Let There be Light, Rail, and Telegraphy
Briggs and Burke?s chapter Processes and Patterns provides an extensive review of the cultural impact of the technologies from the 19th to 20th centuries including the steam engine, ships, mail, telephones, the cinema, wireless, and even gramophones. At first glance many of these technologies appear so distinct that there seems there would be little to no possible connection between them. But Briggs and Burke argue that ?any separation [of the technologies] is artificial. The development of the telegraph was closely associated with the development of the railways? (134). Although the technologies did not necessarily link to each other in structure or mechanics, their connection in their impact on society is unmistakable.
Not only was the locomotive an incredible achievement in engineering and in the cooperation necessary from countrymen who helped build the lines to connect never before visited areas of our country, it also created a social revolution by, for lack of a better description, putting everyone regardless of class, on the same train. Although the compartments (which are discussed at greater length by Schilvelbusch) were different in seating and luxury, there was no getting around the fact that every person was on the same train, moving at the same speed, and arriving and departing from the same stations. Briggs and Burke reference the concern from the elite; ?the fondness for traveling by rail had become almost a national passion among the lower orders and that thereby it was providing a social change in the habits of general society far more deep and extensive than any that ha[d] been created by the political revolutions of the last twenty centuries? (127). Who would have thought a massive chunk of steel could open such possibilities for any and all members of society?
Briggs and Burke also reference Benjamin Taylor?s The World on Wheels of 1874 and detail the locomotive as an ?accomplished educator. It teaches everybody that virtue?was punctuality. It waits for nobody. It demonstrates what a useful creature a minute is in the economy of things? (Briggs and Burke, 122). Schilvelbusch?s Chapters 4 and 5, Panoramic Travel and The Compartment respectively offer an additional perspective on the locomotive and how the visual stimuli racing by through small windows and the compartment set-up made such an impact on the travel experience. The chapters are most informative in their offering of the multiple perceptions regarding this newest technology and the changes the train brought with it. One group referred to the train as a ?projectile? or described it as ?the noxious effluvia of the screaming engine? (54). While the other members of society described the railway as creating a new landscape, it was the train?s ?velocity that made the objects of the visible world attractive? (60). As is the case with any change, there were members of society who loathed the differences and there were those who saw only benefit in what the train would bring.
Without realizing the relevance to many travelers? current perception of the travel experience, Schilvelbusch?s chapter 5 also references the change of communication created by the train?s travel arrangement. The new uncomfortable nature of conversation in travel, ?the face-to-face arrangement that had once institutionalized an existing need for communication now became unbearable because there no longer was a reason for such communication? (74), describes a universal feeling of discomfort (to say the least) among current travelers (so many years later). His discussion brings to mind those cringe-inducing moments when you are forced to stand or sit only inches from another person for any amount of time and yet never communicate with each other. It would seem appropriate to strike up a conversation to make the moment less uncomfortable but in reality what is there to say? Rather then desiring the communication with and experience of meeting new people as travel used to provide, trains created an environment of unease.
One last note on Briggs and Burke and their discussion of the telegraph. There is brief mention of the Postmaster General?s concern of private ownership of the telegraph, ?an instrument so powerful for good and evil could not with safety be left in the hands of private individuals uncontrolled by law? (138). The idea of control over an instrument as widely communicative as the telegraph struck me particularly hard; to consider it with our current internet seems ludicrous, can you even imagine a state controlled internet? But perhaps our internet is controlled more then my initial perception. How much of a monopoly does Google have over our search engines? Although it is a private entity is the concept of majority control by one corporation that much different then the unthinkable idea of the government trying to control the internet? Probably not.
Marvin?s article Dazzling the Multitude was an intriguing look at the earliest media spectacles and more specifically, the introduction of the electric light and all of the different parts of society such a development affected.
I?m not ashamed to admit that Marvin may just as easily have written much of this article by observing my own awe over any source of illuminated water. Who needs gambling or Celine Dion?s show in
Prior to Stubb?s discussion of the telegraph, I don?t believe that I would have associated what I believed to be an archaic device with the likes of our current internet. But there is an obvious connection in ?the ability of the internet to reconfigure the real according to imagined constructs ? to translate the actual into the virtual? (91) as does the telegraph described by Tom Standage as ?the Victorian internet? (92). Stubbs cautions us to not reduce the telegraph to such a simple definition but instead ?investigate how those actually involved in operating the technology conceived of its pleasures and dangers? (92). Other then the obvious cultural differences of the telegraph?s time period, where the technology provided a voice for women specifically, I still might argue that the telegraph could certainly be viewed as the internet of that time despite Stubbs desire to emphasize its distinctiveness.