Latest / 1-800-1800 / 1-800-1844: A telegraph and a train walk into a bar

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1-800-1844: A telegraph and a train walk into a bar · 1-800-1800

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  ring ring hello is this 1844 this is she it is me it is me how
• 0:08
  do you say that in
• 0:08
  morse code oh girl i did not learn that that would have been
• 0:12
  really smart to learn
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  i don't know how numbers work in morse code but they must i
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  mean they must just be
• 0:20
  like one dot no one dot is e okay so you did learn some worse
• 0:24
  yeah i'm like hitting
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  SPEAKER_01: the mic trying to communicate yeah
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Hello?
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: You've reached 1-800-1800.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: 1-800-1800.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: I have a burning question.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: 1-800-
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: 1800.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: I have a burning question.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, everybody.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: This is Madeline Forsella.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, and this is Mabel Taylor.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: And this is 1-800-1800.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: A podcast brought to you by Mandy Lyon Press,
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: which is a press that we started and we revive 19th century novels,
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: mostly written by women,
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: occasionally weird men.
• 1:12
  And our books are for sale at bookstores near you and on
• 1:15
  MandyLyonPress.com.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: So like and subscribe our books.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like and subscribe the books.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: They really want to be liked.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: Well,
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: I learned something interesting,
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: which my friend Colton told me,
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: so I'll give him credit for that,
• 1:30
  which is that 20% of all humans to have ever lived in all time
• 1:37
  were alive during
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: the 20th century.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's interesting because of population growth.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: So people who are like,
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_02: I was born in the wrong time or people who are like,
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so happy to be alive today.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like I feel so lucky.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's not luck.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's a statistics game.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: And like there was one fifth chance that you were going to be born now.
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  And like a 0.0001 chance that you would be born in like the
• 2:05
  caveman times.
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  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_01: Well, speaking of the caveman times, did you read this article about how
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Neanderthals were having sex with homo sapiens.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: What do you mean?
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's this interesting thing.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: My dad,
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  SPEAKER_01: unfortunately,
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: did a genetic test,
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: 23andMe,
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  SPEAKER_01: a couple of years ago,
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  SPEAKER_01: which confirmed that he is indeed 99.9% Ashkenazi Jewish,
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  SPEAKER_01: but also 3% Neanderthal.
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  And the math doesn't add up because homo sapien DNA is
• 2:35
  categorized differently than
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  SPEAKER_01: other non-homo sapien DNA.
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  SPEAKER_01: And he's not alone, even though you think it does suit him.
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  SPEAKER_01: A lot of people find out that they're Neanderthal when they do 23andMe.
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  And I guess that's because Neanderthals and Homo sapiens back
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  in the good old days
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  SPEAKER_01: were bumping uglies.
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  SPEAKER_01: So that's interesting.
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  SPEAKER_02: My brother did it,
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  but I was so mad at him for doing it that I refused to engage
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  with the results.
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  SPEAKER_02: So I should ask him if we're Neanderthal.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
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  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
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  SPEAKER_01: for you,
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  it's a bad idea to have your DNA out there given your
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  proclivity to commit crimes.
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  SPEAKER_02: I just,
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  I think my hot take is that if you're going to give away
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  something like your DNA
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  SPEAKER_02: that you share with other people,
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  SPEAKER_02: you should have to have their permission.
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  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_02: It's like if we,
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  if we inherited a trust fund together and he gave it all away
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  without asking me,
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  SPEAKER_02: that would be illegal.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_01: And if anything, money comes and goes, but DNA is forever.
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  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
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  SPEAKER_01: This is my heritage.
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  SPEAKER_02: This is like my inheritance.
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  SPEAKER_02: And he just like gave it to some random company without consulting me.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's really unfair.
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  SPEAKER_01: And it reminds me,
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  SPEAKER_01: do you remember reading,
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  SPEAKER_01: not reading,
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  SPEAKER_01: watching Megan Fox on Call Her Daddy like two years ago?
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  SPEAKER_01: Did you consume that?
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  I mean,
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  yeah,
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  I did consume it,
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  but I don't remember any specific thing about it.
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  SPEAKER_01: I hadn't either.
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  SPEAKER_01: And then a clip of it popped up on my Instagram reels again.
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  And there's this amazing clip where Megan Fox defends having
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  drunk machine gun
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  SPEAKER_01: Kelly's blood because she's like,
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  there's sluts out there swallowing random guy's sperm left and
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  right three times a
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  SPEAKER_01: week.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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  and she's like god forbid i drink the blood of my soulmate and
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  it's really funny
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  wait i didn't realize they had drunk each other's blood yeah
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  but like i don't think
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  that's gross no blood is clean most of the time also just like
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  yeah if you're like
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  having sex with someone there's way grosser stuff that you're
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  putting in your mouth
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  yeah like blood is like inside me and it's yeah it's good
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  whereas like my hands are
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  SPEAKER_01: touching the subway and then i'm touching people like it's that's gross
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_01: Ugh.
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  SPEAKER_01: Anyway.
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  SPEAKER_01: Do you want to know what I learned this week?
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, of course.
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  SPEAKER_01: Well, I actually already told you about this because it was really funny.
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  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but pretend for the audience that I don't know.
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  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
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  SPEAKER_01: Okay, Madeline, forget everything.
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  SPEAKER_01: Okay,
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  SPEAKER_01: so as you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: as everyone should know,
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  SPEAKER_01: I was stung by a jellyfish on a Caribbean vacation two weeks ago.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I live to tell the tale.
