Chapter 7 of a university course in media history by Prof. Bill Kovarik, based on the book Revolutions in Communication: Media History from Gutenberg to the Digital Age (Bloomsbury, 2nd ed., 2015).

1. Media History from
Gutenberg
to the Digital Age
Slides based on the Bloomsbury book by Bill Kovarik
Revolutions in
Communication
Chapter 7 – Telegraph and telephone

2. Web site & textbook
Textbook:
1st edition – 2011 2nd edition – 2016
http://www.revolutionsincommunication.com

3. The electronic revolution
 Rapid communication was divine: Nike,
Hermes and Mercury carried messages for
the gods
 For mortals, communication speed =
running horse or fast ship.
 Example: Battle of New Orleans fought Jan.
8, 1815, but peace treaty signed in Paris
days before Christmas 1814. Seven weeks.
 Yet by 1866, same message = one hour.

4. Cycles of tech development
Cycle
opens
Cycle
closes
Alternatives
&
inventions
Field opens to
experimentation,
competition, innovation
Patents & regulations
are used to protect profits
Inventors try to
circumvent old
technologies
Monopolies stagnate

5. Telegraph & telephone
as network carriers
 Not just individual message carriers
 Telegraph linked newspapers and
magazines worldwide through “wire”
services
 Telephone linked radio stations
nationwide though radio network
services (NBC & CBS in 1920s)

6. Telegraph & telephone
 Both person-to-person
 Both also served as infrastructure
◦ Telegraph allowed “wire services”
 Associated Press in US, Havas in France,
Reuters in UK, Wolff’s in Germany, EFE in
Spain
◦ Telephone allowed radio networks
 NBC, CBS in US, BBC in UK and other
national networks in Europe
 “Convergence” is a constant condition
in mass media history.

7. Optical / mechanical
“telegraph”
 Claude Chappe
developed semaphore
system for French
revolutionary army 1792
 “Telegraph” also used to
describe naval signals,
British optical system

8. Electric signaling
 Electric phenomena
fascinated scientists
1700s – 1800s
 Steven Gray first sent
electric current 700 feet
through a line in London
in 1727.
 Benjamin Franklin
famous for experiments
with electricity 1750s.

9. First telegraph in UK 1837
 William Cooke and
Charles Wheatstone
patented electric
telegraph in 1837
 A five wire system,
difficult to build and
hard to use.
 Morse worked with a
single grounded wire

10. Samuel Morse
 Motivation: Wife died before message
could reach him – Led to search for
better message system
 Morse identified software as the key
problem, not hardware
◦ Tried number system for words
◦ Tried signals on paper t ape
◦ Eventually tried dot – dash signal set
based on letter frequency

11. Morse code based
on print technology
Most frequently used letters were
given the simplest corresponding code
 Typical type font, printers stocked 12,000 Es and 9,000 Ts.
◦ E = . T = -
 Printers also stocked 400 Qs and 200 Zs because they were rarely
used:
◦ Q = --.- Z = --..
◦
 Morse code was an elegant software solution to the
hardware problem that others like Cooke and
Wheatstone had not really solved.
 Morse code adopted internationally by 1865

12. _ _ _ _ _ ._. … .
“It is obvious, at the slightest
glance, that this mode of
instantaneous communication must
inevitably become an instrument of
immense power, to be wielded for
good or for evil . . .”
—Samuel Morse, 1838.
Morse wanted telegraph to be
“nationalized” - owned by
government.
European nations did just that, but
the US allowed telegraph to
become a monopoly called
Western Union

13. Not everyone was
impressed…
The telegraph is little more than
an “improved means to an
unimproved end.”
“We are in great haste to
construct a magnetic telegraph
from Maine to Texas; but Maine
and Texas, it may be, have
nothing important to
communicate.”
Henry David Thoreau, 1854, Walden

14. News before & after
Before the telegraph:
If the exhibition of the most brilliant valor, of the
excess of courage, and of a daring which would
have reflected luster on the best days of chivalry
can afford full consolation for the disaster of
today, we can have no reason to regret the
melancholy loss which we sustained in a contest
with a savage and barbarian enemy. (William
Howard Russell, The Times, London, November
13, 1854)
News sent by telegraph:
Our troops, after taking three batteries and
gaining a great victory at Bull Run, were
eventually repulsed, and commenced a retreat
on Washington. (Henry Villard, New York Herald,
July 22, 1861)

15. Associated Press formed
• 1846 express news from
Mexican war
• 1848 Harbor News Assn
Became a monopoly with
Western Union telegraph
company in 1860s
• Blocked competition and
managed news

