Western Union and the Creation of the American Corporate Order, 1845-1893

摘要

The Western Union Telegraph Company was the first truly national monopoly in the United States. Though it never entirely eliminated competition, Western Union dominated its industry so thoroughly that no other term is sufficient. "The Great Monopoly," as late-nineteenth-century Americans called it, wired the continent, transformed American telecommunications, and played a key role in constructing our modern corporate order. Historians like Alfred D. Chandler, James Beniger, and JoAnne Yates have all explored the telegraph's role in American business. Until recently, however, histories of the telegraph industry itself were few on the ground. Robert Luther Thompson's Wiring a Continent: The History of the Telegraph Industry in the United States, 1832-1866, published in 1947, was for decades the lonely standard. Yet in the last few years, a handful of excellent books have appeared-notably, Richard R. John's Network Nation: Inventing American Telecommunications (2010) and David Hochfelder's The Telegraph in America, 1832-1920 (2012)-which reexamine the business history of the telegraph and place the business of telegraphy at the center of major developments in the history of American capitalism. Joshua D. Wolff's Western Union and the Creation of the American Corporate Order, 1845-1893 makes a fine addition to this company.