The telegraph represented a disruptive innovation in the history of the United States from its invention in the 1830s onward by quickly becoming a vital part of the nation's communication infrastructure.
Telegraph service permitted short texts to be sent cheaply and arrive in a matter of minutes to hours, instead of days or weeks.
Telegraphy facilitated faster and more profitable freight and passenger railway traffic, consolidated financial and commodity markets, sped political news and commentary, and lowered information costs for companies.
In 1832, Samuel Morse, an American artist, with help from scientist Leonard Gale, searched for a simpler idea for an electromagnetic recording system.
Telegraphers would tap their fingers on a knob and the system imprinted dots and dashes onto a moving strip of paper on a distant receiver.
In 1837, Morse obtained funding from Congress to build a telegraph line between Washington and Baltimore, a distance of about forty miles.
Politicians in Washington were paying close attention to the national presidential nominating conventions underway in Baltimore and immediately recognized the advantages of near-instantaneous news reports.
According to Jonathan Silberstein-Loeb, after a rocky start, NYAP's relationship with telegraph companies improved significantly once Western Union became the dominant player in 1866.
The two companies joined forces to create a formidable monopoly, with Western Union providing NYAP with preferential rates on the condition that they solely use their services and not those of their rivals.
The coordination of the distribution of time-sensitive information by newsbrokers, such as the AP, gave them substantial influence that many deemed politically hazardous, resulting in various public controversies during the Gilded Age.
With the telegraph replacing communication via steam boat and railroad train, high priority data now move across the states at low cost.
The Atlantic cable further expanded the geography of speedy information, allowing European investors to operate in the American market almost as efficiently as those with offices in the states, as the message time between London and New York plunged from several weeks to just several minutes.
[16] Willey and Rice (1933) state: "Between 1902 and 1927 the per capita use of the telegraph increased by only 60 percent, which appears to be a relatively small growth for so dynamic a period until it is remembered that the telephone had its development during these same years.
Speed made a great difference in military decision-making during the Civil War, when a one hour delay could affect the outcome of a battle.
In 1857, Western Union participated in the 'Treaty of Six Nations', an attempt by six of the largest telegraph firms to create a system of regional telegraphy monopolies with a shared network of main lines.
Western Union instead attempted to launch a rival telephony system before settling a patent lawsuit with Bell and leaving the telephone business completely in 1879.
[31] Western Union acquired its only major competitor in the American telegraphy sector Postal Telegraph, Inc. in 1945, effectively giving the company monopoly power over the telegram industry.
This enabled a secretary to type and send a written message to another TWX machine elsewhere, without using Western Union services, or going to a telegraph office.