From the telegraph to the Internet - The more it changes, the more it's the same? [Thesis]

We have here a rather original thesis. It is quite old - since it was defended on November 30, 2009 at Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense - and concerns a "forgotten" technology - the telegraph - in order to understand a recent technology - digital networks.

The full title "The more it changes, the more it is the same? A rereading of telegraphs in France and the United States in the age of digital networks: a contribution to work on the interaction between technology and society" reveals the essence of the content of these 300 pages.

The research was conducted by an American scholar in France, Heidi Gautschi, who did a real balancing act between French and English-speaking theorists and archival sources responding to different cultural logics between France and the United States.

The telegraph is the "first electrically powered distance communication network." The researcher made this choice "as her research topic since it is the direct ancestor of our current networks. It is wrong that we had forgotten it."

This research work is therefore original by its subject, its explorer and also by its method since the methodology used is inspired by comparative history and textual analysis in order to bring out representations and knowledge of uses. Heidi Gautschi follows in the footsteps of Tom Standage (The Victorian Internet, 1999) and Jacques Perriault (Memories of Shadow and Sound, 1989), her thesis advisor.

The origins of the telegraph and its diffusion in France and the US: the state vs. the individual

The word "telegraph" (to write from afar) comes from the suggestion of a friend of Chappe, the inventor of the optical telegraph (or aerial telegraph, late 18th), which existed in France before the arrival of the electric telegraph.

"This name emphasizes the fundamental claim that this form of communication belonged to the sphere of the written word."

In France, "the system (optical telegraph) was used only for military and official government communication." it was therefore "a highly centralized and well-controlled communication system."

The French optical telegraph had a peculiarity of operation since the government used it and the people observed it through the lines that were visible. This operation allowed the establishment of an imaginary, a magic-religious vision present in texts of the time.

Thus, the French centralization and the need to communicate to the provinces drew the communication network. "Communication networks were thus developed to strengthen the power of the state."

In the United States, centrality is rather focused on the individual with a - de facto - particular structure, in reaction to Europe, and inspired by the Enlightenment. "If the institutional structure of the United States does not follow that of Europe, the old continent nevertheless served as a guide for the young republic, since it is on the one hand the refusal of the European system and on the other hand the influence of the writings of the Enlightenment that partly informed the decisions of the founding fathers."

American ideals differ from the values of the old continent. "Americans do not dream of roots, of land that might become ancestral. They dream of borders always beyond their reach; of finding the final frontier, the end of the world, hoping that the perfect life resides there. America has always represented the dream, the rebirth, the best of all worlds."

The researcher explains the pragmatism across the Atlantic that favors the acceptance of new technologies. Thus, the theory of the "technological sublime" makes it possible to apprehend "the place of technology in the American imagination before and after the introduction of the telegraph."

In the United States, "communication networks are understood as vectors capable of maintaining and building a national identity."

Heidi Gautschi seeks to "understand the effect of French and American state decisions on the construction of the telegraph network." Starting with the same technological innovation, "the telegraph system in each country evolved in a unique way. There were considerable differences in the way communication was understood in these two countries. This difference can be seen in the aesthetics of the machines, in the construction and operation of the networks."

"France had already established a framework for remote communication that colored its early debates [the optical telegraph, resistance to change]. In the United States, we find one man, Samuel Morse, confronting the federal government." In France, resistance to change is present for economic reasons.
Whether in their structure and operation, "these two countries had different answers to communicational questions, including who could communicate, with whom, and by what means."

"History does not repeat itself, but the present is built on the past."

Heidi Gautschi views technology in its cultural, historical, social and economic wholeness. Not in terms of rupture but in terms of continuity.

The "modern users of the Internet are in many cases heirs to the telegraphic tradition"

She seeks to understand and explain "the history of the communicative imaginary and thus the transition to a new reality. This imaginary encompasses the technique, the uses, the decisions of public authorities and the interaction between the public and a technique."

