The Victorian Internet
The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century’s On-line Pioneers. Tom Standage. New York: Walker & Company, 1998. 217 pp.
“The Victorian Internet”? At first glance, people may come up with the same question as in my mind; is it a mysterious science fiction or just another fancy title for appealing curious readers? After reading this book, I realize that Tom Standage, the author of The Victorian Internet, revealed his profound intention of writing this book in the book’s title. By linking the antiquated telegraphic network in reign of Queen Victoria with modern electronic communication network, the author showed his idea: to present the history of an old-fashioned telecommunications network in a way that gives readers perspective on today’s Internet, one of the most influential technologies, that has shaped our modern society. Through his survey of the telegraphic history along with its social effects, the book reflects striking similarities from online relationships, network crime to the vision of global peace between these two eras, even these stories were surrounding an obsolete technology. Standage seems to leave us a noticeable message behind this book that revolutionary progress in communication technology greatly accelerates our communication process and provides us more options in information exchange, but the problems happened in Victorian Internet might replay with a new appearance today. Therefore, only through the reexamination of the history of telegraph can help us understand and alleviate parallel problems associated with today’s Internet.
Beginning with an interesting but somehow foolish experiment conducted by the abbot Jean-Antoine Nollet to examine the electricity capability in signal transmission, Standage led readers through the technological development of telegraph by showing the stories of these telegraph pioneers, Samuel Morse, William Fothergill Cooke and Charles Wheatstone. People can see that Samuel Morse, credited as the father of the telegraph, developed the concept of a single wire telegraph, made continuous improvement to it and finally successfully demonstrated his telegraph system over the line between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore. At the same time, a similar working commercial telegraph was also invented by two Englishman, William Fothergill Cooke and Charles Wheatstone, even both of them having troubles in their partnership. This story reminded me the concept of “supervening social necessity” on technology progress in Winston’s Media Technology and Society that an invention may not a single historical event but could occur simultaneously around the world. Then following the typical innovation-decision process in the book of Roger Clarke’s Diffusion of Innovation, the innovation and the adoption of the telegraph experienced the stages of promoting the knowledge of the telegraph to the public, persuading the government and the business into adopting this technology, and finally implementing it to finalize this innovation-decision process. This cycle cost several decades to reach its prosperity and to reshape people’s life.
Rather than only focusing on the telegraphic technology history, Standage placed equal attention on its influence upon human behaviors as well. Romances blossomed over the wires. Aha, one could regard these on-line love stories as a nineteenth century version of the romantic Internet based movie “ You’ve Got Mail.” Moreover, the author quoted the head of the M.I.T. Media Laboratory, Nicholas Negroponte indicated that in the future children “are not going to know what nationalism is” to show the ambition of Internet is way to world peace. Just like advocators of today’s Internet, peacemakers in the Victorian Age also preached a sweet dream of peace in the global village through the widespread use of the telegraph. Even though love and vision of global peace at that time illuminated the use of the telegraph, crimes on the telegraph were never far behind. Just as the Internet has been used for criminal purposes, the telegraph also brought about the same forms of crime, from code hackers to those cheaters making use of its information asymmetry.
Although showing the similarities in the history of the telegraph and the Internet can highlight the nature of the Internet in a much transparent way, the differences are often more informative to help us create new ways to manage and to improve its environment. The lack of outlining distinction between past and present is one of the failings of the book that can be enhanced. In old times, the telegraph generally was a tool serving business, government and the military. It had little effect directly on home life of most Americans. As it changed the operation in newspapers and stock market, its influence was not as deep as today’s Internet on our daily life from many aspects. People can communicate, shop, recreate or even manage different lifestyles on the Internet. The derivative life types and problems are more complicated and serious than ever. The historic happenings in the Victorian Age cannot map exactly and directly to our concerns today.
Historical events of the innovation and the adoption of the telegraph have demonstrated close parallels in many aspects to the development of today’s Internet. A re-investigation of the historical events and impacts of The Victorian Internet is like a lighthouse in the sea to guide us towards a clearer comprehension of the nature of today’s Internet. We are still in the middle of the communication revolution. To handle the course of human civilization in the right direction, we need to review our past thoroughly, plan our future carefully and then move forward confidently and valiantly.
References
Tom Standage., (1998) The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century’s On-line Pioneers, New York: Walker & Company.
Rogers, Everett M., (1995) Diffusion of Innovation, Fourth Edition, The Free Press, New York.
