Reinventing Brantford
Reinventing Brantford

Author: Leo Groarke

Publisher: Dundurn

Published: 2009-11-23

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1770705619

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One hundred years ago, the City of Brantford advertised itself as the most important manufacturing centre in Canada. During the century that followed, its industrial economy boomed, faltered, and finally collapsed. By the end of the twentieth century, Brantford was known for unemployment, hard luck, and the infamy of having "the worst downtown in Canada." For twenty years the downtown was in steep decline. Significant attempts at urban revival had failed until Wilfrid Laurier University decided to locate a campus in the heart of Brantford's crumbling city centre. Leo Groarke revisists the grandeur of the city's past, explores the economic downfall, and tells the story of the arrival of the university, its early struggles, its commitment to historic restoration, and its ultimate success as a catalyst for urban renewal. The compelling story he recounts will engage anyone interested in the plight of the North-American city core and the role that universities and colleges can play in re-establishing downtowns as vibrant centres of historical and contemporary importance.

Characters of the Information and Communication Industry
Characters of the Information and Communication Industry

Author: Richard F. Bellaver

Publisher: AuthorHouse

Published: 2011-05-06

Total Pages: 450

ISBN-13: 1456732595

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I have taught a graduate course on the history of the information and communications industry for 20 years. The course shows students how the world has moved from primitive communication to the integrated multi-media situation we are in today. Concentration is on the fields of journalism, telecommunications, broadcasting, and computing. Emphasis is placed on the leaders of the areas and the political and cultural surroundings that encouraged or discouraged growth of the industry. It is true that technology is a driving force of this industry, but it has been the individual people (characters) impelled by discovery, acceptance and marketability of that technology who have taken the next step to improve communication. The Journalism field started with Gutenberg and early added Ben Franklin, later it got a little yellow with Hearst and Pulitzer. I think Henry Luce started the business of media integration, but Rupert Murdoch certainly keeps it going. The first practical use of electricity was found by Samuel Morse and his telegraph. Bell invented the telephone, or was it Meucci? Theodore Vail invented the Bell System. Broadcasting started with Marconis invention, or was it Teslas? David Sarnoff and William Paley made the medium practical and characters like Edwin R. Morrow, Walter Cronkite and even Oprah Winfrey gave it credibility. Certainly Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace had something to do with the start of computers, but later scientists Vannevar bush and Jon von Neumann added the electronics. Then UNIVAC convinced Thomas Watson Junior that IBM better start making them. Jobs and Wozniac started the personal computer business, but Bill Gates created the software to make them run. Tim Berners-Lee hooked those computers to a network and then Amazon, eBay, and Google found a way to make money using the result. This book is the story of these people and companies.