Effective January 27, 2006, Western Union will discontinue all Telegram and Commercial Messaging services. We regret any inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you for your loyal patronage.
The telegraph changed the world. Just being able to send news of ceasefires or surrenders made a huge difference, of course (doesn't it just break your heart how many soldiers got killed in the old days when wars were over but their officers didn't know it yet?) -- but there were also a lot of civilian uses. Construction of railroads, calls for help, warnings of fires, floods, you name it. The telegram was useful, and it changed the way the world worked. It also changed the pace of life, for better and for worse.
And then there were the dreams. For a while after international telegraph service was set up, some folks thought that world peace was at hand, because, after all (they argued) if you can just communicate there won't be any misunderstandings, and if there aren't any misunderstandings there won't be any fighting. (And you thought hippie-think was new, eh?) Some newspapers bought into this delusion and ran with it. (And you thought that the odd and sometimes-dangerous phenomenon of journalists being utopians was new, too, eh?)
The following book covers history directly and indirectly related to the telegraph. I found author Tom Standage's insistence on drawing parallel after parallel with the Internet sometimes a wee bit grating, but otherwise found it a good read, and very interesting; enjoyable as well as informative.
The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line Pioneers
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