The Growth of International Telegraphy between 1866-1900

di Daniel De Cogan, Trevor Baldwin
in Memoria e Ricerca n.s. 5 (2000), p. 25

Great Britain widely dominated international telegraphy. This essay follows the events of many different telegraph companies, reporting the various “cut-throat competitions” that took place between them. In particular this work dwells upon the events concerning the Anglo-American Telegraph Co., one of the telecommunication leaders. The most important successes in submarine telegraphy were< “made in Britain”: the first trans-Atlantic cable was laid in 1866 between Valentia Island, Ireland, and Hearts Content, Terranova, Canada. The new communication systems radically changed the world of business and finance besides transforming newspapers’ conventions and packaging. As a whole, among public services, the submarine cable business- leaving alone the railways business- was one of most important during the XIX century.