Back to basics

End of radio silence.

After a hiatus of nearly two years, I thought it was high time some more posts were written.  I wish I could have contributed something much earlier but I had nothing worthy enough to see the light of day. 

My initial interest was in the social aspect of telephone use, especially in its early years, and how people modified their social practices and indeed developed new customs when dealing with this new technology.  These practices of the early 1900s are thrown into sharp relief when contrasted with our telephone behaviour today, specifically when using mobile phones.  The fact that iPhones can actually be used to place phone calls seems to be incidental and they perform so many other tasks that "phone" is something of a misnomer.  (The "tele-" prefix also seems to have been ditched somewhere along the way.)

Nowadays you'll probably only find a "traditional" telephone (i.e. with cables attached and a dial) in your grandmother's house, or in a museum.  Most teenagers would be clueless if they had to use one of these relics, simple though they are.  So I was surprised to see these things for sale at my local discount supermarket the other week ...

... a telephone handset (other colours available) that you plug into your mobile phone, to use when making/receiving phone calls.  Innovative, no?  I can't see it catching on, not when everyone uses headphones, which are easier to carry around.  Just what were the chaps in the marketing department thinking of when they came up with this idea?  Isn't the whole idea behind mobile telephony its, well, its mobility?  Those early primitive mobiles reminiscent of house bricks (with the aerials sticking out) have migrated to the modern history museum (already!) and here we are reproducing obsolete technology to join forces with state-of-the-art, €500 smart phones.

Could this be a retro trend in technology, a nostalgic move?  If so, then we might see the comeback of the telegram (sent by wire, not e-mail) and the return of the manual typewriter (the Kremlin sees the security benefits).

If you want a last-minute Christmas gift for the boss, or the mother-in-law, order your handset here - only €6.99!

Manhattan, 1975

A fire breaks out in a New York telephone exchange and is allowed to consume cables and equipment for fifteen hours.  (Incidentally, when were fire sprinklers invented?)  You can well imagine the damage caused by a day-long fire: 90,000 customers in the Manhattan area had to make do without a telephone connection for more than three weeks.

This incident has gone down in telecommunications history as an epic example of what happens to people when they are deprived of their landline telephones.  A study was conducted by Wurtzel and Turner[1] which analysed how subscribers reacted to suddenly being without a telephone.  I know of no other similar incident on such a grand scale as this 1975 event and that’s probably why the impact of the fire, and the results of this survey are still cited today ad nauseum. 

How often do we get the opportunity to question a large group of people who are deprived of their means of communication with the outside world?  If such a fire occurred today, I don’t think any subscribers would even notice: they are so attached to their mobiles and e-mails that the loss of a landline is neither here nor there.  So an event such as this one in Manhattan was unique. 

The authors introduce their analysis with an acknowledgement that the academic community couldn’t care less about the telephone’s history.  They then proceed to discuss a few academics’ basic assumptions and self-evident truths, on which they base various concepts.  Examples will follow below but first, I wonder whether this lack of interest in any way connects to what I can only term a slipshod method of obtaining results?  Writers often make sweeping statements about telephone use, or its perception by its users, and then use this assumption to construct a conclusion.  The classic example for me will always be: ‘The telephone saved the sanity of farmers’ wives.’  No one has yet produced a farmer’s wife that has uttered these words herself.  Once this idea enters the debate then everyone uses it as a given and builds further on it.

Now to the examples of assumptions I mentioned above. 

1. The function of an urban, domestic telephone is to reduce loneliness, increase feelings of security, and maintain contact with family/friends.
2. The telephone “facilitates dispersion” of family members: “I’ll take that job 3,000 miles away – I can always ring the folks at home once a week.”
3. The telephone breaks down our urban lifespaces into “psychological networks”

What problems do I have with these assumptions?

