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The Train and the Telegraph
A challenge to the long-held notion of close ties between the railroad and telegraph industries of the nineteenth century. To many people in the nineteenth century, the railroad and the telegraph were powerful, transformative forces, ones that seemed to work closely together to shape the economy, society, and politics of the United States. However, the perception—both popular and scholarly—of the intrinsic connections between these two institutions has largely obscured a far more complex and contested relationship, one that created profound divisions between entrepreneurial telegraph promoters and warier railroad managers. In The Train and the Telegraph, Benjamin Sidney Michael Schwantes...
Western Union and the Creation of the American Corporate Order, 1845-1893
This work chronicles the rise of Western Union Telegraph from its origins in the helter-skelter ferment of antebellum capitalism to its apogee as the first corporation to monopolize an industry on a national scale. The battles that raged over Western Union's monopoly on nineteenth-century American telecommunications - in Congress, in courts, and in the press - illuminate the fierce tensions over the rising power of corporations after the Civil War and the reshaping of American political economy. The telegraph debate reveals that what we understand as the normative relationship between private capital and public interest is the product of a historical process that was neither inevitable nor uncontested. Western Union's monopoly was not the result of market logic or a managerial revolution, but the conscious creation of entrepreneurs protecting their investments. In the process, these entrepreneurs elevated economic liberalism above traditional republican principles of public interest and helped create a new corporate order.
The American Transportation Revolution
"This book highlights the rich social and cultural history of the transportation revolution"--
The Station Agent and the American Railroad Experience
Before the widespread popularity of automobiles, buses, and trucks, freight and passenger trains bound the nation together. The Station Agent and the American Railroad Experience explores the role of local frontline workers that kept the country's vast rail network running. Virtually every community with a railroad connection had a depot and an agent. These men and occasionally women became the official representatives of their companies and were highly respected. They met the public when they sold tickets, planned travel itineraries, and reported freight and express shipments. Additionally, their first-hand knowledge of Morse code made them the most informed in town. But as times changed, so did the role of, and the need for, the station agent. Beautifully illustrated with dozens of vintage photographs, The Station Agent and the American Railroad Experience, brings back to life the day-to-day experience of the station agent and captures the evolution of railroad operations as technology advanced.
Network Nation
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 ...
How the Telegraph Changed the World
Invented in the 1830's, the telegraph soon became indispensable. By 1851 there were more than 50 companies providing telegraphic service in the United States alone. The telegraph played a pivotal role in warfare beginning with the American Civil War, featured prominently in the creation of the first large American corporation, Western Union, and made possible long distance communication with the laying of the transatlantic cable. This book describes the global impact of the telegraph from its advent to its eventual eclipse by the telephone four decades later.
American Visions: The United States, 1800-1860
“An inspiring book.… American Visions beautifully shows how remarkably resilient dreams of a better republic remained even in the darkest of times.” —Christoph Irmscher, Wall Street Journal A revealing history of the formative period when voices of dissent and innovation defied power and created visions of America still resonant today. With so many of our histories falling into dour critique or blatant celebration, here is a welcome departure: a book that offers hope as well as honesty about the American past. The early decades of the nineteenth century saw the expansion of slavery, Native dispossession, and wars with Canada and Mexico. Mass immigration and powerful religious movemen...
Crossroads of a Continent
Crossroads of a Continent: Missouri Railroads, 1851-1921 tells the story of the state's railroads and their vital role in American history. Missouri and St. Louis, its largest city, are strategically located within the American Heartland. On July 4, 1851, when the Pacific Railroad of Missouri began construction in St. Louis, the city took its first step to becoming a major hub for railroads. By the 1920s, the state was crisscrossed with railways reaching toward all points of the compass. Authors Peter A. Hansen, Don L. Hofsommer, and Carlos Arnaldo Schwantes explore the history of Missouri railroads through personal, absorbing tales of the cutthroat competition between cities and between railroads that meant the difference between prosperity and obscurity, the ambitions and dreams of visionaries Fred Harvey and Arthur Stilwell, and the country's excitement over the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904. Beautifully illustrated with over 100 color images of historical railway ephemera, Crossroads of a Continent is an engaging history of key American railroads and of Missouri's critical contribution to the American story.
Havoc and Reform
How disasters—that have wrecked work sites throughout American history, in all parts of the nation and all sectors of the economy—have also inspired policy reform. Workplace disasters have wreaked havoc on countless American workers and their families. They have resulted in widespread death and disability as well as the loss of property and savings. These tragic events have also inspired safety reforms that reshaped labor conditions in ways that partially compensated for death, suffering, and social dislocation. In Havoc and Reform, James P. Kraft encourages readers to think about such disastrous events in new ways. Placing the problem of workplace safety in historical context, Kraft foc...
Digital Roots
As media environments and communication practices evolve over time, so do theoretical concepts. This book analyzes some of the most well-known and fiercely discussed concepts of the digital age from a historical perspective, showing how many of them have pre-digital roots and how they have changed and still are constantly changing in the digital era. Written by leading authors in media and communication studies, the chapters historicize 16 concepts that have become central in the digital media literature, focusing on three main areas. The first part, Technologies and Connections, historicises concepts like network, media convergence, multimedia, interactivity and artificial intelligence. The...