16. Telegraph lines link US, UK
 First lines laid
down in 1858
 Permanent lines
in place by 1866
 Special AP –
Reuters deal
1890s

17. European wire services
Unlike US, telegraph was nationalized
This meant there was net neutrality
 Paul Reuter (Havas employee) – UK
◦ Formed Reuter’s in London 1851
◦ Second largest international wire service today (after AP)
 Charles Louis Havas – France, 1835
◦ Original wire service / Reuter and Wolff worked there
◦ Became Agence France Press 1945 after WWII
 Spanish wire service EFE formed 1939
◦ Fourth largest wire service today
 Bernard Wolff (also Havas employee)
◦ Formed Wolffs in Berlin 1849; Nazis destroyed it 1930
◦ Replaced by Deutsche Presse Agentur (DPA) in 1945

18. AP criticized, investigated
• Congress -- 96 bills, 48 committee reports
on AP and Western Union, 1866 – 1910
• AP monopoly meant that news of regional
controversy would come from biased
sources.
• Cartoon (above) from The Masses pictures
AP poisoning the well of news about the
West Virginia mine wars around 1912.

19. Opposition to monopoly
• 1890s – 1915, states &
US gov’t pass “anti-trust”
laws
• AP-Western Union was
one of dozens of trusts
they tried to break up
• United Press (Scripps),
International News
(Hearst) formed to
compete with AP 1907
• AP finally loses anti-trust

20. Invention of telephone
• Main idea was to
circumvent Western
Union monopoly
• Gardiner Hubbard was
the “national nemesis” of
Western Union monopoly
• He financed Alexander
Graham Bell telephone
experiments in 1870s
• Bell telephone patent
filed 1876
• Hubbard became Bell’s
father-in-law in 1877

21. Famous last words
 “The idea is idiotic on the face of it… Why
would any person want to use this ungainly
and impractical device when he can send a
messenger to the telegraph office and have
a clear written message sent to any large
city in the United State States?”
◦ Western Union to Alexander Graham Bell, 1876

22. Telephone also a monopoly
 From 1890s – 1980s, AT&T had forced
most competitors out of business.
 Public relations campaign helped stave
off a breakup until 1980s
 Kingsbury Commitment with US Justice
Dept. allowed AT&T to continue as a
regulated monopoly.
 The deal also forced Western Union to
carry competing wire services such as
United Press and International Press at
the same rate, allowing them to compete
with the Associated Press.

23. The Brilliant AP
 “There are only two forces
that can carry light to all
corners of the globe –
the sun in the heavens and the
Associated Press down here. I may
seem to be flattering the sun, but I do
not mean to do so…” Mark Twain,
1906

24. Wire services of the world
 Havas 1835 - 1945 — France — Charles-Louis Havas
— Agence France Press, AFP .
 Associated Press 1846 – present US — AP.
 Wolff’s 1849 - 1933 — Germany — Bernhard Wolff,
DPA.
 Reuters 1851 - present — Britain — Paul Reuter —
Reuters.
 Stefani 1853 - 1945 — Italy — Guglielmo Stafani —
Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata, ANSA.
 Fabra — 1865 — 1939 — Spain — Nilo Maria Fabra —
EFE.

25. Wire services 2
 Itar-Tass 1925 - present — Russia — From St.
Petersburg Tel. Agency (1904
 Press Trust of India 1947 - Present — India —
From AP India (1909)
 Xinhua 1937 — present — China — Red China
News Agency (1931)
 Kyodo 1947 — present — Japan — Domei News
Agency (1936)
 United Press Int’l 1958 — 2000 — US — From
United Press (1907) and Int’l Press (1909) — UPI.
 Inter-Press Service 1964 - present — International
— Roberto Savio — IPS.

26. Public relations
campaign claimed
telephone was a
“natural” monopoly
By 1912, telephone was
regulated rather than
broken up into
competing companies
Only by 1982 were US
phone services broken
up into regional carriers
with much lower rates

27. Bell in 1922, listening to radio

28. Review: people
 Nike, Hermes and Mercury, Benjamin
Franklin, Claude Chappe, Steven Gray,
William Cooke & Charles Wheatstone,
Samuel Morse, Henry David Thoreau,
Alexander Graham Bell, Gardiner Hubbard,
Charles-Louis Havas, Paul Reuter, William
Howard Russell

29. Review: Concepts
 Cycles of technology development,
optical telegraph, magnetic telegraph,
wire services, Harbor News Association,
Associated Press, Reuters, Western
Union, telegraph monopoly, telephone
monopoly, Kingsbury Commitment,
AT&T, Trans-Atlantic telegraph lines,
telephones for radio networks

30. Next: Chapter 8
Radio