[ISHMap-List] Help with telegraph maps

[John Day]

Just to point out the obvious.  The railroads “needed” the telegraph for their own internal coordination of train movement. The telegraph was to some degree “the control loop” for the trains.

There were a lot of problems in developing the undersea cables and there are many books on this topic.  Made doubly difficult by not yet having Maxwell yet and not worked out the implications of Maxwell for transmission lines.

Take care,
John

> On Feb 29, 2016, at 16:30, Jon Jablonski <jonjab at ucsb.edu> wrote:
> 
> What an interesting question.  One could get lost.  In my 10 minutes of avoiding work that I spent researching this, it’s certainly obvious that the development of rail lines and telegraph lines were intimately linked.  And the interconnection of systems and building of trans-border lines seems like a rich research topic.  And both phenomenon grew so quickly, with the first commercial electric telegraph 1846, and widespread networks by 1860.   Looks like they started figuring out undersea cables about 10 minutes after commercial telegraphs became a thing!
>  
> Did you see this in WorldCat?
> Map of the submarine telegraph between America & Europe, with its various communications on the two continents.
> Groom, Thomas & Co.  1856 (there’s several variations)
>                 Note the ‘with its various communication on the two continents” subtitle.
>  
> And this:
> https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3201p.ct000465/ <https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3201p.ct000465/>
> but it would be difficult to trust the map of Europe I suppose – it seems pretty sketchy from a data point of view.
>  
> And what constitutes cross-border in 1850s – 60s Europe?  
>  
> Finally: here is a page out of an 1891 Stielers hand-Atlas:
>    https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1891_Telegraph_Lines.jpg <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1891_Telegraph_Lines.jpg>
> 1891 being a little too late perhaps?  And most likely not the scale/resolution you desire.
>  
>  
> -jon
>  
> Jon Jablonski
> Spatial Data Librarian
> UC Santa Barbara Library: Map & Imagery Lab
>  
>  
>  
>  
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> From: ishm-bounces at lazarus.elte.hu <mailto:ishm-bounces at lazarus.elte.hu> [mailto:ishm-bounces at lazarus.elte.hu <mailto:ishm-bounces at lazarus.elte.hu>] On Behalf Of Julie Sweetkind-Singer
> Sent: Friday, February 26, 2016 10:54 AM
> To: ishm at lazarus.elte.hu <mailto:ishm at lazarus.elte.hu>
> Cc: Julie Sweetkind-Singer <juliets at stanford.edu <mailto:juliets at stanford.edu>>
> Subject: [ISHMap-List] Help with telegraph maps
>  
> Hi, all,
>  
> I’ve got a graduate student in economics looking for the following:
>  
> “I am conducting research on the development of communication system in Europe in the 19th century, especially on the evolution of the telegraph and railroad networks between 1800s and 1850s. I am looking for some maps that can show me the expansion of the network across time.”
>  
> We have been able to find country-level maps on the telegraph network, but are having trouble finding maps that show where the telegraph networks spanned country boundaries or at the continental scale in Europe.  
>  
> For example, here’s a useful map of just the UK: http://distantwriting.co.uk/telegraphmap.html <http://distantwriting.co.uk/telegraphmap.html> .
> Here’s another example: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Bahnkarte_Deutschland_1849.jpg <https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Bahnkarte_Deutschland_1849.jpg>
>  
> We’ve search on David Rumsey’s site and on Old Maps Online.  I’ve been able to find some maps out of our own collection that are at the country level, but nothing more general.  Any ideas or leads?
>  
> Many thanks for any help you can provide.
>  
> Best,
>  
> Julie
>  
> ****
> Julie Sweetkind-Singer
> Assistant Director of Geospatial, Cartographic and Scientific Data
> Head Librarian, Branner Earth Sciences Library & Map Collections
> 397 Panama Mall, MC: 2211
> Stanford University
> Stanford, CA 94305
> 650-725-1102
>  
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