Modernity began with 1870s reaction to a Canadian-owned NYC newspaper half-tone

Traditional emphasis on Victorian Era globalization and modernization always focuses on speed - faster travel of things & beings having weight and faster communication of immaterial things : images & ideas.

I think this is totally wrong - it was the shock of the totally new, not merely the faster old, that marked this disruptive process of modernization - and led to the counter-reaction we know as Modernity.