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It's the Brian Lerick Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone.

Now we continue our WNYC Centennial series, 100 Years of 100 Things.

And for this day before election day, it's thing number 36, 100 years and more, of watching election returns.

Once upon a time, there was no such thing as television,

obviously. So how did people used to do it? And how did the modern media change our relationship

to and expectations about learning the results? Our guest for this is Catherine Kramer Brownell,

director of the Center for American Political History

and Technology at Purdue University, and author of the book 24-7 Politics, Cable Television,

and the Fragmenting of America from Watergate to Fox News, which came out last year. She also

wrote an article in the Washington Post just before the 2020

election called Good TV Demands Results on Election Night, but that's bad for democracy.

Professor Brownell, thanks for joining our 100 Years of 100 Things Series. Welcome to WNYC.

Thanks so much for having me. And let's start more than 100 years ago.

You write that in the 19th century, voters looked for election night rockets that might

communicate to voters the local tally.

What does that mean?

Election night rockets.

Well, it really conveys how party politics worked in the 19th century,

especially in the antebellum period.

Parties controlled all aspects of public life even.

Newspapers were partisan outlets.

...