1. Granted, these are some of the functions an urban, domestic telephone can perform, but not the only ones.  And certainly these functions vary according to the gender, class, race, etc. of the user.  Why - and if so, how - should the function of a telephone differ in an urban setting to that of a rural telephone? 
2. I’ve said this somewhere else (can’t remember where).  People are more mobile today than previous generations.  They change cities/countries/continents for a variety of reasons: to find work, begin studies, follow a sweetheart …  These are big changes in a person’s life and he weighs up the pros and cons before committing himself.  I’ve emigrated twice and left friends/family behind but I’ve never said: ‘thank goodness there’s the telephone so that I can ring home now and again.  It doesn’t matter, then, that I’ll live/work too far away to see them.’  This factor comes at the bottom of a person’s list of arguments.
3. Is the telephone solely responsible for creating these psychological networks?  Certainly today there are numerous other factors that play a role in creating these networks, for example, e-mail, social network sites.
4. The survey authors formulated the questions to be put to Manhattan subscribers specifically to address the assumptions they had.  If, for instance, we believe the telephone reduces loneliness then we should expect to see subscribers complaining about isolation and uneasiness during their three-week bout of unconnectedness.  I would have liked to see the questions for myself.  From the article, it seems that people were not given the chance to express themselves in their own words, rather they had to agree/disagree with set statements – putting words in their mouths.  This is much like the tricks of pollsters during electioneering who ask questions such as: Which politician do you think would make the best prime minister, Mr A or Mr B?  They never give you the option of answering: both are crap.
5. Finally, it’s the matter of having assumptions.  I think it’s dangerous to assume anything in the first place.  Collect data, sort, analyse, conclude.

Some other details emerged that made an impression on me, although I don’t know yet whether these are significant details or not.

About 25% of all New York telephones then were ex-directory.  I would be interested to learn if this percentage has changed at all over the decades and if there is any difference by country.  Having an unlisted number, I believe, changes the nature of your telephone network.  You are no longer freely available to every Tom, Dick and Harry who has access to a telephone directory.  Instead, when the telephone rings, you know it can only be someone to whom you have given your number, i.e. someone known to you personally.  Otherwise, it could be a wrong number.  This changes your telephone into something akin to a private, internal network.

Then there’s the question of actual numbers of subscribers surveyed.  Researchers were given the telephone numbers of 600 people they could contact, randomly selected.  Of those 600, 319 were eligible to participate (the others were, for example, business premises).  From the 319, only 190 actually completed the survey – some people refused, some people were never at home when researchers rang.  190 people out of c.1,500,000 Manhattan residents[2] doesn’t seem very many (0.0126% of the Manhattan population to be precise) and if we place the 190 guinea pigs in the context of New York city’s population, then the proportion disappears into infinity.

I believe a similar survey conducted with respondents from a variety of geographical regions – urban, suburban, rural – would yield different results. It would also be good to compare the US with Britain/Europe.  Utopian, I know, but one can dream.

All these people lost their telephone connection due to a company accident.  They were forced to manage without a telephone.  Would they have given different answers if they had never lost their connection, that it to say, just answering questions generally about how they use their telephones?

Residents really didn’t have many options during their three weeks of abstention.  Remember what it was like in 1975?  These people had to resort to the emergency street telephones made available to them or use the telephone at work.  Ten per cent of respondents actually sat down and wrote letters.  In essence, unless they had access to a telephone elsewhere, there was no other substitute for immediate interaction. 

The authors believe that if additional research is conducted what will emerge from respondents is a sense of frustration at not being able to make calls.  Reading between the lines, I interpret this to mean: I want the service to be always available, whether I need it or not.

In conclusion – I’m not disputing the validity of these findings, rather the absolute nature of the authors’ assertions – ‘the telephone reduces loneliness,’ ‘it disperses families.’  It may be a fault in how the writers word their theories but to me it comes across as absolute, categorical and allowing of no other alternatives.

---

[1] Alan H. Wurtzel, and Colin Turner, “What Missing the Telephone Means,” Journal of Communication 27 (2) June 1977: 48-57.

