Imperial Telecommunications
Imperialism has existed in the world since the beginning of government all together, but this practice took a dramatic turn in the latter half of the nineteenth century. New inventions, modern thinking, and stronger governments all made imperialism easier. Now thousands of miles could be conquered in a matter of months; an empire could have a stronger hold on a colony than ever before. The result was that by the end of the century, at least one European nation had a claim to nearly every piece of land on the Earth.
In the early nineteenth century, it would take a message 5-8 months to travel from England to India. Steamships cut that time to six weeks each way, but furthermore ...
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first world war. They will describe the basic technology and inventors behind the telegraph; following this the implication of this technology, mainly by Britain and France, into everyday practice will be discussed along with its effects. And finally, the effects on politics and economics leading up to the First World War will be discussed.
Samuel Finley Breese Morse (Fig. 1), a North American painter and inventor, got the idea for the telegraph while traveling from Italy to America. He began work and patented the first successful telegraph in 1838, along with a system of dashes and dots of electric pulses to represent letters (Stall sec. 1). The first message on a commercial telegraph cable was sent on May 24, 1844, from Washington DC to Baltimore. Morse sent the message “What hath God wrought” himself to his partner Albert Lewis Vail at the Baltimore & Ohio railway station. Plans to expand the network to Philadelphia, New York, and Boston began immediately (2).
Meanwhile ...
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India and France to Algeria (Headrick 101).
The world telegraph network was expanding, but it was not any cheaper. Demand and competition among the telegraph companies resulted in new techniques and inventions. Inventions such as curb transmission, siphon recorder, and duplexing increased efficiency. In 1870, 9-13 words could be sent per minute, but by 1920 that figure rose to 400-500 and a message would take 3 minutes to travel from New York to London, all on the original cable (Headrick 104). In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell (Fig. 5) patented his telephone (Fig. 6) to transmit the human voice, but this invention was only used locally and was not installed for imperial purposes ...
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"Imperial Telecommunications." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 12 Mar. 2008. Web. 23 Dec. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Imperial-Telecommunications/80436>
"Imperial Telecommunications." Essayworld.com. March 12, 2008. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Imperial-Telecommunications/80436.
"Imperial Telecommunications." Essayworld.com. March 12, 2008. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Imperial-Telecommunications/80436.
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