Blog Post #5

 Long distance communication has, and always will, continue to be developed, reimagined, and reinvented over, and over again, as technology advances. Civilizations have spent centuries working to improve how we communicate between settlements, cities, and individuals. Predating electricity, there were many different ways to send messages. Signal fires, smoke, and drum beats were fairly early forms of this long distance communication, but it relied so heavily on the right conditions. These climate conditions made this form of communication very difficult to manage, as the weather had to be practically perfect for the messages to be delivered, as well as it could only be done during day light hours most of the time. Then horse back and train could be used to deliver information, but over long distances, time limited information could only last so long before it lost it's value. And of course, there were many different reasons why information needed to be delivered as soon as possible, and horse and train, despite their speed, were just never enough to cut it. But with the invention of controlled electricity and electromagnetics, the road to instant long distance communications was just over the horizon.

In the 1830s, the Telegraph was developed by 2 sets of inventors. William Cooke, and Charles Wheatstone in England, and Samuel Morse, Leonard Gale, and Alfred Vail in the United States. Cooke and Wheatestone's use of the telegraph would go into British railways for easy operation controls, making it much easier to schedule departures and know when and where trains were on the line. Morse, in America, would become interested in creating his own version of the telegraph, this time, using a single-circuit telegraph connected to a operator key. Of course, with how this operated, Morse had to create an alphabet for the Telegraph to be written in, which of course, became what we easily know as Morse Code. Morse would soon receive funding from Congress to link his new telegraph between multiple major cities. And soon, it was a bustling business for Morse. But it needed to be organized, which is when the Western Union Telegraph Company was founded, to keep the system organized and controlled over the nation.

The telegraph would go on to be used in businesses, banks, and government work, making communication by letter a thing of the past when it came to these developments. But what the telegraph changed, was the tides of war, especially in the civil war, and after. What was once a dangerous ride through battlefields and trenches, taking hours or days for the letter to arrive, became instantaneous. The telegraph allowed the Union to send their communications between troops and leaders practically instantaneous, giving them the tactical advantage over the South, and leading them to win the war. But once the war ended, it's true potential shined again in industrialism, paving the way for later technologies to advance long distance communications, and expand the US further than before. The telegraph truly revolutionized long distance communications across the globe, not only changing how governments, armies, and businesses communicate, but also, paving the road for the future generations of communications.