The work by historians of technology shows that we cannot take technology as given. On the contrary, it is as malleable a product of human history as any other. Studies show that technological change is very often the consequence as well as a cause of historical conflicts. How does a society make a ‘technological choice’ which directly shapes the development and diffusion of specific technologies? The controversy over trolley wires was precisely this sort of struggle to control a new technology.

Historians have shown the complex and contested ways in which new technologies gain cultural significance. All technological change involves two distinct but simultaneous processes, the mutual production of material artifacts and cultural meanings.

The opposition to overhead wires shaped streetcar technology by encouraging inventors to develop underground-conduit systems for electric streetcars, systems that were adopted in Washington, New York, and a good number of European cities.