Telecommunications History and Policy

One of the fields in which I long taught (especially for the former graduate program at George Washington University for two decades), this interest ranges from the rise of the electric telegraph in the mid-19th century to the present-and includes the history of computers and the Internet. As with all my other interest areas, I collect historical books in this area. Here are a handful of the many available websites and just some of the many useful historical publications.

Complex antennas are increasingly common across the country. This one, in Northern Virginia, just outside of Washington, DC combines a number of microwave and other transmitting and receiving antennas mounted on a basic tower. Not visible on the top are several of the now ubiquitous cellphone antennas we all depend upon.

Websites

Samuel F. B. Morse Papers Along with the next site listed, this is a massive collection of material, a fine example of a DC-based (Library of Congress) archive being substantially available online.

Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers What a treasure-trove this is...from the Library of Congress, with thousands of pages online.

Underwater Web: Cabling the Seas A fine on-line version of a former physical display by a world-class authority on undersea cables--the Smithsonian's Bernard S. Finn.

Timeline of Computing History Just that--an Adobe file of 68 pages!

Hobbes' Internet Timeline A chronology from 1957 to the present--the chronology gets more involved in more recent years as you might expect, and offers many links and data.

IEEE History Center The main electrical engineering membership group offers a wealth of useful information , archives and further links. Includes link to a wonderful 2001 history conference in Newfoundland, with many of the papers presented.

Underwater Web: Cabling the Seas Undersea telegraph (and by 1956 telephone) cables have a fascinating history---here's a very good online exhibition curated by the Smithsonian's Bernard Finn.

Mobile Telephone History Multi-page historical survey of those devices we can't seem to live without.

Resources on Telecommunications History Useful listing of some 30 further sites covering the history of telegraph, telephone, Internet, radio, and television.

Suggested Books

Brock, Gerald W. The Telecommunications Industry: The Dynamics of Market Structure. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981. Best one-volume history up to the break-up of AT&T.

(Ibid). The Second Information Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003. Broad-ranging study of telecommunication and computer development.

Bruce, Robert V. Bell: Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude. Boston: Little, Brown, 1973. By far the best biography of the prime telephone inventor.

Boettinger, H. M. The Telephone Book: Bell, Watson, Vail and American Life, 1876-1983. New York: Stearn, 1983 (2nd ed.). Handsomely illustrated coffee-table historical survey.

Bray, John. Innovation and the Communications Revolution: From the Victorian Pioneers to Broadband Internet. London: IEE, 2002. Biography-based study of the developing technology.

Chapuis, Robert J. 100 Years of Telephone Switching (1878-1978), Part 1–Manual and Electromechanical Switching (1878-1960s). Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing "Studies in Telecommunications," 1982. See next entry.

(Ibid)., and Amos E. Joel. Electronics, Computers and Telephone Switching: A Book of Technological History as Volume 2: 1960-1985 of "100 Years of Telephone Switching." Amsterdam: North-Holland "Studies in Telecommunication," 1990. Perhaps the best technical survey, covering work done in most countries, well illustrated and well annotated.

Coe, Lewis. The Telephone and its Several Inventors: A History. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1995. Useful survey of a very controversial topic.

Fischer, Claude S. America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. First scholarly assessment of the many effects of the telephone to World War II.

Gordon, John Steele. A Thread Across the Ocean: The Heroic Story of the Atlantic Cable.New York: Walker, 2002. One of the most recent surveys of the mid-19th century "grand Victorian technology."

Grosvenor, Edwin S. and Morgan Wesson. Alexander Graham Bell: The Life and Times of the Man Who Invented the Telephone. New York: Harry Abrams, 1997. A good illustrated biography including his work on aircraft and with the deaf.

Huurdeman, Anton A. The Worldwide History of Telecommunications. New York: Wiley Interscience, 2003. The most wide-ranging attempt thus far to tell the whole story from the telegraph to broadband services.

Rhodes, Frederick L. Beginnings of Telephony. New York: Harper, 1929 (reprinted by Arno Press, 1974). Still a very useful technical history of the pioneering period (to about 1900)

Silverman, Kenneth. Lightning Man: The Accursed Life of Samuel F. B. Morse. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003. The latest and most complete biography of the telegraph inventor.

Standage, Tom. The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-Line Pioneers. New York: Walker, 1998. Recent popular survey.