Download or read book Spreading the News written by Richard R. JOHN and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the seven decades from its establishment in 1775 to the commercialization of the electric telegraph in 1844, the American postal system spurred a communications revolution no less far-reaching than the subsequent revolutions associated with the telegraph, telephone, and computer. This book tells the story of that revolution and the challenge it posed for American business, politics, and cultural life. During the early republic, the postal system was widely hailed as one of the most important institutions of the day. No other institution had the capacity to transmit such a large volume of information on a regular basis over such an enormous geographical expanse. The stagecoaches and postriders who conveyed the mail were virtually synonymous with speed. In the United States, the unimpeded transmission of information has long been hailed as a positive good. In few other countries has informational mobility been such a cherished ideal. Richard John shows how postal policy can help explain this state of affairs. He discusses its influence on the development of such information-intensive institutions as the national market, the voluntary association, and the mass party. He traces its consequences for ordinary Americans, including women, blacks, and the poor. In a broader sense, he shows how the postal system worked to create a national society out of a loose union of confederated states. This exploration of the role of the postal system in American public life provides a fresh perspective not only on an important but neglected chapter in American history, but also on the origins of some of the most distinctive features of American life today. Table of Contents: Preface Acknowledgments The Postal System as an Agent of Change The Communications Revolution Completing the Network The Imagined Community The Invasion of the Sacred The Wellspring of Democracy The Interdiction of Dissent Conclusion Abbreviations Notes Sources Index Reviews of this book: "[A] splendid new book...that gives the lie to any notion that 'government' and 'administration' were 'absent' in early America." DD--Theda Skocpol, Social Science History "This well-researched and elegantly written book will become a model for historians attempting to link public policy to cultural and political change...[It] will engage not only historians of the early republic, but all scholars interested in the relationship between state and society." DD--John Majewski, Journal of Economic History "The strength of the book is...the author's ability to untangle the thousands of social, political, economic, and cultural threads of the postal fabric and to rearrange them into a clear and compelling social history." DD--Roy Alden Atwood, Journal of American History "Richard R. John provides an insightful cultural history of the often-overlooked American postal system, concentrating on its preeminent status for long-distance communication between its birth in 1775 and the commercialization of the electric telegraph in 1844...John effectively draws upon government documents, newspapers, travelogues, and contemporary social and political histories to argue that the postal system causes and mirrors dramatic changes in American public life during this period...John focuses his study on the communication revolution of the past, yet his meticulous analysis of the complex motives forming the postal institution and its policies relate to such current controversies as those that surround the transmission of information in cyberspace. These contemporary disputes highlight the power of the government in shaping the communication of the people. John privileges the postal institution as the reigning communication system, yet he links it with the developing ideology of the nation, and the scope of his study ensures its value--in the disciplines of communication studies, literature, history, and political science, among others--as a history of the past and present." DD--Sarah R. Marino, Canadian Review of American Studies "Spreading the News exemplifies the kind of sophisticated and nuanced research that US postal history has long needed. Richard R. John breaks from the internalist, antiquarian tradition characteristic of so many post office histories to place the postal system at the centre of American national development." DD--Richard B. Kielbowicz, Business History "[John] presents a thoroughly researched and well-written book...[which will give] insight into the history of the post office and its impact on American life." DD--Library Journal "It is surely true that in Richard John the post has had the good fortune to have found its proper historian, one capable of appreciating the complex design and social importance of the means a people use to distribute information. He has also accomplished the impressive feat of gathering together the pieces of a postal history present elsewhere as so many tiny fragments. John has drawn into a coherent design the stories of postal patronage, the decisions about postal privacy, the incidents along post roads used by others as illustrative anecdotes. John's work has inspired in him a deep appreciation for the accomplishments of the post." DD--Ann Fabian, The Yale Review "John's book explains how the letters and newspapers sent through the post were really the glue that held the early 13 states together and that embraced additional states as the nation expanded westward...It is a splendid attempt to show the importance of mail service in the years before the telegraph or the telephone made at least brief news transmission possible. The postal system of the 19th century really was a factor, perhaps the major factor, in making the United States one nation." DD--Richard B. Graham, Linn's Stamp News "This book traces the central role of the postal system in [its] communications revolution and its contribution to American public life. The author shows how the postal system influenced the establishment of a national society out of a loose union of confederated states. Richard John throws light onto a chapter in American history that is often neglected but sets up the origins of some of the most distinctive features of American life today...The book is a comprehensive study on an important American institution during a critical epoch in its history." DD--Monika Plum, Prometheus [UK] "John has produced an original, well-documented, and thoughtful study that offers alternative and enticing interpretations of Jacksonian policies and public institutions." DD--Choice

