Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T00:39:48.629Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

‘Turn it down!’ she shrieked: gender, domestic space, and high fidelity, 1948–591

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Abstract

This is the space age. Not just for sputniks and moonshots but also for hi-fi. We have ‘space’ conveyed through stereo sound – if we can find space for that extra stereo speaker. The theory that space is limited is nothing new to the average housewife. (HiFi Review, April 1959, p. 49)

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Andrews, Dana. 1955. ‘Living with music’, High Fidelity, 05, pp. 41–2, 109–10Google Scholar
Baritz, Loren. 1990. The Good Life (New York)Google Scholar
Berger, Meyer. 1953A. ‘Crazy over tweeters’, New York Times, 22 11, p. 44Google Scholar
Berger, Meyer. 1953B. ‘That strange hi-fi set: it is a machine and a society, both tuned to a frantic pitch’, New York Times Magazine, 15 12, pp. 19, 54Google Scholar
Boddy, William. 1994. ‘Archaeologies of electronic vision and the gendered spectator’, Screen 35.2, pp. 105–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction. (Trans. Nice, Richard) (Cambridge, Mass.)Google Scholar
Brandt, Nancy. 1959. ‘Two years before the blast’, HiFi Music Review, 01, p. 41Google Scholar
Brean, Herbert. 1953. ‘The “hi-fi” bandwagon’, Life, 15 06, pp. 146–8, 151–61Google Scholar
Burke, C. G. 1954. ‘… In defense of the faithful’, High Fidelity, 09, pp. 34–6, 112, 115–17Google Scholar
Burstein, Herman. 1958. ‘Must you shake the walls?’, HiFi and Music Review, 06, pp. 41–3Google Scholar
Buxbaum, Edwin C. 1949. ‘On playing music LOUD’, Saturday Review of Literature, 25 06, p. 51Google Scholar
Canby, Edward Tatnall. 1952A. ‘Hi-fi for Aunt Minnie’, Audio Engineering, 08, pp. 30–3Google Scholar
Canby, Edward Tatnall. 1952B. ‘The hi-fi hobby’, Saturday Review of Literature, 30 08, p. 62Google Scholar
‘Cashing in on finicky ears’. 1952. Business Week, 22 03, pp. 52–4Google Scholar
Chappell, Russell and Conway, John A. 1957. ‘Hi-fi: the sweet smell of profits’, Newsweek, 29 07, pp. 6971Google Scholar
Cohan, Steven. 1991. ‘Masquerading as the American male in the fifties: Picnic, William Holden, and the spectacle of masculinity in Hollywood film’, Camera Obscura, 25/26, pp. 4272Google Scholar
Conly, John M. 1951. ‘Hifi-phrenia’, High Fidelity, Fall, pp. 1315, 88Google Scholar
Cost, Jim. 1958. ‘Have casket, need corpse’, High Fidelity, 12, pp. 43–5Google Scholar
Crabbe, John. 1968. HiFi in the Home (London)Google Scholar
‘Custom Installations’. 1954. High Fidelity, 06, pp. 26–7Google Scholar
Dare, D. Alan. 1957. ‘Letter to the Editor’, Newsweek, 30 09, p. 19Google Scholar
Diamond, Barbara. 1955. ‘Live with hi-fi and like it’, Saturday Review, 29 01, p. 40Google Scholar
Dickey, Joe. 1953. ‘High futility: an essay on scale distortion’, Audio Engineering, 04, pp. 21–2, 67–9Google Scholar
Douglas, Susan J. 1991. ‘Broadcasting begins’, in Communication in History, eds. Crowley, D. and Heyer, P. (White Plains), pp. 190–7Google Scholar
Edwards, Eleanor. 1953. ‘I am a hi-fi wife: for richer, for poorer, for woofer, for tweeter …’, High Fidelity, 11/12, pp. 42–4, 132Google Scholar
Ehrenreich, Barbara. 1983. The Hearts of Men (Garden City)Google Scholar
Ennis, Philip H. 1992. The Seventh Stream (Hanover, N.H.)Google Scholar
Fantel, Hans H. 1959A. ‘Of speakers and spouses’, HiFi Review, 01, pp. 30–1Google Scholar
Fantel, Hans H. 1959B. ‘Take two! They're small!: jumbo bookshelf speaker systems – good sound for compact rooms’, HiFi Review, 04, pp. 4952Google Scholar
Fowler, Charles. 1954. ‘Hi-fi revisited’, High Fidelity, 01/02, pp. 37–9, 100, 102, 104Google Scholar
Gans, Herbert. 1974. Popular Culture and High Culture (New York)Google Scholar
Geraci, Philip C. 1958. ‘Christmas tactics for golden eared husbands’, High Fidelity, 12, pp. 38–9, 166Google Scholar
Goodenough, Ann. 1954. ‘I am a hi-fi widow!’, McCall's, 05, pp. 1112Google Scholar
Halpern, E. L. 1949. ‘On not playing music loud, or, Buxbaum's gambit refuted’, Saturday Review, 30 07, pp. 53–4Google Scholar
Harrison, Emma. 1957. ‘The hi-fi addict: new personality – Canadian psychiatrist finds “interesting maladjustment to stress of our times”’, New York Times, 14 04, p. 56Google Scholar
