Telegrams
Before Telegrams
Before the telegram, forms of communication were a lot less complex. According to the History Channel website editors, simple ways of communicating in ancient civilizations were by use of smoke signals or drumbeats to convey different messages. Methods like these were effective but could easily become less reliable due to changes in weather or line of sight. Creative Displays states, "Drums and smoke signals were also used by primitive man, but were not the most practical means of communicating." This is what makes the telegraph so special huh? What a great invention.
History of the Telegram
The telegram was a new and interesting way of communicating in the 19th century and essentially "revolutionized long-distance communication" according to History Channel editors. The man who invented this way of communicating along with Morse code was Samuel Morse. Morse code was a sort of way of communicating that involved a series of dots and dashes as many of us may know; and this system of code made it a lot easier to portray complex messages over the "telegraph lines". The first telegraph was done by Samuel Morse himself and was sent from Washington D.C to Baltimore, Maryland stated by the editors.From Telegraph to Cell Phones
The human ways of communication have changed a lot over the years. From spoken language to texting and video chatting, our ways of communicating have changed a lot over the years. The telegraph was one of the first advances however where we could communicate over a long distance more quickly and efficiently rather than writing or typing a letter and using a pigeon to communicate the message or whatever we used to do back in the day. Nowadays we have much more effective ways of communicating such as cell phones where we can at the click of a button call someone and have access to conveying a message within seconds. in 1876 the first telephone was invented leading the way to a new way of communicating and instead of telegrams we could now do long distance communication in an easier fashion. Imagine that! As Avatel said in their blog, "With today's technology, communications can span the globe and carry voice, data, and video". That proves that we've come a long way since the 19th century forms of communication and especially from the forms of communication before that time.
Sources:
https://www.creativedisplaysnow.com/articles/history-of-communication-from-cave-drawings-to-the-web/
It's really weird to think that this was the way people still communicated even a century ago, and how quickly technology changed that reality. I really liked this topic, even though Morse code has been mentioned and used in multiple pieces of work, no one has ever really talked about it's history and how it changed life for the people who had access to it. I also never knew about how people communicated before then, outside of pen, paper, and mail. So learning about how people used drums and smoke, even if it was so long ago, was still interesting.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I am glad I live in an era where I can quickly communicate with anyone I choose, it's still interesting to learn of the process people had to go through to convey such a simple message. I find it compelling how the invention of the telegram was viewed as "revolutionary" for the time. As much as it was the newest technology for the time, I'd love to see the reactions of people in that era discovering an iPhone. Overall, the new technology we have today may be the best thing we've seen so far, but it will be looked at and studied just like we are observing the telegram.
ReplyDeleteIt's very hard to believe that anyone could communicate with smoke or drumbeats before the telegram was invented. People today can barely function without their cell phones being 2 feet away from them, I can't imagine having to communicate in such a slow way. It's amazing to me how far our technology has come in such a short amount of time. Even in this century, we started with flip phones and now it is a rarity to see anyone without a smart phone. I think this blog was very eye opening to see just how far we've come with our communication skills.
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