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  SPEAKER_01: though the mark of the tentacle remains emblazoned on my arm.
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  SPEAKER_01: And on Thursday,
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  SPEAKER_01: partly because of Madeline's really scary encouragement,
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  SPEAKER_01: I started to think I'm going to die because of my jellyfish sting.
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  SPEAKER_01: And it's not healing.
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  SPEAKER_01: You told me it was getting progressively worse.
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  SPEAKER_01: I realized why it was getting worse,
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  which is that I was going in the steam room every single day
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  since I returned from
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  SPEAKER_01: vacation,
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  SPEAKER_01: which was activating the venom.
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  And my dad is a physician and I asked him for guidance and he
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  looked up the
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  SPEAKER_01: diagnosis codes for jellyfish stings.
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  And I'm familiar with diagnosis codes because my therapist
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  gives me a diagnosis
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  SPEAKER_01: code,
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  SPEAKER_01: which I enter into my health insurance program.
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  website for my claim submissions and it was just funny i was
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  like wow it's
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  interesting to remember that like my anxiety disorder
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  quote-unquote diagnosis code
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  lives in the broader universe of diagnosis codes for everything
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  including six
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  variations of different types of jellyfish sting diagnosis
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  codes including toxic
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  effect of contact with jellyfish accidental toxic effect which
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  is what you had
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  SPEAKER_01: which is what i had
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  that we think um toxic effect of contact with jellyfish
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  intentional self-harm toxic
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  effect of contact with jellyfish assault toxic effect of
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  contact with jellyfish
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  SPEAKER_01: undetermined
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  SPEAKER_01: Ooh.
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  SPEAKER_03: I'm just like,
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  I want to hear the stories of the invention of the code for
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  self-harm with a
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  SPEAKER_02: jellyfish and assault with a jellyfish.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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  Also,
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  I was watching Below Deck recently,
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  which I think I maybe mentioned on this podcast.
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  And there was this hilarious scene where one of the deckhands
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  sees all these
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  SPEAKER_01: jellyfish in the Mediterranean and
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  SPEAKER_01: And he, everyone's like, okay, tell the guests not to go in the water.
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  SPEAKER_01: And then he's like, well, you know, you can touch them.
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  SPEAKER_01: He was French.
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  SPEAKER_01: He was like, you know, you can touch them.
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  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't hurt you.
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  SPEAKER_01: And everyone's like, are you sure about that?
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  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  SPEAKER_01: And he like reaches his hand in and grabs the top of a jellyfish.
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  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, see, it doesn't hurt.
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  SPEAKER_01: And then he wipes his eyes and then his eyes explode.
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  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, starts sobbing.
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  SPEAKER_01: And the captain is Captain Sandy is like, never seen that one before.
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  SPEAKER_01: Never seen an intentional self-harm jellyfish sting.
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  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
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  oh my god why because it's like a hot pepper or something like
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  yeah you cut a hot
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  pepper and it gets on your hands yeah it's exactly like that
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  yeah it's like a it's
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  a gel that's so weird I would not have thought that yeah I
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  think it's like not only
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  SPEAKER_01: the tentacles but sort of their whole aura is toxic
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  anyway so my jellyfish thing is getting better um that's good
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  but it's still but
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  you haven't been able to take a steam i haven't been able to
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  step foot in the steam
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  room and what is the medical code for that um being unable to
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  go in the steam room
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  SPEAKER_01: yeah it's sos 9-1-1 yeah okay so 1844
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  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to tell you about this year.
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  SPEAKER_01: And as I explained to you before we started recording,
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  I actually had intentions to discuss a completely different
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  year up until about 10
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  SPEAKER_01: minutes before we got on the call.
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  And that was just a classic Mabel Madeline type of screwball
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  comedy where I thought
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  SPEAKER_02: I was going to talk about what people could only see.
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  also wait sorry one other thing i'm looking at the screenshot
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  of the jellyfish
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  search on my dad's like diagnosis code app and he had just
• 8:32
  typed jelly and so the
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  options are either jellyfish or jelly beans like apple
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  suggested and i'm like i
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  wonder what happens when you type jelly beans into the
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  diagnosis code probably like
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  SPEAKER_02: jelly beans up the nose self-harm jelly beans up the nose assault
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  SPEAKER_01: If you ever do that to me,
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  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to call the police because they already have your DNA anyway.
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  SPEAKER_02: I know.
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  I'll have to be really careful not to lick the jelly beans
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  before I shove them up your nose.
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  SPEAKER_01: That's an irresistible crime, though.
• 9:06
  Okay,
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  so all this to say,
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  I don't know a ton about 1844 in general,
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  but I know a little bit.
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  SPEAKER_01: Here are some things that were happening.
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  SPEAKER_01: One, it was the year of the water rabbit.
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  SPEAKER_02: Of course.
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  SPEAKER_01: Just thought that was interesting.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: Can I ask something?
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: Since when are we putting the element on in front of the animal?
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  I think because fire horse is so iconic that now it's going to
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  be element plus
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: animal going forever.
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  SPEAKER_01: Well, I wonder what next year is.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
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  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's nothing cool, but fire horse is just so good.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: So does that mean there's a year of like the wood rat?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, wood is not an element.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, it is in Chinese astrology.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: I think so.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: I could do a little research about this, but it would be taking us away.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: And you said we have a time limit here.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, sorry, sorry.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, okay.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: That one has a strict deadline, which I've already disrespected wildly.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's two hours.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: Okay,
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: so the other thing that happened in 1844 was that the YMCA was founded,
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: the Young Men's Christian Association.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's fun to say, I know it from the Trump rallies I attend.
• 10:12
  yeah did think it was just a nice reminder I kind of knew this
• 10:16
  somewhere deep in
• 10:17
  the recesses of my brain but the YMCA was founded by a man
• 10:20
  named George Williams
• 10:21
  who was a draper living in London and he was very concerned
• 10:25
  about the lack of
• 10:26
  healthy activities available to young men brought to cities by
• 10:29
  the industrial
• 10:30
  revolution and so he wanted to provide them with an alternative
• 10:33
  to you know the
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: good old times you can have at taverns and brothels
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's sort of like the male loneliness epidemic part one.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 10:42
  It's like,
• 10:43
  what do men get up to when they have nothing,
• 10:45
  no women around them?
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: No physical outlets.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: And there's this amazing...
• 10:50
  I'm going to do a lot of screen sharing today because I've
• 10:53
  found a lot of great
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: images that I want to share with you.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: But this image of...
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: men in a YMCA gym in 1888.
• 11:02
  There is a bunch of men topless wearing like thigh highs and
• 11:09
  they all have clubs in their hands.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: Can I like maybe the club,
• 11:13
  I feel like the club was such an iconic workout tool for so
• 11:18
  long and sort of like
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: the strong man at the circus with his club and
• 11:23
  And I'm like,
• 11:24
  why is that not come back in some form of like New York
• 11:27
  boutique exercise class?
• 11:29
  Well,
• 11:30
  you know what that means when you ask that question,
• 11:32
  you have to start the business.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: I have to start the business.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's a great idea.
• 11:38
  There's also men doing things in the background of this image
• 11:40
  that I would like to
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: do more and working out,
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: which is like standing on my head,
• 11:46
  doing sort of gymnastic style routines where you're like
• 11:48
  hanging from monkey bars.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: did you,
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to out to docks your gym,
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: but at the gym I used to go to,
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: which was a slightly lower rent gym than the one you go to,
• 12:03
  there would always be people doing kind of like gymnastics like
• 12:08
  that in a really
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: like sort of,
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: it was amazing to see,
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: but also like that took up a lot of like sort of space and was very loud.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: But do you experience that or is that like not...
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Men do kind of acrobatic things.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: I would say it is gendered.
• 12:24
  Like men are kind of doing like pull-ups and like throwing
• 12:29
  their legs in the air
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: and stuff like that.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: But it's not a huge thing.
• 12:33
  There was a big boxing class happening like in the open space
• 12:36
  of the gym this
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: morning when I was there.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I found that to be interesting and was like, should I be doing that?
• 12:40
  Because that's also a traditional workout that I feel like
• 12:43
  could be good for me.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: I used to love boxing.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe we should get into that again.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: I have some rage I want to take out at the moment.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I know.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: For once, it's not targeted towards me.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's rarely targeted towards you.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't really make you angry.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: I just make you happy.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: Other things that happened in 1844.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: A gun explodes on board the USS Princeton and kills the U.S.
• 13:08
  Secretary of State,
• 13:10
  Abel Upshur,
• 13:11
  while President John Tyler is below deck.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: Luckily, Tyler was not injured.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: Poor Abel.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: I identify with Abel,
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: of course,
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: because we share almost every letter of our first names.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: Well, also, it's so biblical.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: For Abel to be killed.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: That name is kind of a curse.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: Why would you name your kid that?
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: I don't really meet that many Abels,
• 13:35
  but people often think my name is Abel because I think I sort
• 13:39
  of slur the M in my
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: name.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: You're Abel to be Mabel.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: Abel Mabel is a really good song.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever heard that song?
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: No, I don't think so.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: Play clip.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: One other thing happened in 1844.
• 13:56
  Charles Goodyear receives a patent for vulcanization,
• 13:59
  a process used to strengthen rubber.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: That will be important in our lives.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: Births Henry Rousseau and Mary Cassatt.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: Born.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: Impressionism.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: Born.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: Born this year.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: Also Nietzsche is born.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like he's always being born in every episode.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm like, what the hell?
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's very Nietzsche.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm like, I almost went back to look at our notes.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I swear we've not done this year.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: And yet we've talked about his birth before.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then death.
• 14:26
  I don't know if you've thought about this yet,
• 14:27
  but the death,
• 14:28
  the only death.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_02: I think about death every day.
• 14:31
  But the specific death I'm going to talk about is a throwback
• 14:34
  to our last episode
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: last week,
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: 1-800-1823.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: You discussed Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: He died in 1844.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, he dies in jail.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: He and his brother Hiram are in jail,
• 14:48
  having been charged with inciting a riot after destroying a
• 14:51
  printing press.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then an angry mob comes in and rips them to pieces.
• 14:56
  And what I think makes this a good episode actually to follow
• 15:00
  last week's episode
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: is that last week you were talking about.
• 15:04
  the printing press and the the medium of printing as kind of
• 15:08
  deeply involved in the
• 15:10
  history of mormonism and you elaborated on this in a fantastic
• 15:14
  newsletter last
• 15:15
  thursday and it's interesting to me that smith dies in 1844
• 15:21
  basically because of
• 15:22
  one media medium i've been struggling with media medium lately
• 15:26
  but he dies don't
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: get me started
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard.
• 15:31
  He dies partly because of his intense relationship with a way
• 15:35
  of communication,
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: a communication tool.
