Media History from Gutenberg

to the Digital Age

Slides based on the Bloomsbury book by Bill Kovarik

Revolutions in

Communication

Chapter 7 – Telegraph and telephone

Web site & textbook

Textbook:

1st edition – 2011

2nd edition – 2016

http://www.revolutionsincommunication.com

The electronic revolution

Rapid communication was divine: Nike, Hermes and Mercury carried messages for the gods

For mortals, communication speed = running horse or fast ship.

Example: Battle of New Orleans fought Jan. 8, 1815, but peace treaty signed in Paris days before Christmas 1814. Seven weeks.

Yet by 1866, same message = one hour.

Cycles of tech development

Cycle opens

Cycle closes

Alternatives &

inventions

Field opens to experimentation, competition, innovation

Patents & regulationsare used to protect profits

Inventors try to circumvent old technologies

Monopolies stagnate

Telegraph & telephone as network carriers Not just individual message

carriers Telegraph linked newspapers and

magazines worldwide through “wire” services

Telephone linked radio stations nationwide though radio network services (NBC & CBS in 1920s)

Telegraph & telephone Both person-to-person Both also served as infrastructure

◦Telegraph allowed “wire services” Associated Press in US, Havas in France,

Reuters in UK, Wolff’s in Germany, EFE in Spain

◦Telephone allowed radio networks NBC, CBS in US, BBC in UK and other

national networks in Europe “Convergence” is a constant

condition in mass media history.

Optical / mechanical “telegraph”Claude Chappe

developed semaphore system for French revolutionary army 1792

“Telegraph” also used to describe naval signals, British optical system

Electric signaling Electric phenomena

fascinated scientists 1700s – 1800s

Steven Gray first sent electric current 700 feet through a line in London in 1727.

Benjamin Franklin famous for experiments with electricity 1750s.

First telegraph in UK 1837 William Cooke and

Charles Wheatstone patented electric telegraph in 1837

A five wire system, difficult to build and hard to use.

Morse worked with a single grounded wire

Samuel Morse Motivation: Wife died before

message could reach him – Led to search for better message system

Morse identified software as the key problem, not hardware ◦Tried number system for words ◦Tried signals on paper t ape ◦Eventually tried dot – dash signal set

based on letter frequency

Morse code basedon print technologyMost frequently used letters were given the simplest corresponding code

Typical type font, printers stocked 12,000 Es and 9,000 Ts.

◦E = . T = - Printers also stocked 400 Qs and 200 Zs because they were rarely

used: ◦Q = --.- Z = --..

Morse code was an elegant software solution to the hardware problem that others like Cooke and Wheatstone had not really solved.

Morse code adopted internationally by 1865

_ _ _ _ _ ._. … . “It is obvious, at the slightest glance, that this mode of instantaneous communication must inevitably become an instrument of immense power, to be wielded for good or for evil . . .” —Samuel Morse, 1838.

Morse wanted telegraph to be “nationalized” - owned by government.

European nations did just that, but the US allowed telegraph to become a monopoly called Western Union

Not everyone was impressed… The telegraph is little more than an “improved means to an unimproved end.”

“We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.”

Henry David Thoreau, 1854, Walden

News before & after Before the telegraph:If the exhibition of the most brilliant valor, of the excess of courage, and of a daring which would have reflected luster on the best days of chivalry can afford full consolation for the disaster of today, we can have no reason to regret the melancholy loss which we sustained in a contest with a savage and barbarian enemy. (William Howard Russell, The Times, London, November 13, 1854)

News sent by telegraph:Our troops, after taking three batteries and gaining a great victory at Bull Run, were eventually repulsed, and commenced a retreat on Washington. (Henry Villard, New York Herald, July 22, 1861)

Associated Press formed • 1846 express news from

Mexican war • 1848 Harbor News Assn

Became a monopoly with Western Union telegraph company in 1860s

• Blocked competition and managed news

Telegraph lines link US, UK First lines laid

down in 1858 Permanent

lines in place by 1866

Special AP – Reuters deal 1890s

European wire services Unlike US, telegraph was nationalized This meant there was net neutrality Paul Reuter (Havas employee) – UK