[2] According to Wikipedia.

The communication practices of the Victorians ... spiced up with a scandalous divorce

I have trawled through a handful of etiquette manuals, looking for advice to readers on telephone use.  All in vain.  The British publications pointedly avoid any mention of the new invention, even those published in later years after 1910.  The contents of these manuals are oh so predictable – visiting, invitations to balls/dinners/teas, weddings, funerals.  It seems these were the core events in one’s social calendar and members of the monied classes had to be able to negotiate their way through this minefield.  These were fixed, long established rituals which people observed in order to maintain the traditions of their class.  (Whether these were ‘invented traditions’ à la Hobsbawm is a subject for another thesis.) 

Why should lords and ladies incorporate the upstart telephone into their routines and upset tradition?  The people who read conduct manuals were probably the ones in a position to own a telephone, but that doesn’t mean they would use the instrument to conduct their social affairs.  It might be useful for ringing up one’s business premises or for ordering coal, but such an instrument, ‘tainted’ as it were by business matters, was inappropriate for inviting guests to dinner.  I think remnants of this attitude are still visible today.  There are some aspects of social business that you just don’t conduct over the telephone: wedding invitations, for example, or ‘Dear John’ letters.  I’ve never heard of a ‘Dear John’ telephone call or of someone being notified of a forthcoming wedding by telephone.  Well, they might, but they always send a fancy card by post later.

Lady Colin’s manual is no different to all the others of the era.  It makes no mention whatsoever of the telephone.  It is as if it didn’t exist.  She readily acknowledges, however, that modern life is hectic and that there is little time to devote to letter writing.  How much time she would save if she used the telephone. 

Regarding domestic use, telephone companies said it was alright to ring up traders to order supplies for the household.  Not so Lady Colin.  She advises writing a short letter, and even provides an example: “Mrs. Maitland will be obliged by Mr. Scott sending her 6lb. of tea.”  Admittedly, this method is not as speedy as a phone call, but if you can send a boy round to the shop with the note, you would still get same-day service.  And you would avoid the unpleasant necessity of having to actually converse with tradespeople.  Good houses had separate tradesmen entrances for deliveries, out of sight at the back of the building.  So we don’t want to invite tradesmen directly into our parlours via the telephone.

The writer makes further mention of post cards.  Towards the end of the century sending postcards became a popular form of communication among ordinary people.  Postage for a card was cheaper than a letter and with multiple deliveries in many large towns, it was possible sometimes to send a card and receive a reply on the same day.  You could say that post cards were to Victorians what Twitter is to us today.  Space was limited (you couldn’t add an extra sheet, as with letters) so messages had to be concise.  Lady Colin, however, advises against them for personal matters: post cards are only to be used for business transactions. 

Privacy was a major concern for these people.  Post cards entering and leaving a house would be seen by servants and the information written on them freely visible to all and sundry.  Even more paranoid, to my mind, is Lady C advising letter writers not to write their return address on the backs of envelopes.  Why?  Because servants at the receiving end would know who was writing to their employers.  Compare this with today’s business correspondence: every bill or official letter I receive is blazoned with the sender’s full details. 

I written a lot about communication and correspondence but very little about the telephone.  That’s okay because we are gradually building a picture of how people at the turn of the century communicated with each other and what attitudes they held towards each method.  Given what we now know about, say, letter writing or postal services, it’s easy to envisage how difficult it was for promoters of the telephone to convince the public of its utility. 

I suspect that the telephone eventually caught on, not so much because people realized it was a good communications device, but rather because the other means of communication deteriorated. 

A final comment about the author – Lady Colin was a victim of the hypocrisy and double standards of the day.  Wikipedia has all the sordid details and there’s also information here written by Lady Colin’s biographer.

Her divorce proceedings caused great agitation in high society and the same society ostracized her for her transgression.  Instead of quietly retiring into obscurity, Lady C took to writing and journalism and mixed in literary and artistic circles.  How fitting then that she should edit a book dictating good manners to the people who vilified her.  

