The Communication Revolution, 1760–1933

Abstract

AFTER the delivery of the presidential address by Mr. H. W. Dickinson to the Newcomen Society on October 11, a paper with the above title was read, by Prof. R. G. Albion of Prince ton University. Taking the opening of Brindley's Bridgewater Canal as his starting point, Prof. Albion touched upon the development of canals, roads, railways, steamships, telegraphs and submarine cables, electric traction, motor-cars, telephones, aeroplanes and radio, and briefly referred to the effect of the ‘communication revolution’ on commerce, finance, exploration, colonisation, government, warfare, city growth and also to its influence on the individual. His paper contained many interesting comparisons of the facilities for communication in the eighteenth century and to-day. Just as stage coaches in England sometimes took 14 days to go from London to Edinburgh, so travellers were often a week going from Boston to New York, while one landmark in colonial travel was the inauguration in 1770 of a two-day service between New York and Philadelphia, a distance of but 90 miles. The first shots in the American Revolution were fired at Lexington on April 19, 1775, and the news did not reach New York, 225 miles distant, until four days later. The United States, Prof. Albion said, would probably have never fought England in 1812 had there been an Atlantic cable, for England suspended the Orders in Council, the chief American grievance, the day before War was declared at Washington. Rapidity of communication has also revolutionised business transactions, and although the Rothschilds once maintained an elaborate service of correspondents and couriers for business purposes, their information was neither so full nor so fresh as that found in any daily paper to-day. Speaking of newspapers, films and radio as the means for “mass communication” Prof. Albion said that the chief implied danger of these is that their great influence may be abused by the small groups which control them.