The Train and the Telegraph: A Revisionist History

A challenge to the long-held notion of close ties between the railroad and telegraph industries of the nineteenth century.

To many people in the nineteenth century, the railroad and the telegraph were powerful, transformative forces, ones that seemed to work closely together to shape the economy, society, and politics of the United States. However, the perception—both popular and scholarly—of the intrinsic connections between these two institutions has largely obscured a far more complex and...