Gotham_ A History of New York City to 1898 - Edwin G. Burrows [537]
In 1855, anticipating the European connection, Field, Taylor, Cooper, and Hewitt formed the American Telegraph Company to expand their control over the U.S. network. The New York-based firm quickly swallowed up smaller lines, Morse’s among them. By the end of the decade its consolidated system stretched from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico, making it the largest telegraph company in the eastern states; its only rival was Western Union, a Rochester-based firm that had acquired lines in the Midwest.
In 1857, having raised additional capital in England, two sidewheel steamships provided by the U.S. and British governments began spooling out 1,950 miles of cable. After several setbacks, the mighty work was completed in 1858. On August 16 Queen Victoria sent President Buchanan a congratulatory message in “Morse” code officially opening the line; it was shortly followed by the first transatlantic news dispatch: “Settlement of Chinese Question; Chinese Empire open to trade; Christian religion allowed; Mutiny being quelled, all India becoming tranquil.”
The Eighth Wonder of the World: The Atlantic Cable. When the cable was finally hooked up again in 1866, this print hailed the event—an iconographic echo of earlier Festivals of Connection in the city’s streets. (Library of Congress)
In a keystroke, what the Times hailed as the most “wondrous event of a wondrous age” had solidified New York’s position as principal link between New World and Old. In a jubilant Festival of Connection, cannons boomed, church bells pealed, and public buildings were illuminated. The fireworks at City Hall were so tumultuous they touched off a conflagration that destroyed the cupola before it was brought under control. On September 1 a parade with Field and the mayor in the lead carriage marched from the Battery to the Crystal Palace, past stores, hotels, and businesses festooned with banners, placards, and transparencies; the celebration was capped that evening by a torch-lit procession. The ecstasy proved a mite premature, however, as the cable fell silent at the beginning of September, spurring accusations of humbuggery, and would not be reconnected until 1866.
“EXTRA, EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT!”
The telegraph, nurtured to fruitful life in New York City, in turn helped reshape the metropolis. By the 1850s the city’s railroads had adopted the device to route and dispatch trains, all police stations were telegraphically interconnected, and the New York Stock Exchange was setting securities prices for the entire nation. Nowhere, however, did the new technology have greater repercussions than in journalism. New York’s newspapers, driven by their mania for speed, became the telegraph’s most crucial supporters. In doing so, they won for themselves and their metropolis an insurmountable advantage in the collection and dissemination of information.
The rise of the penny press in the 1830s had put a premium on ever swifter access to news. Newsboy-hawked “extras” that scooped rivals by even an hour could harvest a bonanza in street sales. By the mid-1840s, New Yorkers were being bombarded by fastbreaking stories—garnered by pony express, chartered locomotives, express steamships, or carrier pigeons—and the race for news had itself become good copy.
Telegraphy accelerated the frenzy. Morse himself, after marveling at what God had wrought, had promptly tapped out a second message: “Have you any news?” Soon James Gordon Bennett of the Herald was paying a five-hundred-dollar bonus to news entrepreneur Daniel Craig for every hour his dispatches preceded