Network Nation : Inventing American Telecommunications / Richard R. John.
2010
Linked e-resources
Linked Resource
Online Access
Details
Title
Network Nation : Inventing American Telecommunications / Richard R. John.
Author
John, Richard R., author.
ISBN
9780674056527
Published
Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2010]
Copyright
©2010
Language
English
Language Note
In English.
Description
1 online resource (528 p.)
Item Number
10.4159/9780674056527 doi
Alternate Call Number
ZN 3136
Summary
The telegraph and the telephone were the first electrical communications networks to become hallmarks of modernity. Yet they were not initially expected to achieve universal accessibility. In this pioneering history of their evolution, Richard R. John demonstrates how access to these networks was determined not only by technological imperatives and economic incentives but also by political decision making at the federal, state, and municipal levels. In the decades between the Civil War and the First World War, Western Union and the Bell System emerged as the dominant providers for the telegraph and telephone. Both operated networks that were products not only of technology and economics but also of a distinctive political economy. Western Union arose in an antimonopolistic political economy that glorified equal rights and vilified special privilege. The Bell System flourished in a progressive political economy that idealized public utility and disparaged unnecessary waste. The popularization of the telegraph and the telephone was opposed by business lobbies that were intent on perpetuating specialty services. In fact, it wasn't until 1900 that the civic ideal of mass access trumped the elitist ideal of exclusivity in shaping the commercialization of the telephone. The telegraph did not become widely accessible until 1910, sixty-five years after the first fee-for-service telegraph line opened in 1845. Network Nation places the history of telecommunications within the broader context of American politics, business, and discourse. This engrossing and provocative book persuades us of the critical role of political economy in the development of new technologies and their implementation.
Access Note
Access limited to authorized users.
System Details Note
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
Digital File Characteristics
text file PDF
Source of Description
Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 29. Jun 2022)
In
HUP eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013 (Canada)
Harvard University Press eBook Package Backlist 2000-2013
Harvard University Press eBook Package Backlist 2000-2013
Available in Other Form
print 9780674024298
Linked Resources
Online Access
Record Appears in
Online Resources > Ebooks
All Resources
All Resources
Table of Contents
Frontmatter
Contents
List of Illustrations and Tables
Introduction: Inventing American Telecommunications
1. Making a Neighborhood of a Nation
2. Professor Morse's Lightning
3. Antimonopoly
4. The New Postalic Dispensation
5. Rich Man's Mail
6. The Talking Telegraph
7. Telephomania
8. Second Nature
9. Gray Wolves
10. Universal Ser vice
11. One Great Medium?
Epilogue: The Technical Millennium
Chronology of American Telecommunications
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index
Contents
List of Illustrations and Tables
Introduction: Inventing American Telecommunications
1. Making a Neighborhood of a Nation
2. Professor Morse's Lightning
3. Antimonopoly
4. The New Postalic Dispensation
5. Rich Man's Mail
6. The Talking Telegraph
7. Telephomania
8. Second Nature
9. Gray Wolves
10. Universal Ser vice
11. One Great Medium?
Epilogue: The Technical Millennium
Chronology of American Telecommunications
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index