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Telegraph / Western Union

"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):

The term "Telegraph" is derived from the greek "tele" which means far and "graphein" which means to write. [Telegraph and Beyond]

1826 - 31: Optical telegraph lines operated in Europe, and in a few locations in the United States: New England, Philadelphia, and San Francisco [Starr p 157][Wired Prof]

1832: Samuel FB Morse conceives of idea of electromagnetic telegraph. [Smithsonian][Starr p 158]

"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.

1837:

• Sept 4: Morse transmits over 1700 feet of wire wrapped around in his classroom.
• Morse filed a Caveat for his invention with the Patent and Trademark Office. [SI] Morse gives first public demonstration of telegraph. [Starr p 158]
• Charles Wheatstone and William Fothergille Cooke obtained a british patent for a needle telegraph. [Starr p 158]

1838: Morse forms a company around his telegraph invention with Alfred Vail and Leonard Gale. [Smithsonian][Starr p 160]

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]

"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] [Starr p 157]

1838: William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone initiate commercial electric telegraph service in England. [White]

Source: Library of Congress (large resolution)

"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] Morse's second transmission that day was "Have you any news?" [Hochfelder 310]

"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.

"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]

Much of the telegraph lines are constructed along railway ROW. There is a strong symbiotic relationship. The telegraph operators gain access of long rights of way, that connect major population centers. The railroads gain use of the communications network, helping them coordinate train traffic and take advantage of single track lines - instead of two tracks, one for each direction - saving in capital costs. As a result, telegraph companies indirectly benefited from the land grants that the federal government gave to the railroads.

1846: Royal E House patented his printing telegraph, creating one of several rival telegraph technologies. [Image of House Telegraph]. The House Telegraph rights were held by Judge Samuel Selden. [Smithsonian]

At some point Morse attempted to sell his patent to the USG for $100,000 (AT&T will try to do the same, offering to sell their patents to Western Union, because AT&T lacked capital to advance its inventions). Government Ownership of Electrical Means of Communication, S. DOC. NO. 399, 63d Cong., 2d Sess. 19 (1914).

1849: Selden and Hiram Sibley established the New York State Printing Telegraph Company. [Smithsonian]

1850 "Period of Wasteful Competition" [Hochfelder 310]

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

O’Reilly v. Morse, 56 U.S. 62 (1852); see also Smith v. Downing, 22 F. Cas. 511, 513 (C.C.D. Mass. 1850) (No. 13,036).

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]
• Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company incorporated in Maine. [NYT Mach 31, 1954]

1856: NY&MI becomes Western Union. [Smithsonian] [Brooks p 62]

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]

"AN ACT TO FACILITATE COMMUNICATION BETWEEN THE ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC STATES BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH"

PASSED BY THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES AND APPROVED BY THE PRESIDENT, JUNE 16, 1860.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Secretary of the Treasury, under the direction of the President of the United States, is hereby authorized and directed to advertise for sealed proposals, to be received for sixty days after the passage of this act, (and the fulfillment of which shall be guaranteed by responsible parties, as in the case of bids for mail contracts,) for the use by the government of a line or lines of magnetic telegraph, to be constructed within two years from the thirty-first day of July, eighteen hundred and sixty, from some point or points on the west line of the State of Missouri, by any route or routes which the said contractors may select, (connecting at such point or points by telegraph with the cities of Washington, New Orleans, New York, Charleston, Philadelphia, Boston, and other cities in the Atlantic, Southern, and Western States, to the city of San Francisco, in the State of California, for a period of ten years, and shall award the contract to the lowest responsible bidder or bidders, provided such proffer does not require a larger amount per year from the United States than forty thousand dollars ; and permission is hereby granted to the said parties to whom said contract may be awarded, or a majority of them, and their assigns, to use until the end of said term, such unoccupied public lands of the United States as may be necessary for the right of way and for the purpose of establishing stations for  repairs along said line, not exceeding at any station one-quarter section of land, such stations not to exceed one in fifteen miles on an average of the whole distance, unless said lands shall be required by the government of the United States for railroad or other purposes, and provided that no right to preempt any of said lands under the laws of the United States shall inure to said company, their agents or servants, or to any other person or persons whatsoever : Provided , That no such contract shall be made until the said line shall be in actual operation, and payments thereunder shall cease whenever the contractors fail to comply with their contract ; that the government shall at all times be entitled to priority in the use of the line or lines, and shall have the privilege, when authorized by law, of connecting said line or lines by telegraph with any military posts of the United States, and to use the same for government purposes : And provided , also, That said line or lines, except such as may be constructed by the government to connect said line or lines with the military posts of the United States, shall be open to the use of all citizens of the United States during the term of said contract, on payment of the regular charges for transmission of dispatches : And provided , also, That such charges shall not exceed three dollars for a single dispatch of ten words, with the usual proportionate reductions upon dispatches of greater length, provided that nothing herein contained shall confer upon the said parties any exclusive right to construct a telegraph to the Pacific., or debar the government of the United States from granting from time to time, similar franchises and privileges to other parties.

Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That the said contractors, or their assigns, shall have the right to construct and maintain, through any of the territories of the United States, a branch line, so as to connect their said line or lines with Oregon ; and that they shall have the permanent right of way for said line or lines, under, or over, any unappropriated public lands and waters in the said territories, by any route or routes which the said contractors may select, with the free use during the said term of such lands as may be necessary for the purpose of establishing stations for repairs along said line or lines, not exceeding, at any station, one quarter-section of land, such stations not to exceed one in fifteen miles or an average of the whole distance ; but should any of said quarter-sections be deemed essential by the government, or any company acting under its authority, for railroad purposes, the said contractors shall relinquish the occupancy of so much as may be necessary for the railroad, receiving an equal amount of land for like use in its stead.

Sec. 3. And be it further enacted , That if, in any year during the continuance of the said contract, the business done for the government, as hereinbefore mentioned, by such contractors or their assigns, shall, at the ordinary rate of charges for private messages, exceed the price contracted to be paid as aforesaid, the Secretary of the Treasury shall, upon said accounts being duly authenticated, certify the amount of such excess to Congress : Provided , That the use of the line be given, at any time, free of cost, to the Coast Survey, the Smithsonian Institution, and the National Observatory, for scientific purposes : And Provided further , That messages received from any individual, company, or corporation, or from any telegraph lines connecting with this line at either of its termini, shall be impartially transmitted in the order of their reception, excepting that the dispatches of the government shall have priority : And provided further , That Congress shall at any time have the right to alter or amend this act.

Approved, June 16, 1860.

36 Cong., 1 Sess., Chapter 137.

Civil War

1861: US Civil War starts

1864:

• US Telegraphy Company is formed from the consolidation of multiple telegraph companies. [Smithsonian]
• July 2 Act of Congress requires railroads "to operate and use said roads and telegraph for all purposes of communications, travel, and transportation, so far as the public and Government are concerned, as one continuous line, and in such operation and use to afford and secure to each equal advantage and facilities as to rates, times, and transportation, without any discrimination of any kind in favor of the road or business of any or either of said companies, or adverse to the road or business of any or either of the others, and it shall not be lawful for the proprietors of any line of telegraph authorized by this act, or the act amended by this act, to refuse or fail to convey for all persons requiring the transmission of news and messages of like character." [NYT Apr 5 1880]

1865:

• US Civil War Ends
• Formation of International Telegraph Union Convention & ITU [Cybersecurity Review 2009]

1866:

• Western Union acquires US Telegraphy Company and the American Telegraph Company. [Smithsonian]
• Post Roads Act of 1866 (granting telegraph companies right to operate over federal lands)

