Technology and Culture

In 1876, to commemorate the first centenary of the United States, Nathaniel Currier and James Merritt Ives published a lithograph, “The Progress of the Century.” At the center of the lithograph, a telegrapher with his machine; behind him, three uses of steam engines—to drive a printing press, a steamboat, and a train. The lithograph expressed several American beliefs: that technology powered progress, that telegraphs and steam engines were the most transformative technologies of the age, and that one of the most important uses of steam engines was railroads.

Because Americans by 1876 were used to seeing telegraphs along railroad tracks, it is easy to assume that railroads and telegraphs immediately bonded. They had a lot to offer each other. Railroads could use telegraphs for business correspondence as well as train management. Telegraphs could build lines in railroad rights of way and have trains deliver construction and repair materials along the line. And because railroads and telegraphs transformed the way Americans did almost everything, from commerce to courtship, it is easy to think of them as a package. Together, Americans said in the nineteenth century, railroads and telegraphs annihilated time and space.

Benjamin Schwantes argues that telegraphs and railroads eventually became partners, but it was a long time coming. In the 1830s and 1840s, American railroads had learned to manage trains safely on single tracks through rigid schedules. When telegraphs began spreading in the mid-1840s, railroad managers saw little use for them. They worried about the [End Page 992] danger and unreliability of poorly built telegraphs as poles along tracks rotted, fell, and wrecked trains. Railroad leaders saw no reason to trust that agents employed by telegraph companies would prioritize railroad telegrams over other business, and timeliness was everything when it came to managing trains on single tracks.

Telegraphers liked the idea of building lines in railroad rights of way, and a few built lines along tracks before the Confederate Rebellion. They found, however, that railroads prioritized their own businesses, and sometimes damaged telegraphs. As long as the two technologies were owned by different firms, their interests pulled in different directions.

War is a common matchmaker for organizations and technologies, and the Confederate Rebellion was no different. Having organized military railroads and telegraphs, civilian managers in both sectors discovered there was more room for cooperation than they had foreseen.

After the rebellion, they transferred their new appreciation to private enterprises. Railroads increased their reliance on telegraphs, but the new managers often found this a frustrating experience. They hated transferring power—the ability to tell employees what to do—to telegraphers, especially those who worked for another company.

Railroads reduced this problem after the 1870s by hiring their own telegraphers. Now managers and telegraphers worked for the same company, but the railroads shot themselves in the foot by treating telegraphers badly. Long hours and low pay were the rule. Telegraphers got their first jobs with the railroads, but, as soon as they had enough experience, they went to work for telegraph companies that offered better working conditions. Small wonder that railroads found their inexperienced telegraphers, who might stay with a railroad for only a few months, unreliable. Eventually railroad managers found a new tool to replace telegraphs and telegraphers—telephones. Now managers could talk to distant employees without relying on telegraphers as intermediaries. Railroad telegraphy declined.

Schwantes does a fine job of explaining the complex, changing interaction between telegraphs and railroads. He builds his narrative on a deep foundation of research. The author is alive to the many interests at play in commerce, from enterprise-level (will the company benefit or suffer from adopting new technology?) to bureaucratic (will managers resent having to share power with telegraphers?). He charts the changes in the often-fraught relationship between railroads and telegraphs over time, until finally the railroads found a new partner, telephones. [End Page 993]