Whereas diplomats had once received autonomy because the sending of instructions to respond to every eventuality was slow and cumbersome, they now, in the age of the telegraph, were prized in part for their inefficiency.
They provided an extra layer of expertise and slowed the policymaking process, thereby reducing the chances of a catastrophic error. The formation and implementation of foreign policy can be a high-risk endeavor.
In an environment in which miscalculation can lead to a disastrous war or diplomatic defeat, foreign ministries tend to be skeptical of radical changes and untried methods. Yet, foreign ministries did cautiously adapt to the telegraph. The U. Department of State established a telegraph office in , a few months after the permanent establishment of transatlantic telegraphy. Diplomats learned to write more concisely in order to reduce telegraph expenses, which typically increased with the length of messages.
Foreign ministries made more frequent use of codes in an often fruitless effort to keep the contents of their telegrams secret from spies. Another improvement, by the famed inventor Thomas Alva Edison in , was the Quadruplex system, which allowed for four messages to be transmitted simultaneously using the same wire. Use of the telegraph was quickly accepted by people eager for a faster and easier way of sending and receiving information. However, widespread and successful use of the device required a unified system of telegraph stations among which information could be transmitted.
The Western Union Telegraphy Company, founded in part by Cornell, was at first only one of many such companies that developed around the new medium during the s. By , however, Western Union had laid the first transcontinental telegraph line, making it the first nationwide telegraph company.
Telegraph systems spread across the world, as well. Extensive systems appeared across Europe by the later part of the 19th century, and by the first permanent telegraph cable had been successfully laid across the Atlantic Ocean; there were 40 such telegraph lines across the Atlantic by The electric telegraph transformed how wars were fought and won and how journalists and newspapers conducted business.
Rather than taking weeks to be delivered by horse-and-carriage mail carts, pieces of news could be exchanged between telegraph stations almost instantly. Even by the end of the 19th century, however, new technologies began to emerge, many of them based on the same principles first developed for the telegraph system.
In time, these new technologies would overshadow the telegraph, which would fall out of regular widespread usage. Although the telegraph has since been replaced by the even more convenient telephone, fax machine and Internet, its invention stands as a turning point in world history.
But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. Morse had an earlier career as an accomplished painter. The son of a Calvinist preacher, Massachusetts-born Samuel F. Morse studied philosophy and mathematics at Yale University before turning his attention to the arts, eventually travelling to England in to study Italian inventor and engineer Guglielmo Marconi developed, demonstrated and marketed the first successful long-distance wireless telegraph and in broadcast the first transatlantic radio signal.
Inventor Samuel Morse developed the telegraph system. In , he sought a congressional appropriation to fund its expansion by performing the first public demonstration of his machine for Congress. Despite an impressive exhibition of the new technology, Morse did not receive the funding he requested until the 27th Congresses At first the telegraph connected only Washington, D. With the westward expansion of the country and the addition of new territories to the union, improved communication became a necessity.
The telegraph revolutionized the way Congress corresponded with the nation. During the Civil War reports flashed from the battlefields assisted the federal government as it monitored and tracked troop developments. It was the first time that instant battle reports were provided to officials in Washington, D. Telegraph lines later linked the Capitol building to the White House and reporters to their respective newspapers. Prior to the telegraph, politics and business were constrained by geography.
The world was divided into isolated regions. There was limited knowledge of national or international news, and that which was shared was generally quite dated.
After the telegraph, the world changed. It seemed as if information could flow like water. By the s, predictions about the impact of the new medium began to abound. The telegraph would alter business and politics. It would make the world smaller, erase national rivalries and contribute to the establishment of world peace.
It would make newspapers obsolete. All of the same statements were made in the s by people who were wowed by the first-blush potential of the Internet.
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