The keyboard is mightier than the tongue: How electronics revived the written word

When I was a kid, old people still wrote letters to each other. The younger generation just picked up the telephone. There was worry that history was going to go away, because history depends on records such as letters and letters weren’t written as much anymore.

Sure, there was the tape recorder. We found out that President Richard Nixon secretly taped his White House conversations. After those tapes contributed to his downfall, we also found out that he was not the only President to record conversations. As soon as the equipment was available, tape recorders were used by Presidents. Of course, even telephone conversations could and can be recorded.
Corporations and governments now have rules about recordkeeping, but that was not always so. I found out researching an article on why it took 50 years for the telephone to reach the President’s desk that the 21st President, Chester Alan Arthur, was such a private person that he destroyed his White House papers (the 19th century equivalent of erasing tape) after he left office in 1885. That was bad for history (not too bad, because others kept copies of some of his personal records), but he felt it was good for him. And many people agree: witness the popularity of the shredder.

An interesting thing has happened between my childhood and now: The personal computer made writing so much easier, and the telephone itself became not only a voice transmitter but a data transmitter as well. E-mail and texting revived writing. History is saved!