US Senate: Art & History Home: History Minutes > 1851-1877 > Telegraph 1866 "Telegraph" The Vatican fresco artist Constantino Brumidi came to the United States from Italy in 1852 looking for work. Brumidi had the good fortune of arriving in Washington just as the superintendent of the project to construct new wings for the Capitol was looking for skilled artists. From the mid 1850s until his death twenty-five years later, he earned the title "Michelangelo of the Capitol." His great contribution was to integrate American themes into the classical style of the Italian Renaissance. Some of Brumidi's best work exists in the second-floor room now named in honor of former Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson Brumidi took particular interest in that prime space, intended to serve as the Senate Library. To emphasize the theme of learning, he designed four semi-circular lunettes in the ceiling to represent major fields of knowledge-History, Geography, Philosophy, and-recognizing that era's technological expansion in the production of newspapers and journals-the field he called Print. He completed the first painting, Geography, in 1858. A year later, as the Senate moved into its newly completed chamber, members decided that they needed a conveniently located post office more than a library. As workmen installed individual mail boxes for each of the Senate's sixty-six members, Brumidi shifted his attention to other assignments. In 1866, with the war over, the artist returned to complete the room's decoration, including the remaining three ceiling lunettes. Originally, he had planned to decorate one of those spaces to honor the medium of Print. But the shift in the room's function from a library to a post office, along with the excitement surrounding the successful laying of a trans-Atlantic telegraph cable that year, changed the theme to Telegraph. (In this same spirit of scientific innovation, he also changed the Philosophy panel to Physics.) Intensely proud of his new country, the artist took a bit of patriotic license. Although the telegraph cable was laid from Europe to America -from Ireland to Newfoundland -he reversed the direction. At the center of the fresco appears a nymph, who is handing the telegraph wire to the allegorical figure for Europe on the left. With a grateful countenance, Europa looks up to a strong America surrounded by images that suggest the nation's natural abundance and its military might. In the year 1866, however, that image of America 's strength as a world power lay mostly within the colorful imagination of Constantino Brumidi

Associated Press

Western Union was establishing its monopoly for telegraph; Associated Press was establishing its monopoly for news. In 1867 the two came to an agreement which strengthened their respective holds on their markets.

• AP agreed to only use Western Union lines - not any competitors,and gave up its own telegraph interests
• AP received a preferential rate over rival or independent news sources
• AP would not "encourage or support any opposition or competing telegraph company."
• AP newspapers would only use AP; new newspapers could only join with the approval of existing newspapers.
• To criticize AP would be to risk access to the news content, and to Western Union. You could not criticize Western Union and you could not criticize AP.
• Non-AP news organizations could not gain access to the telegraph lines and therefore could not succeed.
• Western Union, after supporting the Republicans during the civil war and receiving 15,000 miles of telegraph line after the war, was decisively pro-republican.

Reformers would try to break the monopolistic hold of both companies for decades. A repeated argument was that the telegraph service should rightfully be made a part of the US Postal Service. [Ars Technica] [Hochfelder 310] According to Hochfelder,

"Although reformers failed to reach their ultimate goal, the end of Western Union's monopoly over telegraphic communications, they achieved some lasting success. By calling for increased government involvement in economic affairs and in securing citizen's access to communications networks, they constructed an important part of Progressive economic thought. By the 1890s, their efforts helped to establish regulation as an acceptable middle ground between state ownership of a networked technology and its operation by untrammeled private capitalists. [Hochfelder 312]

1869: Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company enters into agreement with the Union and Central Pacific Railroad Companies to lease the railroad's telegraph poles to the telegraph company in exchange for stock in the telegraph company. [NYT April 5, 1880]

The Telegraph Wars (Jay Gould)

1870:

• Jay Gould begins to attempt to take over Western Union. He had already succeeded in taking over other companies. [Brooks p 63] Gould sought to drive down the price of WU stock in order to make it a take over target. One tactic was to buy telephone exchanges from Bell with the threat to compete against WU's telephone service. [Coon 41]
• Republican controlled federal government had given 130 m acres of land for construction of railroads, and pro-republican Western Union telegraphs. [Ars Technica]
• Western Union contracts with its own subsidiary Credit Mobilier for the construction of telegraph lines at inflated prices. [Ars Technica]
• Repeatedly over the next few decades Post Office will argue in favor nationalizing the telegraph and telephone service.

