McGill University

Graduate Student, Art History & Communication Studies

Thesis Title: The telautograph, scenes of handwriting and the changing cultural appreciation of physical authenticity

About

My dissertation thesis is the first study of the telautograph, a device that transmitted the movement of a writing hand over telegraph lines to a remote fountain pen that simultaneously replicated the author’s moving hand. I argue that the telautograph created a unique niche within the media landscape of the late 19th century: it provided a novel and instantaneous way to communicate long-distance and was thus unprecedented as a writing technology. It transmitted handwriting, clearly a familiar and trusted technology and clearly attributable to an individual person. Yet it produced writing in the absence of the writer, thus challenging notions of authenticity and context of origin. In addition, I establish that Elisha Gray’s particular business strategy combined with certain technical short-comings limited the telautograph’s adoption despite unanimously favourable reviews.

Today, handwriting similarly inhabits a borderland in our culture. Its increasingly limited practice is in competition with various forms of typing, yet handwritten documents are generally perceived as more personal and authentic than electronic documents. I propose that the cultural appreciation of handwriting stems from the notion of physical authenticity, the particular physical bond that exists between a writer and a text, a bond that we think is different from the link between a writer and an electronic text. I identify five assumptions on handwriting: (1) handwriting is produced by the body/hand while typewriting is produced by a machine; (2) a handwritten text leads to an individual while a typed text leads to a device; (3) handwriting directly reflects our thoughts while typing leaves doubts in this regard; (4) handwriting cannot be copied while typing creates only copies; (5) handwriting implies presence while typing implies absence. I use these assumptions to explore the historical trajectory of handwriting practices. I thus examine scenes of writing in the 19th century (the telautograph) and 21st century (signing and handwriting practices today) and portray the respective semantics, gestures, and instruments.