Something interesting I’ve discovered as I’ve been reading Shiloh is how timeless the first section
of book felt as I read it, while this second section makes the book feel both
in the past and in the present. For example, Naylor mentions the term “gunnysack”
(a large, roughly woven bag made from burlap—a definition I confirmed as a
Vocabulary Enricher, rather than relying merely on the context), which isn’t
something we routinely say anymore, because it’s not an item that we use on a
daily basis in the 21st century, so that mention makes the book feel
a bit like historical fiction. Naylor also discusses watching TV, though, so
we’re left with a very broad range of possibilities for time period.
Naylor gives us exposition about setting in terms of place
(Friendly, West Virginia), but she gives fewer clues about whether the book
takes place in present day for the year it was published (1991), or whether it
is actually set in a different time period. In this, the middle section, we
finally get confirmation that the book takes place in the present. In Chapter
7, we meet David Howard (Marty’s best friend) and hear that his house has a
room “for his father’s books, with a computer in it” (p. 66), so that confirms
the present-day time period. This is in startling contrast to Marty’s admission
in the previous chapter that his family doesn’t have enough spare cash to own a
phone (another piece of information that makes the novel feel historical)—they
have to “ride down to Doc Murphy’s to use his” (p. 58) every time they want to
make a phone call.
The juxtaposition of these two statements regarding
technology got me thinking about 1991, the year Shiloh was published, and I decided to research how many people had
computers and telephones in 1991. In today’s technology-driven society, it’s
difficult to imagine a time when it wasn’t strange for a family not to have a
telephone or computer in the house, even though those days are in the
not-too-distant past.
According to a U.S. Census Bureau
study on computer and Internet access, in 1989, 15% of all households in
the U.S. had a computer. By 1993, that percentage jumped up to 22.8%, which
leads me to believe that in 1991, the number was probably around 18.5%, though
this particular study does not have that data. As for landlines, according to data
from the World Bank, more than 33 million Americans had a traditional
telephone in 1991, whereas only about 7.5 million had a cell
phone. Today, for comparison’s sake, more than 300 million Americans have
cell phones—wow!
To support my research as an illustrator, I found the
following images of what phones and computers looked like in 1991. It’s
astonishing to me to think about how much technology permeates our daily lives,
even when reading a book that isn’t really about it at all. The world has
changed so much so quickly because of these inventions that we take new things
for granted and often forget how we used to live life before the tech boom of
the 1990s-2000s. It's been refreshing for me to revisit a time when we focused on the relationships we had with the people and the animals in our lives. There was a greater level of personal connection that we are beginning to lose in this digital age in which we now live.
 |
| Analogue cordless phone, circa 1991 |
 |
| First 2G digital mobile phone by Motorola, released in 1991 |
 |
| IBM personal computer, circa 1989 |
I love your research into technology. I remember '91 quite well, where I was working had just given me a "bag phone" to use in my car...I thought it was pretty neat. It would make a great weapon in today. :)
ReplyDelete