Greg Downey, University of Wisconsin, Madison "The Spatial Discipline of the Nineteenth-Century American Telegraph Messengers"

Managerial efforts to control labor are central to capitalism and the turn-of-the-century telegraph industry was no exception. This essay explores the techniques that American telegraph managers devised to discipline the teenage messenger boys upon whom the industry relied. Since the messenger boys' work required them to travel throughout the city, these techniques had a spatial dimension, and focused, successively, on their uniforms, their offices, and their bicycles.

If you plan to attend please e-mail or call to receive a copy of the paper. We prefer to send papers as e-mail attachments. Please include your e-mail address in all correspondence.

The seminar format assumes that all participants have read the essay in advance, and that all those requesting the paper will attend the seminar. Please do not request a paper unless you plan to attend. We encourage faculty members to call the seminar to the attention of graduate students.