A Thread across the Ocean – The Heroic Story of the Transatlantic Cable

Citation

Glasgow, E. (2003), "A Thread across the Ocean – The Heroic Story of the Transatlantic Cable", Library Review, Vol. 52 No. 4, pp. 184-185. https://doi.org/10.1108/lr.2003.52.4.184.6

Nowadays, when we have global perspectives and the world almost daily seems to be getting smaller, it is important to realize that the process of “globalization” began long ago, in the nineteenth century. The American inventor, S.F. Morse (1791‐1872), in 1843 sent a message by the newly‐invented electric telegraph, from Washington to Baltimore, and in 1856, the American “Western Union Company” was organized to exploit the invention. Already, in 1851, the first international telegraph cable had been laid, between Dover and Calais: a great benefit for businessmen operating the Stock Exchanges in both London and Paris.

However, the crucial issue was the bigger enterprise, of linking England and America by an effective submarine cable. The task had immense engineering problems, but it remains as an excellent example of the practical convergence of different lines of investigation upon a single problem. After some abortive efforts, the transatlantic cable was completed in 1866, using the famous Great Eastern, the largest ship which was then afloat. This combined Anglo‐American enterprise is a great and heroic story, involving leading engineers on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. It is told here in impressive and reliable detail: an exciting and significant tale of human refusal to be overwhelmed by danger, difficulty, and denial.

The book has been very attractively printed and bound. It has a good Index and Bibliography, so that it must be thoroughly recommended for the use of students, and it will certainly be of permanent value and importance, for its crucial subject: pertaining to the long‐term links, between England and America. Of course, the ultimate effects of such an improvement in the world’s international communications brought with them pain, as well as gain: sorrows as well as joys were quickly spread across the globe, The London Times, of 30 July 1866, commented, perhaps rather ominously: “America cannot fail to live more in Europe and Europe in America … For the purpose of mutual intercourse the whole world is fast becoming one vast city.”

The new transatlantic cable could mean peace – or war – between nations; as also immediate communications between the Stock Exchange of New York and London: where such information might mean the difference between fortune and bankruptcy. In 1869, a British company put in place a similar submarine cable, between Suez and Bombay. By 1871, Australia was reached, via Singapore. Canada was added in 1902. The world might thus have become one; but it was still divided, as it is today, by suspicion and conflict: in 1917 Germany’s notorious “Zimmerman Telegram”, when it was intercepted, persuaded President Woodrow Wilson to ask Congress to declare war.

Even in our world today, we must see the consequences – for better or for worse – of this very remarkable Anglo‐American enterprise. Of the transatlantic cable. “It was the technological foundation of what would become, in little over a century, a global village” (op. cit., p. 215). We cannot now regret the skill, dedication, and courage, all of which went into the making of this vital “thread across the ocean”. The story – it reads almost like a tale of imaginative adventure – has been splendidly and vividly told in this remarkable and enduring book.