Source: Wikimedia Commons
In 1955 the railway was controlled by thousands of men in small buildings beside the track, each pulling a frame of heavy levers that moved signals and points…
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Agricultural flying in 1965 was done by one man in a converted military trainer, a few metres above a crop, pulling up at every hedge, turning hard and…
Source: Wikimedia Commons
In 1960 the detection of forest fires across enormous areas of mountain country depended on people sitting alone in glass rooms on peaks, watching, for an entire season.…
Source: Wikimedia Commons
In 1960 the man who kept the telephone and electricity lines working climbed a wooden pole on steel spikes strapped to his legs, leaned back against a leather…
Source: Wikipedia
In 1965 one man kept a school building standing. He opened it in the dark, fired the boiler, mixed the cleaning chemicals from drums, stripped and waxed every floor…
Source: Wikimedia Commons
In 1960 the weather was measured by people. Somebody walked out to a white wooden box on legs every hour of every day, read four thermometers, emptied a…