Swinging the Machine: Modernity, Technology, and African American Culture Between the World Wars [Paperback]

Joel Dinerstein (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1558493832 | ISBN-13: 978-1558493834 | Publication Date: May 2003

In any age and any given society, cultural practices reflect the material circumstances of people's everyday lives. According to Joel Dinerstein, it was no different in America between the two World Wars—an era sometimes known as the "machine age"—when innovative forms of music and dance helped a newly urbanized population cope with the increased mechanization of modern life. Grand spectacles such as the Ziegfield Follies and the movies of Busby Berkeley captured the American ethos of mass production, with chorus girls as the cogs of these fast, flowing pleasure vehicles.

Yet it was African American culture, Dinerstein argues, that ultimately provided the means of aesthetic adaptation to the accelerated tempo of modernity. Drawing on a legacy of engagement with and resistance to technological change, with deep roots in West African dance and music, black artists developed new cultural forms that sought to humanize machines. In "The Ballad of John Henry," the epic toast "Shine," and countless blues songs, African Americans first addressed the challenge of industrialization. Jazz musicians drew on the symbol of the train within this tradition to create a set of train-derived aural motifs and rhythms, harnessing mechanical power to cultural forms. Tap dance and the lindy hop brought machine aesthetics to the human body, while the new rhythm section of big band swing mimicked the industrial soundscape of northern cities. In Dinerstein's view, the capacity of these artistic innovations to replicate the inherent qualities of the machine—speed, power, repetition, flow, precision—helps explain both their enormous popularity and social function in American life.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...The depth and breadth of research is impressive and the writing is superb...." -- David W. Stowe,

"The strength of this book is its truly interdisciplinary quality...." -- W. T. Lhamon, Jr.,

From the Publisher

An innovative study of the influence of black popular culture on modern American life.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press (May 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558493832
• ISBN-13: 978-1558493834
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #929,961 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive, Readable, Enlightening, Important, May 20, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Swinging the Machine: Modernity, Technology, and African American Culture Between the World Wars (Paperback)

This book weaves together several important and somewhat familiar stories in a startlingly new and brilliant way. We know that music and dance exploded in powerful new forms in the 1930s. And we know the "streamlined" and "futuristic" themes of techno-optimism dominated other cultural expressions in the 1930s. And we know there was a current of "techno-anxiety" that expressed itself in everything from Chaplin films to the Frankfurt School. But Joel Dinerstein has shown that these phenomena intimately informed each other. We will never view early-20th century American culture the same way after this book. Buy it. Read it. Assign it to your students. It should win many major awards.

3 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars understanding the techno-dialogic, July 24, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Swinging the Machine: Modernity, Technology, and African American Culture Between the World Wars (Paperback)

Fabulous book. Dinerstein ties together architecture, tap dancing, West African drummers, the lindy hop, John Henry and Fred Astaire in this exploration of what he calls the "techno-dialogic" embedded in big band/swing music. He argues that African American artists put the industrial rhythms of the era in popular music. In this analysis, dancing to the big band wasn't just about entertainment, it was about using one's body to keep pace with the machine. Until you've read Dinerstein and considered how dance/movement/sound contribute to cultural change, you haven't understood American modernity.