Transcript week1choices

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Week One
Telegraph Dawn
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Beacons and
Semaphores
• Visual and sound
devices to transmit
information over
distances using . . .
• Flags
• Paddles
• Smoke
• Fire
• Loud noises
• Beacons
Aeneas’ water
telegraph
(right); 18thcentury
paddle-style,
optical
telegraph
(above)
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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
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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!
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The second Morse machine
(1844-1845)
The first Morse machine
(the “telegraph
indicator”; late 1830s)
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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John Peter Zenger case
redefines libel
• 1732: New York
newspaper
printer accused
of libel
• Jury: truth is a
defense
• Opposite of
British policy
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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.
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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
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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)
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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
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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
James Gordon Bennett,
penny press possible
publisher of the New York
Morning Herald
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The penny press galaxy
From left: Henry James; Horace
Greeley, Henry J. Raymond of
The New York Times; William
Dean Howells
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Associated Press movement,
1849-1856
• Newspapers function as
“members” of the
association
• Reporters provided news to
major dailies via telegraph
Jay Gould
• All major Associated Presses
combine after civil war • Cartel agreement: “No
• Contracts with Western new member will be
admitted to the association
Union after Civil War
unless by unanimous and
• Bought out by railroad written consent of all
existing partners but news
magnate Jay Gould
may be sold to newspapers
outside of New York City
upon a majority vote of all
existing partners.”
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“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
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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
Britain nationalizes its
telegraph industry (1870)
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• Puts the telegraph under the control
of the popular British post office
• European governments take control
of the telegraph for military purposes