The Train and the Telegraph by Benjamin Sidney Michael Schwantes

The Train and the Telegraph by Benjamin Sidney Michael Schwantes

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 argues that uncertainty, mutual suspicion, and cautious experimentation more aptly describe how railroad officials and telegraph entrepreneurs hesitantly established a business and technical relationship. The two industries, Schwantes reveals, were drawn together gradually through external factors such as war, state and federal safety regulations, and financial necessity, rather than because of any perception that the two industries were naturally related or beneficial to each other. Complicating the existing scholarship by demonstrating that the railroad and telegraph in the United States were uneasy partners at best—and more often outright antagonists—throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, The Train and the Telegraph will appeal to scholars of communication, transportation, and American business history and political economy, as well as to enthusiasts of the nineteenth-century American railroad industry.

Well-researched, and very readable overview of the relationship between trains and telegraphs in the United StatesIt overturns a narrative of a seamless complementarity between the two, highlighting the endless tensions and great variability in usage.
—Tomas Nonnenmacher, Allegheny College, EH.Net

Benjamin Sidney Michael Schwantes is the managing editor of the JANNAF Journal of Propulsion and Energetics and a lecturer at Widener University's Center for Extended Learning.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781421429748
ISBN 10	1421429748
Title	The Train and the Telegraph
Author	Benjamin Sidney Michael Schwantes
Series	Hagley Library Studies In Business Technology And Politics
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Johns Hopkins University Press
Year published	2019-10-01
Number of pages	224
Prizes	Winner of Alice Hanson Jones Biennial Prize 2020 (United States)
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.