Here Comes the Future: Black Women and Early Digital Culture in Essence

This article evaluates the articles and columns that covered the emergence of computers and other personal electronics in the Black women’s magazine Essence during the 1980s and early 1990s. Through a close reading of how habits and time management were repeatedly used as a framing device, this article demonstrates the tension between neoliberal and Black feminist perspectives across the coverage of technology in the magazine. This article positions attitudes about emerging technology alongside larger social and cultural contexts for Black American women by identifying how the discourse authored by Black women evince multivalent temporalities and a collective voice. Evaluating women’s magazines for their gendered and raced attitudes on technology emphasizes a non-specialist and everyday discourse history that politicizes histories of electronics and digital technology. This paper contributes to a growing body of scholarship that elaborates the development of Black women’s digital culture.