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Network Nation: Inventing American Telecommunications
The telegraph and the telephone were the first electrical communications networks to become hallmarks of modernity. Yet they were not initially expected to achieve universal accessibility. In this pioneering history of their evolution, Richard R. John demonstrates how access to these networks was determined not only by technological imperatives and economic incentives but also by political decision making at the federal, state, and municipal levels.
In the decades between the Civil War and the First World War, Western Union and the Bell System emerged as the dominant providers for the telegraph and telephone. Both operated networks that were products not only of technology and economics but also of a distinctive political economy. Western Union arose in an antimonopolistic political economy that glorified equal rights and vilified special privilege. The Bell System flourished in a progressive political economy that idealized public utility and disparaged unnecessary waste.
The popularization of the telegraph and the telephone was opposed by business lobbies that were intent on perpetuating specialty services. In fact, it wasn’t until 1900 that the civic ideal of mass access trumped the elitist ideal of exclusivity in shaping the commercialization of the telephone. The telegraph did not become widely accessible until 1910, sixty-five years after the first fee-for-service telegraph line opened in 1845.
Network Nation places the history of telecommunications within the broader context of American politics, business, and discourse. This engrossing and provocative book persuades us of the critical role of political economy in the development of new technologies and their implementation.
In the decades between the Civil War and the First World War, Western Union and the Bell System emerged as the dominant providers for the telegraph and telephone. Both operated networks that were products not only of technology and economics but also of a distinctive political economy. Western Union arose in an antimonopolistic political economy that glorified equal rights and vilified special privilege. The Bell System flourished in a progressive political economy that idealized public utility and disparaged unnecessary waste.
The popularization of the telegraph and the telephone was opposed by business lobbies that were intent on perpetuating specialty services. In fact, it wasn’t until 1900 that the civic ideal of mass access trumped the elitist ideal of exclusivity in shaping the commercialization of the telephone. The telegraph did not become widely accessible until 1910, sixty-five years after the first fee-for-service telegraph line opened in 1845.
Network Nation places the history of telecommunications within the broader context of American politics, business, and discourse. This engrossing and provocative book persuades us of the critical role of political economy in the development of new technologies and their implementation.
528 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2010
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930 books5 followersLibrarian Note: There are more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 24, 2013
This book begins with an impressive recounting of the creation of the telegraph and its growth as a technology and an institution, but becomes bogged down in minutiae when it moves on to the telephone.
John's explanation of the famous 1844 test of the telegraph should permanently reshape our view of this crucial event. What earlier seemed like an act of genius combined with a far-sighted subsidy from Congress suddenly looks like skulduggery in a new form. Turns out that Samuel Morse was awarded an unwarranted preliminary patent for the telegraph in 1837 by the new patent commissioner, who happened to be Morse's old friend from Yale, Henry Ellsworth. Long before Morse the painter had any idea about the new technology, he and Ellsworth thus tried to exclude rivals. When the final patent was issued in 1840, Ellsworth gave Morse's patent an exceptionally broad ambit, over any means of electric communication, which was surely not warranted my Morse's additions to some telegraph inventions already existing in England by people like Wheatstone and Cooke. Ellsworth continued to use his office to sing Morse's praises in annual reports, all the while apparently hoping that Morse would marry his daughter, who Morse had become infatuated with. Morse also hired Congressman FOJ Smith secretly, who then issued a laudatory report to Congress which helped Morse get congerssional funding and helped make Smith and Morse rich. And that's only part of the complications.
John's previous book was on the Post Office, and this is kind of a sequel. In the first part he makes his case that the telegraph was largely modeled on the post, and engineered by former postal workers like Postmaster General Amos Kendall, who hoped to use it like he used the post office to squelch speculation in the stock market by making information available to all at the same time. For the telephone John though seems to just record every writing that referenced both it and the post office in the same sentence and reprint it.
This is really more of a political history than an economic or technological one, but it does show how federal government acts like the Telegraph Act of 1866 (which opened up national post roads to telegraph rights-of-way, in an attempt to allow companies to compete with Western Union) and others shaped the industry in a way many business historians might have missed. Part of it is indispensable for understanding political economy in the US, the other is forgettable.
John's explanation of the famous 1844 test of the telegraph should permanently reshape our view of this crucial event. What earlier seemed like an act of genius combined with a far-sighted subsidy from Congress suddenly looks like skulduggery in a new form. Turns out that Samuel Morse was awarded an unwarranted preliminary patent for the telegraph in 1837 by the new patent commissioner, who happened to be Morse's old friend from Yale, Henry Ellsworth. Long before Morse the painter had any idea about the new technology, he and Ellsworth thus tried to exclude rivals. When the final patent was issued in 1840, Ellsworth gave Morse's patent an exceptionally broad ambit, over any means of electric communication, which was surely not warranted my Morse's additions to some telegraph inventions already existing in England by people like Wheatstone and Cooke. Ellsworth continued to use his office to sing Morse's praises in annual reports, all the while apparently hoping that Morse would marry his daughter, who Morse had become infatuated with. Morse also hired Congressman FOJ Smith secretly, who then issued a laudatory report to Congress which helped Morse get congerssional funding and helped make Smith and Morse rich. And that's only part of the complications.
John's previous book was on the Post Office, and this is kind of a sequel. In the first part he makes his case that the telegraph was largely modeled on the post, and engineered by former postal workers like Postmaster General Amos Kendall, who hoped to use it like he used the post office to squelch speculation in the stock market by making information available to all at the same time. For the telephone John though seems to just record every writing that referenced both it and the post office in the same sentence and reprint it.
This is really more of a political history than an economic or technological one, but it does show how federal government acts like the Telegraph Act of 1866 (which opened up national post roads to telegraph rights-of-way, in an attempt to allow companies to compete with Western Union) and others shaped the industry in a way many business historians might have missed. Part of it is indispensable for understanding political economy in the US, the other is forgettable.
May 14, 2012
Wooof. Very glad I read this book but glad I don't have to read it again. Very dense but quite informative.
January 8, 2018
I saw a previous review that I found appropriate: I am glad I read it but would not do it again!
There is very little on the technical side of these systems and even the general history of the telegraph & telephone system is a little sparse. Instead there are vast discussions on whether these systems should be held privately or publicly.
There was enough interesting history to keep me interested but I wish the emphasis was on the history & technology and not the politics.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews