The changing bias of inter-urban communications in nineteenth-century Canada

Abstract

In the years between 1845 and 1875 the character of communications in Canada changed significantly. The arrival of the telegraph altered the technology of message transmission, and the spread of urban settlement across the continent changed the dimensions of the communications network. This paper aims to analyse the relationship between these developments and the flow of published economic information between and among the cities. Content analyses of non-local economic data, both advertising and editorial, in the pages of the urban newspapers were undertaken at intervals of a decade between 1845 and 1875. The results of these analyses suggest that the new technology had an evolutionary, not revolutionary, effect on the structure of information flows, encouraging both the centralization of control of news gathering and dissemination while allowing the periphery closer contact with the centre. The volume of economic values circulating increased significantly. Regional, national and international networks all became better articulated as the system of cities expanded and intensified.