Michael FeaganPostdoctoral Fellow, Nancy M. Bruce Center for Design and Material Culturehe/him/his

I am a recent PhD graduate of the University of Western Ontario. My research interests encompass the history of technology, labour history, environmental history, Canadian history, and American history. My PhD dissertation focused on the work of telegraph operators in Canada and the United States from 1870 to 1929. It primarily explored the class identity of telegraphers and the ways in which large technological systems can obscure class relations, and the real physical human labour required to make these networks function.

My current research explores the design history of typewriters from their invention with Christopher Latham Sholes to their decline in the 1980s. My research primarily seeks to answer the question: Why did the design of typewriters coalesce around one particular design for most of the 20th century? My history of the typewriter aims to trace the lineage of some core design elements of typewriters, such as the QWERTY keyboard, visible typing, shifted keyboards, and front-striking type. My research aims to explain why these designs came to be and what the user experiences were like with these machines.

Selected Publications

Feagan, M. (2026). “A Gilt-Edged Class of Trained Men”: Telegraph Schools in Canada and the United States, 1870s-1920s. Historical Studies in Education / Revue d’histoire De l’éducation, 38(1).

Feagan, M. (2025). Playing Moby-Dick: Agency, Disempowerment, and Adaptation in Nantucket. American, British and Canadian Studies, 45(1), 180–202.

For a full list of publications, see Feagan’s CV.

See Also

• Another Day at the Office: How the Filing Cabinet Facilitated the Growth of Corporate Bureaucracies, Canadian Science and Technology Historical Association (CSTHA), September 10, 2021
• Telegraph Schools: The Development of Technical Education in Canada, Canadian Science and Technology Historical Association (CSTHA), August 20, 2021
• 175 Years of Telecommunications: The Origins of the Electric Telegraph in Canada, Canadian Science and Technology Historical Association (CSTHA), August 6, 2021
• Creating the Electric Tree: Conflict and Compromise, Canadian Science and Technology Historical Association (CSTHA), July 30, 2021
• Creating the Electric Tree: Physical Limitations of Telephone Poles and Wires, Canadian Science and Technology Historical Association (CSTHA), July 16, 2021
• Creating the Electric Tree: The Choice of Tree and Wood for Canadian Telephone Poles, Canadian Science and Technology Historical Association (CSTHA), July 2, 2021
• Electric Trees: The Constructed Nature of Utility Poles and Street Trees, Network in Canadian History & Environment (NiCHE), July 16, 2020
• Photographing Environmental History, Network in Canadian History & Environment (NiCHE), June 18, 2019