Michael Feagan

Research Interests

• My research has been focused on Canadian and American telegraph operators in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I am interested in exploring the connections between technology and labour in telecommunications and the connections between past and present communication workers. My PhD dissertation is focused on how telegraph operator embodied their work and their class. 
  
  My research topics include History of technology, nineteenth-century Canadian and American history, labour history, social history, and cultural history.

Supervisor

• Prof. Robert MacDougall

Conferences

• “Embodying Telecommunication Networks: The Work of Telegraph Operators,” Canadian Science and Historical Association XXII Biennial Conference, November 4, 2023.
  
  
• “Embodying Telecommunication Networks: The Work of Telegraph Operators,” McCaffrey Seminar Series, University of Western Ontario, October 26, 2023.
  
  
• “STOP: A Morse Code Mystery,” McCaffrey Seminar Series, University of Western Ontario, February 2, 2023.
  
  
•  “A Better Class of Working Girls: Intersections of Class and Gender in Canadian Telegraph Operators, 1880-1910,” Society for the History of Technology Annual Meeting, November 20, 2021.
  
  
• “A Better Class of Working Girls: Intersections of Class and Gender in Canadian Telegraph Operators, 1880-1910,” Canadian Science and Technology Historical Association, November 5, 2021. (Awarded the CSTHA Best Student Presentation Award $250.)
  
  
• “Electric Trees: The Constructed Nature of Utility Poles and Street Trees,” Canadian Historical Association Annual Meeting, July 22, 2021.
  
  
• “Precarious Professionals: The Liminal Identity of Canadian Telegraph Operators, 1880-1914.” McCaffrey Seminar Series, University of Western Ontario, September 12, 2019.
  
  
• “White-Collar Working Class: The Ambiguous Identity of Canadian Telegraph Operators.” Pathways to the Past: Western University – Graduate History Conference, April 26-27, 2019.
  
  

• “White-Collar Working Class: The Ambiguous Identity of Canadian Telegraph Operators.” Western Research Forum, Poster Presentation, March 22, 2019.

Publications

• Non-refereed

  
  Michael Feagan, Feagan on Swoch, ‘Wired Into Nature: The Telegraph and the North American Frontier,’ H-War, November, 2022, https://networks.h-net.org/node/12840/reviews/11741959/feagan-schwoch-wired-nature-telegraph-and-north-american-frontier.

  Michael Feagan, Another Day at the Office: How the Filing Cabinet Facilitated the Growth of Corporate Bureaucracies, CSTHA, September 10, 2021. https://cstha-ahstc.ca/2021/09/10/how-the-filing-cabinet-facilitated-the-growth-of-corporate-bureaucracies/

  Michael Feagan, Telegraph Schools: The Development of Technical Education in Canada. CSTHA, August 20, 2021. https://cstha-ahstc.ca/2021/08/20/telegraph-schools-the-development-of-technical-education-in-canada/

  Michael Feagan, 175 Years of Telecommunications: The Origins of the Electric Telegraph in Canada. CSTHA, August 6, 2021. https://cstha-ahstc.ca/2021/08/06/the-origins-of-the-electric-telegraph-in-canada/

  Michael Feagan, Creating the Electric Tree: Conflict and Compromise. CSTHA, July 30, 2021. https://cstha-ahstc.ca/2021/07/30/creating-the-electric-tree-pt-3-conflict-and-compromise/

  Michael Feagan, Creating the Electric Tree: Physical Limitations of Telephone Poles and Wires. CSTHA, July 16, 2021. https://cstha-ahstc.ca/2021/07/16/creating-the-electric-tree-pt-2/

  Michael Feagan, Creating the Electric Tree: The Choice of Tree and Wood for Canadian Telephone Poles. CSTHA, July 2, 2021. https://cstha-ahstc.ca/2021/07/02/creating-the-electric-tree-pt-1/

  Michael Feagan. Electric Trees: The Constructed Nature of Utility Poles and Street Trees. NiCHE, July 16, 2020. https://niche-canada.org/2020/07/16/electric-trees-the-constructed-nature-of-utility-poles-and-street-trees/

  Kenneth Reilly, Michael Feagan, and Matthew Cleary. Photographing Environmental History. Edited by Jamie Murton. NiCHE, June 18, 2019. http://niche-canada.org/2019/06/18/photographing-environmental-history/ 

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