“A Finer and Fairer Future”: commodifying wage earners in American pulp science fiction

Long-neglected by scholars, the pulp science fiction (SF) magazines of the Gernsback era (1926-1937) are due for re-examination. Presumed to be sub-literary stories for boys or, paradoxically, escapist leisure reading for practicing scientists and technicians, the SF from this period is actually neither. It is a powerful resource for understanding the ways ordinary people engaged with the promise and peril of industrial modernity. Published by a passionate entrepreneur seeking fame and fortune, composed by writers paid piecework rates and read by young science and technology enthusiasts aspiring to authentic remunerative work, the earliest pulp SF necessarily provoked inter-class discussions about labor, management, production and consumption.