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A Comparison of the Postal Telegraph Movement in Great Britain and the United States, 1866–1900

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2015

David Hochfelder
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Extract

This article places the British and American postal telegraph movements in the broader context of a transatlantic reform tradition. More specifically, British nationalization in 1870 gave American reformers both a rallying point and a rationale for postalizing the telegraphs. The legacies of both movements were mixed. In Britain, the postal telegraph provided inexpensive and accessible service, but it soon ran a large deficit and retarded the development of the telephone industry. In the United States, reformers failed to nationalize the telegraph or to secure a place in historical memory, but they succeeded in pressuring Western Union to provide better service, and they provided the impetus for the municipal ownership movement of the Progressive Era.

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Articles
Information
Enterprise & Society , Volume 1 , Issue 4 , December 2000 , pp. 739 - 761
Copyright
Copyright © Enterprise and Society 2000

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