The Telegraph in America, 1832–1920
eBook - ePub

The Telegraph in America, 1832–1920

  1. English
  2. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

The Telegraph in America, 1832–1920

About this book

A complete history of how the telegraph revolutionized technological practice and life in America.

Telegraphy in the nineteenth century approximated the internet in our own day. Historian and electrical engineer David Hochfelder offers readers a comprehensive history of this groundbreaking technology, which employs breaks in an electrical current to send code along miles of wire. The Telegraph in America, 1832–1920 examines the correlation between technological innovation and social change and shows how this transformative relationship helps us to understand and perhaps define modernity.

The telegraph revolutionized the spread of information—speeding personal messages, news of public events, and details of stock fluctuations. During the Civil War, telegraphed intelligence and high-level directives gave the Union war effort a critical advantage. Afterward, the telegraph helped build and break fortunes and, along with the railroad, altered the way Americans thought about time and space. With this book, Hochfelder supplies us with an introduction to the early stirrings of the information age.

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Yes, you can access The Telegraph in America, 1832–1920 by David Hochfelder in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Technology & Engineering & North American History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover Page
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Contents
  5. Acknowledgments
  6. Introduction Why the Telegraph Was Revolutionary
  7. 1 “Here the Telegraph Came Forceably into Play” The Telegraph during the Civil War
  8. 2 “As a Telegraph for the People It Is a Signal Failure” The Postal Telegraph Movement
  9. 3 “There Is a Public Voracity for Telegraphic News” The Telegraph, Written Language, and Journalism
  10. 4 “The Ticker Is Always a Treacherous Servant” The Telegraph and the Rise of Modern Finance Capitalism
  11. 5 “Western Union, by Grace of FCC and A.T.&T.” The Telegraph, the Telephone, and the Logic of Industrial Succession
  12. Conclusion The Promise of Telegraphy
  13. Chronology of the American Telegraph Industry
  14. Notes
  15. Essay on Sources
  16. Index