wired nation

Week One

Telegraph Dawn

wired nation

Beacons and Semaphores

• Visual and sound devices to transmit information over distances using . . .

• Flags• Paddles• Smoke• Fire• Loud noises• Beacons

Aeneas’ water telegraph (right); 18th-century paddle-style, optical telegraph (above)

wired nation

People know what’s possible long before it becomes

reality• Electrical television understood by the

1880s• FM comprehended in theory by early

20th century• “Hypertext” envisioned right after the

Second World War• Packet switching theorized before

accomplished• “White space” transmission

wired nation

Legacy telecommunications technologies

• Technologies that are so dominant on the telecommunications landscape that they make new technologies seem irrelevant, even if the new technology is more powerful.

• Examples: electrical telegraph in Britain, FM radio in the United States

Sir Francis Ronalds offered his electrical telegraph (1816) to the British government, and was rejected!

wired nation

The first Morse machine (the “telegraph indicator”; late 1830s)

The second Morse machine (1844-1845)

wired nation

Lasar’s First Observation of U.S. Telecommunications

• The government often directly or indirectly funds telecommunications technologies first; the private sector takes credit for them later.

wired nation

wired nation

Lasar’s First Law of U.S. Telecommunications

• What the public usually experiences as a sudden change in the telecommunications landscape usually takes years, if not decades, to create

• Examples: the Internet; radio; television

wired nation

Renaissance England: We kill newspapers dead

• We license newspapers selectively, creating government approved monopolies

• We tax them heavily• Hell, let’s just ban the

damn things (Charles I, 1630s)

• We make it easy to prosecute for libel Charles “you’re not a reporter, are

you?” the First, posing for a rare photo opportunity

wired nation

Renaissance France: Newspapers? We don’t need your stinking

newspapers• The country had

130 official newspaper censors

• 17% of Bastille prisoners there for book and newspaper related offenses

• Huge expatriate newspaper system

Louis “No comment” the Fourteenth

wired nation

John Peter Zenger case redefines libel

• 1732: New York newspaper printer accused of libel

• Jury: truth is a defense

• Opposite of British policy

wired nation

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution

(1791)• Congress shall make no law

respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

wired nation

Alien and Sedition Acts (1798)

• Sedition Act: a crime to “write, print, utter, or publish . . . Any false, scandalous, or malicious writing or writings “ against government, Congress, or President “with intent to defame”

• Directed against Jefferson, but his party triumphs in 1800, revealing the weakness of federal censorship in 19th-century U.S.

John “freedom for me, not for thee” Adams

wired nation

Cheap postal rates – U.S. vs. Canada

• Widespread postal service

• 1792: one cent to mail a newspaper sent up to 100 miles

• 1.5 cents further• Newspaper editors

can exchange newspapers for free!

• Seven post offices for entire population from Quebec east to New Brunswick (100,000 people)

wired nation

Copyright: reward authors, then reward the public

• First authors and publishers get a chance at exclusive profits

• Then the public gets affordable reading matter

• Copyright protection act of 1790 limited protection for 14 years

• Renewable for another fourteen years if author living

• 1834: Wheaton vs. Peters, supreme court declares that its decisions are public decisions; nobody has perpetual and exclusive right to them

Henry “It’s mine all mine” Wheaton

wired nation

The Penny Press (1830s)• Mass produced

newspapers appealing to artisan/working class voters

• Cheap, sensationalistic, sleazy (and fun)

• Run on advertising and street sales

• New technologies such as stereotyping make penny press possible

James Gordon Bennett, publisher of the New York Morning Herald

wired nation

The penny press galaxy

From left: Henry James; Horace Greeley, Henry J. Raymond of The New York Times; William Dean Howells

wired nation

Why United States faster on the telegraph?

• European governments had invested heavily in the optical telegraph

• European governments would put a much tighter leash on the telegraph than the U.S., often nationalizing the technology

• European landmass divided into many different nations

wired nation

The penny/telegraph press goes to war, 1848

• Newspapers share reporters during the Mexican-American war

• who use the telegraph to transmit stories

• They even share resources with Mexican newspapers

George Wilkins Kendall, early telegraph war correspondent

wired nation

Railroads save the telegraph

• 1860: Congress passes the Pacific Telegraph Act: $40,000/year for ten years and free use of “unoccupied” land to build a telegraph across the United States

• Railroads make building telegraph systems profitable.– Steady flow of construction– Steady flow of income– Railroads need telegraph; telegraph needs railroads

• Government railroad subsidies represent indirect subsidy to telegraph

wired nation

Western Union

• 1851: Hiram Sibley starts New York and Mississippi Valley Telegraph Company

• 1856: Buys up competitors, starts Western Union

• Civil War destroys Western Union’s competitors

• Sibley takes Pacific Telegraph Act money, Western Union grows

wired nation

The Telegraph Act of 1866

• Companies that accept the act can build telegraph lines along Federal postal routes

• Five years after act (1871), Congress has option of buying out telegraph companies

wired nation

The Credit Mobiler Scandal, 1867-1872

Union Pacific railroad board of directors hires and pays itself to build the Union Pacific railroad at exorbitant prices

Pays off members of Congress to keep quiet

President Ulysses S. Grant

wired nation

Associated Press movement, 1849-1856

• Newspapers function as “members” of the association

• Reporters provided news to major dailies via telegraph

• All major Associated Presses combine after civil war

• Contracts with Western Union after Civil War

• Bought out by railroad magnate Jay Gould

• Cartel agreement: “No new member will be admitted to the association unless by unanimous and written consent of all existing partners but news may be sold to newspapers outside of New York City upon a majority vote of all existing partners.”

Jay Gould

wired nation

“The mere fact of monopoly proves nothing. The only question to be considered is, whether those who control its affairs administer them properly and in the interest, first, of the owners of the property, and second, of the public.”

--President, Western Union, 1870

wired nation

Farmers/workers call for telegraph reform

• Call for government telegraph

• Or government owned telegraph alongside private telegraph

• Or more regulated telegraph

Farmers alliance calls for nationalization or for federally run telegraph

wired nation

Britain nationalizes its telegraph industry (1870)

• Puts the telegraph under the control of the popular British post office

• European governments take control of the telegraph for military purposes