• 15:38
  And in 1844 is what could arguably be considered the birth of
• 15:44
  another form of
• 15:45
  communication that will deeply shape the rest of the 19th
• 15:48
  century and continues to
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: shape our lives today.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to talk about the telegraph.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: So from printing to the telegraph,
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: and I would say,
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 15:58
  those are the top two most important forms of communication
• 16:01
  that the human
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: population have ever come up with.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: The pigeon always gets short shrift in this history.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: We could talk a little bit about the pigeon.
• 16:10
  I want to bring you to the end of the 19th century first,
• 16:13
  even though we're talking about 1844.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: By the 1890s,
• 16:16
  the Western Union operated 679,000 miles of telegraph cables
• 16:22
  throughout the
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: continental United States,
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: and they owned $140 million in assets.
• 16:28
  telegrams were being sent daily more than daily some people
• 16:33
  were sending them all
• 16:34
  the time and we see this constantly in the books that we read
• 16:38
  from the 19th century
• 16:39
  the later 19th century and we also see these represented in
• 16:44
  some of the other
• 16:45
  popular culture that we're consuming here on 1-800-1800
• 16:48
  particularly i thought
• 16:49
  about i think that my inspiration to talk about the telegraph
• 16:52
  started when we
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: watched death by lightning
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because I thought the telegraph was really well represented there.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: Because Garfield is like finding out that he's been,
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: he's won the presidential election via telegraph.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 17:04
  And it's like the invention of the telegraph is the thing that
• 17:06
  enables him to be like home.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:09
  At that moment,
• 17:10
  rather than like in the place where they're being counted.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
• 17:14
  like he can be a farmer president because he can be at his farm
• 17:17
  and still know that
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: he's won the presidential election.
• 17:20
  And I'm going to start us off,
• 17:22
  too,
• 17:22
  with this amazing Ralph Waldo Emerson quote.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: And it's kind of it's going I know it's going to be hard for me to say.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: So watch this space.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: Take one.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: See how by telegraph and steam the world is anthropologized.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: Whoa, that's the whole quote.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: At first, it was like she's speaking another language.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: I said it really weird.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: So it's basically saying,
• 17:47
  watch how the telegraph and the steam engine will
• 17:50
  anthropologize the world.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's very interesting.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's also related to my fact, I feel.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, what was your mind again?
• 18:01
  That like 20% of all humans who've ever walked the earth lived
• 18:05
  in the short span of
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: the 20th century,
• 18:07
  even though there have been humans on earth for like hundreds
• 18:10
  of thousands of
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: years.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:13
  I think there's this like weird compression that happens in
• 18:16
  human history after 1844.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: And this is literally,
• 18:19
  this whole episode is about time and compression and trying to
• 18:24
  overcome distance
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: through means other than traveling physically across distances.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm very excited to talk about this.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: And this is one of these things where it's like, this is everything.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: This is the entire 19th century.
• 18:38
  And it is so fundamental that I've never thought to understand
• 18:41
  how it works.
• 18:42
  And I still don't totally know how it works,
• 18:44
  but I'm going to try to explain how it works.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: Does everybody know what a telegraph is?
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: I don't.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: Could you try to explain?
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm curious how you would explain it.
• 18:54
  A telegraph is like when you want to get a message to someone
• 18:59
  way faster than a letter.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: You go to the Western Union and you go, say, the baby was born.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: He's five pounds, eight ounces.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: Stop.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: Mother is well.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: Stop.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_02: Much love, Frederick.
• 19:19
  And then they zoomed out over to the other Western Union office
• 19:23
  where the person
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: receiving the messages and then they hand it to sort of like a bellhop or
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: something.
• 19:27
  And then he goes running around the city trying to find the
• 19:29
  person who it was intended for.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that's well put.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: But also it's like there's an invisible technology that's happening here.
• 19:38
  And I like I think a lot of people think that a telegram is
• 19:42
  like a piece of paper
• 19:43
  that's like shot through space or something like I think that
• 19:45
  it's really confusing
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: to understand what is being communicated and how.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: In my like historical imagination,
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: and I know this to be false,
• 19:53
  but it's bound up with the kind of like pneumatic male systems
• 19:56
  that a lot of
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: buildings and cities had.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that there's like a real visual reason for that.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and all you see is the piece of paper when it's delivered.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: You see the telegram, but you don't see the machinery behind it.
• 20:12
  And this is a huge change from all of human history because
• 20:17
  basically before the
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: very end of the 18th century,
• 20:21
  there was no way to communicate any faster than you could run
• 20:25
  or a horse could
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: gallop or a ship could sail.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I read this book called The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage.
• 20:34
  And he has this quote,
• 20:36
  this unavoidable delay had remained constant for thousands of
• 20:39
  years.
• 20:39
  It was much as much a fact of life for George Washington as it
• 20:42
  was for Henry VIII,
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: Charlemagne and Julius Caesar.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: And that also supports your fact, you know.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_02: Well,
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_02: yeah,
• 20:49
  because it's like if you watch like or if if you see if you
• 20:53
  watch like well done
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: historical fiction about like wars or if you read stuff from the period,
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_02: like if there was a battle,
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: for example,
• 21:01
  they would have someone stationed at the battlefield ready to
• 21:04
  ride away as quickly
• 21:05
  as possible to report back to wherever like the main generals
• 21:09
  of the war were and
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: tell them what had happened.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: And it was like a game of like who could get there faster, basically.
