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Submarine Telegraph Cables: Business and Politics, 1838–1939

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

Daniel R. Headrick  and
Pascal Griset
Daniel R. Headrick
Affiliation:
DANIEL HEADRICK is professor of social science and history atRoosevelt University in Chicago.
Pascal Griset
Affiliation:
PASCAL GRISET is professor of history at the Sorbonne and director of the Centre de Recherche en Histoire de l'Innovation in Paris.
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Abstract

International telecommunication is not only a business but also a political enterprise, the subject of great-power rivalries. In the late nineteenth century, British firms held a near monopoly, because Britain had more advanced industry, a wealthier capital market, and a merchant marine and colonial empire that provided customers for the new service. After the 1880s, they encountered increasing competition on the North Atlantic from American, German, and French firms. Elsewhere, the British conglomerate Eastern and Associated retained its hegemony until the 1920s. Following World War I, radiotelegraphy threatened the dominance of cables. In the 1930s, cable companies were almost bankrupted by the Depression and by competition from shortwave radio.

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Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 75 , Issue 3 , Autumn 2001 , pp. 543 - 578
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2011

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References

1 The literature on submarine telegraphy and international telecommunications before the Second World War is surprisingly small. The three most recent books on the subject are: Headrick, Daniel R., The Invisible Weapon: Telecommunications and International Politics, 1851–1945 (New York, 1991)Google Scholar; Griset, Pascal, Entreprise, Technologie et Souverainteté: Les télécommunications transatlantiques de la France (XIXe-XXe siècles) (Paris, 1996)Google Scholar; and Hugill, Peter J., Global Communications since 1844: Geopolitics and Technology (Baltimore, 1999)Google Scholar. Of these three, only Griset's stresses the commercial aspects of cables. See also a short popular book by Standage, Tom, The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraphy and the Nineteenth Century's On-Line Pioneers (New York, 1998)Google Scholar, with chapters on submarine telegraphy.

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