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07011_Field_TCUM T576.txt
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1996-04-10
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16 lines
superimposed in the American mind.
It was in 1844 that Samuel Morse opened a telegraph line
from Washington to Baltimore with $30,000 obtained from
Congress. Private enterprise, as usual, waited for bureaucracy
to clarify the image and goals of the new operation. Once it
proved profitable, the fury of private promotion and initiative
became impressive, leading to some savage episodes. No new
technology, not even the railroad, manifested a more rapid
growth than the telegraph. By 1858 the first cable had been
laid across the Atlantic, and by 1861 telegraph wires had
reached across America. That each new method of
transporting commodity or information should have to come
into existence in a bitter competitive battle against previously
existing devices is not surprising. Each innovation is not only
commercially disrupting, but socially and psychologically