• 21:15
  And it kind of puts the like the victors get to tell the
• 21:18
  history like victors write history.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: It puts it into different.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a literal thing.
• 21:23
  Like the victor is the one whose messenger is still alive and
• 21:27
  can go tell people what happened.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a physical act.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well,
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_02: and it's so yeah all of these,
• 21:35
  all of these things are kind of like interpreted through like
• 21:40
  later retellings and
• 21:41
  stuff because there's no immediate account that's being like
• 21:45
  sort of given and that
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: is the standard universal.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 21:47
  I think that's like the great flaw in our media system today is
• 21:50
  that there is like
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_02: an immediate response to things.
• 21:53
  People send it all out and then everyone assumes that's the
• 21:56
  facts because it's like
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: on the ground.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: And then later,
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: if that story is altered,
• 22:01
  it's irrelevant because like there's already an established
• 22:05
  narrative and we assume
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_02: that the most immediate is the most factual and that's not true.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:10
  And like the lost art of journalism is that stories and facts
• 22:14
  have to be interpreted.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why I don't read the news.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: So basically,
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: people had been trying to solve this problem for a long time of,
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 22:27
  the problem being that it's really hard to tell people things
• 22:30
  immediately.
• 22:31
  And people were kind of aware,
• 22:34
  especially in the 18th century,
• 22:35
  that like you could use
• 22:36
  sound or light to communicate a message for example like a
• 22:40
  clock bell can tell
• 22:41
  someone far away what time it is but it has its limitations
• 22:46
  right because also this
• 22:47
  the speed of sound is slower than time or whatever so it's like
• 22:53
  if the what
• 22:54
  basically the clock bell on the huge tower delay yeah it
• 22:59
  strikes two o'clock
• 23:01
  And I'm standing in a field,
• 23:03
  I'm half a mile away from the church bell tower.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: There will be a two second delay.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't really know that it's two o'clock.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm always going to be too.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: You're like, it was two o'clock at some point.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: And the same thing,
• 23:19
  I could be standing in that field a half mile away from the
• 23:22
  church and I can see on
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: the clock face that it's two o'clock.
• 23:25
  But the limitation there is that if I walk any further back,
• 23:28
  I won't be able to see it.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Mm hmm.
• 23:33
  so people were looking for alternatives and because the
• 23:37
  limitations to the visual
• 23:39
  is the like the strength of human sight it also doesn't work at
• 23:42
  night um as well
• 23:45
  and like sound some people are deaf and some people can't hear
• 23:47
  things and if if i'm
• 23:48
  like not half a mile away in an empty quiet field but half a
• 23:52
  mile away in a city i
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: just might miss it because it's really loud there
• 23:55
  So people having discovered that electricity exists are like
• 24:00
  maybe electricity
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: could be used to transmit information.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: And there was like these experiments done,
• 24:04
  which I think you've talked about in your episodes about the
• 24:07
  history of like the
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: battery.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: People would like stand in a line holding an electric battery.
• 24:13
  like holding a cable or something and communicate a pulse of
• 24:17
  electricity across
• 24:18
  that transmitting material and they could feel it far away from
• 24:22
  the source of it so
• 24:22
  like these ideas are brewing but nobody really knew how to
• 24:28
  harness any of this
• 24:30
  until 1792 a man named Claude Chape does something which is he
• 24:38
  actually and I feel
• 24:39
  like the way I just framed that was a little misleading he
• 24:41
  doesn't make an electric
• 24:42
  telegraph he makes a visual telegraph which and he's the first
• 24:45
  person what does
• 24:46
  that mean it's very interesting um so Claude I don't know how
• 24:52
  you would pronounce
• 24:52
  Chape so I'm just going to call him Claude how do you spell it
• 24:55
  C-H-A-P-P-E
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: Where is there an accent?
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: There is no accent.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_02: I think it would then be like chap.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: Claude chap.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: Claude was supposed to have a career in the clergy,
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: but then the French Revolution happened and threw everything off.
• 25:14
  And he is doing what guys tend to do when they don't have a job
• 25:18
  which is hanging
• 25:18
  out in his parents backyard with his brothers experimenting
• 25:21
  with sending messages
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: to each other using clocks and cooking pans.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_02: We've all been there.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's so sweet.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's such a great thing to do.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:30
  So he and his brother started doing this thing where they would
• 25:33
  stand a few hundred
• 25:35
  yards apart and they would have these clocks that they would
• 25:37
  synchronize to each
• 25:38
  other and they would synchronize them by clanging the pots that
• 25:42
  they were carrying
• 25:43
  with them and then like basically align on a certain position
• 25:48
  on the clock and
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then they would each be holding a numbered dictionary.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: So it was like,
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think each entry in the dictionary had a number associated with it.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so then they would use the number dictionary to send coded messages.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: So if I was trying to say like, hey, how are you?
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: And hey was one and how was two and R was three and four was you.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: I would be able to bang on my pots to be able to send that message.
• 26:15
  And so basically what they're doing here is like creating a
• 26:19
  semaphore system.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: Sema meaning mark, sign, token, and for being bearer or carrier.
• 26:26
  So it's the idea that you can use an apparatus other than
• 26:29
  written word or spoken
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: word to communicate a message across the distance.
• 26:35
  And you can make a semaphore with like a smoke signal or like a
• 26:39
  flashlight or a flag.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: Those are all semaphore potential apparatuses.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: Are you with me?
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: One F by land, two F by sea.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: Can I say something?
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: Please.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_02: I just want to acknowledge that it's daylight savings today.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my God.
