Damon, 270n3

labor movements, 45–46, 347–48. See also class; upward mobility; Gernsback, Hugo: political views of; technocracy

Larbalestier, Justine, 9, 24, 52n130, 58, 294n2

Lasser, David A., 23, 32n72, 348n3

Learn and Work while You Sleep (1921), 232–36

Lee, Thomas H., 63n3

legislation. See wireless telegraphy: legislation concerning

letters to the editor: containing readers’ designs, 61n5, 64n4, 118n6, 261–68, 302n6; quoted in this book, 53n134, 58, 91n, 201n3, 292–93, 294n2, 310n2. See also readership

Leyden jar. See condenser

Lloyd, Harold, 346

Lodge, Oliver, 256n1, 270n3

Loeb, Harold, 32n71

loose coupler. See tuning coil

Lovecraft, H. P., 8–9, 270n3

Lowell, Percival, 12, 77n1, 141, 146–49

luminiferous ether, 6, 118n7, 256n1

Lure of Scientifiction, The (1926), 289–90

Luxembourg, 11–12, 136n4

Magnetic Storm, The (1918), 174–89

Majorana, Quirino, 248

making. See critical making; tinkering

Marconi, Guglielmo: as an inventor, 1n, 63n3, 270n2, 316, 1n; views on interplanetary communication, 79–80, 214

Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company, 34, 73n, 74, 119, 190n, 328n

Mars, 141, 146–49; attempts to contact, 28, 51, 77–81, 149–51, 214–17; inhabitants of, 16, 57, 138, 210n3; technology on, 44–45, 75–76, 106n, 155n. See also extraterrestrial life; Lowell, Percival

Marx, Karl, 31, 347n

McLuhan, Marshall, 25

media studies, 10, 43–44, 47, 49. See also Gernsback, Hugo: theories of media and technology

Menograph, 105–6

mercury (element), 33, 60–61, 248n2

Merril, Judith, 227n2

minerals, 28, 48–49, 118n6, 129n2, 300, 302n6

mobile media. See automobile: mobile communications and; wireless telegraphy: nautical applications of

Modern Electrics [magazine], 202n, 64n4, 70n4; fiction published in, 337n; history of, 15–17, 18n44, 115n1; readership of, 92n; role in debates on broadcast regulation, 26, 67, 108–11

molybdenite, 49, 118

Morse code, 127n13, 136–37, 170n, 214–15

Morton, Timothy, 49

Moskowitz, Sam, 12–13, 50n123, 229n5, 269n, 348n3

Mumford, Lewis, 15, 16

Munsey, Frank, 287n1

Nakamura, Lisa, 215n

Nasmyth, James, 167n

Native Americans, 56, 215n, 227n2, 303n

Nesper, Eugen, 20, 83n2

New Interrupter, A (1905), 60–61

New Radio “Things” Wanted (1927), 315–18

“New” Science and Invention, The (1923), 272–75

New Sort of Magazine, A (1926), 287–88

newspapers, predictions for, 104–5, 241

Noname. See Senarens, Luis

Osophone, 20, 45, 156n3, 157

Our Cover (1913), 113–14

Parikka, Jussi, 49, 276n

Paul, Frank R., 20–21, 23

Perry, Armstrong, 256n1

Perversity of Things, The (1916), 165–67

Phoney Patent Offizz: Bookworm’s Nurse (1915), 152–54

phonograph: its relationship to wireless, 25–26, 239, 298, 324; Thomas Edison and, 37, 205, 209, 309–11; use by amateur experimenters, 135n2; use in Hugo Gernsback’s experiments, 155–56, 218–24, 234–36

Physiophone: Music for the Deaf (1920), 218–24

Pianorad, The (1926), 305–8

Pichler, Franz, 4

Pickard, Greenleaf Whittier, 118n6, 216

Pickering, William Henry, 16, 77

Poe, Edgar Allan, 8, 55, 269n, 287–89

politics. See class; technocracy

Popular Mechanics [magazine], 6, 20n

Popular Science [magazine], 6, 18n44, 115n1

popular science. See science: popular understanding of

Poulsen, Valdemar, 100n4, 150

Predicting Future Inventions (1923), 269–71

predictions: Hugo Gernsback on the value of, 43–44, 53, 55, 138–39, 161–62, 269–71, 342–43; made by Hugo Gernsback, 22–23, 26, 38, et passim

progress. See techno-utopianism

pulp magazines, history of, 227n2, 287n1. See also dime novels

Pye, David, 166

Pynchon, Thomas, 353n

QST [magazine], 6

Rabinbach, Anson, 62n1

race: and science fiction, 28, 56–57, 227n2; in popular culture, 337n3, 346n4

radio (broadcast era), 296–98, 309–18, 327–32. See also wireless telegraphy; wireless telephony

Radio Act of 1912, 11, 108n, 110n1, 169n2, 171–72, 260n5

Radio Broadcasting (1922), 251–52

Radio-Controlled Television Plane, A (1924), 278–81

Radio Corporation of America (RCA), 34–35, 36, 194n, 262n, 328n, 330n

Radio Enters into a New Phase (1927), 327–29

Radio for All (1922), 237–44

Radio League of America, 169, 192–93, 259

Radio News [magazine], 22, 35–38, 194–95, 256n1

Radio News Laboratories, 41, 305

Radioson, 38, 41–42, 129–34

Radioson Detector, The (1914), 129–34

radiotelephone. See wireless telephony

Ralph 124C 41 [novel], 7, 15, 23n, 51, 101–7

Ralph 124C 41, Part 3 (1911), 101–7

readership: defining science fiction among, 16–17, 51–52; Gernsback’s response to, 24, 195n; makeup of, 28–30; participation by, 19, 47, 92n, 258–61. See also fandom; letters to the editor

Reasonableness in Science Fiction (1932), 354

Ridenour, Orland, 115n1

Rieder, John, 9, 56–57

Roberts Wireless Bill, The (1910), 90–92

Roosevelt, Theodore, 152, 153n1

Ross, Andrew, 32–33, 35, 57

Rudolph, John, 18

Ruhmer, Ernst, 83n1, 85n3, 86n4–5, 87

Russ, Joanna, 58

Sayville (1915), 135–37

Schachner, Nathan, 351n6, 352

Schatzberg, Eric, 18

Schiffer, Michael, 7

Schlesinger, Henry, 46

science: education in, 18, 29, 46; everyday impact of, 6–8, 25; history of, 6, 225–26; popular understanding of, 4, 5–6, 17–18, 25, 51–52, 57–59, 225–26, 287–88; speculative, 6, 16–17. See also technology: its relationship to science

Science and Invention [magazine], 20, 30, 225n1, 269n, 272–75. See also Electrical Experimenter

Science and Invention (1920), 225–26

science fiction: as a form of invention, 7, 10, 53–54, 228–30, 270n2, 303–4; emergence of, 2–4, 7–9; nineteenth century precursors to (see also dime novels), 30n70, 55–56, 227–31, 269n, 287–88, 295n3; scientifiction as a distinct version of, 2–3, 18, 50, 54–55, 57–58, 270n3, 289–93. See also Gernsback, Hugo: on scientifiction

Science Fiction versus Science Faction (1930), 342–43

Science Wonder Stories. See Wonder Stories

Scientific American [magazine], 6, 13

scientific progress. See techno-utopianism

scientifiction. See science fiction: scientifiction as a distinct version of; Gernsback, Hugo: on scientifiction

Scott, Howard, 31

Secor, Harry Winfield, 15, 23, 40–41, 61n5, 130n3, 299n

selenium, 64n4, 83n1, 85–89, 154

Senarens, Luis, 54, 55, 227–31, 269n

sensation, 155–56, 219n, 233–35, 280n5. See also extrasensory perception

Serviss, Garrett P., 55, 210n3

Short Wave Craft, 37

Short-Wave Era, The (1928), 330–32

Signaling to Mars (1909), 77–82

Silberman, Steve, 9–10, 29, 284n

Silencing America’s Wireless (1917), 171–73

silicon, 49, 118n6, 300, 301

Sloane, T. O’Conor, 23

spark-gap transmitters, 2, 61n4, 125–27, 181, 186–87, 263n8

speculative science. See science: speculative

Squier, George Owen, 322

Stableford, Brian, 9n17

Steinmetz, Charles Proteus, 129n2, 216

STS (Science, Technology, and Society) 47, 99n

Suvin, Darko, 52, 293n

technocracy, 7, 31–33, 348–52. See also Gernsback, Hugo: political views of

technological determinism. See techno-utopianism

technology: concept of, 4, 18; its relationship to science, 17–18, 225–26

techno-utopianism, 7, 53, 237–50, 269–71, 348–49

Telefunken, 90n2, 135n1

telegraph: and the wireless telegraph industry, 91, 158–59; appearance in fiction, 174, 182–87; history of, 34, 85, 278n3; use in Hugo Gernsback’s experiments, 78–79; use in warfare, 136, 172, 332n

telegraphone, 150–51, 236

telepathy, 44–45, 105–7, 155n, 276–77

telephone (wired), 13, 83–84, 90, 164, 200, 303n1; use in Hugo Gernsback’s experiments, 39, 95, 115n3, 236

