Its especially interesting that the author connects the automobile and the telephone because they had opposite evolutions (telephone: practical - fun; automobile: fun - practical)

I feel like in this piece there is lots of comparison between the telephone and the automobile, which aren't two things I would ordinarily put together. But I guess even today they are kind of linked - with bluetooth now being a staple in most cars and the "no texting and driving campaigns". It reminds be of one of the telegraph pieces we read because it talked about how communication and transportation had always been connected. I guess they are still related in some distant way.

Part of me feels that a reason for this might be image - to keep up the image of a serious business with worthwhile values. If sociability at this time seemed frivolous and not worth the investment, their company would too. And obviously thats not how they want to be seen as a growing business.

This is a good rebuttal! Because I feel like you can't control how people use your product especially when you see that 30% of users in a certain city are using it the way in which you told them not to. People use their phones for all sorts of reasons just like they use their cars for all sorts of reasons. If its accessable why not use it when you can/when you need to.

With the 21st century I think it is important to notice the shift in telephone use here. While the main use of the telephone, at least how they were advertising it in the 1920s, was to provide connection through telephone conversations. Today however, when I think about an Apple ad for example, I think their main focuses are a clearer camera, better editing tools, more storage, and longer battery life. Having a phone has become less about how connected we are in our conversations but how we present ourselves in an online space.

I feel like this type of advertisement is interesting to me because of today's stereotypical vision of girls who is "always on her phone" or chronically online. While this type of advertising makes sense for the times (because majority of women were doing house work and were stay-at-home moms) I can't help but think that this had an effect on that stereotypical vision that is carried in our culture today.

This piece shows the real commitment some women had to their troops and too their country. Its kinda wild to see because I feel like the culture surrounding our military is so different.

I just wanted to call attention to this piece here, I think these women were probably reacting much better to this abuse and mistreatment because they had to deal with it constantly. People and higher ups consistently made them feel like lesser-than eventually they just let it roll right off their backs. I also think they reacted so well as a testament to their strength - it was another opportunity to prove themselves, despite the fact that there was probably the occasional day where they wanted to throw a fit (because I would want to too).

I feel like we still see this feminin-ification of jobs today. (actor/actress, host/hostess, waiter/waitress, fireman/firewoman, policeman/police woman, etc... ). our society has gotten better I will say making more open job titles (police officer, fire fighter, server etc... ) but i find it so interesting that this is something that we ever did as if gender makes a difference in job title or work tasks.

Misogyny in places like this shocks me to my core. It is wild that some people would rather receive no help at all than receive help from women (unless of course they are nurses or "angels" as the author puts it). The fear of feeling emasculated was (and still is) so intense in some men it hurt them more than it helps anyone. Women weren't allowed to feel strong or heroic in any capacity - even as operators so far removed from battle.

For most of my life up until this point I feel like I have only thought of historical women in war as nurses, but I think this is so interestingly worded. The nurses were dealing with the repercussions of the war not necessarily directly helping the US win - though they were helping. This sentence is so poetic. I also find it an intriguing distinction because the nurses were so close to the actual battle field while the Hello Girls were helping the war effort they were at least physically removed from the battle.

The telegraph boys must have had a wide set of skills if they never knew what they were being called in for. I find it fascinating that they would occasionally be sent a call by accident that was meant for the police or firemen. Furthermore they would have to send the proper call and be in charge of getting authority there, that seems like a lot of intense work for a boy that could be 10 years old! If I was in need of assistance I don't know if I would wan't a 10 year old boy to make the call.

As I was reading over the text a second time, I did the math on this sentence. So if a telegraph boy makes $0.05 every time he delivers and simultaneously receives a message, he would need to deliver and receive 100 messages to make $5.00 for the day. $5 back then would be equivalent to about $150.00 today which is That would be equivalent to $15 an hour which is actually pretty good.

