technological innovation — Bunk History

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Two people calling on AT&T PicturePhone.

A Prehistory of Zoom

Concerns about privacy and pressures regarding the physical appearance of women and their homes contributed to the failure of AT&T’s 1960s Picturephone.

by Livia Gershon, Hannah Spaulding via JSTOR Daily on June 29, 2024

An oblique view of Columbus Circle taken on Jan. 7, 1924 by the Fairchild Aerial Camera Company.

A Portrait of New York City by Air in 1924

Long before Google Maps, an intrepid inventor with three camera-equipped biplanes captured a groundbreaking view of Gotham in its Jazz Age glory.

by Thomas J. Campanella via Bloomberg on June 29, 2024

Oil painting by Samuel F. B. Morse titled "The Muse: Susan Walker Morse."

Jilted: Samuel F. B. Morse at Art’s End

The rejection that ended Morse's art career eventually led to the invention of the telegraph.

by Paul Staiti via Panorama on June 18, 2024

Tomato on a spoon.

How the Fridge Changed Flavor

From the tomato to the hamburger bun, the invention has transformed not just what we eat but taste itself.

by Nicola Twilley via The New Yorker on June 8, 2024

Man and woman testing buttons on machine at Duke University Parapsychology Laboratory

Tomorrow People

For the entire 20th century, it had felt like telepathy was just around the corner. Why is that especially true now?

by Roger Luckhurst via Aeon on June 3, 2024

Victorian telegraph operator.

What Mark Zuckerberg Should Learn From 19th-Century Telegraph Operators

by Megan Ward via Slate on May 27, 2024

The Bahá’í House of Worship, a tall, ornate building made of concrete, illuminated against a cloudy sky.

The Beauty of Concrete

Why are buildings today simple and austere, while buildings of the past were ornate and elaborately ornamented? The answer is not the cost of labor.

by Samuel Hughes via Works In Progress on May 17, 2024

World in a Box: Cardboard Media and the Geographic Imagination

Cardboard boxes hold a world of meaning that spans from Amazon to the Container Corporation of America.

by Shannon Mattern via Places Journal on May 15, 2024

Volunteers at Big Creek Missions in Leslie County, Kentucky

Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood

I’ve been going back to eastern Kentucky for over a decade. Since 2016, something there has changed.

by Bradley Devlin via The American Conservative on April 22, 2024

A man surfs the web on an early box-computer which emits neon green light

How Corporations Tried—And Failed—To Control the Spread of Content Online

The recent history of copyright in music cannot be separated from the rise of technologies for the recording and transmission of content online.

by David Bellos, Alexandre Montagu via Literary Hub on February 8, 2024

Kara Swisher wearing headphones and writing in a notebook near a computer.

Over Three Decades, Tech Obliterated Media

A front-row seat to a slow-moving catastrophe. How tech both helps and hurts our world.

by Kara Swisher via Intelligencer on February 7, 2024

A group of birds with one standing on top of the rest.

Rules for the Ruling Class

How to thrive in the power élite—while declaring it your enemy.

by Evan Osnos via The New Yorker on January 22, 2024

Collage depicting shipping containers, a scale weighing American dollars, and a screen of numbers and percentages

Free Trade's Origin Myth

American elites accepted the economic theory of "comparative advantage" mainly because it justified their geopolitical agenda.

by Oren Cass via Law & Liberty on January 2, 2024

A group of men in a mailroom pose next to tube equipment

When a Labyrinth of Pneumatic Tubes Shuttled Mail Beneath the Streets of New York City

Powered by compressed air, the system transported millions of letters between 1897 and 1953.

by Vanessa Armstrong via Smithsonian on December 22, 2023

Chickens and eggs.

The Unending Quest To Build A Better Chicken

Maybe what we need is not just a new form of poultry farming but a complete revolution in how we relate to meat.

by Boyce Upholt via Noema on December 19, 2023

Lined-paper illustration of Tom Watson Jr. and Sr.

The Rise and Fall of the ‘IBM Way’

What the tech pioneer can, and can’t, teach us.

by Deborah Cohen via The Atlantic on December 13, 2023

Amtrak trains sitting on tracks at a rail yard.

America Doesn't Deserve Fast Trains

For 70 years, the U.S. has failed to achieve faster trains—because it refuses to do what it takes to make them work.

by David Alff via Made By History on December 11, 2023

Italian Americans watch a policeman arrest a man

The Surveillance of Immigrants Remade American Policing

Modern surveillance policing is rooted in approaches adopted a century ago.

by Matthew Guariglia via Made By History on November 21, 2023

Illustration of Chalude Shannon, William Weaver, and Italo Calvino, placed on a background of binary code

Language Machinery: Who Will Attend to the Machine's Writing?

The ultimate semantic receivers, selectors, and transmitters are still us.

by Richard Hughes Gibson via The Hedgehog Review on November 7, 2023

A musician wearing a Moog hat and playing a Moog synthesizer in a recording studio

The Sounds of Science

The Moog synthesizer was one of the most influential inventions in 20th-century sound. With the recent sale of the Asheville-based company, a new era begins.

by Reanna Cruz via The Bitter Southerner on October 31, 2023

Kroger plastic bag.

How to Read a Plastic Bag

The history of a familiar, useful, and troublesome object.

by Roger Turner via Science History Institute on October 30, 2023

Employees working at desks in post office

Guaranteed Income? 14th Grade? Before AI, Tech Fears Drove Bold Ideas.

Three-quarters of a century before artificial intelligence concerns, rapid advances in automation prompted panic about mass unemployment—and radical solutions.

by Jerry Prout via Retropolis on October 29, 2023

AR-15 with the American flag attatched.

The Curse of the AR-15

How the gun became a cultural icon—and unmade America.

by Colin Dickey via The New Republic on October 23, 2023

Abacus, mathemeticians, and zeros and ones.

How Everything Became Data

The rise and rise and rise of data.

by Ben Tarnoff via The Nation on October 16, 2023

A Silicon Valley office building.

Better, Faster, Stronger

Two recent books illuminate the dark foundations of Silicon Valley.

by Ben Tarnoff via New York Review of Books on August 31, 2023

The Ultimate Road Trip

On the Road with Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and John Burroughs.

by H. W. Brands via The Washington Free Beacon on August 27, 2023

Photo of Joseph Weizenbaum against a collage of antiwar protests and code.

‘A Certain Danger Lurks There’: How the Inventor of the First Chatbot Turned Against AI

Computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum was there at the dawn of artificial intelligence– but he was also adamant that we must never confuse computers with humans.

by Ben Tarnoff via The Guardian on July 25, 2023

The U.S. flag flies near the Statue of Freedom atop the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC.

How Today Is Like the 1890s

The paths the country took out of that earlier crisis offer valuable lessons for what we should do now, and what we should fear.

by Gideon Rose via Council On Foreign Relations on July 16, 2023

The John Rankin House, an original stop on the Underground Railroad.

The Underground Railroad Was the Ultimate Conspiracy to Southern Enslavers

And justified the most extreme responses.

by Colin Dickey via Atlas Obscura on July 11, 2023

Typewriters on table at Milwaukee QWERTYFest

How Milwaukee Is Celebrating the Typewriter’s Long, Local History

150 years of typewriter history in the city that invented the QWERTY keyboard.

by Jennifer Byrne via Atlas Obscura on July 5, 2023

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