Energy Slaves: Carbon Technologies, Climate Change, and the Stratified History of the Fossil Economy

The electric giant Westinghouse unveiled the world's first "mechanical negro" -- the term is from a southern newspaper -- at a National Electric and Light Association convention held in San Francisco in 1930.1 This African American robot, given the racist nickname Rastus by journalist...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American quarterly 2016-12, Vol.68 (4), p.955-979
Main Author: Johnson, Bob
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
African Americans
Business
Carbon
Climate change
Essays
Genealogy
News media
Political activism
Racism
Robots
Citations: Items that cite this one
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Summary:The electric giant Westinghouse unveiled the world's first "mechanical negro" -- the term is from a southern newspaper -- at a National Electric and Light Association convention held in San Francisco in 1930.1 This African American robot, given the racist nickname Rastus by journalists, was built to be a showpiece at tech fairs to demonstrate how far science and industry had advanced in perfecting a "mechanical man" that might one day replace the human worker. News reports from the time indicate that Rastus did not disappoint in this respect -- that he simulated human-like movements, that he spoke in "a rich Baritone voice" of current events when prompted to do so, and that he performed in his signature act a rendition of William Tell by standing quietly onstage, apple perched on his head, waiting for an electric beam to knock it off. From a purely technological perspective, this black robot was not all that remarkable.
ISSN:0003-0678
1080-6490
1080-6490
DOI:10.1353/aq.2016.0074