[CW] Telegraphists’ cramp: the emergence and disappearance of an occupational disease between 1875 and 1930

[D.J.J. Ring, Jr.]

https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/36655

Thanks to Chris, NW6V for the UK term.

PDF HERE:
https://era.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1842/36655/Haward2019.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

This thesis is a historical, qualitative case study of the emergence and
disappearance of telegraphists’ cramp in the British Post Office between
1875, when it was first reported, and 1930, by which point it was in
decline. Telegraphists’ cramp was an occupational disease that has
attracted little attention from social historians, and references in
occupational health history are scarce, possibly because of the relatively
short lifespan of the disease. Telegraphists’ cramp was initially
categorised with related occupational diseases (for example writers’ cramp)
as a curiosity with little further information about causation, signs and
symptoms apart from the label associating it to the work of the
telegraphist. It subsequently acquired much greater prominence owing to
political factors. When telegraphists’ cramp appeared, trade unions were
developing throughout the Post Office and were challenging pay, grades and
working conditions of the workforce, including effects on health. At the
same time, wider interest was developing on the effects of the rapid
industrialisation of society on workers’ fatigue and health. Consequently,
telegraphists’ cramp became an important focus of medical research and
government intervention. Moreover, telegraphists’ cramp is of particular
interest as a disease because it emerged in response to the introduction of
new technology, the Morse key, into an office environment, at a time when
most other occupational diseases occurred in hazardous factory
environments. My thesis is thus a study of telegraphists’ cramp as the
first office based occupational disease. I have devised a two-stranded
social-historical model to map the changing factors shaping telegraphists’
cramp through its lifecycle. First, I describe three stages in the
evolution and decline of telegraphists’ cramp, using a human-centred
approach where the individual (worker) response is at the heart of the
model, situated in and influenced by a wider context of government
sociopolitical initiatives e.g. legislation, medical and scientific
knowledge theories and practices, and employer (organisational) actions.
Secondly, drawing on Ludwik Fleck’s theories of thought collectives, I map
the interactions between the expert and lay stakeholders involved with
telegraphists’ cramp in response to changing medical, political and
scientific knowledge and arguments during the lifecycle of the disease.
This model provides a comprehensive social-historical account of the
different phases in the emergence and decline of telegraphists’ cramp.
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/1842/36655
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