Maitland A&H Project Blog Entry 2 - Telephone Timeline

Now that Joseph and I have established our research questions and goals, we have both gotten to work delving into the social implications of cellular technology and payphones in the United States. We are both updating our shared Google document with the variety of sources and information we find on our respective topics, enabling us both to read up on both aspects while maintaining focus on our own work. 

In looking at the evolution of cellular technology, I have decided that the best approach would be to make my own timeline of cellular technology's history. The Maitland A&H Telephone Museum already has its own timeline, which ends at the Motorola DynaTAC in 1984 - there is a lot of focus on the switching room, switchboards, phone booths, and touch-tone phones within the museum's timeline and displays. Given this abundance of early cellular history within the museum, I will focus my attention on the evolution of cellular technology past 1984 to bring the timeline into the modern era and allow smartphones into the picture: such as with the popular, mass-produced handheld Nokia 1011 in 1992, or the addition of customizable screens and phone backings with the Siemens S10 in 1997.

I think this will be a great way to connect to the public. This convoluted but ultimately interesting technological story would land more if they could tie it to the devices they know and love today. Another branch of this evolution is the 1G, 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G generational periodization of cellular technology, which I will work to tie into the latter evolution as a whole. 

With the timeline established, I have also been looking into the social implications of cellular technology, which I will use to fill out the information behind the evolution. I have found several interesting books, articles, and sources discussing the loss of jobs, the displacement of women workers, and the role of automation within the factory setting - but as I research these "social implications" more, I have come to find several interesting studies on cellular technology usage and how it has affected societal standards and communication efforts. I think this is a branch of social implication that is worth further investigation, another facet of information that could land with the public more because it is something they may deal with themselves.

I read a (contemporary) news article the other day about cell phone usage and how easily accessible internet is causing people to be glued to their phones rather than tethered to the present. Researching cellular technology and its social implications has encouraged me to look into just that - when technology evolved, and phones became more accessible, did the people of the past become glued to these newfangled devices, or was the creation of the smartphone just a gamechanger for society? These questions further inspire me to bring the timeline into this modern stage. 

The more I research about cellular technology, the more overwhelmed I become at the multitude of information and amount of evolution that occurred so rapidly within the late 20th and early 21st century; but I am also more excited to approach this from the public historian perspective and establish an informative, modern timeline on this interesting and important string of history.