1871: JB Stearns invents duplex telegraph, receives $250,000 from Western Union. [Coon 20]

1872: Western Union invests in Elisha Gray's manufacturing company, which is reorganized as Western Electric.

1873:

• City and Suburban Telegraph Company established.
• 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)
• 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]
• Jay Gould's Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company elected Gen. Thomas T Eckert as President; Eckert had been the General Superintendent of Western Union. [NYT Jan. 15, 1875]

1876:

• In the disputed election of 1876, there was uncertainty whether the democrats of the republicans had won the electoral college votes from Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina. Republicans quickly took advantage of the telegraph services of pro-republic Western Union. " During the long controversy in Congress over who actually won the districts in the disputed election of 1876, Western Union secretly siphoned to AP's general agent Henry Nash Smith the telegraph correspondence of key Democrats during the struggle. Smith, in turn, relayed this intelligence to the Hayes camp with instructions on how to proceed. On top of that, AP constantly published propaganda supporting the Republican side of the story. Meanwhile, Western Union insisted that it kept "all messages whatsoever . . . strictly private and confidential." " [Ars Technica]

1877:

• The Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company has 35,000 miles of wire. [Coon 41]
• Western Union obtains an injunction against the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company and the Missouri Pacific Railroad; Western Union claimed that it had an exclusive contract to construct and operate telegraph lines along the Missouri Pacific Railroad. [NYT May 1, 1877]
• In September Western Union becomes owner of a majority of the stock of the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company, according to WU 1881 court filing. [NYT Feb. 27, 1881]

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. See AT&T v Western Union.

Telegraph Wires NYC 1880s Photo NIH

1879: WU settles with Bell in order to focus on the attack from Gould.

1880:

• March 1: Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company's contract with the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad for exclusive use of the B&O's telegraph lines expired; B&O gave notice that it would retake control of the lines; it negotiated a 10 year exclusive contract with the American Union Company. Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company's company predated its "amalgamation with Western Union." [NYT March 1, 1880]
• Jay Gould's Union and Kansas Pacific Railroad wins court injunction seizing telegraph lines that Western Union claims to have built, owned and operated along the railroad Right of Way. [NYT March 3, 1880]
• Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company obtains an injunction against the Union Pacific Railroad Company, preventing it from retaking control of telegraph lines leased to Atlantic and Pacific; the railroad company was going to retake control of the lines for the purpose of carrying American Union Telegraph Company messages as well. USG entered as a party and argued that the railroad company could not "part with any of the franchises obtained by the organic act without the consent of the USG, which is a part owner, and which has claims upon the net earnings of the telegraph line to protect it against loss on the bonds guaranteed by it for the construction of the roads and telegraph lines." [NYT April 5, 1880]

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 railroad 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] Jay Gould drove down the price of Western Union Stock, and then secretly acquired the stock until he emerged as a majority shareholder in 1881. Gould's efforts to take over Western Union distracted Western Union from its quest to take over telephone communications. [Brooks p 63]
• Direct United States Cable Company files suit in order to block the merger of the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company, Western Union, and American Union Companies. [NYT Feb. 17, 1881]
• "the Postal Telegraph System entered the field for economic reasons, and merged with Western Union in 1943."

1894: Western Union acquires The American Rapid Telegraph Company. [Smithsonian]

Western Union Tel. Co. v. Call Publishing Co., 181 U.S. 92, 99-104 (1901) ("the Supreme Court ruled that telegraph companies had a duty – arising out of the common law – to serve all customers in a nondiscriminatory manner as a common carrier")

1908:

• AT&T acquires Western Union. AT&T divested itself of Western Union in 1913 in order to avoid antitrust action.
• US Becomes Member of International Telegraph Union Convention & ITU [Cybersecurity Review 2009 p C-2]

"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).