Download or read book Revolutions in Communication written by Bill Kovarik and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2015-11-19 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revolutions in Communication offers a new approach to media history, presenting an encyclopedic look at the way technological change has linked social and ideological communities. Using key figures in history to benchmark the chronology of technical innovation, Kovarik's exhaustive scholarship narrates the story of revolutions in printing, electronic communication and digital information, while drawing parallels between the past and present. Updated to reflect new research that has surfaced these past few years, Revolutions in Communication continues to provide students and teachers with the most readable history of communications, while including enough international perspective to get the most accurate sense of the field. The supplemental reading materials on the companion website include slideshows, podcasts and video demonstration plans in order to facilitate further reading.

Download or read book Postal Telegraph Pamphlets written by and published by . This book was released on 1868 with total page 978 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection U.S. government documents, corporate statements, letters, and speeches on the establishment of a postal telegraph system in the United States.

Download or read book The Telegraph in America written by James D. Reid and published by . This book was released on 1879 with total page 920 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is an often cited panoramic history of the telegraph which discusses the principal telegraph firms and the key persons within them. Throughout his work, Reid stresses the business and economic aspects of marketing this remarkable scientific invention. The importance of The Telegraph in America as a classic reference in the field is under-scored by the fact that the author was active in telegraphy throughout the period he discusses. He thus had a personal knowledge of persons and events under examination.

Download or read book The Train and the Telegraph written by Benjamin Sidney Michael Schwantes and published by Johns Hopkins University Press. This book was released on 2019-08-06 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Complicating the existing scholarship by demonstrating that the railroad and telegraph in the United States were uneasy partners at best—and more often outright antagonists—throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, The Train and the Telegraph will appeal to scholars of communication, transportation, and American business history and political economy, as well as to enthusiasts of the nineteenth-century American railroad industry.

Download or read book Electronic Communications and the Postal Service written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Governmental Affairs. Subcommittee on Energy, Nuclear Proliferation, and Federal Services and published by . This book was released on 1977 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Report on Postal Telegraph written by United States. Congress Senate and published by . This book was released on 1884 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Historical Statistics of the United States Colonial Times to 1957 written by United States. Bureau of the Census and published by . This book was released on 1960 with total page 802 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The United States Mail written by and published by . This book was released on 1887 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Annual Report of the Public Service Commission Second District written by New York (State). Public Service Commission. Second District and published by . This book was released on 1918 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Report, with accompanying documents.

Download or read book Theorizing Communication written by Dan Schiller and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1996-10-24 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers the first detailed intellectual history of communication study, from its beginnings in late nineteenth-century critiques of corporate capitalism and the burgeoning American wireline communications industry, to contemporary information theory and poststructuralist accounts of communicative activity. Schiller identifies a problematic split between manual and intellectual labor that outlasts each of the field's major conceptual departures, and from this vital perspective builds a rigorous critical survey of work aiming to understand the nexus of media, ideology, and information in a society. Looking closely at the thought of John Dewey, C. Wright Mills, Raymond Williams, Stuart Hall, Daniel Bell, and others, Schiller carefully maps the transformation of ideas about communication and culture as issues of corporate power, mass persuasion, cultural imperialism, and information expansion succeed one another in prominence. Bringing his analysis of communication theory into the present, Schiller concludes by limning a unitary model of society's cultural/informational production, one that broadens the concept of "labor" to include all forms of human self-activity. Powerful, challenging, and original, Theorizing Communication: A History offers a brilliantly constructed overview of the history of communication study, and will interest scholars working in the field as well as those working in critical theory, cultural studies, and twentieth-century intellectual history.

Download or read book Congressional Record written by United States. Congress and published by . This book was released on 1943 with total page 1460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book British Postal Guide containing the chief public regulations of the post office with other information written by and published by . This book was released on 1873 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Annual Report of the Postmaster General written by United States. Post Office Department and published by . This book was released on 1890 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Annual Report written by Louisiana. Railroad Commission and published by . This book was released on 1921 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Electrical News and Telegraphic Reporter written by and published by . This book was released on 1875 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Electrical News and Telegraphic Reporter written by William Crookes and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2023-11-21 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 missing pages or inferior quality. Our aim is to preserve these books and make them available to the public so that they do not get lost.