Thus, the "new reality encompasses two aspects:"

the role of public authorities and the insertion of the telegraph into daily life."

The influence of public authorities is still relevant to communication networks today. "The decisions made at that time by the French and American states had more than a direct effect on the shape of the telegraphic instruments implemented on the networks of these two countries. These decisions continue to inform the policy of communication systems in France and the United States today."

In addition, the American system required a certain level of literacy, unlike the French system.

France implemented a system that responded to state directives (the Baudot system) "and reflected the regulated structure of telegraph line administration." In France, the innovation took on the status of an institution; while in the United States, the project was of a completely different, more "chaotic" style.

"The state stepped aside from the project and Morse became the main decision-maker." only to be overtaken by the "waves of innovations that his system unleashed."

In France, "In its structure, the telegraph reflected the hierarchical, regulated bureaucracy of a centralized state. The telegraph was a public service, but it was limited in its ability to truly serve the public." The French telegraph was thought of within the framework of "Saint Simonism" [economic doctrine of the Comte de Saint-Simon] where the engineer played a central role in managing networks.

In the U.S., "the greater division of power present (...) led to a different mentality regarding control and power."

"The telegraph in the United States, as in France, was not in a position to take full advantage of the available technology." In France because of the voluntary administrative complexity and in the United States because of a rather "anarchic" development due to the uncontrolled and privatized mode of construction, until the monopoly of "Western Union" after the Civil War.

The creation of an imaginary of the telegraph and the role of spiritualism?!

"A network is both technical and imaginary, just like communication. This imaginary is a way for individuals to integrate a new technical object that will shake up their habits. Thus, we can consider the imaginary as a "way to construct a collective identity".

In the United States, spiritualism has played a role in confounding "the relationship between the scientific and spiritual application of electricity". "By adopting the telegraph as a way to explain how someone could communicate with the afterlife, spiritualism promoted the confusion surrounding this new technology. Spiritualists used the telegraph metaphor to legitimize spiritual experience using the same vocabulary and approaching the exaggerated rhetoric that so many telegraph promoters used."

The link between spiritualism and telegraphic communication also existed in France, but this dimension is what braked the adoption of the telegraph in the United States.

"Morse and his promoters had to deal with the electrical imagination of the time. There was a strong connection between electricity and public entertainment and religious movements. The telegraph's promoters had difficulty convincing members of Congress that the electric telegraph was more than a magic trick."

It is important to take a closer look at the telegraph's imaginary, because the introduction of this form of communication altered concepts of space, temporality, and the place in which the communicative act could take place. "These shifts in thinking facilitated the acceptance of later communication technologies: the telephone, the phonograph, radio, television, and all of our current communication tools."

Thus, the telegraph can be seen as "an invention with outsized communicative capabilities that was negotiated in the nineteenth century and continues to endure."

Women ...

Women telegraphers

"The telegraph, then, paved the way for those forms of mixed (written and oral) communication that are so commonplace today."Also appeared new types of users, the only ones to have direct communication: the telegraphists"

"Telegraphy offered, therefore, men and women the possibility of talking to each other outside the acceptable structures of the time.(...) The telegraph, like our screens today, provided a safe haven behind which male and female operators could hide, giving them the freedom to be bold in their ways of communicating."

"While online relationships between men were not considered a dubious development, those between women, as well as those between men and women, were not viewed in the same way. Two women "chatting" was considered to be doing just that - gossiping, talking about unimportant and feminine things that had no place in a telegraph office."

It was mostly the presence of women that created controversy

....to telegraph fraternities

According to an analysis of the literature of the time: "Some of these stories showed men and women falling in love while communicating only through wires, but others showed Morse code as a form of secret communication. Morse code becomes a coded language that marks communicators as members of a secret society and again emphasizes how telegraphy offers those who can harness it a form of disembodied communication. "

"The disembodiment of communication allows us to become who we wish we had been, or to focus on certain aspects of our personality."

