Boy, I’m surprised I haven’t seen this one before:
When Old Technologies Were New: Thinking About Electric Communication in the Late Nineteenth Century By Carolyn Marvin. Sounds very cool.
Writer, Professor, and Everything Else
Boy, I’m surprised I haven’t seen this one before:
When Old Technologies Were New: Thinking About Electric Communication in the Late Nineteenth Century By Carolyn Marvin. Sounds very cool.
We picked up a related-seeming book at Afterwords a few months back (they might still have it; might not, too): New Media, 1740-1915. Even as a library book, I recommend it, since it goes way beyond the now-hackneyed “the Internet is a lot like telegraphy/telephony used to be” trope.
The Marvin book is great. I bought it about ten years back and its been real useful for helping to understand the complex social practices involved in technology development and adoption and in how professions are formed. Although she doesn’t connect anything explicitly to articulation theory, I frequently use the cases she documents when I’m trying to describe how articulation works.