The authors perspective on the job a telegraph boy is interesting for sure. As they are talking about child laborers their tone is very positive, in spite of different qualities they have listed (10 hour work days, smaller staff in the more intense months, walking 19 miles without a break, their mandatory uniform costs being pulled from their paycheck, etc...). This does a really good job of exemplifying how our work standards have changed as a society. With this statement of "the work is healthy" I believe the author must be talking about telegraph boys in terms of other child labor jobs of the times - specifically factory work and more dangerous jobs. Maybe they are right in comparison it is better? I would love to hear more about other jobs of the time so i could compare them.

I wonder how much telegraph boys got paid in comparison to other child laborers at the time? Was it about the same amount for everyone or were there certain child-labor specific jobs that paid well- or just better than average?

The wording of this caught my eye. This is longer than the average persons (expected) work day. Today most companies expect adults to work an 8hour day. Most people end up doing more than that, however 8 is the minimum, the expectation. The expectation for the telegraph boys was 10 hours so that means that many were probably working 11-12 hours or more daily if they needed more cash. There is also no mention of a break. They walked around most days for 11 hours straight 19 miles, in a suit, no matter the weather. That's so crazy to think about in terms of today.

Wouldn't Morse code only really be helpful to converting other english based languages as it is based on the english alphabet? Communication between the US and european countries was probably fine but what about the eventual need to communicate with other countries through telegraph? (China, Japan, India, Greece, Egypt, etc...)

It is only the advent of the "new technology" of the telegraph that forced people to create a new sort of language which is wild. Morse Code made a fast process of communicating even faster, which is interesting because today morse code seems like such an irrelevant language.

Reading this piece I IMMEDIATELY thought about those "Spring Sales Event" Kohl's commercials that always appear around Easter. I hadn't realized that this act of commercializing the holidays to make a profit went all the way back to the times of the telegraph. It is wild that this still continues as strong as it does today. It happens with Christmas, Thanksgiving (or should I say Black Friday), July 4th, and more. Its odd, I guess its just something I would have assumed made its rise with Television.

Today writing a card of absence wouldn't really be worth it at all because of timing like was discussed above. However the idea of hand-written notes is something that I feel still lingers in my parents and grandparents, specifically when it comes to thank you cards. In my life I have written a lot of thank you cards because my parents thought it was much more polite and acceptable than saying "thank you" in person or sending a text/calling a relative to thank them. As I have gotten older the need for my parents to monitor that has diminished significantly but, it is still something I have to do every now and again. As i have gotten older it has also become something I enjoy, so this text also makes me wonder about the future of the hand-written card and if it is something that will come to die out? Will they only be sent on special occasions like weddings, funerals, baby showers, etc... ?

This must have been so helpful! Especially helpful, i can imagine, in very un-populated areas out west that had no way of reaching a professional. Seeing how lack of communication had been a hindrance to the medical field leads me to wonder how it effected other fields like teachers, politicians, and police officers?

I find this so interesting in terms of todays communication, as the need to be timely today has adapted into many different abbreviations (lol, ttyl, ily, lmao, btw, tbh, lmk, ikr, wtf, L8R, TMRW, etc...). I think it is also worth it to discuss whether this has any effect on peoples present day unease with talking on the phone. Personally phone calls make me a little nervous but I had never thought about the timeliness of them and whether that had any effect. Reflecting on it now I think the improve that kind of goes into a phone call - while it gives you more time it is less rehearsed, less planned is something that I think also dissuades people. todays text message is the opposite, you can open it and you don't HAVE to respond right away. In a way it gives you more time. That could be another reason it is most peoples prefered method of communication.

This is crazy! especially because I feel like most people don't listen to broadcast radio or watch broadcast news. The media landscape is much more about finding and creating your own entertainment. It also speaks to the influence and power our government seems to believe still lies in broadcasting.

This is such a real sentence because until like middle school and maybe even early HS I didn't know other countries had their own tv shows or at least I hadn't thought of them/searched for them. I had just assumed that people came to America to pursue any kind of media field. It is something I think that is getting better though. More recently I think American people have become more curious and aware of the shows, movies, and music of different cultures.

