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What is a Telegraph? What impact did it have?

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What is a Telegraph? What impact did it have?

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Before the actual invention of the Telegraph itself, Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail created the coding language Morse code. This version was still unrefined but as time goes by it gets further improved for easy use. The code basically assigned letters in the alphabet and numbers to a set of dots and dashes. The most common letters got a quicker and simpler code, while the more uncommon letters got a longer and more complicated code. When the telegraph was created, the code that was transmitted over the telegraph was embossed on a sheet of winded paper, and an operator usually translates the marking to English.

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Image link: https://web.northeastern.edu/stemout/morse-code

Information Source: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Morse-Codehttps://www.britannica.com/topic/Morse-Code

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The smaller Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph instrument, now believed to date from about 1849 

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1837: Cooke & Wheatstone's Patent for the Telegraph

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1837: Cooke & Wheatstone's Patent for the Telegraph

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A patent was submitted in the year 1837 by Sir William Fothergill Cooke and Sir Charles Wheatstone from Britain. We’ll be focussing more on Morse’s telegraph in this padlet, but I'll briefly mention how Cooke and Wheatstone’s telegraph worked because it was also used pretty widely. So basically, it was a telegraph that had six wires and actuated five-needle pointers which were attached to five galvanoscopes at a receiver. If the currents were sent through the proper wires, the needles would point to a specific letter or number on a mounting plate. This version of the telegraph was pretty easy to understand and could be easily used for the first time by any user because of the pointing mechanism.

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Image source: https://blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk/revealing-the-real-cooke-and-wheatstone-telegraph-dial/

Information Source: https://www.britannica.com/technology/telegraph

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1844: Morse's Patent approved for the Telegraph

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1844: Morse's Patent approved for the Telegraph

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Morse’s patent was submitted in 1844. The telegraph works in a way that transfers electric signals over wires to a predetermined location. The electric supply needed to send a message over the telegraph involved the use of a battery. The telegraph itself is not only the transmitter, but the device in its entirety also involves the receiver. The transmitter has a knob that acts as a switch that can be used to send a message. So basically, how it works is that when the switch is pushed down, it makes contact with the base of the transmitter and creates a close circuit. This causes the electric current to flow to the receiver. Basically, the short bursts of electricity create the message. When the knob is let go, the circuit breaks.

On the side of the receiver, there is an electromagnet that receives that burst of electricity and moves the stylus to emboss dots and dashes on an unwinding strip of paper. Then a person with knowledge of Morse code could decipher the message and write the message down on paper.

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Image Source: https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/samuel-morses-telegraph

Information Sources:
https://www.britannica.com/technology/telegraph

https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/samuel-morses-telegraph

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The first message sent by telegraph was, “What hath God wrought?”

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1844: First Message Sent by the Telegraph in the U.S.

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1844: First Message Sent by the Telegraph in the U.S.

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In the year 1843 Morse helped build a telegraph system from Washington, D.C. to Baltimore with the financial support of Congress. On May 24, 1844, the first message had been sent. The message was, “What hath God wrought?”.
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Image Source: https://www.loc.gov/item/mmorse000107

Information Source: https://www.elon.edu/u/imagining/time-capsule/150-years/back-1830-1860/

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The Great Telegraphing Room, Moorgate Street

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The Telegraph wasn't just a device. It became an industry. There were telegraph press services that made newspapers obsolete with information transmitted around the country. By 1851 there were more than 50 telegraph companies. If you wanted to send a telegram, companies like the Electric Telegraph Company and Western Union charged by the word, if your message had 10 words the it costs 10 cents to send that message using the telegraph which is about $2.00 in today's value.
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Image source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/connecting-britain/first-electric-telegraph/

Information Source:
https://www.elon.edu/u/imagining/time-capsule/150-years/back-1830-1860/

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1854 - 1857: Crimean war & Indian Mutiny

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1854 - 1857: Crimean war & Indian Mutiny

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The first-ever application of the telegraph in the field of war was actually by the British during the Crimean War in 1854. During that time, the overall capabilities of the telegraph were not actually utilized and not very well understood to be used effectively. There was also the problem that it was not widely used. There was also another instance where the telegraph was used, and that was during the Indian Mutiny. The telegraph was actually controlled by the British at that time, which was a deciding factor for many battles. The power of the telegraph was realized because it helped move out commands quicker and convey decisions quicker. So overall, if the telegraph were on a particular side, that respective side would have a considerable advantage.