◦ Formed Reuter’s in London 1851 ◦ Second largest international wire service today (after AP)

Charles Louis Havas – France, 1835 ◦ Original wire service / Reuter and Wolff worked there ◦ Became Agence France Press 1945 after WWII

Spanish wire service EFE formed 1939◦ Fourth largest wire service today

Bernard Wolff (also Havas employee) ◦ Formed Wolffs in Berlin 1849; Nazis destroyed it 1930 ◦ Replaced by Deutsche Presse Agentur (DPA) in 1945

AP criticized, investigated

• Congress -- 96 bills, 48 committee reports on AP and Western Union, 1866 – 1910 • AP monopoly meant that news of regional controversy would come from biased sources. • Cartoon (above) from The Masses pictures AP poisoning the well of news about the West Virginia mine wars around 1912.

Opposition to monopoly • 1890s – 1915, states & US

gov’t pass “anti-trust” laws

• AP-Western Union was one of dozens of trusts they tried to break up

• United Press (Scripps), International News (Hearst) formed to compete with AP 1907

• AP finally loses anti-trust suit 1945

Invention of telephone • Main idea was to circumvent

Western Union monopoly • Gardiner Hubbard was the

“national nemesis” of Western Union monopoly

• He financed Alexander Graham Bell telephone experiments in 1870s

• Bell telephone patent filed 1876

• Hubbard became Bell’s father-in-law in 1877

Famous last words “The idea is idiotic on the face of it…

Why would any person want to use this ungainly and impractical device when he can send a messenger to the telegraph office and have a clear written message sent to any large city in the United State States?” ◦ Western Union to Alexander Graham Bell, 1876

Telephone also a monopoly From 1890s – 1980s, AT&T had forced most

competitors out of business. Public relations campaign helped stave off a

breakup until 1980s Kingsbury Commitment with US Justice

Dept. allowed AT&T to continue as a regulated monopoly.

The deal also forced Western Union to carry competing wire services such as United Press and International Press at the same rate, allowing them to compete with the Associated Press.

The Brilliant AP

“There are only two forces that can carry light to all corners of the globe – the sun in the heavens and the Associated Press down here. I may seem to be flattering the sun, but I do not mean to do so…” Mark Twain, 1906

Wire services of the world Havas 1835 - 1945 — France — Charles-Louis

Havas — Agence France Press, AFP .Associated Press 1846 – present US — AP. Wolff’s 1849 - 1933 — Germany — Bernhard

Wolff, DPA. Reuters 1851 - present — Britain — Paul Reuter

— Reuters. Stefani 1853 - 1945 — Italy — Guglielmo Stafani

— Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata, ANSA. Fabra — 1865 — 1939 — Spain — Nilo Maria

Fabra — EFE.

Wire services 2 Itar-Tass 1925 - present — Russia — From St.

Petersburg Tel. Agency (1904 Press Trust of India 1947 - Present — India —

From AP India (1909) Xinhua 1937 — present — China — Red China

News Agency (1931) Kyodo 1947 — present — Japan — Domei News

Agency (1936) United Press Int’l 1958 — 2000 — US — From

United Press (1907) and Int’l Press (1909) — UPI.

Inter-Press Service 1964 - present — International — Roberto Savio — IPS.

Public relations campaign claimed telephone was a “natural” monopoly By 1912, telephone was regulated rather than broken up into competing companies Only by 1982 were US phone services broken up into regional carriers with much lower rates

Bell in 1922, listening to radio

Review: people Nike, Hermes and Mercury, Benjamin

Franklin, Claude Chappe, Steven Gray, William Cooke & Charles Wheatstone, Samuel Morse, Henry David Thoreau, Alexander Graham Bell, Gardiner Hubbard, Charles-Louis Havas, Paul Reuter, William Howard Russell

Review: Concepts Cycles of technology development,

optical telegraph, magnetic telegraph, wire services, Harbor News Association, Associated Press, Reuters, Western Union, telegraph monopoly, telephone monopoly, Kingsbury Commitment, AT&T, Trans-Atlantic telegraph lines, telephones for radio networks

Next: Chapter 8 Radio