Objects and Observers: Telecommunications, the Nineteenth-Century International Exhibition and the Public

Abstract

This article takes for its reference the displays of telegraphy and telephony at the international exhibitions across the nineteenth century. By considering the underlying material culture and embodied practices connected to the displays the article depicts the public exhibition as an important influencing force on the trajectories of these telecommunication technologies. It submits that the public exhibition represented a setting for a formative dialogue — involving contestation and attempts of reconciliation — between exhibitor and observer, through the object. Beginning with an account of examples that pre-date the international exhibitions, the discourses that surface changed as the century progresses but centre first on the promotion of innovation, on proof making, and then later the protection of invention from piracy. As new domestic markets emerged, this expanded to include concerns over privacy and authenticity.