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Image source: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsnr.2016.0007

Information Source: https://collection.nam.ac.uk/detail.php?acc=1965-10-202-4

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Wilcox’s Landing, Va., vicinity of Charles City Court House. Field telegraph station. 1864. Civil War. Prints & Photographs Division

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So mainly right after the invention of the telegraph, the first war that utilized this technology very well was the civil war. During the war, 15,000 miles of telegraph cable were laid purely for military purposes. Mobile telegraph wagons reported and received communications from just behind the frontline. President Abraham Lincoln would regularly visit the Telegraph Office to get the latest news. For the first time in warfare, the telegraph helped field commanders direct real-time battlefield operations and let senior military officials organize strategy across farther distances. These abilities were critical factors in the victory of the North.
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Image source: https://www.history.com/news/abraham-lincoln-telegraph-civil-war

Information Source: https://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/feature/civil-war-innovations/

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The Transatlantic telegraph cable was laid down in 1866 using the ship SS Great Eastern. The cable has actually been placed many different times, but they all malfunction either because of excessive voltage or bad signal quality. But the attempt in 1866 worked well, and the line speed was so good that the saying “Two weeks to two minutes” was coined. This was to emphasize the speed of the Telegraph over ship sent messages.

The first message that was actually sent over the transatlantic cable was about the signing of a peace treaty between Austria and Prussia. The following message was from Queen Victoria, saying, “The Queen congratulates the President on the successful completion of an undertaking which she hopes may serve as an additional bond of Union between the United States and England.” With this new cable, communication between continents became quicker, which created a faster way to receive information, and connections between countries grew stronger.

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Image Source: https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-first-transatlantic-telegraph-cable-was-a-bold-beautiful-failure

Information Source: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-transatlantic-telegraph-cable-completed

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Every new telegraph cable built connected businesses to new markets and helped change the physical landscape it passed through. Lush forests turned to timber yards, and mountainsides gave way to coal mines. These changes relied on rapid and effective communication provided by the telegraph. So effectively, the telegraph had more of an indirect effect on the environment by creating faster communication for more environmentally deterring companies and businesses.
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Image source: https://americanhistory.si.edu/american-enterprise-exhibition/corporate-era/workers-and-managers

Information Source: https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/items/show/4

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1876: Invention of the Harmonic Telegraph

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1876: Invention of the Harmonic Telegraph

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The telegraph evolved in a way to find a better and easier way to communicate long distances. The current limitation of the telegraph was that people could only send one message at a time. So Alexander Graham Bell wanted to find a way to make it more efficient, so he realized that he could utilize the electric signals to send a voice through the currents.

Bell’s knowledge of sound and its nature helped him create an idea called the “harmonic telegraph,” The idea was based on the idea that several notes could be sent across a wire if each signal was a different pitch. Bell made his first-ever call on March 10, 1876 over the telephone to his assistant Watson, and the first thing ever said was, “Mr. Watson, come here. I want you.”

This modern version of the telegraph is more efficient and a bit more effective in sending more complex messages. This evolves further and further to reach what we have today, like our mobile phones and our electronic communication devices.

Later on, Bell created his own company called Bell Telephone Company, which actually exists today as AT&T.
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Image & Information Source: https://www.britannica.com/technology/telephone

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Guglielmo Marconi created the first long-distance wireless telegraph in 1896. His first broadcast was in 1901, and it was the first transatlantic radio signal ever. He eventually started a company called Marconi’s radios, and he ended up filling up the gap of isolation of ocean travel. He saved hundreds of lives, including the surviving passengers from the Titanic who utilized the wireless telegraph.
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Image source: https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/titanic-marconi-and-wireless-telegraph

Information Source: https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/guglielmo-marconi#:~:text=Italian%20inventor%20and%20engineer%20Guglielmo,the%20first%20transatlantic%20radio%20signal.

