![]() ![]() writing is colorful, smooth, and wonderfully engaging. " richly detailed and immensely entertaining social history. Sen.Table of contents : The mother of all networks - Strange, fierce fire - Electric skeptics - The thrill electric - Wiring the world - Steam-powered messages - Codes, hackers, and cheats - Love over the wires - War and peace in the global village - Information overload - Decline and fall - The legacy of the telegraph. ![]() Ĭongress wanted a competitive alternative to Western Union. Western Union controlled the flow of information.Western Union discriminated in favor of some customers: specifically in favor of Associated Press.Western Union rates were discriminatory, favoring some customers over others.Western Union had not extended its network, did not provide universal service.Western Union rates were not uniform across markets.Western Union engaged in anticompetitive behavior to drive rivals out of the market.Western Union will take advantage of this variance in wording to transform the Post Roads Act from legislation designed to mitigate Western Union's market power - to a statute that Western Union would champion as a vehicle for constructing telegraph lines. This purpose statement was much more in line with Manifest Destiny, as well as other statutes such as the Transcontinental Telegraph Act, the War Department during the Civil War, the Pacific Railroads Act, and the Atlantic Cable Act - industrial policies with the goal of getting communications network built. Instead, the Act stated that it was "An Act to aid in the construction of telegraph lines, and to secure to the Government the use of the same for postal, military, and other purposes." PRA Sec. Manifest Destiny Sherman's purpose for the Post Roads Act was not articulated in the language of the Act. John Conness (R-CA) articulated the consternation of the supporters of the legislation: "This great means of intercommunication, instantaneous in its character, is provided but, unfortunately, by the love of gain established as a principle in the human mind, it consolidates itself and becomes a monopoly." There was effectively no competitive telegraph alternative to Western Union, and the transcontinental contract, for the USG. Western Union was actively realizing the efficiency of acquiring its compatriots and competitors. The Transcontinental Telegraph Act, which sought to build a coast-to-coast telegraph service in order to help unite a young nation, ended up uniting the telegraph companies under Western Union. It's competition in the South, such as it was, was turned into tree tinsel. "We recognized the fact that we might have made a bad bargain." - Western Union President Joseph Egan, 1949, commenting on Western Unions 1867 acceptance of the Post Roads Act. "Federal regulation of interstate electrical communication may be said to date from passage of the Post Roads Act of 1866." ![]() "the telegraph transports nothing visible and tangible it carries only ideas, wishes, orders, and intelligence."
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