Lady Colin Campbell.  Etiquette of Good Society.  London: Cassell and Company, 1893.

Redslob's string telephone

Cultural historian Edwin Redslob (1884-1973), like Walter Benjamin, wrote a retrospective of his childhood years, where he talks of the arrival of new technologies in his family.  (Also described here.)

He remembers the coming of electric light into his home.  Up until then, the family used kerosene lamps in all the rooms.  A line of them was set up in the hallway, ready for use once it became dark.  Despite the smell and inconvenience, kerosene lamps are intimately tied in his memory with hearing his father read.  After supper, father would read out loud to the family, while other members would draw or work on their stamp collection, under the dim, but warm, glow of the lamp.  These were “cosy hours” in Redslob’s childhood memories.  In contrast, electric lighting was “unpleasantly bright.”  The light illuminated too much – not only did it light up the room well, but it also dispersed the cosiness of old, like bright sunshine dissipating morning mist.  Electricity was expensive for the family in the beginning and it seemed counterproductive to dim the light bulbs or use a lamp shade.  His father, however, maintained the tradition of a kerosene lamp for use in his own study.

Redslob also remembers his first encounter with the telephone.  These were of the kind that were affixed to the wall and you used a crank handle to call the exchange.  Accompanying his father to the bank one day, the clerk showed the boy the new telephone and said he could make a telephone call.  Young Redslob was confused – he didn’t know anyone he could call, nor what he should say.  The clerk suggested he ring the local hotel to ask if Director Müller had arrived from Berlin.  The boy spoke into the telephone and a hotel porter told him that indeed the director had arrived.  Once outside in the street, Redslob sneaked away from his father and ran to the hotel that he had just telephoned.  It took him at least five minutes.  He was amazed at the time difference between telephoning the hotel and running to the hotel to speak to the porter in person.

His father bought him a toy telephone – two cardboard boxes joined with a piece of string.  It kept Redslob and his brother amused for hours.  They climbed up their garden trees and tried to hold a telephone conversation, but without much success of course.  Simple face-to-face conversation was much easier, he observes.  But he still enjoyed his new ‘telephone’; in common with most boys, he liked it because it was modern and technical.

“Berlin Childhood Around 1900”

In the 1930s Walter Benjamin began writing his memories of childhood life in Berlin at the turn of the century.  His collection was only published after his death.

One cannot in any way describe Benjamin’s account as an autobiography, to do so would be a slight.  It is more an assembly of portraits or vignettes of places, objects and experiences that made a lasting impression on the writer.  He devotes one such essay to the telephone, hence my interest.

Benjamin maintains the illusion of freshness that comes from a child describing something new and wondrous in his home, but at the same time tempers this with the experience and maturity of adulthood.  These two aspects of his narrative merge together seamlessly.

In his discussion of the telephone, Benjamin orders household objects into a hierarchy.  In the beginning, items like chandeliers, potted palms, and fire screens enjoyed pride of place in the front rooms of his family’s home.  With the passage of time, however, these “died a natural death” and were displaced by newer objects.  The telephone, previously “exposed to die” could now make its appearance in the front room, which was now cleaner and brighter.  The rooms are now occupied by a younger generation (who presumably understand and tolerate the new technology better than their elders) who have brought the telephone in from the wilderness of the dark hallway.

Benjamin remembers how the telephone was condemned in the beginning to sit between the dirty-linen hamper and the gas meter in a corner of the back hallway (not even the front one).  Like dirty washing and the gas meter, obviously the telephone was seen as a necessary evil, and not one that you would be proud for your visitors to see.  Its promotion to the front room shows spectacular social mobility in the upwards direction.

How did Benjamin’s family react to the telephone’s ringing?  Well, he recalls the curses and threats his father directed towards operators.  If the British press is anything to go by, then complaints against telephone companies and their employees seem to be a European norm and nothing new in the early days of telephony.  Benjamin’s school friends would also ring him at midday and wake up his parents from their siesta.  This did not go down very well with the parents but Benjamin himself questions how this new technology was changing cultural practices.

