America imagined technology could restore an Edenic state by blending nature and industry

Evidence

A vital and relevant tradition in American studies, inspired by Perry Miller and Henry Nash Smith and continued by Leo Marx and Alan Trachtenberg, has traced the recurrent theme of the “machine in the garden.” This was a unique American idea of a new dimension in social existence through which people might return to an Edenic estate through a harmonious blending of nature and manufactures. — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 474

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the ‘machine in the garden’ tradition in American studies.
• XREF: Connects to Leo Marx’s classic study and broader American studies scholarship. — connects to: Settler titles frame land reform as ruination of an Edenic white paradise — Tavengwa Gwekwerere, Davie E. Mutasa, and Kudakwashe Chitofiri, Settlers, Rhodesians, and Supremacists:…, 68
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 474