The Digital Imaginary: Mainframe Computers from the Corporate Basement to the Silver Screen

Steven Anderson
History
UC Riverside

Although rarely discussed as a crucial component of postwar consumption, mainframe computers provided the foundations of modern consumer culture. By calculating, processing and storing information, mainframes amplified the rapid pace of consumer growth during the postwar era. The grantee’s dissertation examined the adoption and cultural impact of the digital mainframe computer from its invention in 1946 until 1968. Although largely hidden from view in corporate basements, through the processing of paperwork mainframe computers were intimately tied to networks of public and private infrastructure, finance, and distribution. Essential to this project was an examination of postwar mass media, including feature films, promotional brochures, advertisements, and trade journals in which mainframes were represented. The dissertation brought new dimensions to the history of technology and consumer culture by showing that changing patterns of mass consumption in the postwar era were magnified by the processing power of digital mainframe computers.