Robert MacDougall wins international award for latest book

May 25, 2016

Associate Professor Robert MacDougallRobert MacDougall, Associate Professor in the Department of History, received the 2016 Albert B. Corey Prize, awarded at the annual meeting of the Canadian Historical Association, for his latest book The People's Network: The Political Economy of the Telephone in the Gilded Age.

The Albert B. Corey Prize is sponsored jointly by the American Historical Association and the Canadian Historical Association and is awarded in even numbered years for the best book on Canadian-American relations or on the history of both countries. 

The People's Network by Robert MacDougallMacDougall studies the history of the late 19th and 20th century United States with a special focus on information, communication, science, and technology. The People’s Network, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press, investigates the development of the telephone systems in Canada and the United States, drawing from government and corporate archives. The development of regional and independent telephone systems were seen as part of the fight against monopoly capital, represented by the Bell System, and part of a larger struggle for regional autonomy.