"In a 1918 Joint Resolution, Congress authorized the President to assume control of any telegraph system in the United States and operate it as needed for the duration of World War I." [2009 Review]

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]

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

Law

• Post Roads Act of 1866 - granting access to postal roads, and trees public lands for use as telegraph poles in exchange for - priority service to the USG and - non discriminatory service to all (aka common carriage). [Brands p 2] [Brenner p 7]
• WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH CO. v. CALL PUB. CO., 181 U.S. 92 (1901) (telegraph is common carrier)

Reports

• Government Ownership of Electrical Means of Communication, S. DOC. NO. 399, 63d Cong., 2d Sess. 19 (1914)

Links

• History of US Telegraph Industry EH.NET
  • Western Union
    • Yearly Messages sent over lines:
      • 1867: 5.8 million - $1.09 per message
      • 1870: 9,158k
      • 1880: 29,216k
      • 1890: 55,879k
      • 1900: 63.2 million / 63,168k - $0.30 per message
      • 1910: 75,135k
      • 1920: 155,885k
      • 1930: 211,971k
      • 1940: 191,645k
      • 1950: 178,904k
      • 1960: 124,319k
      • 1970: 69,679k
    • "First nationwide industrial monopoly, with over 90% of the market share and dominance in every state"
• Neal McEwen, The Telegraph Office, Charles Williams, Jr., Boston Mass (1998)
• Sterling, Bernt, Weiss, Shaping American Telecommunications, p. 43 (2006)
  • "In 1857 the six largest telegraph companies entered into a cartel called the "Treaty of Six Nations." ... This set of principles evolved during negotiations, so that by the time the agreement was completed, the signatories divided the country into six sections and assigned monopoly control of each section to one form. Some of the smaller competitors objected and began to undertake the construction of competitive lines. Negotiations to satisfy these firms were concluded in 1859 (under the auspices of the North American Telegraph Association), which essentially resulted in their buyout by or merger with the six major firms. Thus, only 15 years after the first telegraph line had entered service, the consolidation of the industry from lively competition to a cartel of a few small firms was complete."
• Feb 2006 Western Union Sends Its Last Telegram NPR
• Western Electric History, Bell System Memorial
• Lucent History

Papers / Books

• A History of Information Highways and Byways: Modern Networks, The Wired Professor (" In the United States optical telegraph lines ran from Boston to Martha's Vineyard and connected Staten Island to Manhattan. One line ran from Philadelphia to New York so that the stockbroker who ran it could get word immediately of fluctuations in stock prices. Another optical telegraph operated in San Francisco from 1849 to 1853. Telegraph Hill in San Francisco was one of three optical telegraph stations in that city.")
• Through the Wires: The Telegraph and Beyond, Thinkquest
• David Hochfelder, The Communications Revolution, in Willaim Barney, A Companion to 19th Century America (John Wiley & Sons 2006)
• Kris de Decker, Email in the 18th Century: The Optical Telegraph, Low-tech Magazine (Dec. 23, 2007)
• Tom Farley's Telephone History Series (cc)
• William Jones, The Common Carrier Concept as Applied to Telecommunications (reviewing how telegraph came under common carrier regulation)
• Matthew Lasar, How Robber Barons hijacked the "victorian internet", Ars Technica (Dec. 2, 2009)
• Paul Starr, The Creation of the Media (2004 Basic Books)
• Robert Thompson, Wiring the Continent: The History of the Telegraph Industry in the United States, 1832-1866 (1947 Princeton Uni Press)
• Thomas White, US Early Radio History (The Electric Telegraph 1860-1914)
• William von Alven, Bill's 200 Year Condensed History of Telecom, CCL 1998

Links

• Pacific Postal Telegraph Cable Company, at Virtual Museum of SF (1887)
• Smithsonian
  • History of the Telegraph, HistoryWired, Smithsonian Institute
  • Western Union Records
  • Anglo American Telegraph Company
• Telegraph History

News

• The Telegraph And Natural Monopolies In Communications, Techdirt 12/8/2009

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