Marsden Haddock and the Androides: Entertainment, Late Georgian Cork and the Wider World Cronin Neil
Marsden Haddock and the Androides: Entertainment, Late Georgian Cork and the Wider World Cronin Neil By the late eighteenth century, many people had designated leisure time. The hero of this story is…
Specifikacia Marsden Haddock and the Androides: Entertainment, Late Georgian Cork and the Wider World Cronin Neil
Marsden Haddock and the Androides: Entertainment, Late Georgian Cork and the Wider World Cronin Neil
By the late eighteenth century, many people had designated leisure time. The hero of this story is Marsden Haddock, who devised an exhibition of mechanical ingenuity, the Androides. The appetite for novelty in popular entertainment became insatiable.
The word Androide became synonymous with his devices. Haddock's spectacle originated in Cork in 1794, from where he then toured through the English-speaking Atlantic world (a reversal of the usual trend) with considerable success for many years. In probing the penumbra between man and machine, between the animate and the inanimate, Haddock's lifelike automata and other figures provoked wonder and often fear.
A singular character, Haddock was distinguished by ingenuity, versatility and, in the face of recurrent setbacks, resilience. This volume positions him and his entertainment as products of the booming war-economy of Cork city, and uses