T e l e g r a p h,   T e l e p h o n e  &  W i r e l e s s:

How Telecom Changed the World

by Bert Lundy

 

Table of Contents

 

Chronology

 

Introduction

 

Part 1: The Telegraph

 1         Primitive communications systems : early times  

 2         Optical telegraph systems, or semaphores  

 3         Electrical advances and early electrical telegraph systems

 4         Cooke and Wheatstone's telegraph system in Britain

 5         Samuel Morse: The first U.S. telegraph line,  1832-44 

 6         Beginnings of an Empire 1844-46

 7         The northern lines: New York to Boston, Buffalo and Canada 

 8         Henry O'Rielly and the West 

 9         O'Rielly, Smith, Kendall: failed compromise and divorce, 1847

10        Explosive growth,  destructive competition:  1847-52

11        Consolidation, and the first great American monopoly: 1852-66

12        Impact of the telegraph: the press

13        Impact of the telegraph: the railroad

14        The fight to put the telegraph under government control

15        The nation's telecom network 

16        Decline and conclusions

 

Part 2: The Atlantic Telegraph Cable

1          Seed of a grand plan

2          The plan: raising capital, formation of the company

3          Newfoundland

4          The first attempt: 1857

5          The first expedition of 1858

6          The second expedition of 1858

7          The inquest

8          The Great Eastern 

9          Another try:  1865

10        Victory at last: 1866

11        The overland telegraph

12        Conclusion 

 

Part 3: The Telephone and the AT&T Empire

  1        A Breakthrough and a Mystery

  2        Invention of the Telephone: Part 1 

  3        Invention of the Telephone: Part 2   

  4        Early days and the Dowd Case: 1877-80

  5        Beginning of the Bell System: 1880-99

  6        Compete, Consolidate, Compromise: 1900-13  

  7        A milestone reached,  a bullet dodged 1913-19 

  8        Good times, bad times: 1919-40

  9        Through the war and after: 1940-49 

10        Hush-a-phones and Final Judgment: 1949-56

11        Above 890 and long distance competition

12        The Carterphone decision and the birth of MCI

13        Clouds on the Horizon

14        MCI's struggle to survive

15        End of an Era

16        A new world: 1984-96

 

Part 4: Wireless

 1         Early pioneers and Faraday

 2         James Clerk Maxwell

 3         Hertz and Lodge: confirmation of Maxwell's theory  

 4         Marconi and Lodge:   The wireless telegraph

 5         Fessenden:  the wireless telephone  

 6         De Forest: the 3-element audion 

 7         Litigation and the creation of  RCA

 8         Rise of the radio broadcast industry

 9         Government  regulation, Armstrong, and FM

10        Later Developments

 

Conclusion

 

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

 

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