Samuel F.B. Morse's invention of the telegraph marked a new era in communication. For the first time, people were able to communicate quickly from great distances. The genesis of Morse's invention is covered in detail, starting in 1832, along with the establishment of the first transcontinental telegraph line in the United States and the dramatic effect the device had on the Civil War. The Morse telegraph that served the world for over 100 years is explained in clear terms. Also examined are recent advances in telegraph technology and its continued impact on communication.

Winner of the National Book Award A New York Times Bestseller "The queer romance we’ve been waiting for.”—Ms. Magazine Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can't remember exactly when the feeling took root—that desire to look, to move closer, to touch. Whenever it started growing, it definitely bloomed the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club. Suddenly everything seemed possible. But America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. With deportation looming over her father—despite his hard-won citizenship—Lily and Kath risk everything to let their love see the light of day. (Cover image may vary.)

A complete history of how the telegraph revolutionized technological practice and life in America. Telegraphy in the nineteenth century approximated the internet in our own day. Historian and electrical engineer David Hochfelder offers readers a comprehensive history of this groundbreaking technology, which employs breaks in an electrical current to send code along miles of wire. The Telegraph in America, 1832–1920 examines the correlation between technological innovation and social change and shows how this transformative relationship helps us to understand and perhaps define modernity. The telegraph revolutionized the spread of information—speeding personal messages, news of public events, and details of stock fluctuations. During the Civil War, telegraphed intelligence and high-level directives gave the Union war effort a critical advantage. Afterward, the telegraph helped build and break fortunes and, along with the railroad, altered the way Americans thought about time and space. With this book, Hochfelder supplies us with an introduction to the early stirrings of the information age.

How do you achieve sporting immortality? How do you develop a winning mentality? What seprates the best from the rest? While sporting greatness is for the few, there is much that the rest of us can learn from them. From the era-defining brilliance of Muhammad Ali to the tactical genius of Sir Alex Ferguson, gathered together here for the first time are the rare insights into what made some of the best sports men and women from the past century. Drawn from the Telegraph archives, this collection of interviews, contemporary accounts and first-person articles covering everyone from Michael Phelps to Dame Ellen MacArthur, Roger Federer to Michael Schumacher, Sir Steve Redgrave to Nicole Cooke, give a rare glimpse of how these individuals conquered the world. Through the snow, mud, ice and sun of the sporting calendar, TheTelegraph Book of Champions features one hundred champions from thirty-one sports. Side by side, in this unique collection, they line up as a reminder of what it takes to be the best, why success at the very top is only for the few, and what the rest of us mere mortals can learn from them.

Complicating the existing scholarship by demonstrating that the railroad and telegraph in the United States were uneasy partners at best—and more often outright antagonists—throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, The Train and the Telegraph will appeal to scholars of communication, transportation, and American business history and political economy, as well as to enthusiasts of the nineteenth-century American railroad industry.

Invented in the 1830's, the telegraph soon became indispensable. By 1851 there were more than 50 companies providing telegraphic service in the United States alone. The telegraph played a pivotal role in warfare beginning with the American Civil War, featured prominently in the creation of the first large American corporation, Western Union, and made possible long distance communication with the laying of the transatlantic cable. This book describes the global impact of the telegraph from its advent to its eventual eclipse by the telephone four decades later.

Writer Tracy Nelson Maurer and illustrator El Primo Ramón present a lively picture book biography of Samuel Morse that highlights how he revolutionized modern technology. Back in the 1800s, information traveled slowly. Who would dream of instant messages? Samuel Morse, that’s who! Who traveled to France, where the famous telegraph towers relayed 10,000 possible codes for messages depending on the signal arm positions—only if the weather was clear? Who imagined a system that would use electric pulses to instantly carry coded messages between two machines, rain or shine? Long before the first telephone, who changed communication forever? Samuel Morse, that’s who! This dynamic and substantive biography celebrates an early technology pioneer.

Here is an often cited panoramic history of the telegraph which discusses the principal telegraph firms and the key persons within them. Throughout his work, Reid stresses the business and economic aspects of marketing this remarkable scientific invention. The importance of The Telegraph in America as a classic reference in the field is under-scored by the fact that the author was active in telegraphy throughout the period he discusses. He thus had a personal knowledge of persons and events under examination.

Telecommunications is a major global industry, and this unique book chronicles the development of this complex technology from the electric telegraph to the Internet in a simple, accessible, and entertaining way. The book opens with the early years of the electric telegraph. The reader will learn how the Morse telegraph evolved into an international network that spanned the globe, starting with the development of international undersea cables, and the heroic attempts to lay a trans-Atlantic cable. The book describes the events that led to the invention of the telephone, and the subsequent disputes over who had really invented it. It takes a look at some of the most important applications that have appeared on the Internet, the mobile revolution, and ends with a discussion of future key developments in the telecommunications industry.

A writer investigates her family’s secret history, uncovering a story that spans a century, two World Wars, and three generations. Hadley Freeman knew her grandmother Sara lived in France just as Hitler started to gain power, but rarely did anyone in her family talk about it. Long after her grandmother’s death, she found a shoebox tucked in the closet containing photographs of her grandmother with a mysterious stranger, a cryptic telegram from the Red Cross, and a drawing signed by Picasso. This discovery sent Freeman on a decade-long quest to uncover the significance of these keepsakes, taking her from Picasso’s archives in Paris to a secret room in a farmhouse in Auvergne to Long Island to Auschwitz. Freeman pieces together the puzzle of her family’s past, discovering more about the lives of her grandmother and her three brothers, Jacques, Henri, and Alex. Their stories sometimes typical, sometimes astonishing—reveal the broad range of experiences of Eastern European Jews during Holocaust. This thrilling family saga is filled with extraordinary twists, vivid characters, and famous cameos, illuminating the Jewish and immigrant experience in the World War II era. Addressing themes of assimilation, identity, and home, this powerful story about the past echoes issues that remain relevant today.