Title: The body electric : how strange machines built the modern American /
Authors: Peña, Carolyn Thomas de la.
Publisher: New York University Press,
Year: 2003
Subjects: History, 19th Century; History, 20th Century; Electric Stimulation Therapy history; Electrotherapeutics United States History; Exercise Therapy history; Electrotherapeutics United States History; Medical instruments and apparatus United States History; Medical instruments and apparatus United States History; Quacks and quackery United States History; Quacks and quackery United States History; History, 20th Century.; History, 19th Century.
Abstract: "The Body Electric is the first book to place changing ideas about fitness and gender in dialogue with the popular culture of technology. Whether through wearing electric belts, drinking radium water, or lifting mechanized weights, many Americans came to believe that by embracing the nation's rapid march to industrialization, electrification, and "radiomania," their bodies would emerge fully powered. Only by uncovering this belief's passions and products, Thomas de la Pena argues, can we fully understand our culture's twentieth-century energy enthusiasm."--Jacket.
Contents: The machine-built body -- Measuring mechanical strength -- Exploring electric limits -- Powering the intimate body -- "Radiomania" limits the energy dream -- Conclusion: the end of an era?