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See William Jones, The Common Carrier Concept as Applied to Telecommunications (reviewing how telegraph came under common carrier regulation)
"Throughout the remainder of the nineteenth century the telegraph became one of the most important factors in the development of social and commercial life of America." - Smithsonian (reflecting the importance of common carriers).
Derived from From History of Wire and Broadcast Communication, FCC (May 1993):
1837: Telegraph invented
1838: Morse files patent application
1848: Morse receives patent for telegraph
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The term "Telegraph" is derived from the greek "tele" which means far and "graphein" which means to write. [Telegraph and Beyond]
1832: Samuel FB Morse conceives of idea of electromagnetic telegraph. [Smithsonian]
"Samuel F. B. Morse , [Portrait to Morse] while a professor of arts and design at New York University in 1835, proved that signals could be transmitted by wire. He used pulses of current to deflect an electromagnet, which moved a marker to produce written codes on a strip of paper -the invention of Morse Code. The following year, the device was modified to emboss the paper with dots and dashes.
In 1837, Morse filed a Caveat for his invention with the Patent and Trademark Office. [SI]
1838: Morse forms a company around his telegraph invention with Alfred Vail and Leonard Gale. [Smithsonian]
"He gave a public demonstration in 1838, but it was not until five years later that Congress -- reflecting public apathy -- funded $30,000 to construct an experimental telegraph line from Washington to Baltimore, a distance of 40 miles." Morse origianlly attempted to construct the lines underground using Ezra Cornell's trench digger invention. This proved unsuccessful, therefore Morse switched to installing telegraph poles. [Smithsonian]
| Western Union received another $40k from the government in 1860 to extend its lines out to the Pacific. |
"Six years later, members of Congress witnessed the sending and receiving of messages over part of the telegraph line. Before the line had reached Baltimore, the Whig party held its national convention there, and on May 1, 1844, nominated Henry Clay. This news was hand-carried to Annapolis Junction (between Washington and Baltimore) where Morse's partner, Alfred Vail, wired it to the Capitol. This was the first news dispatched by electric telegraph.
Source: Library of Congress (large resolution)
Disruptive Technology: "Telegraphy became big business as it replaced messengers, the Pony Express, clipper ships and every other slow paced means of communicating. The fact that service was limited to Western Union offices or large firms seemed hardly a problem. After all, communicating over long distances instantly was otherwise impossible. Yet as the telegraph was perfected, man's thoughts turned to speech over a wire." [Farley] |
"The message, "What hath God wrought?" sent later by "Morse Code" from the old Supreme Court chamber in the United States Capitol to his partner in Baltimore, officially opened the completed line of May 24, 1844.[SI]
"Three days later the Democratic National Convention was held in Baltimore. Van Buren seemed the likely choice, but his opponent, James K. Polk, won the nomination. This news was telegraphed to Washington, but skeptics refused to believe it. Only after persons arrived by train from Baltimore to confirm the reports were many convinced of the telegraph's value.
| 1851 - 51 telegraph companies [Alven] |
"Samuel Morse and his associates obtained private funds to extend their line to Philadelphia and New York. Small telegraph companies, meanwhile began functioning in the East, South, and Midwest.
