David Malki’s delightfully whimsically twisted WONDERMARK: An Illustrated Jocularity webcomic is something I look forward to every week.
This was last week’s comic:
Wondermark – October 2, 2015
Somewhat less known, are the occasional blog posts he throws online in a series called: True Stuff From Old Books. These posts are rambling and informative explorations on some topic that has caught Malki’s attention. It is that kind of informal web content that inspired me to start this site.
The most recent installment went online this morning:
Alexander Graham Bell vs. Western Union
One of my favorite subjects to research is how society’s complaints about “this danged whiz-bang modern world” tend to repeat throughout history.
In previous articles, I’ve shared how Socrates decried the invention of writing; how monks opposed the invention of the printing press; and how electricity and the telephone were seen as demonic instruments.
One takeaway from this sort of story is how these parallels seem to show us that fear of change is an ever-present part of human nature. But these episodes also illuminate another repeating pattern: fear of the new, from those with a vested interest in the old.
Continued at True Stuff: Alexander Graham Bell vs. Western Union
The wonderful work of archivists have preserved far more material than we usually see. Our goal here is to unearth and present some of the stuff we never saw in school.