Thesis ID: CBB001561689

The Telephone Shapes Los Angeles: Communications and Built Space, 1880--1950 (2006)

unapi

Bills, Emily (Author)


New York University
Cohen, Jean-Louis


Publication Date: 2006
Edition Details: Advisor: Cohen, Jean-Louis
Physical Details: 438 pp.
Language: English

This dissertation seeks to establish the telephone as a critical but unrecognized component in the development of Los Angeles into a major metropolis. It begins in 1880, when telephone lines bound the greater Los Angeles area into a comprehensible whole, and concludes in the early 1950s, when telephony became closely aligned with domestic activity in the home. It takes as starting point the view that it are the social conditions of production under capitalism that largely determine the physical configuration of settlement patterns and telephone infrastructure can be understood as a valuable component of that process. For example, the dissertation considers how the establishment of an extensive telephone 'network' was the first significant step toward drawing Los Angeles together as a unified region, both physically and psychologically. In so doing, it also refutes generalized interpretations of Los Angeles as a 'fragmented' city by detailing how patterns of telephone installation reveal a vast, but coordinated metropolis comprised of a strong central city linked to other 'hubs' of production and settlement. Four areas of inquiry delineate the telephone's influence on varied layers or spheres of space. The first chapter suggests that the spread-out composition of Los Angeles' mixed-use economy, together with the wiring efforts of city boosters, encouraged intense telephone dissemination across the region. Chapter two reviews AT&T's early efforts to encourage subscribers to view the space of the nation telephonically, and then applies this perception to the local level by detailing how 'telephone traveling' requirements reflect particular patterns of correspondence in Los Angeles. A third chapter examines whether telephone companies believed their utility was a fundamental part of community building projects and, in turn, whether Angelenos attributed any importance to telephony as a component in the creation of attractive and stable neighborhoods. The investigation concludes by detailing AT&T's efforts to encourage architects and homemakers to perceive the house as a series of spaces fully linked both within and without by telephone connections. This multilayered survey ultimately cites Los Angeles as a starting point for inserting telecommunications into the larger story of the growth of the modern metropolis.

...More

Description Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 67/06 (2006): 1949. UMI pub. no. 3221929.


Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001561689/

Similar Citations

Book John, Richard R.; (2010)
Network Nation: Inventing American Telecommunications (/isis/citation/CBB001230799/)

Essay Review Mullen, Megan; (2012)
Demystifying Some Momentous Changes (/isis/citation/CBB001566996/)

Article Jean-François Fava-Verde; (July 2020)
Managing Privacy: Cryptography or Private Networks of Communication in the Nineteenth Century (/isis/citation/CBB850123370/)

Book Poitras, Claire; (2000)
La cité au bout de fil: le téléphone à Montréal de 1879 à 1930 (/isis/citation/CBB000101618/)

Article Wistoft, Birgitte; (2010)
A Devilish Device: Attitudes to Telephony, 1876--1920 (/isis/citation/CBB001231627/)

Article Romero Frías, Rafael; Multigner, Gilles; (2011)
Los primeros pasos de la teledifusión (/isis/citation/CBB001220807/)

Book Katz, James Everett; (1999)
Connections: Social and cultural studies of the telephone in American life (/isis/citation/CBB000112056/)

Book Anne Chapman; Natalie Hume; (2021)
Coding and Representation from the Nineteenth Century to the Present: Scrambled Messages (/isis/citation/CBB436733974/)

Chapter Mullaney, Thomas S.; (2014)
Semiotic Sovereignty: The 1871 Chinese Telegraph Code in Historical Perspective (/isis/citation/CBB001213957/)

Article Wetton, Jenny; (2007)
The Early History of Telephony in Manchester, 1877--1898 (/isis/citation/CBB000831459/)

Thesis Matson, John Owen; (2007)
Marking Twain: Mechanized Composition and Medial Subjectivity in the Twain Era (/isis/citation/CBB001560841/)

Article Schaffner, Wolfgang; (2008)
Los medios de comunicación y la construcción del territorio en América Latina (/isis/citation/CBB000932898/)

Article Kragh, Helge; (2009)
Styles of Science and Engineering: The Case of Early Long-Distance Telephony (/isis/citation/CBB000932329/)

Book Gitelman, Lisa; Pingree, Geoffrey B.; (2003)
New Media, 1740--1915 (/isis/citation/CBB000301956/)

Authors & Contributors
Shahvar, Soli
Chapman, Anne
Hume, Natalie
Jean-François Fava-Verde
Zajacz, Rita
Wistoft, Birgitte
Concepts
Telegraphs; telephones
Communication technology
Technology
Technology and society
Methods of communication; media
Technology and culture
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
20th century
18th century
Places
United States
Great Britain
Persia (Iran)
Montreal (Quebec, Canada)
Manchester (England)
Americas
Institutions
Marconi Company
International Telephone and Telegraph Company
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment