Telegraph Messenger Boys - Labor, Communication and Technology, 1850-1950 (Hardcover)

Telegraph Messenger Boys provides an entirely new perspective on the telegraph system, a communications network that revolutionized human perceptions of time and space. But the book's ramifications go far beyond just the telegraphy - it tells a broader story of human interaction with technology, and social and cultural changes brought about by this interaction. Downey argues that the telegraph network was not merely an electromechanical system; labour systems, like those of the telegraphers and the messengers, played integral roles within it. Telegraph companies presented messengers as the penultimate link within their networks: the boys were uniformed and drilled to work and behave in a machine-like manner. Through the boys' story, Downey also demonstrates that technological 'progress' is uneven: supposedly 'superior' technologies like the telephone did not kill off older ones; they often existed side by side for sustained periods of time, even complimenting each other.