The people's network : the political economy of the telephone in the Gilded Age / Robert MacDougall.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

MacDougall, Robert, 1971-

Series:

American business, politics, and society.

American Business, Politics, and Society

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Telephone--United States--History--20th century.

Telephone.

Telephone--Canada--History--20th century.

Telephone companies--United States--History--20th century.

Telephone companies.

Telephone companies--Canada--History--20th century.

Telephone--Government policy--United States--History--20th century.

Telephone--Government policy--Canada--History--20th century.

American Telephone and Telegraph Company--History.

American Telephone and Telegraph Company.

Bell Canada--History.

Bell Canada.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (341 p.)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2014]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Introduction. A Fight with an Octopus

Chapter 1. All Telephones Are Local

Chapter 2. Visions of Telephony

Chapter 3. Unnatural Monopoly

Chapter 4. The Independent Alternative

Chapter 5. The Politics of Scale

Chapter 6. The System Gospel

Conclusion. Return to Middletown

Notes

Index

Acknowledgments

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780812209082

0812209087

OCLC:

865157735