Push to Talk: A History of Pushbutton Devices as Early Communication and Control Technologies.

Pushbutton devices in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, alongside the telephone and telegraph, served as facilitators for communication on both a utilitarian and cultural level. This paper probes discourse surrounding the pushbutton to understand how historical actors imagined the place of buttons in their technological landscape, particularly exploring the devices' disciplinary functions. By studying the pushbutton as an historical, social and cultural artifact, this paper makes a case for the button as a critical material object that illuminates issues around control and communication in everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]