BOOK REVIEW: The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage

BOOK REVIEW: The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage

.

Kristin Holt | BOOK REVIEW: The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage. 5 out of 5 stars.

 

Kristin Holt | BOOK REVIEW: The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage. Photograph of Tom Standage, author of THE VICTORIAN INTERNET, image courtesy of Amazon

Tom Standage, author of The Victorian Internet, image courtesy of Amazon

.

.

As an amateur historian, fascinated by all things Victorian and in anxious search of accurate information about the telegraph in the United States, I found Standage’s book to be informative. Concise, too, and humorous, entertaining, and an easy read. Exactly what I was looking for. Now I understand how the antiquated–and yet highly innovative–Victorian technology functioned.

Standage addressed everything. From the various men working to create the means of sending rapid messages over a great distance, to the consequences on warfare. He addressed the employees of both genders, romances that flourished as a result of time spent together ‘online’, and the challenges eventually conquered in laying the Transatlantic Cable. A legal marriage was contracted over the wires, and more than one elopement to Gretna Green was foiled.

.

Kristin Holt | BOOK REVIEW: The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage. Stylized image of telegraph key.

.

Telegraph technology was simultaneously developed on both sides of the Atlantic. Standage gave fair and thorough explanations and history to both sides, sharing what felt like an unbiased report of the history.

.

. . . _ _ _ . . . _ _ _ . . . _ _ _ . . . _ _ _ . . .

.

Kristin Holt | BOOK REVIEW: The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage. Quote from The Victorian Interent by Tom Standage, page 58. "Expansion was fastest in the United States, where the only working line at the beginning of 1846 was Morse's experimental line, which ran 40 miles between Washington and Baltimore. Two years later there were approximately 2,000 miles of wire, and by 1850 there were over 12,000 miles operated by twenty different companies. The telegraph industry even merited twelve pages in the 1852 U.S. Census."

.

. . . _ _ _ . . . _ _ _ . . . _ _ _ . . . _ _ _ . . .

.

The demands for the telegraph have been constantly increasing; they have been spread over every civilized country in the world, and have become, by usage, absolutely necessary for the well-being of society.

.

~ New York Times, April 3, 1872. The Victorian Internet, p 92

.

Kristin Holt | BOOK REVIEW: The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage. Stylized image: Morse Code Inker.

.

. . . _ _ _ . . . _ _ _ . . . _ _ _ . . . _ _ _ . . .

.

I learned:

.

  1. How the criminal class committed crimes over the telegraph.
  2. The codes used for business–and their inherent problems and solutions.
  3. How money was wired from one location to another.
  4. How wires were ultimately sent to the addressee.
  5. Cost of telegrams, both domestic and foreign.
  6. How experienced operators “salted” newbies, a gentle form of hazing that put the less-skilled in their place…and how a young Thomas Edison triumphed.
  7. Why so many women were employed by telegraph companies.
  8. I heard, for the first time, about the plastic-like natural substance widely used in Victorian times: gutta-percha.
  9. I was fascinated to learn steam-driven pneumatic tubes— in London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, Berlin, Paris, Vienna, Prague, Munich, Rio de Janeiro, Dublin, Rome, Naples, Milan, Marsielles, and New York– were historical fact and not merely Steampunk fiction.
  10. Humorous misunderstandings about the newfangled technology and those who couldn’t comprehend its function.

.

. . . _ _ _ . . . _ _ _ . . . _ _ _ . . . _ _ _ . . .

.

Kristin Holt | BOOK REVIEW: The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage. Stylized image: Morse Code.

.

Kristin Holt | BOOK REVIEW: The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage. Stylized image: Telegram Reception (vintage drawing).

.

. . . _ _ _ . . . _ _ _ . . . _ _ _ . . . _ _ _ . . .

.

Kristin Holt | BOOK REVIEW: The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage. Vintage illustration showing major telegraph lines across the Earth in 1891. Image: Wikipedia, Public Domain.

Major telegraph lines across the Earth in 1891. Image: Wikipedia, Public Domain

.

An electrical telegraph was independently developed and patented in the United States in 1837 by Samuel Morse. His assistant, Alfred Vail, developed the Morse code signalling alphabet with Morse. The first telegram in the United States was sent by Morse on 11 January 1838, across two miles (3 km) of wire at Speedwell Ironworks near Morristown, New Jersey, although it was only later, in 1844, that he sent the message “WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT from the Capitol in Washington to the old Mt. Clare Depot in Baltimore.

From then on, commercial telegraphy took off in America with lines linking all the major metropolitan centres on the East Coast within the next decade. The overland telegraph connected the west coast of the continent to the east coast by 24 October 1861, bringing an end to the Pony Express.

.

[Wikipedia]

.

. . . _ _ _ . . . _ _ _ . . . _ _ _ . . . _ _ _ . . .

.

Related Articles

.

Kristin Holt | Book Review: Wired Love: A Romance of Dots and Dashes by Ella Thayer

Kristin Holt | BOOK REVIEW: The Pony Express: The History and Legacy of America's Most Famous Mail Serivce, by Charles River Editors

Kristin Holt | Book Review by Author Kristin Holt: ISLAND OF VICE: THEODORE ROOSEVELT'S QUEST TO CLEAN UP SIN-LOVING NEW YORK by Richard Zacks

Kristin Holt | Book Review: Object: Matrimony, The Risky Business of Mail-Order Matchmaking on the Western Frontier by Chriss Enss

Kristin Holt | BOOK REVIEW: The Doctor Wore Petticoats; Women Physicians of the Old West by Chris Enss.

Kristin Holt | BOOK REVIEW: Hearts West: True Stories of Mail-Order Brides on the Frontier by Chris Enss.

Kristin Holt | BOOK REVIEW: Legends of the Wild West: Tombstone, Arizona by Charles River Editors

Kristin Holt | BOOK REVIEW: The Transcontinental Railroad; The History and Legacy of the First Rail Line Spanning the United States.panning the United States

Kristin Holt | BOOK REVIEW: History of the Telephone

Kristin Holt | BOOK REVIEW: Life in a Victorian Household by Pamela Horna Horn

Kristin Holt | Book Review: THINGS MOTHER USED TO MAKE: A COLLECTION OF OLD TIME RECIPES- Some nearly One Hundred Years Old And Never Published Before

Kristin Holt | Book Review: THE HISTORY OF THE JAMES-YOUNGER GANG by Sean McLachlan and Charles River Editors

Kristin Holt | BOOK REVIEW: Starred Ratings of three different Old West Tales and Legends Audiobooks

Kristin Holt | BOOK REVIEW: The Butchering Art

.

. . . _ _ _ . . . _ _ _ . . . _ _ _ . . . _ _ _ . . .

.

.

.

Updated May 2022
Copyright © 2016 Kristin Holt, LC
BOOK REVIEW: The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage