MachineMachine /stream

By the twentieth century, some cynicism had crept into descriptions of the newest machines. Writing about the impact of radio on his rural Maine community, E. B. White observed, "One of the chief pretenders to the throne of God is radio itself, which has acquired a sort of omniscience." In the lives of the people in his town, the radio exerted a "pervading and somewhat godlike presence." But it was also something to which they turned daily for advice and instruction. As White wryly noted, "The church merely holds out the remote promise of salvation: the radio tells you if it's going to rain tomorrow."

Today, we no longer approach our many machines with awe; in fact, the more personalized and individualized our machines have become, the less humility we feel in using them. No longer the large, rare dynamos of Adams's day, our machines are often portable and are such a central part of our everyday lives that we barely notice their presence. Rather than awe-inspiring symbols of man's pow