This new book from MIT press looks like just the ticket: New Media, 1740-1915 (Media in Transition), edited by Lisa Gitelman, Geoffrey B. Pingree, and Edward Barrett. Blurb:

Reminding us that all media were once new, this book challenges the notion that to study new media is to study exclusively today’s new media. Examining a variety of media in their historic contexts, it explores those moments of transition when new media were not yet fully defined and their significance was still in flux. Examples range from familiar devices such as the telephone and phonograph to unfamiliar curiosities such as the physiognotrace and the zograscope. Moving beyond the story of technological innovation, the book considers emergent media as sites of ongoing cultural exchange.

Found via hypergene mediablog, which I really must visit more often.