So the telegraph is a precursor to forms of social freedom. "Since women were paid less than men, more and more women were hired as operators."

"The introduction of women into the world of telegraph operators was forcing all of society to renegotiate the role of women. The telegraph turned the separation of different spheres of life upside down. With the arrival of female telegraphers, there is the beginning of a blurring of the boundaries between public and private, a topic that is still relevant today.

Heidi Gautschi's research determines "how the use of the telegraph stabilized" from the imaginary linked to "utopias."

"One of the first projected dreams in the United States, then, was that the telegraph would be able to uniteall territories and that the country would, therefore, be stronger and more united."

The Myth of Morse

In the United States, "The social use...relies on the myth of Morse, which was constructed in parallel with the telegraph network.

According to this myth, Morse was inspired to build the telegraph because of a personal tragedy. When Morse was in Washington, D.C., painting a portrait of the Marquis de Lafayette, his wife died during the delivery of her son. Morse's father immediately wrote a letter to his son. Between the time the letter was sent and the time Morse returned home, his wife had already been buried. It was this inability to keep in touch with his loved ones that served, according to this myth, as Morse's inspiration for inventing a system of rapid, long-distance communication."

"In the United States, then, the telegraph was projected as a federator of humanity and paradoxically as a tool that would protect the country's borders by improving military communication."

The "projections" fostered the negotiations that followed in France as well as in the U.S.

"The press was a place of circulation and negotiation of the imaginary. (...) it was also a public space where different groups could debate societal problems and if possible arrive at a common judgment that would result in the formation of public opinion."

New writing style and privacy

The "telegraphic" writing style is making its appearance and is strongly criticized especially in France where literary traditions are emphasized. These criticisms have reappeared recently with texting, made of disdain and fear for this style of writing.

"Some of the codes, such as No. [number] and OK [well, okay], are still used today. We use them without knowing their origin."

In the United States, the issue of confidentiality is strongly present whereas "in European countries, where the telegraph was state-controlled, these problems were not present."

"In the U.S. it was easier to access technical manuals on the telegrapher's craft and the operation of the instruments." "Cryptograms" ensured "confidentiality (including commercial exchanges, but, this double coding of communication also went against the purpose of the telegraph, which in the eyes of the inventors was to make communication simpler and faster."

Information explosion

The telegraph also played a big role in commerce and the press.

"Just as Dell and Amazon use new information and communication technologies (NICTs) to manage their inventories more efficiently, allowing them to have a better return on investment, nineteenth-century merchants could better communicate with suppliers and other middlemen through the telegraph, allowing for better operations and organization, thus increasing their profit margins."

"Stock market communication by telegraph also changed the structure of commodity exchanges by putting everyone on the same level."

"Information quickly gained importance and those who controlled its access had much to gain in terms of power and money. Information also became a commodity in itself."

Thus, information became a commodity regardless of its type, stock market or newspaper:

"Very soon, newspapers realized that the telegraph could also serve as a means of distributing information. This usage fundamentally altered journalism and the role of newspapers in American and French society."

"The telegraph mediated the social bond indirectly. The use of this system by the press increased the flow of information. A newspaper reader could now know local, national and international news. In a rapidly growing country like the United States, this usage allowed a scattered people to co-construct a national identity.."

"The telegraph changed the relationship that individuals had with time, space, and communication."

"The telegraph also promoted a fundamental cognitive shift. This mental shift that took place was crucial for what came afterwards - the telephone, the television, the Internet. The public was led to accept that communication could be not only fast, but invisible, disembodied and mediated. So there was a rearrangement of the mental representation of the physical world. Distances were reduced and so was the time for communication. The telegraph gave rise to a whole new perception of communicational reality."

Thus, Heidi Gautschi's research effectively and excitingly demonstrates to us that the telegraph is much more than a technological innovation and a change in modes of communication, it is much more a profound cultural change that revolutionized the world of humans on all levels and paved the way for communication technologies.

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