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dc.contributor.advisorRoney, Jessica C. (Jessica Choppin), 1978-
dc.creatorStraub, Alexandra
dc.date.accessioned2020-11-05T15:02:04Z
dc.date.available2020-11-05T15:02:04Z
dc.date.issued2020
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12613/3613
dc.description.abstractMaking Water Pure: A History of Water Softening from Potash to Tide, is a history of water softening in the United States from 1860 through 1970. Water’s materiality, specifically its tendency to dissolve geological features, consistently interfered with labor processes, especially those that relied on the use of soap or steam. For this reason, the management and control over the quality of water in both domestic and industrial spaces was regular and in many cases economically imperative. Nineteenth-century laborers dealt with hard water on the individual level. They experimented with a variety of different chemicals and methods, including the addition of lye, coffee, blood meal, and wool fiber to water. Throughout the twentieth century, the requirements of industrial efficiency as well as new consumer technologies demanded fast, easy, and standard ways to soften water. This motivated manufactures to produce mechanical water softening systems and synthetic chemicals. This dissertation traces this change and asserts that the history of getting water soft is a history of environmental control and management. Water softening is a lens through which to explore often overlooked actors in the history of managing nonhuman nature such as women, domestic workers, laborers, home economists, advertisers, and commercial chemists. Hard water is a thread that connects usually separate categories such as the home and the factory, industrial chemicals and household cleaners. The control over water was uneven and incomplete and allows for the exploration of the tensions intrinsic in the attempted mastery over nature. The regularity of making soft water reveals not only society’s relationship with water, but the social nature of water itself. Water is a product of ecological, social, and technological discourses and practices-- a hybrid of both environment and culture. To soften water was to make nature fit; it was an effort to standardize nonhuman nature so that it would cooperate with certain technologies, processes, and cultural assumptions.
dc.format.extent227 pages
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherTemple University. Libraries
dc.relation.ispartofTheses and Dissertations
dc.rightsIN COPYRIGHT- This Rights Statement can be used for an Item that is in copyright. Using this statement implies that the organization making this Item available has determined that the Item is in copyright and either is the rights-holder, has obtained permission from the rights-holder(s) to make their Work(s) available, or makes the Item available under an exception or limitation to copyright (including Fair Use) that entitles it to make the Item available.
dc.rights.urihttp://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
dc.subjectHistory
dc.subjectAmerican History
dc.subjectEnvironmental History
dc.subjectGender
dc.subjectTechnology
dc.subjectWater
dc.titleMaking Water Pure: A History of Water Softening From Potash to Tide
dc.typeText
dc.type.genreThesis/Dissertation
dc.contributor.committeememberIsenberg, Andrew C. (Andrew Christian)
dc.contributor.committeememberLowe, Hilary Iris
dc.contributor.committeememberSimon, Bryant
dc.contributor.committeememberSmith-Howard, Kendra
dc.description.departmentHistory
dc.relation.doihttp://dx.doi.org/10.34944/dspace/3595
dc.ada.noteFor Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) accommodation, including help with reading this content, please contact scholarshare@temple.edu
dc.description.degreePh.D.
refterms.dateFOA2020-11-05T15:02:04Z


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