At the Interface: The Case of the Electric Push Button, 1880–1923

Abstract

This article uses the case of electric push buttons to argue for more systematic scholarly attention to user interfaces as objects of historical study. Between 1880 and 1923, push buttons diffused rapidly as switches for controlling domestic devices ranging from bells to lights. In a first stage from approximately 1880 to 1915, historical actors employed strategies to make electricity intelligible to and safe for consumers: some advanced a view of buttons as technical mechanisms that laypersons should know how to construct and deconstruct; others propagated a vision of buttons as mediums for using electricity without thought or effort. In a second phase after 1915, when many individuals had come to take push-button interfaces for granted, the electrical industry endeavored to undo this reification by revealing technical processes behind buttons. The article investigates how varying pedagogical models factored into social, cultural and political negotiations around electricity, consumption and everyday practices.

Force, flatness and touch without feeling: Thinking historically about haptics and buttons

“…Unlike these negative meditations on button pushers, which pay little attention to actual users’ experiences, recent histories of push buttons and the fingers that push them offer diverse and complicated histories that begin well before the twentieth century (Heilmann, 2010; Plotnick, 2012). These studies have begun to reveal how little media research has addressed haptic media practices up to this point, particularly from an historical perspective.…”

Listen up! Phatic thresholds and sound interface design

“…Both horns and sirens function as a device warning of oncoming modern-age-perils. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, horns emerged from the need to manage the mayhem of pedestrians, horses, and carriages on the road (Plotnick, 2013), while sirens were mounted on police cars, fire engines, and ambulances and alarmed large collectivities of hearers to move out of approaching dangers, such as air raids or tornadoes (Rehding, 2014).…”

“Science in action”: The politics of hands-on display at the New York Museum of Science and Industry

“…55 In this new space, push buttons regained prominence and mediated between exhibits and visitors as they were increasingly mediating between humans and machines. 56 Significantly, The New York Times illustrated the chronicle of the reinauguration ceremony with a photograph of Albert Einstein pushing buttons at the museum. 57 Contemporary visual and textual descriptions also highlighted fingers, push buttons, and smiling faces as the center of the subjective experience of visiting a museum which increasingly resembled a playground (see Figure 6 This renewed emphasis on dynamic exhibits was part of the broader reorganization of the museum.…”