Heathcote, Lesley M. 1949. ‘Letter to the Recordings Editor’, Saturday Review, 30 07, p. 58Google Scholar
Hi-fi spouse sings dirge: her husband runs amok assembling audio parts’. 1953. New York Times, 22 11, p. 44Google Scholar
Hi-fi takes over’. 1955. Time, 28 02, pp. 64–6Google Scholar
High fidelity: next year a $300,000,000 industry’. 1953. Newsweek, 21 12, pp. 65–9Google Scholar
‘Home Listening’. 1954. High Fidelity, 08, pp. 32–3Google Scholar
Jacobs, Frank. 1958. ‘Tweet tweet, klunk, klunk, whoop, whoop’, HiFi and Music Review, 09, pp. 32–5, 64Google Scholar
Kohler, Carl. 1958. ‘The man with the golden tone arm’, HiFi and Music Review, 02, pp. 60–1, 66, 78Google Scholar
Kupferberg, Herbert. 1955. ‘Snobs and sobs’, House Beautiful, 12, pp. 147, 171–2Google Scholar
Laros, Fred. 1957. ‘Are you a hi fi-natic?’, American Mercury, 06, pp. 2933Google Scholar
Lewis, Tom. 1991. Empire of the Air (New York)Google Scholar
Loomis, Opal. 1955. ‘The high fidelity wife, or, a fate worse than deaf’, Harper's, 08, pp. 34–6Google Scholar
Lucci, Thomas I. 1954. ‘After binaural – what? or Uncle Tom's cabinet’, High Fidelity, 03, pp. 37, 99, 101Google Scholar
Marsh, Margaret. 1990. Suburban Lives (New Brunswick)Google Scholar
Marshall, Joseph. 1955. ‘Nobody hears it but me’, High Fidelity, 05, pp. 91–2Google Scholar
Medovoi, Leerom. 1991. ‘Mapping the rebel image: postmodernism and the masculinist politics of rock in the U.S.A.’, Cultural Critique, Winter, pp. 153–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milder, John. 1958. ‘Where did it all begin?’, High Fidelity, 03, pp. 35–8, 86–7Google Scholar
Miller, Douglas T. and Nowak, Marion. 1976. The Fifties (Garden City)Google Scholar
Moskin, Robert. 1958. ‘The American male: why do women dominate him’, Look, 4 02, pp. 7780Google Scholar
‘Music for the home’. 1946. Fortune, 10, pp. 156–63, 190, 193, 195Google Scholar
Nunley, Jennis A. 1955. ‘Concerning audiophilia’, Saturday Review, 30 07, pp. 37–8Google Scholar
Nye, David E. 1990. Electrifying America (Cambridge, Mass.)Google Scholar
‘Playbill’. 1957. Playboy, 06, 2Google Scholar
‘Playboy's Penthouse Apartment’. 1956. Playboy, 10, pp. 6570Google Scholar
Riggio, Joseph. 1954. ‘The little fellows did it’, The Nation, 4 12, pp. 486–7Google Scholar
Read, Oliver, and Welch, Walter W. 1976. From Tin Foil to Stereo, 2nd Ed. (Indianapolis)Google Scholar
Reif, Rita. 1956. ‘The woman's touch: pressure from hi-fi wives is sending components back into the woodwork’, New York Times, 18 11, p. 11Google Scholar
Rodrigues, Charles. 1955. ‘Custom installations?’, High Fidelity, 11, pp. 40–1Google Scholar
Ross, Andrew. 1989. No Respect (New York)Google Scholar
Sanger, Elliot M. 1973. Rebel in Radio (New York)Google Scholar
Schmitz, Robert L. 1957. ‘Euterpe in the parking lot’, High Fidelity, 08, pp. 3941, 91Google Scholar
Schopenhauer, S. Strindberg. 1957. ‘The infidelical spouse: what shall we do with the tin-eared ladies?’, High Fidelity, 03, pp. 4850, 130Google Scholar
Schumach, Murray. 1953. ‘Mushrooming audio industry’, New York Times, 22 11, p. 41Google Scholar
Segal, Julius. 1955. ‘A psychologist views audiophilia’, High Fidelity, 09, p. 50Google Scholar
Segal, Lynne. 1988. ‘Look back in anger: men in the fifties’, in Male Order, ed. Chapman, Rowena and Rutherford, Jonathan (London), pp. 6896Google Scholar
Shepherd, John. 1987. ‘Music and male hegemony’, in Popular Music and Communication, ed. Lull, James (Newbury Park), pp. 151–72Google Scholar
Spigel, Lynn. 1992. Make Room for TV (Chicago)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
‘The audio fair’. 1952. Audio Engineering, 10, p. 18Google Scholar
‘The unending search for higher and higher fi’. 1958. Look, 15 04, pp. 36, 39Google Scholar
May, Tyler, Elaine, . 1988. Homeward Bound (New York)Google Scholar
Wallace, Ed. 1952. ‘Hi-ho fidelity’, High Fidelity, 01/02, pp. 3741Google Scholar
Wayne, Arthur W. 1958. ‘Snark spoor’, High Fidelity, 01, pp. 42–5, 123Google Scholar
White, Saul J. 1948. ‘Letters: toward a new audio’, Audio Engineering, 04, pp. 4, 46–7Google Scholar
Wright, Gwendolyn. 1981. Building the Dream (New York)Google Scholar
Wylie, Philip. 1958. ‘The womanization of America’, Playboy, 09, pp. 51–2, 77–9Google Scholar