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
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
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, 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)
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
Clarke, Arthur C., 22–23
class, 28–29, 32–33. See also labor movements; upward mobility
code. See Morse code; wireless: communication protocols
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
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
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
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
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
heterodyne principle, 39, 62n2, 296
Homer, René, 15
Hoover, Herbert, 41n98, 108n, 260n, 262n
How to Write “Science” Stories (1930), 337–41
Hughes, Eric, 116n
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
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
Is Radio at a Standstill? (1926), 296–98
Isolator, The (1925), 284–86
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
Loeb, Harold, 32n71
loose coupler. See tuning coil
Lowell, Percival, 12, 77n1, 141, 146–49
luminiferous ether, 6, 118n7, 256n1
Lure of Scientifiction, The (1926), 289–90
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
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
Morse code, 127n13, 136–37, 170n, 214–15
Morton, Timothy, 49
Moskowitz, Sam, 12–13, 50n123, 229n5, 269n, 348n3
Munsey, Frank, 287n1
Nakamura, Lisa, 215n
Nasmyth, James, 167n
Native Americans, 56, 215n, 227n2, 303n
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
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
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 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
Roberts Wireless Bill, The (1910), 90–92
Roosevelt, Theodore, 152, 153n1
Rudolph, John, 18
Ruhmer, Ernst, 83n1, 85n3, 86n4–5, 87
Russ, Joanna, 58
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Wu, Tim, 41n, 194n, 251n, 328n
Yaszek, Lisa, 227n2
Zielinski, Siegfried, 46