Richard Hoe's Cylinder steam driven printing press 1860 Journalism Of all the puerile follies that have masqueraded before High Heaven in the guise of Reform, the most childish has been the idea that the editor could vindicate his independence only by sitting on the fence and throwing stones with impartial vigor alike at friend and foe . --Whitelaw Reid, Republican Editor of the New York Tribune 1879 October 30, 1847 “We hope to see the day when the press is regarded as an avenue to distinction as eligible as the other learned professions.  It affords opportunity which other professions do not for the exercise of the highest talent and largest attainments in a direction to sway the minds of people, to enlighten their ignorance, and uphold and elevate public morals.” The New Orleans Picayune Since this is a blog based on what newspapers told the public it is probably best to start with a brief examination of how newspapers were printed and distributed as well as t...

The Great Eastern Returning to a Buoy Marking a Break in the Cable (A painting by Robert Dudley)      Cyrus Field's powers of persuasion must have been enormous. After the spectacular and expensive failure of the 1858 cable he raised funds for another effort in 1865. Though he came from a reasonably prosperous middle class family, Field's rise was really "rags to riches" and his enemies never let him forget it calling him "a junk collector."  Though a wealthy man Field was officially a New York City licensed junk collector.  His paper mills supplemented  wood pulp paper  with cotton rags. He had rag collecting contracts much like a recycling company would have today with a steel mill. To keep warehouses full of rags, Field was officially licensed as a "junk collector."       Field kept up with telegraph technology.  Blame for the failure of the 1858 cable was tossed back and forth among several of the key players.  Th...

HMS Agamemnon laying the Trans Atlantic cable 1858 NASA's program to send a man to the moon required--and yielded-- a variety of scientific and technical breakthroughs.  The moonshot of the 1850s, laying a telegraph cable from the New World to the Old World require--and yielded-- significant technical and scientific discoveries.  It was expected that once ships and cable were ready and in place, it would take only six to eight days to connect the continents.  Instead, it took nearly ten years and six  $1,200,000  major failures. But it wasn't until the cables had been successfully connected and tested that the real trouble began. By 1852 Europe was  already laying lines short distances under water such as  across the Irish Sea and the English Channel. Early experiments in laying telegraph cable underwater demonstrated it took a lot more redesigning than simply putting more gutta percha and tar insulation around the copper wires and plunking it in the w...