Media Technology

Town Criers

The art of communication has changed so much over time. Communication has evolved from being a personal way of communication to impersonal due to the way that technology has forged in our time today. Communication is a necessity in order to get through life, because without the world would be in chaos. So, it does not matter how we communicate whether using hand signals, voice or social media, communication has to be utilized.

Using one’s voice was an official job of a Town Crier and it can be traced back as far as 1066, when King William of Normandy planned his first (and it was to be his last) invasion of Britain. The news was passed by chosen people that became employed to specifically go from town to town letting people know what had happened by the King’s orders. These Town Criers had the protection of the law following them, hence the saying “Don’t shoot the messenger” ended up being a very real command. If anything ever did happen to these Town Criers, it was decreed that it happened to the King also and it was considered a treasonable offense (McLaren, 2006).

This job of Town Crier worked its way right into the military of this time period. Musicians, who were educated and respected carriers of messages and "parlees" across the battlefield lines, were "of" the military not "part of" the military. Their uniforms were bright reverse colored and identified them as non-combatant signalmen, protected from the rages of the battlefield. They were armed with only a small 24 inch long sword (McLaren, 2006).

Mail coach: 1784 - 1797

Delivery of the written word went through major changes over the centuries and in 1784 – 1797, the coach was developed with horse drawn coaches that would race across the plains of England in order to get the mail to and from giver and receiver.

In 1782, John Palmer realized that when someone sent a letter to and from London it was take more than three days for the journey to take place and the individual post boys were riding horses that could barely make the journey. So Palmer decided to go to the government and present a proposal that would make a world of difference. He showed how mail would be carried in special coaches with good horses, armed guards, and no outside passengers. There was strong opposition from the post office, but the young William Pitt gives Palmer his personal support. As chancellor of the exchequer, he was attracted by the idea of higher postal charges for a better service (History of Communication, n.d.).

            In 1784, the first mail coach run from Bristol to London was a great success and because of the success in the autumn of the following year Palmer launched more services to sixteen other towns. The mail coach got better with time and by 1797 there were forty-two routes in operation.

The departure of the mail coaches becomes a famous event every evening in London, for they all leave together at 8 p.m. Average speeds are now up to nearly 10 m.p.h. Edinburgh is reached in 43 hours, meaning that an answer can be received in London within four days.

The Telegraph

Mail Coach was a very good way of delivering the mail back then but was eventually moved out by the invention of the telegraph (History of Communication, n.d.).

Being able to send messages over a wire was made possible by Samuel Morse in 1835. He was a professor of arts and design at New York University. Morse showed how pulses of current deflected an electromagnet, and a marker was moved to produce a written code on a strip of paper – which was later called Morse Code. During the next year, his machine was able to produce dots and dashes due to the way it would emboss the paper. In 1938, Morse wanted the public to see his invention, so he held a demonstration but he was not helped by Congress until five years later which funded $30,000 in order to get an experimental telegraph line stretching from Washington to Baltimore which was forty miles apart.

            It took another six years in order for members of Congress to be convinced that this would be a good thing, not until they witnessed the telegraph line do its thing by sending and receiving messages. In 1844, on May first, the news that Henry Clay was nominated by the Whig party was hand delivered to Morse’s partner, Alfred Vail at Annapolis Junction, which was between Washington and Baltimore, then the news was wired to the Capitol. This was the first news to be dispatched by electric telegraph. It could not have been any better for Morse and his partner.

The Telephone

            Then in 1876 Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. It was a line that was used from one room to another in order to communicate over distances with words (History of Communication, n.d.).

            Bell’s had an interest in educating deaf individuals and this interest led him in developing the microphone, but his greatest accomplishment was the invention of the a device he referred to as an “electrical speech machine”, which was later changed to what we are more familiar with today, the telephone (America’s Story, n.d.).

            Bell wasted no time in showing his invention and by 1878, he had set up an exchange for the telephone in New Haven, Connecticut. This telephone contraption was not bringing big cities closer together by means of being able to communicate in minutes not days or weeks as was the case with the mail coach so long ago. The first long-distance connection came in 1884 between Boston, Massachusetts and New York City. Bell had so many dreams and uses for his telephone but he could have never imagined that it would have blossomed into what we have today. Being able to communicate without wires and even send pictures over the device that Alexander Graham Bell considered his greatest invention. The progress was more than Bell could have ever imagined in any of his wildest dreams (America’s Story, n.d.).

Since Alexander Graham Bell's death in 1922, the telecommunication industry has undergone an amazing revolution. This revolution has gotten to the point that one's ability to access information relies upon telecommunications technology. Bell's "electrical speech machine" paved the way for the information superhighway(America’s Story, n.d.).

References

America’s Story from America’s Library (n.d.). Jump back in time. The first telephone call. Retrieved April 29, 2014 from http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/recon/jb_recon_telephone_1.html

Bellis, Mary (1997). The History of the Electric Telegraph and Telegraphy. The Beginning of Electronic Communications. Retrieved April 29, 2014 from http://inventors.about.com/od/tstartinventions/a/telegraph.htm

History of Communication (n.d.). Early methods. Retrieved April 24, 2014, from http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/plaintexthistories.asp?historyid=aa93

McLaren, Brent (2006). Perth Ontario’s town crier. A completely unofficial and very brief history of town criers. Retrieved April 29, 2014 from http://perthtowncrier.com/support.html