Electromechanica Era

Electromechanical Era

(1840-1940)

The discovery of ways to harness electricity was the key advance made during this periods. Knowledge and information could now be converted into electrical impulses. The beginnings of telecommunication. The telegraph ( Invented By Samuel F.J. Morse) created the character of our current information age. It broke the connection between communication and transportation. Prior to the telegraph, the speed of communication was the speed of a train--about 35 miles per hour! The telegraph dropped it to just a few seconds: point A to point B in an electronic pulse! With it a new experience was unfolding: information was no longer just local and rooted in immediate context. Instead, ideas and news were now presented in what Shane Hipps called in his book The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture “a mosaic of unrelated data points with not apparent connection.”

Telegraph