• 26:57
  We're talking about the like great horror of synchronizing
• 27:02
  clocks in a pre-digital world.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's, I mean, a pre-digital world.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm,
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: I tried to set my analog clock that I love and have,
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: and it's,
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: I just had to give up and be like,
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: this is just going to be two minutes fast.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I said to myself, that's great because I'll be early to work.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: You're already so early all the time.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: I know, but those two minutes could change the game.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: Okay,
• 27:23
  so Chap and his brothers kind of figure out a way that there's
• 27:29
  a way to do this
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: without the synchronized clocks,
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: which makes it more simple.
• 27:32
  He also figures out a way to do this,
• 27:34
  not with sound,
• 27:35
  but with visual symbols.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: So he creates basically this mechanism of rotating arms.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to show you a picture because I think it will help a lot.
• 27:46
  yeah wait what does the clock have to do with the clanging the
• 27:51
  clock it was unclear
• 27:53
  and basically i think they were like overthinking it because
• 27:56
  they're kids they're
• 27:57
  kids well i think they're like in their 20s um they're just
• 28:01
  like boys in their 20s
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: are kids they're little babies
• 28:04
  So basically what I'm showing Madeline is these like crazy
• 28:07
  contraptions that have a
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: series of arms and it's basically like a stick figure.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: It looks like hangman or something.
• 28:13
  And imagine that each limb or part of a limb can be rotated in
• 28:19
  one of many directions.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: And you basically,
• 28:21
  all of this relies on agreeing beforehand on what a certain
• 28:25
  position of the arms
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: means,
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: what number,
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: what letter or number it's associated with.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that allows you to communicate.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so this was like kind of a revolutionary idea.
• 28:37
  And he uses this system to like create what will become the
• 28:45
  chap telegraph.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: I've never heard of that telegraph.
• 28:50
  it's apparently it was really important um and the idea i have
• 28:56
  no reason to doubt
• 28:56
  you so once you come up with the a system for communicating
• 29:00
  across a distance with
• 29:01
  a series of what he calls regulators and indicators that's what
• 29:04
  the the arms are
• 29:06
  then you need to get them up to a height that people can see
• 29:08
  across a vast distance
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: so the chap telegraph requires building towers
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: all over France, which is ultimately what happens.
• 29:17
  And also involves inventing a system of pulleys that allows you
• 29:21
  to control the arms from below.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: So it's basically giant puppets.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: Puppets is really what this looks like to me.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, that's awesome.
• 29:28
  yeah in 1793 chap goes to the national dissertation about that
• 29:33
  instead yes that's
• 29:36
  what this episode is really about okay in 1793 chap goes to the
• 29:41
  national convention
• 29:42
  which is like the governing body that has replaced the like
• 29:46
  monarchical system that
• 29:47
  was there before because the french revolution has just
• 29:49
  happened yeah wait sorry
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: what year was it this is 1793 okay yeah
• 29:55
  And he convinces them to give him funding to execute a test of
• 30:00
  the system,
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: to build towers and to build his indicator regulator arms.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: And he's telling them that it has potentially vast military applications.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: Well, this is also like so like.
• 30:16
  in that period of time when they're kind of like the reign of
• 30:21
  terror type period
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: where they're like changing everything.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's like a calendar.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's like the calendar.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's like them trying to like,
• 30:31
  like standardize all of these things that had been like
• 30:34
  irrational before.
• 30:36
  yeah exactly and it's all yeah it's just like an advancement of
• 30:41
  an existing
• 30:42
  technology that is kind of overly elaborate because I'm like
• 30:47
  historically I feel
• 30:48
  like a big public puppet would have been like a Christ on the
• 30:52
  cross that was
• 30:53
  carried through town in a parade or something and now all of a
• 30:56
  sudden it's like a
• 30:57
  logical way to send messages military messages that's so like
• 31:01
  post-revolution to me
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: But also, like, it still scared people.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like,
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: people,
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: there was a couple instances where,
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: an angry mob attacked and destroyed his towers.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: Isn't that funny?
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like,
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: so I think there's something in the history of the Telegraph,
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: which I'll talk a little bit about later,
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: too,
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: that's,
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: really intensely,
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: mythological and spiritual.
• 31:22
  And there's,
• 31:23
  like,
• 31:23
  there's many witchcraft accusations made against inventors of
• 31:26
  Telegraph.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I want to talk about this because I have a lot to say about that.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not surprised.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously.
• 31:32
  I already made a note to myself in my little notebook over here
• 31:34
  that I wanted to
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: talk about that.
• 31:37
  So they build the first towers and they send messages and it
• 31:43
  takes 11 minutes to
• 31:44
  communicate a message across three towers and nine minutes to
• 31:47
  send back a reply.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not even going to bother telling you what the messages were,
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: because as Tom Standard says in the Victorian Internet,
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: the messages were like really boring.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: They're not like I wish they were cool.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_02: What would be a cool message?
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm going to tell you what a cool message would be.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like tits.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm horny.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: So they then need to figure out what to call this system.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: And Chape recommends calling it a tachograph, which means fast rider.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: But the army prefers telegraph, which means far rider.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that fast versus far thing is going to be important.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you why.
• 32:26
  So by the early 1790s,
• 32:29
  there are towers all over France of the Chape Telegraph.
• 32:33
  And the first arm of the French state telegraph started
• 32:37
  operation in May 1794.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: And on August 15th,
• 32:40
  it was used to report the recapture of a town from the
• 32:43
  Austrians and Prussians
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: within an hour of the battle's end.
