The Telephone and Telegraph Foundation 1924

Joseph Pennell created the print "The Telephone and Telegraph Foundation" using etching and aquatint. Pennell was an American expatriate, known for his prints and drawings of architecture and cityscapes. In this print, we are plunged into the raw, unfinished underbelly of urban construction. What does it mean to depict, not the towering achievements of modernity, but the messy, disruptive, and often unseen labor that makes it possible? Pennell was part of a generation grappling with the rapid transformation of cities and industrialization. He presents us with a view of progress that acknowledges the chaotic, disruptive nature of building and construction. The faceless laborers who toiled in these spaces are noticeably absent, raising questions about who benefits from progress and whose labor is erased in the march toward modernity. Consider the social and economic inequalities that are often embedded in urban development.