This is a really interesting comment and an Idea I hadn't really thought of before. The idea of family sitcoms being "historical texts" makes sense and it leads me to wonder what future generations with think about our more current family sitcoms (Modern Family, Black-ish, Schitt's creek, Fresh off the boat, Full-House, etc...)? As well as what assumptions or critiques they might have?

Going off of this last piece here, while I agree that media is vital today in many different aspects of life - the line between media and politics has kind of blurred (for worse) and I think especially around election times in America the media is used to kind of poke fun at very serious issues and serious faults made by very powerful people. Something that I also think is very interesting and I have seen discussed on social media (this is in no way my original thought) is the increased importance of appearance, even in politics. Today, more than ever the "aesthetic", vibes, and even just if they are conventionally attractive can change the game for people in politics (mostly presidential candidates) rather than placing importance on the policies they want to implement.

Something we actually discussed in my Contemporary American Social Movements Class today was "who is in control of the telling of history" and we came to the conclusion that it is usually the victor that we learn and know. When it comes to the history of electronic media however this makes me wonder who is holding the overall, historical experience because there is no "victor". Does the creator control the narrative of their creation? Is it the collective experience of the people? Is the mediated history and experience too big to even quantify and explain because the internet is so vast and there is so much mediated content?

This reminds me of a book I read once that, was fiction but was created around the idea of the multiverse and the butterfly effect. In the book there were infinite realities that had been created with each decision that every person made. One change to the characters history and the present was completely different. None of the lives been "all good" or "all bad" but there are good and bad elements to almost all decisions. This really goes along with what was discussed in the video about people's reaction to these different technologies - the telegraph, telephone, radio, and tv. And while we don't know what life would be without these technologies when any new technology is released the reaction is usually a fearful one. Though people tend to forget there is a sort of balance and with anything there is good and bad (improvement AND decline)

Something that I think is hard to overcome, especially in media related fields today is with the mass of information and history that has accumulated online, there can be a lack of need to know our own histories as it is so much easier to rely on the internet for historic information. But it is important to remember that the internet and all of our advanced media today are a part of this "experiment" and we are still trying to understand the effect they have on us. This is why it is so important to know at least base level history of media - especially in an age of disinformation.

This is a really interesting perspective that I hadn't thought of. The idea of Identity from our history though is really prominent, this form of Identity from our history also fosters connection (or disconnect) as it gives us something to align ourselves with in others. As an example: when I am graduated and working I can see it being a lot easier to connect with someone who was also a Temple grad and than someone who went to Penn State or any other another PA school because there is a shared community, history, and understanding - even if I don't know that person now.

An example of this that stand out in my mind is Taylor Swifts "Love Story' Swift pulled from a ground breaking play (Romeo and Juliet) for this song. Romeo and Juliet may have started out as just a love story written by a random British man but with time and with its current historical significance of being THE story of forbidden love, it gave Swifts song greater meaning because of how historic that play is. Connection to Historic people or pieces of art is something Swift (as well as many other artists) does a LOT and I think it really expands on the meaning of her own work as it helps people make a connection to something familiar.

This brings to mind the cause and effect relationship of history mentioned in the video. Recalling history can help us understand what actions have what effects and WHY, which is the more important peice. The Cultural Approach to History - while it may seem complex allows for a broader view and deeper understanding. As there are so many perspectives to any story in history the cultural approach allows us to understand change in a broader way. The technological determinist approach on the other hand might keep us from understanding exactly why something may occur because of its focus on a sole part.

The reasoning I have always found for studying history is to learn from the mistakes and victories of those who came before us. When looking at our patterns, choice, and the moments we've been through we can learn better and create a brighter future for ourselves. Keeping note, and studying history can also help us better understand and appreciate each other as it gives readers and students an opportunity to see life from the perspective of someone that could be so different from yourself.