Communication leaves Transportation

For the majority of human existence communication was tied directly to the efficiency and speed of transportation. Today, they have almost nothing to do with each other but backtrack to the 1800’s and geography was the primary antagonist to any form of communication over long distance. The invention of the Telegraph in the 1830’s changed all of this and laid the foundation for the current networks of digital communication that exist today. 

 

In the United States, confidence grew quickly in the new device following several successful demonstrations by Samuel Morse in 1844. Lines quickly spread across the country and rapidly grew from only 40 miles of cable in 1846 to 23,000 in 1852.

On October 24th 1861, the first transcontinental cable was established connecting the East and West coasts. The effects of this were immediate as demonstrated by the closing of the famous Pony Express only two days later.

The transcontinental cable also played a role in the 1861 election of President Lincoln. Union officials were eager to give Nevada statehood prior to the election, as Lincoln was the favorite. Believing that they would not have time to send the state constitution by train to Washington to be ratified, they sent it by telegraph. This was for 17 years the longest transmission ever sent by telegraph and took two full days to send.

 

 

The network grew globally as well. The first continually successful transatlantic telegraph cable was laid in 1866 and connected North America to the United Kingdom. This cable had the ability to transmit up to eight words a minute, which was a dramatic improvement over the ten days it would take a ship to make the journey.

 

The ability to send time sensitive information over long distances prior to it becoming historic changed many industries. Trade in particular was impacted as “near real time” information on stock prices was able to be transmitted and received by brokers thanks to the invention of the Ticker Tape machine by Tomas Edison in 1869. This increased both the speed at which trades were performed and the accuracy of particular quotes.

Journalism was another industry that had to heavily adjust to the Telegraph.  Since only a few cables ran from place to place, newspaper companies could no longer rely on their own reporters to gather and transmit information on stories, as it would be too much information for the cables to handle. The solution came in the form of cooperation as five daily newspapers located in New York City were attempting to cover the Mexican-American War. The result of this cooperation was the formation of the first wire service which would eventually become the now well known Associated Press. Due to both the speed at which transmissions could now be made and the small format they were confined to, the style of writing had to be changed. This necessitated a shift from the linear form of writing that involved a beginning, middle and end to a reverse pyramid style (5 W's) that we still sometimes see today.