The People's Network

The People's Network
Author :
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages : 344
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780812245691
ISBN-13 : 0812245695
Rating : 4/5 (695 Downloads)

Book Synopsis The People's Network by : Robert MacDougall

Download or read book The People's Network written by Robert MacDougall and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2014-01-08 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Bell System dominated telecommunications in the United States and Canada for most of the twentieth century, but its monopoly was not inevitable. In the decades around 1900, ordinary citizens—farmers, doctors, small-town entrepreneurs—established tens of thousands of independent telephone systems, stringing their own wires to bring this new technology to the people. Managed by opportunists and idealists alike, these small businesses were motivated not only by profit but also by the promise of open communication as a weapon against monopoly capital and for protection of regional autonomy. As the Bell empire grew, independents fought fiercely to retain control of their local networks and companies—a struggle with an emerging corporate giant that has been almost entirely forgotten. The People's Network reconstructs the story of the telephone's contentious beginnings, exploring the interplay of political economy, business strategy, and social practice in the creation of modern North American telecommunications. Drawing from government documents in the United States and Canada, independent telephone journals and publications, and the archives of regional Bell operating companies and their rivals, Robert MacDougall locates the national debates over the meaning, use, and organization of the telephone industry as a turning point in the history of information networks. The competing businesses represented dueling political philosophies: regional versus national identity and local versus centralized power. Although independent telephone companies did not win their fight with big business, they fundamentally changed the way telecommunications were conceived.


The People's Network Related Books

Popular Chinese Literature and Performing Arts in the People's Republic of China, 1949-1979
Language: en
Pages: 360
Authors: Bonnie S. Mcdougall
Categories:
Type: BOOK - Published: 2024-07-19 - Publisher: Univ of California Press

GET EBOOK

The People's Network
Language: en
Pages: 344
Authors: Robert MacDougall
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2014-01-08 - Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

GET EBOOK

The Bell System dominated telecommunications in the United States and Canada for most of the twentieth century, but its monopoly was not inevitable. In the deca
The Organisation of the Public Debt, and a Plan for the Relief of the Treasury
Language: en
Pages: 34
Authors: Robert MORRIS (Writer on Finance.)
Categories:
Type: BOOK - Published: 1863 - Publisher:

GET EBOOK

The General Statutes of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Relating to the Public Schools
Language: en
Pages: 82
Authors: Anonymous
Categories: Fiction
Type: BOOK - Published: 2024-01-31 - Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

GET EBOOK

Reprint of the original, first published in 1875. The publishing house Anatiposi publishes historical books as reprints. Due to their age, these books may have
Public Laws Enacted by the Philippine Legislature
Language: en
Pages: 364
Authors: Philippines
Categories: Law
Type: BOOK - Published: 1924 - Publisher:

GET EBOOK