Manifest Destiny - Telegraph

Questions?

When did the telegraph come to the United States, and who was the inventor?
What was the name of the communication system used over the telegraph lines called?
When and where was the first intercontinental telegraph message sent/received?
Why would the Pony Express not be pleased with the development of western telegraph lines across the west?
After selecting the link for a telegraph demo, type a message and play it to hear the telegraph sounds. After listening to the complete message, evaluate how difficult a job it must have been to be a telegraph operator?

Historical Overview

The printing press was the big innovation in communications until the telegraph was developed. Printing remained the key format for mass messages for years afterward, but the telegraph allowed instant communication over vast distances for the first time in human history. Telegraph usage faded as radio became easy to use and popularized; as radio was being developed, the telephone quickly became the fastest way to communicate person-to-person; after television was perfected and content for it was well developed, it became the dominant form of mass-communication technology; the internet came next, and newspapers, radio, telephones, and television are being rolled into this far-reaching information medium.

Development of the Telegraph

Also known as the "talking" or "singing" wire, the telegraph came to the United States in 1843, when Congress passed a bill enabling Samuel F. B. Morse (1791–1872) to construct the first telegraph line between Washington and Baltimore. Morse had conceived of the telegraph much earlier, in 1832, and the first telegraph message was sent in 1838 after Morse coordinated his efforts with business associates Alfred Vail and Leonard Gale. The instant communication offered by Morse's system of wire taps (later called Morse code) inspired many entrepreneurs, who hastily built small local and regional telegraph systems. By 1851, fifty telegraph companies were operating in the United States. But by 1856, Hiram Sibley had begun consolidating the independent telegraph lines into his newly formed company, Western Union Telegraph Company. Between 1857 and 1861 other companies consolidated until the U.S. telegraph interests were held by only six systems.

By the beginning of the Civil War, commercial interests were keen to build a transcontinental telegraph line. To connect the eastern telegraph systems with the West, Congress passed the Telegraph Act of 1860, which granted the lowest bidder public lands and a yearly contract to operate a telegraph line connecting the East to San Francisco, California. Sibley won the contract and formed the Pacific Telegraph Company to start construction westward from Omaha, Nebraska, to Salt Lake City, Utah. Sibley sent his associate Jeptha H. Wade west to form the Overland Telegraph Company, which would handle construction eastward from Fort Churchill in the Nevada Territory (on the border of California) and extend the existing California lines to Salt Lake City. In July 1861, the Pacific Telegraph Company and the Overland Telegraph Company raised the first poles for the transcontinental telegraph line.

As the companies advanced, they set up new telegraph stations daily to keep in touch with Sacramento and Omaha. To bridge the distance not yet linked by wire, Western Union had made a special arrangement for Pony Express riders to carry messages between the two companies as they slowly worked toward each other.

By October 24, 1861, telegraphers sent the first message from San Francisco to Washington. The message from Chief Justice Stephen Field of California assured the recipient, President Abraham Lincoln, of California's loyalty to the Union. The New York Times is quoted in Seven Trails West as remarking that "the work of carrying westward the transcontinental telegraph line has progressed with so little blazonment [publicity], that it is with almost an electric thrill one reads the words of greeting yesterday flashed instantaneously over the wires from California." The coasts of the country, the article continued, are now "united by this noblest symbol of our modern civilization." Two days after that first message, the other U.S. express message service, the Pony Express, ended—a financial failure, but secure as a legendary part of conquering the West.

The stringing of telegraph wire across the country did not inspire the hero worship that the Pony Express riders did, but the telegraph was one of the most transforming technologies to influence the development of the West. The telegraph was the first American industry based on electricity and the first monopoly, and it turned a profit from the beginning. The telegraph's ability to send news from one coast to the other in a matter of minutes fostered the growth of news agencies and other commercial enterprises, and it revolutionized railroad operations.

On August 16, 1858, President James Buchanan and Queen Victoria exchanged formal introductory and complimentary messages. Unfortunately, the cable proved weak and the current insufficient and by the beginning of September had ceased functioning.

In 1866, the British ship Great Eastern succeeded in laying the first permanent telegraph line across the Atlantic Ocean. Cyrus West Field was the object of much praise on both sides of the Atlantic for his persistence in accomplishing what many thought to be an impossible undertaking.

The telegraph remained one of the most important technologies in the development of social and commercial life in America until the emergence of the telephone and the radio in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Telegraph Demo

Try your message and hear what it would sound like using this telegraph simulation.