The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-Line Pioneers
by Tom Standage
First Posted Nov 2012
This book came from the walls of Columbia University’s School of Business, right around when I realized I did not want to go to B-school. Unlike with law school, I tested the waters first by working there, feeling the culture. I do appreciate how much I learned about telecom and how many books I took out from the library on technology generally—it was really foundational of why and how I liked reaching about tech.
12 years ago, though—this book really informed the way I thought about what we basically stopped calling web 2.0. Remember when “people” were certain twitter would save the world? And this book was all, “Yeah, they thought the telegraph would do that, and then it was captured by doomsaying false prophets and conman marketers. Good luck on your thing, though.”
Oof.
"In 1844...sending a message from London to Bombay and back took ten weeks. Within 30 years...messages could be telegraphed from London to Bombay and back in as little as four minutes. 'Time itself is telegraphed out of existence,' declared the Daily Telegraph of London. The world had shrunk further and faster than it ever had before.”
Each subsequent iteration of remote transpersonal networking created a feeling that the world has yet again shifted on its axis: telephones to cell phones; AOL instant messaging to Twitter; emails to SMS. I never have to worry about losing someone in a crowd because I can always text or call them. Ditto for meeting for lunch, running late for a movie, soliciting an opinion on a purchase, or general, pointless chitchat. Time and distance are completely irrelevant for most social interactions. Distance is dead, in an unprecedented manner, but it had been dying slowly over the last century and a half.
To jump from The Pony Express to the telegraph? I can only imagine that it would be the current equivalent of someone commercially releasing teleportation: an absolute sea change in the field of communication. Condensing months into minutes to engage someone at nearly any geographical location on the planet highlights the piddling distinction—in socio-technologic terms—of moving from landlines to cell towers. Phonecalls are phonecalls; instant communication in the 19th century was, well, magic. “....[R]eligious leaders in Baltimore expressed their doubts about the new technology, which was too much like black magic for their liking...”
Unlike magic, which isn't real, the telegraph absolutely worked. It exploded in popularity and grew exponentially, a study in market penetration of which modern day broadband carriers likely still envy.
“[In] the United States...the only working line at the beginning of 1846 was Morse’s experimental line, which ran 40 miles between Washington and Baltimore. Two years later there were approximately 2,000 miles of wire, and by 1850 there were over 12,000 miles...”
The telegraph carried with it the same sense of wonder and optimism that has clung to Twitter in recent years:
"In 1858, Edward Thornton, the British Ambassador [to the U.S.] proposed a toast, 'What can be more likely to effect [peace] than a constant and complete intercourse between all nations and individuals in the world?'"
“The rapid distribution of news was thought to promote universal peace, truthfulness, and mutual understanding.”
History seems to show that that is not exactly the case. Those leaning on Twitter and hoping for rapid communication platforms to be the universal foundation and best hope for international peace might be surprised to hear they are not the first generation to think along those lines: telegraphs did it first. Whether near-instantaneous communications' current ubiquitous pervasiveness positively impacts the "technology-as-panacea" mindshare has yet to be seen. [note from 2024- it did not.]
Doomsayers often flourish during the proliferation and social acclimation to unbelievable changes in technology and advances in science. The vagaries of time and translation have often created space in which to attribute prophetic undertones to poetic non-specifics, and the telegraph was never spared that cultural rite of passage:
“Suitably telegraphic biblical references were unearthed by preachers, notably 'Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world'(Psalms 19) and 'Canst thou send lightnings that they may go, and say unto Thee, here we are?' (Job 38)"
The Victorian Internet was a smooth, quick read that really pushes a contemporary person to acknowledge that there have been times when the world changed more completely, and more quickly, than it does now. It has a breeziness cribbed from casual lectures bolstered by an easy style and plethora of specific, charming details. Anyone interested in the underpinnings of telecommunications, the 19th century, or technology in flux would be remiss not to pick it up.
Modern society—modern communications—still owe their foundation to the Victorian internet, a wholly unprecedented creation; that fact is surprisingly underrepresented in modern conversations. It was and remains a technological achievement that impacts nearly the entire global community to this day.
“The protocols used by modems are decided on by the ITU, the organization founded in 1865 to regulate international telegraphy. The initials now stand for International Telecommunication Union, rather than International Telegraph Union.”
Everything new is still built on what was cobbled together 150 years ago. Let’s see if this time, it goes a little better.