IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2015 - 7

become affordable, achieving after
over a hundred years its moment to
shine in the marketplace. As Jonathan Coopersmith (Texas A&M University) so expertly demonstrates,
facsimile has a deep and complex
history that defies conventional
narratives about the technology,
and provides an ideal landscape
in which to explore key issues for
technological development: developer push and user pull, and the
dynamics by which technologies
are invented and popularized, or
ignored. A product of the same age
of frenetic innovation that brought
the telegraph and moving picture
(quickly), radio and television (still
at a reasonable pace), the facsimile
machine, like the idea of Robida's
"telephonoscope" that was only
truly invigorated in a mass-market
with the coming of Internet telephony, had a long and delayed journey
to broad relevance and recognition.
Coopersmith, whose previous
book The Electrification of Russia,
1880-1926 focused on changes that
occurred over less than half a century, has chosen to relate facsimile's
whole journey, from its first patent
to its "bureaucratic absorption" and
replacement by computer-based
communications. This long narrative
arc, from 1843 to 2011, does Faxed
credit, as it seeks to answer not only
why the fax machine gained such
popularity in the late 20th century, but why, despite consistent use
in niche news and military markets since the First World War, the
fax never previously experienced
great success. Throughout this period, facsimile contended first with
mail and telegraphy, then radio,
and finally digital technologies like
email, for market and relevance.
This long technological history is
one of the book's key strengths.
Coopersmith's deep historical and
archival research has left seemingly
few technologies unmentioned or
december 2015

unexplored, as far back as AlexanCoopersmith's coverage of the
der Bain and his contemporaries,
ironies of analog and digital modes
and including the blossoming faxof operation is also astute, and
related business of the 1970s and
Faxed explains not only that fax was
1980s. This breadth of coverage
originally an analog technology, but
alone makes Faxed an important
that even when digital faxing was
contribution to the history of comtechnically possible, analog facsimimunications technologies, and prole machines continued to dominate
vides a strong foundation for further
the market despite being "generally
work that digs deeper into particular
two decades out of date" as early
time periods, devices, or markets.
as 1965. These issues - defined
The economic and market hisas Coopersmith does through the
tory component in Coopersmith's
lenses of incremental versus radical
book is particularly strong, and
invention, and of the telephone vertakes center stage through much
sus the digital network - represent
of the work, which reads
as a nuanced application
of technology-push and
market-pull ideas from
The fax seemed old because it
the likes of Schumpeter's
economic theories of innowas old, its provenance coming
vation. Coopersmith's coverage of Western Union's
from the mid-19th century.
failed (and relatively tentative) Desk-Fax service, and
the products developed by
Graphic Sciences, Xerox, Qwip and
an important part of the understanding
others in the 1960s and 1970s, is
of changes in media and commuparticularly laudable in this regard.
nication technologies. Along with
The text is sprinkled with fascinatthese technical distinctions, Coopering stories of forward-thinking techsmith brings in an important dimennologies and the circumstances
sion with the culturally specific
of their demise. The Post Office's
reactions to facsimile in the United
adventure with Speed Mail, its facStates and Japan.
simile service that promised to
Though the bulk of the book
deliver letters across the country in
is primarily focused on the North
hours rather than days, makes for
American case, Faxed includes sigparticularly interesting reading (and
nificant sections on the Japanese
has surprised everyone with whom I
case as early as 1943, reflecting
have discussed the book). Opposed
both the importance of Japanese
by Western Union, and incompemanufacture to the use of fax
tently managed by lead contractor
machines in the American market
ITT, Speed Mail overran its budget
as well as the unique advantages of
and was canceled by the Kennedy
facsimile reproduction compared
administration in August 1961 The
to telegraphy for the transmission
"next step in mail," promised by
of kanji. The fax culture of Japan
Eisenhower's Postmaster General
represents a unique sociocultural
Arthur Summerfield to be "as revomilieu, and one with which many
lutionary and as progressive as anyWestern readers will doubtless be
thing yet achieved," never came to
unfamiliar. Despite being a relativefruition, as much for political realy small component of the book in
sons as technological ones.
terms of length, it cleverly makes
∕

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine

7



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