Morse Telegraph 1845 Photo NIH |
1845: Morse and his partners form the Magnetic Telegraph Company. [Smithsonian]
1846: The Magnetic Telegraph Company constructs the first commercial telegraph line between Washington D.C. and New York City. [Smithsonian]
1846: Royal E House patented his printing telegraph, creating one of several rival telegraph technologies. [Wikipedia ] [Image of House Telegraph ]. The House Telegraph rights were held by Judge Samuel Selden. [Smithsonian]
1849: Selden and Hiram Sibley established the New York State Printing Telegraph Company. [Smithsonian]
1851 Judge Samuel Selden and Hiram Sibley formed the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company (NY&MI) with the goal of acquiring and uniting otherwise non-interconnected rival telegraph companies. (See AT&T Vail and Universal Service). Sibley proceeded to acquire companies westard. [Smithsonian]
1851: Over 50 telegraph companies in business. [Smithsnian] Dispatching trains by telegraph started
1854: "In 1854, Sibley acquired the Morse patent rights for the Midwest from Jeptha Wade and John Speed for $50,000. The NY&MI company proceeded to migrate to the superior Morse Code system." See [Smithsonian]
1856: NY&MI becomes Western Union. [Smithsnian]
1860: The Pacific Telegraph Act is enacted authorizing the construction of a transcontinental telegraph. Western Union wins the contract. [Smithsonian]
"Western Union built its first transcontinental telegraph line in 1861, mainly along railroad rights-of-way." Western Union becomes the United States first truly nationwide company. [Porticus]
1861: US Civil War starts
1864: US Telegraphy Company is formed from the consolidation of multiple telegraph companies. [Smithsonian]
1865: US Civil War Ends
1866: Western Union acqires US Telegraphy Company and the American Telegraph Company. [Smithsonian]
"During the Civil War, Western Union's lines were primarily in the North. Carriers with lines in the South experienced substantial damage as a result of the war. Carriers with lines in both the North and the South saw their assets and their business split into two. During the war, the military constructed 15,000 miles of telegraph line - that was later ceded to Western Union as compensation for damages; Western Union experienced substantial profits as a result of wartime business. When the war stopped and demand for telegraph decreased sharply, smaller carriers went out of business.
"After the Civil War, the three major telegraph companies were Western Union, American Telegraph and United States Telegraph. Through a series of stock swaps, Western Union acquired both of the other companies and established itself as a monopoly.
See The Civil War Military Telegraph Service |
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1870s - telegraph faces new competition - telephone. Until the turn of the century, however, telephone service struggled to provide long distance service.
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1990s Western Union carried more than 90% domestic telegraph traffic. [Brands p 2]
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1872: Western Union invests in Elisha Gray's manufacturing company, which is reorganized as Western Electric.
1873: City and Suburban Telegraph Company established.
1873 Anglo-American Telegraph Company founded acquiring the assets of the New York, Newfoundland and London Electric Telegraph Company (Founded 1856) [Smithsonian Anglo America] and Atlantic Telegraph Company (Founded 1856)
1873: Western Union becomes a majority shareholder of International Ocean Telegraph Company. [Smithsonian]
1875: Western Union acquires the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company; The Central Union Telegraph Company; and the New England Telegraph Company [Smithsonian]
1878: Western Union attempts to set up, with Elisha Gray, a rival telephone service to Bell Telephone. in 1879 the two companies settled their patent litigation out of court, with Western Union agreeing to stay out of the telephone business, and Bell Telephone agreeing to stay out of the telegraph business.
Telegraph Wires NYC 1880s Photo NIH |
"In 1881, the Postal Telegraph System entered the field for economic reasons, and merged with Western Union in 1943."
1881: In pursuit of his goal of taking over Western Union, Jay Gould established the American Union Telegraph Company out of the hope that competition would dilute the value of Western Union stock. He "took advantage of a federal law that allowed him to overbuild Western Union lines on raidroad rights of way - American Union acquired Western Union in 1881 and continued to conduct business under the Western Union name." [Shaping American Telecommunications p. 44-45] [Western Union in Possession, NY Times (Feb. 4, 1881)] [Porticus Western Electric]
1894: Western Union acquires
The American Rapid Telegraph Company. [Smithsonian]
1908: AT&T acquires Western Union. AT&T divested itself of Western Union in 1913 in order to avoid antitrust action.
"The original Morse telegraph printed code on tape. However, in the United States the operation developed into sending by key and receiving by ear. A trained Morse operator could transmit 40 to 50 words per minute. Automatic transmission, introduced in 1914, handled more than twice that number.
"In 1913 Western Union developed multiplexing, which it made possible to transmit eight messages simultaneously over a single wire (four in each direction).
Western Union Teleprinter machines came into use about 1925.
Varioplex, introduced in 1936, enabled a single wire to carry 72 transmissions at the same time (36 in each direction). Two years later Western Union introduced the first of its automatic facsimile devices.
1945: Western Union merges with Postal Telegraph Company. [Smithsonian]
In 1959 Western Union inaugurated TELEX, which enables subscribers to the teleprinter service to dial each other directly.
OCEAN CABLE TELEGRAPH
"With capital obtained from private subscriptions in New York and London and, in part, appropriated by the British and United States governments, an attempt was made in 1857 to lay a cable under the Atlantic Ocean. The cable broke after 355 miles has been laid by a ship operating from Ireland. The following June, another attempt failed. A cable was thought to be successfully laid the next month but it became inoperative. Another cable-laying effort, in 1865, proved futile after the many attempts made.
