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Podcast: New Books in Economic and Business History
Episode: Reem Hilu, "Digitizing Domesticity in the 1980s: The Intimate Life of Computers" (U Minnesota Press, 2024)
Description: Digitizing Domesticity in the 1980s: The Intimate Life of Computers (U Minnesota Press, 2024) shows how the widespread introduction of home computers in the 1980s was purposefully geared toward helping sustain heteronormative middle-class families by shaping relationships between users. Moving beyond the story of male-dominated computer culture, this book emphasizes the neglected history of the influence of womenâs culture and feminist critique on the development of personal computing despite womenâs underrepresentation in the industry.Proposing the notion of âcompanionate computing,â Reem Hilu reimagines the spread of computers into American homes as the history of an interpersonal, romantic...