Invention Of The Telegraph Research Paper

Six inventions that helped shape the U.S. to where it is now is the phonograph, telegraph, typewriter, locomotive, printing press and film. The phonograph recorded sounds and was able to play them back. The telegraph allowed communication over long distances. The typewriter was able to put letters on paper and you could use it to form words and sentences in a consistent font. The locomotive was one of the first type of trains which allowed to transport large amounts of goods or people over long distance without the use of animals and made it easier to travel on land. Film was one of the first forms of entertainment and helped people get their minds off their problems. The printing press has helped shape parts around the world for centuries.

The first telegraph sent was by “Samuel F. B. Morse's experimental line between Baltimore and Washington carried its "What hath God wrought!" on May 24, 1844.” Telegraph systems became commercially practical in 1845 through 1846 and reached Chicago, St. Louis, and New Orleans, as well as other principal northern and southern cities by 1851. “The transcontinental line to California was completed in October 1861.” In 1866, the Western Union Telegraph Company emerged as the nation’s first monopoly. “The telegraph possessed autonomous cost-saving and internal control features that made it particularly suitable for business purposes. These features gave rise to intensive business use of telegraph services and led to the interplay between customer demand patterns and supply adaptation within the telegraph industry, which by 1866 became the first major monopoly in the United States and a portent of things to come.” The benefits of the telegraph were distributed to the rest of the economy through decreased costs for coordination and movement, higher real incomes, and widened areas of economic activity. Telegraphs and railroads alone made market-widening possible and caused a transformation of the U.S. economy between 1850 and 1900. The phonograph was the first way people could record, listen to, and sell sound that could be heard any time a person wanted to listen to it. During the late 1870’s, Thomas Alva Edison’s tinfoil phonograph showed it was possible to record sound and play it back, but it had little practical value. Over time, Edison designed a simpler phonograph and created a system to mass produce pre-recorded music cylinders. “Edison's National Phonograph Company was able to dominate the phonograph business in the early 1900’s, but its position was challenged by Eldridge Johnson's Victor Talking Machine