The Boren and Roginska article raises an interesting historical question – how did colonial Philadelphia (and by extension, other colonial cities) sound? We are used to living in a world of amplified sound, but for people in colonial America – either participants in the Great Awakening listening to George Whitfield, or soldiers trying to hear the voice of their commanding officer over a crowd of rowdy Bostonians – the question of un-amplified (or, at least, un-electronically-amplified) sound transmission was crucial.
As Kurt points out, the Boren and Roginska article is multi-layered: it re-examines an experiment conducted by Benjamin Franklin, which in turn tested a claim made by George Whitfield about the range of his voice in public speeches. Kurt helpfully distinguishes between the kinds of experiential experiments that Franklin did, and the (more modern) math that Boren and Roginska employed. I’ll be interested to hear how other students felt about the utility of these experiments. What does knowing about the reach of public speeches in early America tell us about knowledge transmission? Would you feel confident performing similar analyses of other public events?
Finally, Kurt does a very good job of connecting this work on Franklin to our earlier articles, pointing out that while Franklin might not have been solely responsible for print culture in America, his role as an innovator was certainly important to the development of early American scientific, political and information culture. Reading this, it occurred to me that Franklin might make an interesting case study for a final paper for this class.
