The Gilded Years: The First Information Age

The Information Age was introduced with the advent of the computer in the second half of the 20th century. But long before that, new technologies (the telegraph, phonograph, photography and even the sewing machine) were revolutionizing communication, connecting and shrinking the world, and creating the vast fortunes which define the Gilded Age. Matthew Bird of the Rhode Island School of Design will discuss the technologies involved, the fascinating accidents of progress and the people responsible, and will explore how the real Information Age was actually a 19th-century phenomenon.