• 32:47
  so immediately it's like changing the way that war works and um
• 32:52
  napoleon who would
• 32:54
  come into power in 1799 was a firm believer in the telegraph
• 32:58
  and he ordered the
• 32:58
  expansion of the network and he even wanted to figure out a way
• 33:01
  to like conquer
• 33:02
  england and also to use the telegraph towards that like he
• 33:06
  wanted to like be able
• 33:07
  to communicate across the channel um i don't think that really
• 33:10
  ever happened
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: And in 1797,
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: the Encyclopedia Britannica writes,
• 33:16
  the capitals of distant nations might be united by chains of
• 33:19
  posts and the settling
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: of those disputes,
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: which at present take up to months or years,
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: could be accomplished in as many hours.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like new diplomacy.
• 33:28
  Yeah,
• 33:28
  it's going to change the way that people understand each other
• 33:31
  vastly.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, there are some issues with the Chape telegraph.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: One,
• 33:40
  it's very expensive to build huge towers and to pay people to
• 33:43
  live instead of them
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: to operate.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: They also do not work at night.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: And also because they're so expensive to build and to maintain,
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: they really don't have any commercial or personal applications.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: They're really just for the government.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a limit.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: And things do not go well for Claude.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: Poor Claude.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_03: Basically,
• 34:08
  because he wasn't the only person interested in kind of
• 34:11
  figuring out how to do an
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: optical telegraph.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of people,
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: as soon as he invents it and it starts spreading all over Europe,
• 34:18
  people he's worked with and people who he doesn't even know at
• 34:21
  all are saying that
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: they invented it actually.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that's, again, a big theme of the history of the telegraph.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone's claiming that they did it and he didn't do it.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: He's really upset.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: So mean.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: He becomes incredibly paranoid and depressed.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: He thinks people are poisoning his food.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: And ultimately,
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: on January 23rd,
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: 1805,
• 34:37
  he jumps into a well outside the Telegraph Administration
• 34:41
  building in Paris and
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: dies.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_02: What?
• 34:47
  Was it intentional suicide or was he trying to go in the well
• 34:51
  for another reason?
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_02: No, he couldn't.
• 34:55
  it wasn't like a fun splish splash in the telegraph i was
• 34:59
  somebody was just giving
• 35:00
  a presentation about this like sufi manuscript where she jumps
• 35:04
  in a well and then
• 35:05
  is like thought to be hiding there and we'll come back later i
• 35:08
  mean we should
• 35:09
  really do an episode about wells because like as much as i'm
• 35:12
  confused about
• 35:12
  telegraphs i can't even begin to tell you how confused i am
• 35:15
  about wells and like
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: how groundwater water how did anyone have water i don't get it
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_02: We have well water at my house.
• 35:21
  Yeah,
• 35:21
  my dad has a well too,
• 35:22
  but I'm just like,
• 35:23
  it's amazing that people had water.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_02: I think a lot of people didn't have potable water.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well,
• 35:29
  it's like when you wrote that newsletter about like the caloric
• 35:33
  intake and outtake
• 35:34
  of history and my dad made that comment about like how much
• 35:37
  energy it took to make
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: one candle.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_02: And he then like sent me an article about it.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_02: It was actually crazy.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:45
  I'm just like that's what my main like I think 2026 for me as a
• 35:50
  1-800-1800 host and
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: as a Mandy Lyon thinker is really like how did the world work?
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: How did anything happen?
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_02: Cause I do think on such like a high level,
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_02: we're so interested in like,
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_02: all of these themes that were so are so relevant today.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like,
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 36:06
  I think people attacking these towers that were like basically
• 36:09
  doing a kind of like
• 36:11
  connecting the world in a way that was making it smaller in a
• 36:14
  way that was like
• 36:14
  mass surveillance is the same as like people being upset about
• 36:17
  like ring cameras or
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: something.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: Or 5G.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_02: Or 5G.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's the same.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: But like on a microscopic level,
• 36:26
  like we don't think about other things because they're so
• 36:30
  ubiquitous and so simple
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_02: for us.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_02: Like even like I'm going to LA on Wednesday.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_02: I have not prepared for that trip at all.
• 36:37
  If I was doing that trip in like 1844,
• 36:41
  that would be months of preparation.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: And you would never come back.
• 36:45
  yeah I would never come back and I definitely wouldn't be doing
• 36:47
  it like before the
• 36:48
  snow melts yeah well it's also like you're just reminding me I
• 36:53
  just caught up on
• 36:54
  Beverly Hills Housewives and Dorit shows up so late to board a
• 36:58
  flight to Italy and
• 36:59
  like basically going to miss the opportunity to check her bags
• 37:03
  I'm just like this
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: flippancy with global travel yeah it's amazing I know
• 37:09
  so just one other thing about the chape telegraph apparently i
• 37:13
  have not read the
• 37:13
  count of monte cristo but i actually it's on my list for this
• 37:16
  year apparently it's
• 37:18
  so long yeah but hey i'm not afraid of anything um the chape
• 37:24
  telegraph apparently
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: plays a big part in that book okay i've never read it either
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe we should read it.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: So something like,
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: again,
• 37:35
  to the point of everything is so complicated and I've never
• 37:39
  fucking thought about a
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: goddamn thing because I'm so entitled and stupid.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: I am from San Francisco.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: There is a very famous hill called Telegraph Hill.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I've heard of it.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: Do you want to know why it's fucking called that?
