For an insight into the ways in which the acceleration of 
wheel and road and paper rescramble population and 
settlement patterns, let us glance at some instances provided 
by Oscar Handlin in his study Boston’s Immigrants . In 1790, he 
tells us, Boston was a compact unit with all workers and 
traders living in sight of each other, so that there was no 
tendency to section residential areas on a class basis: “But as 
the town grew, as the outlying districts became more 
accessible, the people spread out and at the same time were 
localized in distinctive areas.” That one sentence capsulates 
the theme of this chapter. The sentence can be generalized to 
include the art of writing: “As knowledge was spread out 
visually and as it became more accessible in alphabetic form, it 
was localized and divided into specialties.” Up to the point just 
short of electrification, increase of speed produces division of 
function, and of social classes, and of knowledge.