Networks of Modernity: Germany in the Age of the Telegraph, 1830–1880

Abstract

This book is structured chronologically and divided into two parts. After the Prologue, the first three chapters explore the ‘landscape of innovation’ across which the idea of telegraphy was discussed, applied, and developed into a useable technology, between 1830 and 1849. Chapter 1 traces the expectations which scientists, intellectuals, bureaucrats, and entrepreneurs placed in the possibility of instantaneous, long-distance communication. Chapter 2 highlights the negotiations which took place between these actors as they brought together the technical, logistical, and financial resources necessary to turn that possibility into a reality. Chapter 3 focuses upon the pivotal years which brought the Vormärz to a close, when the revolutionary upheavals of 1848/9 spurred governments to take a leading role in the construction of new networks of communication. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 investigate the process through which telegraph networks were built and administered between 1850 and 1880, and their influence upon the development of the German economy, society, politics, and culture.