[Air-L] Question about communication history

[Donald Matheson]

Hi,

This is not really an answer, sorry Alex, but your question reminds me of the ngram research that English books stopped writing about the Usited States as plural rather than singular about 1880, which maybe suggests US residents weren’t talking about the state of the nation so much until communication technologies opened up national spaces.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/10/bigger-better-google-ngrams-brace-yourself-for-the-power-of-grammar/263487/

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=(The+United+States+is+%2B+The+United+States+has)%2FThe+United+States%2C(The+United+States+are+%2B+The+United+States+have)%2FThe+United+States&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2C%28%28The%20United%20States%20is%20%2B%20The%20United%20States%20has%29%20/%20The%20United%20States%29%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2C%28%28The%20United%20States%20are%20%2B%20The%20United%20States%20have%29%20/%20The%20United%20States%29%3B%2Cc0

Donald

—
Dr Donald Matheson
Media and Communication
University of Canterbury | Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha
Private Bag 4800, Christchurch 8140
Aotearoa New Zealand
tel: +64 3 364 2987 ext 7888

On 21/07/2017, at 1:07 PM, Jason Farman <jasonfarman at gmail.com<mailto:jasonfarman at gmail.com>> wrote:

Hi Alex,
I've written a bit about this here, which is a brief excerpt from my
forthcoming book on the history of message exchange and time. This excerpt
focuses mostly on communication between soldiers and their families, but
touches on your broader question:

<goog_1537437003>
http://www.waitingforword.com/a-delayed-crossing/

I've found David Henkin's book, *The Postal Age <http://a.co/5O82qRW>*, to
be an amazing book on this topic.
Best,
Jason

--
Jason Farman, Ph.D.
Director, Design Cultures & Creativity Program
Associate Professor of American Studies
Faculty Member, Human-Computer Interaction Lab
University of Maryland, College Park
http://www.jasonfarman.com <http://www.jasonfarman.com>
http://twitter.com/farman
New Book Out Fall 2018: Waiting for Word <http://waitingforword.com>

On Wed, Jul 19, 2017 at 7:37 PM, Alex Leavitt <alexleavitt at gmail.com> wrote:

Not an internet question, but maybe people are familiar enough with
communications technology to give some pointers:

I've gotten REALLY into communications infrastructure history recently.
There's a ton documented on World War 1 and 2, but less on the American
Civil War. I'm looking specifically for documentation of non-war
communication tools: less about war participants and more about ordinary
people's communication patterns (letters, telegraph, photography,
newspapers, etc.). Namely, what was an American before and during the Civil
War doing to learn about the state of the nation? Does anyone have any good
sources to look at?

Thanks!
Alex
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