Maitland A&H Blog Entry 1: Far Away Tech

With our research project on the Maitland A&H Telephone Museum, Joseph and I have decided to split the two essential questions the project is asking and have each of us focus on one question before converging our information within a shared Google document to establish the larger historical themes of cellular technology. This will work perfectly - Joseph is a social historian who will better define the social and economic implications of still-existent payphones in the United States, while I enjoy the history of technology and can trace the explosive development of cellular technology within the last 100 years. We will further discuss our approach and research on Monday. 

At first, I was worried I was not going to be entirely interested in the history of cellular technology because cellular technology is something I have been surrounded with every day since I was born. Cell phones, cell towers, wireless devices, satellites, and smartphones are all things I am well acquainted with, and in terms of a project, I would rather delve into something that feels part of a far away world. However, visiting the Telephone Museum site and seeing 1) how much there is to the history of telephones and cellular tech, and 2) how much the museum needs information on the more current developments of cellular tech, I was kicked into gear about how important - and far away from me - this subject really is. 

While at the site I saw aspects of this technology I had not before, such as how past linemen used auxiliary rotary phones to communicate with households from up in the power lines, or how stores purposely commissioned heavy telephones for their store counters to prevent theft. The site even had one of the few remaining Audichron Corporation Small Town Machines, which, when dialed, would tell the caller their town's exact time and temperature. Having only ever seen these machines used in old movies and television shows, being able to see one in person felt like I really was emerging onto a far away world I had never been to before. I am interested to see how this technology developed into what I know it as today. 

Walking into the museum, the first thing you are greeted with is a fully working switching room. Then you are led into the switchboard desks, which the switching room replaced, and then to the household versions of rotary phones, which replaced switching altogether. All I could think while seeing these developments in such a manner was "how many people, and how many times did these people lose their jobs to the constant development of better, automated technology?" This is a question I hope to answer as I research the social implications of cellular technology's evolution. 

I also noticed how much information they have on cellular developments before the 1980s, and how little they have on those developments after. In working on this project, I hope to not only learn about the brass tacks of cellular evolution and its beginnings: but also that of the more modern developments, into the era that I was born into, so that I can better contribute to the museum's timeline. Bringing the museum's early developments into communication with the modern developments would fill out the website for the museum (which, as it is now, is sparse in information and mostly focuses on the site's connections with the Winter Park Telephone Company), and by adding the social implications of this technology and what it did for jobs, social classes, and communication, I think this information will provide the website a more public history approach to the dense history of cellular technology. 

Cellular technology inarguably changed America, and I hope that by bringing the evolution of this technology into the modern age, I can create a fuller picture of its sheer importance and social implications.