The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933

The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933 by Thompson, Emily Ann. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780262201384.

In this history of aural culture in early-twentieth-century America, Emily Thompsoncharts dramatic transformations in what people heard and how they listened. What they heard was anew kind of sound that was the product of modern technology. They listened as newly criticalconsumers of aural commodities. By examining the technologies that produced this sound, as well asthe culture that enthusiastically consumed it, Thompson recovers a lost dimension of the Machine Ageand deepens our understanding of the experience of change that characterized the era.Reverberationequations, sound meters, microphones, and acoustical tiles were deployed in places as varied asBostons Symphony Hall, New Yorks office skyscrapers, and the soundstages of Hollywood. The controlprovided by these technologies, however, was applied in ways that denied the particularity of place,and the diverse spaces of modern America began to sound alike as a universal new sound predominated.Although this sound--clear, direct, efficient, and nonreverberant--had little to say about thephysical spaces in which it was produced, it speaks volumes about the culture that created it. Bylistening to it, Thompson constructs a compelling new account of the experience of modernity inAmerica.