NP: Carolyn de la Pena's "The Body Electric"

[David Payne]

I haven't read Carolyn de la Pena's "The Body Electric", but it sounds intriguing. From Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/081471983X/boingboing0e-20):

"Between the years 1850 and 1950, Americans became the leading energy consumers on the planet, expending tremendous physical resources on energy exploration, mental resources on energy exploitation, and monetary resources on energy acquisition. A unique combination of pseudoscientific theories of health and the public's rudimentary understanding of energy created an age in which sources of industrial power seemed capable of curing the physical limitations and ill health that plagued Victorian bodies. Licensed and "quack" physicians alike promoted machines, electricity, and radium as invigorating cures, veritable "fountains of youth" that would infuse the body with energy and push out disease and death."

See also, de la Pena's article on exercise machinery: http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/29/pena.php
_________________________________________________________________
With Windows Live for mobile, your contacts travel with you.
http://www.windowslive.com/mobile/overview.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_Refresh_mobile_052008