The ringing of the bell increased “the terrors of the Berlin household.”  The young Benjamin needed great effort to master all his emotions, fumble his way down the dark passage, and “quell the uproar.”

It is rare to read someone’s first impressions of a new technology, even rarer to find an account given with such articulation.

p.s.

Browsing through Berlin Childhood I found another piece entitled “The Larder.”  Expecting to read rhapsodies about home-made jams and hams hung up to dry, I was proven pleasantly wrong.

Benjamin describes how his sneaks into the pantry for a secret feast.  His allusions to illicit rendezvous and sensuous experiences are deliciously naughty (no pun intended) but also just a little disturbing, if you remember that he is talking about childhood memories.  Nevertheless, the images conjured up are delightful.  Here’s a small taster (again, no pun intended) as the boy Walter silently enters the pantry: “my hand slipped through the crack of the barely opened cupboard as a lover slips through the night …”

Walter Benjamin.  Berlin Childhood Around 1900.  tr. Howard Eiland.

Cheese, telephone wires, and crochet patterns

John Garrett Leigh discusses state telephones in the Economic Review of January 1912. Like other contemporary writers, he acknowledges that Britain is way behind many other countries in adoption of the telephone.  As such, Britain also lags behind when it comes to social cohesion.  The penny post and telegraph have gone some way to strengthening social bonds and the telephone seems to be a “dominating influence.”

He gives his article an international aspect by analysing social use by nation:

America – children use it to ring up friends and ask about homework

Switzerland – housewives ring friends and exchange crochet patterns

And how do British housewives use their telephones?  They ring up their grocers to order meat and cheese.

But British grocers were cunning.  With a telephone order, the customer wasn’t in the shop to inspect the quality or freshness of the food.  So the grocer sent over inferior produce which the housewife would have refused to touch, had she been in the shop in person.  After a while, though, the grocer learned his lesson (he probably lost many customers as a result of some dodgy cheese) and started treating telephone customers the same as those who walked into his shop.  

Leigh reminds British grocers that being scrupulously honest in their business dealings has great ethical value.  I think this was probably the very last time that someone spoke about ethics in the same breath as business conduct.

p.s. A small detail: Leigh’s article appeared in the month when the telephone service was nationalised and taken over by the General Post Office.

"Being with others"

Thrift gives the example of whales: "'being with' other whales might mean communicating with whales who might be hundreds of miles away."  Compared to human space, whale space is obviously much larger, but when we say "I am with someone" we mean that that person occupies the same space as us, regardless of the vastness of that space.

"Being with person X"  could mean that person is in the same room as me, but it could also mean he is a thousand miles away.  New technologies have allowed this increase in distance.  We have become "beings who can live with distant others as if they were close to."  In these newly enlarged spaces that we share with distant others, we find "new kinds of social relation."

In the early days of telephony, a message by letter or telegram could reach much further than a telephone call, but sending a letter could not constitute 'being with' the recipient: communication between sender and receiver was not simultaneous, instantaneous.  A message by telephone, however, is.

*What kinds of new social relations came into existence with the coming of the telephone?
*How were existing relations altered?
*Were there changes in hierarchy: master/servant; male/female; company/customer?

Nigel Thrift.  "Space."  Theory Culture Society 2006: 23, 139-146.

Social Constructionism

1. Naming, labelling
2. Labels are categorised
3. Values attributed to the categories
4. Categories arranged into a hierarchy
5. This sequence is reflected in policies - government policies reinforce/reproduce these dominant labels
6. Layers are applied to the layers, e.g. gender relationships are laid on top of the "best" family structure model

Further factors to consider:

1. Power - who has the power to determine that his definition/label is the dominant one?
2. Where (and from whom) do contestations to the dominant definition emerge?