The History of Communication
Communication In Many Ways
On this web page I hope to show you a little about the history of communication.
People have always communicated with each other. People have communicated through many
different ways. In the history of the world people used music, sculpture, painting, and
writing. This especially becomes apparent in the romantic period. In the romantic period
people didn't just write or sculpt or paint just to do it they were trying to communicate.
In the romantic period the artists would try and do their art in such a way that the viewer
would be able to tell what kind of emotions the artist was having. The artists were trying
to evoke emotions out of the viewers.
Copy By Hand
In the past it was very hard to communicate with many people at one time. All
that was written had to be copied over and over by hand in order to make it available
to a large amount of people. An example of having to copy something over and over is
the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi with his opera "Rigoletto". Verdi knew that the
climatic song would be good and that many people would want it. He also knew that if he
didn't do anything about it then his music would get in the public and people would just
copy the music down. This would prevent Verdi from making any money off his music. Instead
Verdi decided that he would make multiple copies to sell to the public after the concert.
I can just picture Verdi copying his music one page at a time with a pen. It would have
taken a long time to copy enough music to sell to the public and make a profit.
The Printing Press
There was an invention that happened before Verdi which greatly enhanced the ability of
people to communicate. The invention was the printing press with movable type in the 15th
century. The printing press was invented by Johann Gutenberg. After the printing press
was invented people began to be able to communicate to large groups of people through the
use of pamphlets, books, and newspaper.
The Typewriter
Eventually individual typewriters were invented allowing people to write their own papers
and distribute them. Although typewriters made communication much easier documents still
had to typed up one at a time. There was also the problem of typing the document just right
so that it would fit on the page. My parents have told me of the problems that they had when
they were typing papers for school. They would type the page only to find out
that they
didn't leave enough room for the footnotes on the bottom of the page. They would have to
get out a new sheet of paper and start all over typing the page again. There was another
problem of what if you hit the wrong key. It's not like you could just erase the mistake
and do it over. A person had to either retype the paper or they could use some white out
and type over the white out. My father graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Utah with a bachelor's
degree in mathematics. My father remembers how hard it was to type his thesis just perfectly
on the typewriter. He had to put in some complicated math equations which were difficult
to format on the paper with a typewriter. There was still great room for improvement over
the typewriter.
The Information Age
After the typewriter came the computer. Computers weren't always so easy to use as they are
today. In the beginning they were very difficult. The early computers used a run-off system
which meant that there were visible codes in the document to indicate things such as bold,
underline, and centering of the text. There was also a problem if you wanted to edit text
in the middle of an existing document. You could do it but it was difficult. You needed to
open a space in the text and then type the new text and then close the text back up. Since
then computers have shown a dramatic increase in making it easier to communicate. Now there
is the internet and e-mail which make communication between people much easier and faster.
It is with the computer that my father had a great impact in the way that people communicated
with each other.
Sam's Homepage
Alan's Ph.D Thesis
The Creativity of My Father, Alan C. Ashton
Why This Project is Creative