Newland, C (2020) 'Economic objects.' In: White, C.L, ed. A cultural history of objects: in the age of industry - volume 5. Bloomsbury, London, pp. 57-76. ISBN 9781474298797
Abstract
This chapter talks about an Economic Object and focuses on gutta-percha, an amazing resin from the Malay peninsular that revolutionised submarine telegraphy from the mid 19th century. Gutta-percha resin was an excellent electrical insulator and almost indestructible in seawater. With its discovery, long held dreams of international telecommunications finally became possible. To say that demand spiked is a serious understatement. Gutta-percha launched and sustained a boom in the manufacture and laying of submarine cables that was to continue for a hundred years. Gutta-percha drove the development of a huge manufacturing industry and fuelled monumentally ambitious, near-global projects such as the All-Red Line (a British-owned Imperial submarine cable designed to encircle the globe). Far flung corners of the world were put into almost immediate – and rather addictive - contact. The fabric of Empires were stitched ever tighter and control crept back towards imperial centres. The communications made possible by gutta-percha can be said to have changed the world’s economies, political systems, military strategies and social relationships in more fundamental ways than perhaps any other nineteenth-century material. Confusingly for a material so desperately vital, internationally important, and of such widespread use, the name of this wonderstuff - gutta-percha - is now almost entirely unfamiliar to twenty-first century ears. This chapter explores the world of gutta-percha, from Indonesia to Islington, drawing out some of the many stories from the material.
| Item Type: | Book Chapter or Section |
|---|---|
| Note: | This is the fifth volume in a set of six. The ISBN for the set is 9781474298810. The six volumes cover: 1 – Antiquity (500 BCE to 500 CE); 2 – Medieval Age (500 to 1400); 3 – Renaissance (1400 to 1600); 4 – Age of Enlightenment (1600 to 1760); 5 – Age of Industry (1760 to 1900); 6 – Modern Age (1900 to the present). |
| Divisions: | School of Writing, Publishing and the Humanities |
| Research Centres and Groups: | History and Heritage Research Centre |
| UoA: | History |
| Date Deposited: | 11 Mar 2020 15:18 |
| Last Modified: | 16 May 2022 14:40 |
| URI / Page ID: | https://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/id/eprint/13135 |
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