"On July 27, 1866, the steamship "Great Eastern" completed laying a new cable from Ireland to Newfoundland. Returning to mid-Atlantic, the ship located and raised the cable used in a previous attempt, spliced it, and extended it to Newfoundland, where it was landed on September 8, 1866. Thus, America and Europe were linked by two cables and other ocean cables followed.
"Ocean cables were operated by repeating the messages along the route. In 1921, "regenerators" were developed for direct transmission between terminals. Less than 300 single letters a minute could be sent over the original transatlantic cable. Later new "permalloy" cables raised that capacity to about 2,400 letters a minute.
"Until 1877, all rapid long-distance communication depended upon the telegraph. That year, a rival technology developed that would again change the face of communication -- the telephone. By 1879, patent litigation between Western Union and the infant telephone system was ended in an agreement that largely separated the two services.
. . . . .
RADIO TELEGRAPH
"Few radio broadcasts travel through the air exclusively, while many are sent over telephone wires. In the 1860s James Clerk Maxwell, a Scottish physicist, predicted the existence of radio waves, and in 1886 Heinrich Rudolph Hertz, a German physicist, demonstrated that rapid variations of electric current could be projected into space in the form of radio waves similar to those of light and heat.
"But it remained for Guglielmo Marconi, an Italian inventor, to prove the feasibility of radio communication. He sent and received his first radio signal in Italy in 1895. By 1899 he flashed the first wireless signal across the English Channel and two years later received the letter "S", telegraphed from England to Newfoundland. This was the first successful transatlantic radiotelegraph message in 1902.
"Wireless signals proved effective in communication for rescue work when a sea disaster occurred. Effective communication was able to exist between ships and ship to shore points. A number of ocean liners installed wireless equipment. In 1899 the United States Army established wireless communications with a lightship off Fire Island, New York. Two years later the Navy adopted a wireless system. Up to then, the Navy had been using visual signaling and homing pigeons for communication.
"In 1901, radiotelegraph service was instituted between five Hawaiian Islands. By 1903, a Marconi station located in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, carried an exchange or greetings between President Theodore Roosevelt and King Edward VII. In 1905 the naval battle of Port Arthur in the Russo-Japanese war was reported by wireless, and in 1906 the U.S. Weather Bureau experimented with radiotelegraphy to speed notice of weather conditions.
"In 1909, Robert E. Peary, arctic explorer, radiotelegraphed: "I found the Pole". In 1910 Marconi opened regular American-European radiotelegraph service, which several months later, enabled an escaped British murderer to be apprehended on the high seas. In 1912, the first transpacific radiotelegraph service linked San Francisco with Hawaii.
"Overseas radiotelegraph service developed slowly, primarily because the initial radiotelegraph set discharged electricity within the circuit and between the electrodes was unstable causing a high amount of interference. The Alexanderson high-frequency alternator and the De Forest tube resolved many of these early technical problems. The Navy made major use of radio transmitters -- especially Alexanderson alternators, the only reliable long-distance wireless transmitters - for the duration.
"During World War I, governments began using radiotelegraph to be alert of events and to instruct the movement of troops and supplies. World War II demonstrated the value of radio and spurred its development and later utilization for peacetime purposes. Radiotelegraph circuits to other countries enabled persons almost anywhere in the United States to communicate with practically any place on earth.
"Since 1923, pictures have been transmitted by wire, when a photograph was sent from Washington to Baltimore in a test. The first transatlantic radiophoto relay came in 1924 when the Radio Corporation of America beamed a picture of Charles Evans Hughes from London to New York. RCA inaugurated regular radiophoto service in 1926.
"Two radio communication companies once had domestic networks connecting certain large cities, but these were closed in World War II. However, microwave and other developments have made it possible for domestic telegraph communication to be carried largely in part over radio circuits. In 1945 Western Union established the first microwave beam system, connecting New York and Philadelphia. This has since been extended and is being developed into a coast-to-coast system. By 1988 Western Union could transmit about 2,000 telegrams simultaneously in each direction.
[Feb 2006 Western Union Sends Its Last Telegram NPR |