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In addition to the Transatlantic cable that connected the Americas to Europe, there was also a Transpacific telegraph cable that was laid down in 1902. A ship named Silvertown laid the first Transpacific telegraph cable from San Francisco to Honolulu, Hawaii. There was already a connection from Canada to New Zealand to Australia, and filling that small gap finally made the world more connected. Now, in reality, Any person living during this time could send a quick message to literally anyone in any corner of the world.
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Image source:
https://journals.openedition.org/netcom/4511?lang=en

Information Source:
https://history.house.gov/HistoricalHighlight/Detail/25769807425?ret=True

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At the end of the 19th century, there was a new way of communication: the wireless telegraph, also known as the radio. As we mentioned before, the wireless telegraph was made by Guglielmo Marconi, and it not only helped boats but even the military. Development was rapid and continuous, and by 1914, it was in extreme use by all the armies and navies of the world. Armies started realizing that the wireless telegraph was not only a blessing but also a curse because enemy forces could hear it on battle plans and general communication through the radio. Eventually, secrecy improved, and this form of communication has evolved and is still used today.
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Image Source: https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/wireless_telegraphy

Information Source: https://www.britannica.com/technology/military-communication/The-advent-of-electrical-signaling

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The ARPANET project in 1969 Source: TAdviser

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The telegraph has evolved numerous times, but a point where it changed forever was the creation of the internet. The internet is something we still use today, and it has a significant impact on our day-to-day lives. This access to information in a matter of seconds is beneficial and, at times, life-saving.

The first iteration of the internet was actually in the late 1960s where the first prototype was created, and it was called ARPANET, or Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. The U.S. Department of Defense funded this, and ARPANET used a method called packet switching to allow multiple different computers to communicate to each other on a singular network. Packet switching is just a method for transmitting electronic data that became a huge factor in creating the internet as we know it today. Eventually, the method of receiving and sending data was perfected and became more efficient for more extensive data files over the years.

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Image source: https://interestingengineering.com/origin-of-the-internet-who-invented-the-world-wide-web

Information Source: https://www.history.com/news/who-invented-the-internet

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2021: Modern impact of the Telegraph on Human Development

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2021: Modern impact of the Telegraph on Human Development

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Human Life right now is entirely reliant on quick information. A quick search on the internet can give us a tremendous amount of information in a matter of seconds. Moreover, the telegraph was the beginning of that. The telegraph was the predecessor to not only our phones but our laptops. Moreover, some information at the right time is very crucial. Different analyses from a research paper further show that the possession of mobile phones has "closed the information gap about reproductive and sexual health and empowered women to make independent decisions than before. "Expanding mobile-phone access and defeating digital divides within and among the most impoverished countries has tremendous implications for sustainable development.

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Image Source: https://www.artinstitutes.edu/about/blog/the-history-and-evolution-of-cell-phones

Information source:  https://www.pnas.org/content/117/24/13413

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2021: Environmental Effects of the Modern Day "Telegraph"

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2021: Environmental Effects of the Modern Day "Telegraph"

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The environmental impacts of today's version of the "telegraph," also known as mobile phones, laptops, etc., are detrimental. If you, the reader, are reading this Padlet on a phone or a computer, you hold between your hands many valuable pieces of the Earth's crust which have been extracted from mines all over the planet. About 3.5 billion people use smartphones, which is almost half of the world's population, and this number grows every day. This harms the environment a lot because building every phone unit requires extracting unique elements like gold, cobalt, and lithium. The average user switches phones every two years without recycling the device. This generates toxic waste as well as a waste of precious metals. According to OpenMind BBVA, "around 80% of each device's carbon footprint is generated at the manufacturing stage. This is due to the mining, refining, transport, and assembly of the dozens of chemical elements that make up cutting-edge tech: iron for the speakers and microphones, aluminum and magnesium for the frames and screen, copper, silver, and gold for the electronic circuits, graphite and lithium for the batteries, silicon for the processor, and lead and tin for the solderings." It can be clearly seen that the main problem is that these modern telegraphs are in abundance, unlike previous telegraphs, which were used for a long time per unit. Instead, phones today create many environmental problems because of their creation and the user's use and switch mentality.

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Image source: https://www.irishnews.com/magazine/science/2018/03/02/news/how-our-smartphones-are-hurting-the-environment-1268849/

Information Source: https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/science/environment/the-hidden-environmental-toll-of-smartphones/

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Had to edit because format was glitching*