Telephot, 84–89, 101, 103–4

television, 90n3; amateur experimentation with, 37; definitions of, 11, 83–84; predictions for, 237–38, 278–81, 319–21; prototypes of, 20–22, 41, 83n1, 241–43, 278, 344–46

Television and the Telephot (1909), 83–89

Television News [magazine], 37

Television Technique (1931), 344–46

Telimco, 1–2, 11, 15, 39, 42–43, 63–64

10,000 Years Hence (1922), 245–50

Tesla, Nikola, 15, 129n2, 214n; fictional representations of, 174–76, 183–84; speculative inventions by, 160, 201, 240–41

Thibault, Ghislain, 160n3

Thomas A. Edison Speaks to You (1919), 202–13

tinkering, 10, 39, 44–49, 165–67, 312–14, 327–29. See also amateur experimenter communities; craft; Gernsback, Hugo: theories of media and technology; science fiction: as a form of invention

Treatise on Wireless Telegraphy, A (1913), 115–28

tuning coil, 115, 117n5, 121, 300–301

Twain, Mark, 12

upward mobility, 1, 9, 45–46. See also class; Gernsback, Hugo: political views of; labor movements

vacuum tube, 15, 35, 70n4, 212, 244; and amateur experimenters, 48, 312; Hugo Gernsback’s opinions on, 132n6, 237n1, 298, 306, 315–17

Vail, Theodore Newton, 159

variable condenser. See condenser.

Veblen, Thorstein, 31

Venus, 57, 214, 216n3

Verne, Jules, 12, 54n136, 229n5, 287–88, 292; as a prophet, 139–40, 270

Verrill, A. Hyatt, 50

War and the Radio Amateur (1917), 168–70

Wells, H. G., 12, 200n1, 210n3, 287n2, 292–93

Wertenbaker, G. Peyton, 7, 52, 269n, 292, 293n

Westfahl, Gary, 9, 51, 55, 101n, 337n1, 354n

What to Invent (1916), 163–64

Wheeler, Edward L., 56, 154n2

Whitehead, Alfred North, 277n3

Who Will Save the Radio Amateur? (1923), 256–68

Why “Radio Amateur News” Is Here (1919), 194–5

Why the Radio Set Builder? (1927), 312–14

Wicks, Mark, 51

Wilson, Woodrow, 171–72, 192n

Winner, Langdon, 32

Wired versus Space Radio (1927), 322–24

Wireless Age, The, 6

Wireless and the Amateur: A Retrospect (1913), 110–12

Wireless Association of America, The, 27, 69–74, 92, 110, 111n8

Wireless Association of America, The (1909), 69–72

Wireless Joker, The (1908), 67–68

wireless power transmission, predictions of, 113–14, 159–60, 201

wireless telegraphy: communication protocols, 27, 67–68, 81–82, 116, 123–24, 127; legislation on, 26–27, 34–35, 122–24; nautical applications of, 16, 69, 73, 111n8, 136–37; public perception of, 1–2, 35, 38–39, 69, 73, 100n3, 115n1

Wireless Telephone, The (1911), 93–98

wireless telephony [early radio, or “radiotelephony”], 117, 159–60, 190–92, 237–44; early experiments in, 93–98, 100; public perception of, 65–66, 237n1–2. See also radio (broadcast era)

Wonder Stories [magazine], 24, 50, 58, 348n3

Wonders of the Machine Age (1931), 347–53

World War I, 135–37, 153n1, 168, 172n, 174–87; fictional depiction of, 174–89. See also wireless telegraphy: legislation concerning

Wright, Willard Huntington, 340n4

WRNY, 41, 305–8, 330

Wu, Tim, 41n, 194n, 251n, 328n

X-ray technology, 61n5, 86

Yaszek, Lisa, 227n2

Zielinski, Siegfried, 46

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