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wired nation
Beacons and Semaphores
• Visual and sound devices to transmit information over distances using . . .
• Flags• Paddles• Smoke• Fire• Loud noises• Beacons
Aeneas’ water telegraph (right); 18th-century paddle-style, optical telegraph (above)
wired nation
People know what’s possible long before it becomes
reality• Electrical television understood by the
1880s• FM comprehended in theory by early
20th century• “Hypertext” envisioned right after the
Second World War• Packet switching theorized before
accomplished• “White space” transmission
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Legacy telecommunications technologies
• Technologies that are so dominant on the telecommunications landscape that they make new technologies seem irrelevant, even if the new technology is more powerful.
• Examples: electrical telegraph in Britain, FM radio in the United States
Sir Francis Ronalds offered his electrical telegraph (1816) to the British government, and was rejected!
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The first Morse machine (the “telegraph indicator”; late 1830s)
The second Morse machine (1844-1845)
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Lasar’s First Observation of U.S. Telecommunications
• The government often directly or indirectly funds telecommunications technologies first; the private sector takes credit for them later.
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Lasar’s First Law of U.S. Telecommunications
• What the public usually experiences as a sudden change in the telecommunications landscape usually takes years, if not decades, to create
• Examples: the Internet; radio; television
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Renaissance England: We kill newspapers dead
• We license newspapers selectively, creating government approved monopolies
• We tax them heavily• Hell, let’s just ban the
damn things (Charles I, 1630s)
• We make it easy to prosecute for libel Charles “you’re not a reporter, are
you?” the First, posing for a rare photo opportunity
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Renaissance France: Newspapers? We don’t need your stinking
newspapers• The country had
130 official newspaper censors
• 17% of Bastille prisoners there for book and newspaper related offenses
• Huge expatriate newspaper system
Louis “No comment” the Fourteenth
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John Peter Zenger case redefines libel
• 1732: New York newspaper printer accused of libel
• Jury: truth is a defense
• Opposite of British policy
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The First Amendment of the United States Constitution
(1791)• Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
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Alien and Sedition Acts (1798)
• Sedition Act: a crime to “write, print, utter, or publish . . . Any false, scandalous, or malicious writing or writings “ against government, Congress, or President “with intent to defame”
• Directed against Jefferson, but his party triumphs in 1800, revealing the weakness of federal censorship in 19th-century U.S.
John “freedom for me, not for thee” Adams
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Cheap postal rates – U.S. vs. Canada
• Widespread postal service
• 1792: one cent to mail a newspaper sent up to 100 miles
• 1.5 cents further• Newspaper editors
can exchange newspapers for free!
• Seven post offices for entire population from Quebec east to New Brunswick (100,000 people)
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Copyright: reward authors, then reward the public
• First authors and publishers get a chance at exclusive profits
• Then the public gets affordable reading matter
• Copyright protection act of 1790 limited protection for 14 years
• Renewable for another fourteen years if author living
• 1834: Wheaton vs. Peters, supreme court declares that its decisions are public decisions; nobody has perpetual and exclusive right to them
Henry “It’s mine all mine” Wheaton
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The Penny Press (1830s)• Mass produced
newspapers appealing to artisan/working class voters
• Cheap, sensationalistic, sleazy (and fun)
• Run on advertising and street sales
• New technologies such as stereotyping make penny press possible
James Gordon Bennett, publisher of the New York Morning Herald
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The penny press galaxy
From left: Henry James; Horace Greeley, Henry J. Raymond of The New York Times; William Dean Howells
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Why United States faster on the telegraph?
• European governments had invested heavily in the optical telegraph
• European governments would put a much tighter leash on the telegraph than the U.S., often nationalizing the technology
• European landmass divided into many different nations
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The penny/telegraph press goes to war, 1848
• Newspapers share reporters during the Mexican-American war
• who use the telegraph to transmit stories
• They even share resources with Mexican newspapers
George Wilkins Kendall, early telegraph war correspondent
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Railroads save the telegraph
• 1860: Congress passes the Pacific Telegraph Act: $40,000/year for ten years and free use of “unoccupied” land to build a telegraph across the United States
• Railroads make building telegraph systems profitable.– Steady flow of construction– Steady flow of income– Railroads need telegraph; telegraph needs railroads
• Government railroad subsidies represent indirect subsidy to telegraph
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Western Union
• 1851: Hiram Sibley starts New York and Mississippi Valley Telegraph Company
• 1856: Buys up competitors, starts Western Union
• Civil War destroys Western Union’s competitors
• Sibley takes Pacific Telegraph Act money, Western Union grows
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The Telegraph Act of 1866
• Companies that accept the act can build telegraph lines along Federal postal routes
• Five years after act (1871), Congress has option of buying out telegraph companies
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The Credit Mobiler Scandal, 1867-1872
Union Pacific railroad board of directors hires and pays itself to build the Union Pacific railroad at exorbitant prices
Pays off members of Congress to keep quiet
President Ulysses S. Grant
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Associated Press movement, 1849-1856
• Newspapers function as “members” of the association
• Reporters provided news to major dailies via telegraph
• All major Associated Presses combine after civil war
• Contracts with Western Union after Civil War
• Bought out by railroad magnate Jay Gould
• Cartel agreement: “No new member will be admitted to the association unless by unanimous and written consent of all existing partners but news may be sold to newspapers outside of New York City upon a majority vote of all existing partners.”
Jay Gould
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“The mere fact of monopoly proves nothing. The only question to be considered is, whether those who control its affairs administer them properly and in the interest, first, of the owners of the property, and second, of the public.”
--President, Western Union, 1870
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Farmers/workers call for telegraph reform
• Call for government telegraph
• Or government owned telegraph alongside private telegraph
• Or more regulated telegraph
Farmers alliance calls for nationalization or for federally run telegraph