• 37:52
  Because there is a huge tower on it that had a semaphore on it
• 37:57
  and was built in
• 38:00
  1849 and was used to signal to the rest of the city when ships
• 38:03
  were entering the
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: Golden Gate.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: I told my dad I didn't know that and he was like, I can't even with you.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: You are so stupid.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: But like, how would you know?
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: How would you know that?
• 38:16
  When you're a little girl growing up in the early 2000s,
• 38:18
  it's like you don't know anything.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, why is the financial district called that?
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like, why is Midtown called that?
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_02: Like, why is Central Park the Central Park?
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like, none of it.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_02: I never really thought about any of those things.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: And this podcast, this project, yeah, amazing.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: All I want to do,
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: I also think it's funny,
• 38:40
  like the grand arc of Mandy Line Press is that we like started
• 38:42
  out this project
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: being like,
• 38:44
  we're going to like talk about like witchcraft and the occult
• 38:48
  and like Marxism.
• 38:49
  And now we're like,
• 38:50
  oh,
• 38:50
  so telegraph is,
• 38:52
  I'm like,
• 38:54
  we kind of like hit the bottom of the barrel.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_02: This is witchcraft and Marxism though.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_02: There's no way the telegraph is not witchcraft and Marxism.
• 39:03
  yeah so it all carry on with your story okay so by the mid
• 39:07
  1830s lines of telegraph
• 39:08
  towers stretched across western europe including in britain but
• 39:12
  a lot of people are
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_01: trying to figure out how to modernize the system and specifically to use
• 39:17
  electricity to create a more efficient and more adaptable
• 39:21
  telegraph and there's
• 39:23
  this amazing quote in the standage book which is kind of a
• 39:26
  throwback to last week's
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: episode
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: where he writes,
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: the Admiralty,
• 39:31
  which had spent much of the 18th century fending off idiotic
• 39:34
  suggestions about the
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: best way to determine longitude at sea,
• 39:37
  now found itself on the receiving end of dozens of equally
• 39:40
  well-meant but often
• 39:41
  crackpot schemes suggesting ways in which the telegraphs could
• 39:44
  be made faster or
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: cheaper or both.
• 39:47
  So I talked last week about how insane a way people had of
• 39:52
  measuring their
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: longitude at sea,
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: and it's just so funny.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, yeah.
• 39:57
  And there was apparently someone who invented in the 18th
• 39:59
  century this system using
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: two clocks to measure longitude,
• 40:03
  but it was impossible to do on a boat because the clocks can't
• 40:07
  be synchronized
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_02: properly.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: And again, so clocks play a big part in this.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_02: I know.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure,
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_02: or maybe not,
• 40:15
  but I would assume you'll talk about how the telegraph and the
• 40:19
  train also led to
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_02: the clock being standardized and how time was local before that.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to talk specifically about the clock, though.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: That would have been really interesting to talk about.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a part two.
• 40:29
  But I am going to talk about the relationship between the train
• 40:31
  and the telegraph.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: OK.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: So people know electricity exists, right?
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: And people have batteries.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: Volta, as you've discussed on this podcast, had involved.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_02: Are you saying people now know that electricity exists?
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: No, no.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like in the early 19th.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 40:48
  Cause I was like,
• 40:48
  yeah,
• 40:49
  I don't think,
• 40:50
  I don't think we need to address it.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_01: like I look back behind me and I'm charging my computer,
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_01: my phone,
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: my battery,
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: like whatever.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, electricity exists, everybody wake up.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: So people, electricity is a thing.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: Batteries are a thing.
• 41:05
  And really like all you need to create an electric telegraph is
• 41:09
  a battery,
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: a light bulb and cable.
• 41:13
  But what the light bulb does is it helps you prove that
• 41:17
  electricity is flowing
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: through the cable.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: But light bulbs wouldn't be invented until the late 19th century.
• 41:23
  And so it's very difficult for people to know whether there's
• 41:26
  an electric charge.
• 41:29
  But that kind of starts to change in 1820 when someone named
• 41:32
  Hans Christian Orsted
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: discovers electromagnetism.
• 41:36
  And that's the idea that I don't understand about how
• 41:39
  electricity produces a
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: magnetic field,
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: which can influence nearby objects.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: So basically like...
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_02: 5G.
• 41:46
  5G or like if you're holding a compass next to something with
• 41:50
  an electric current,
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: like the compass will start to like tick,
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: tick,
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: tick,
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: tick,
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: tick.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like you see that in movies from the 19th century.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but I feel like that's like movies from the 19th century.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: I've been watching this on TV all the time.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_01: All my favorite films.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: So...
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_01: Basically,
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_01: like everybody knows,
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: not everybody,
• 42:11
  basically like crazy people know that you can use electricity
• 42:14
  to communicate,
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: but not everybody can understand how to apply electricity and manipulate
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_01: electricity to actually use it to express a message.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_01: This all starts to change,
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_01: not because of any one individual,
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: but really because of like,
• 42:28
  there's basically a couple people in every city in the East
• 42:32
  Coast and in England
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_01: who are like coming up with the exact same idea at the exact same time.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: So, but I'm going to focus on Samuel Morse.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_01: Who was born in 1791.
• 42:40
  So he was born basically the same year that Chape came up with
• 42:43
  his optical semaphore telegraph.
• 42:47
  And he would ultimately be probably the most famous contributor
• 42:51
  to the history of the telegraph.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_01: He was a painter, as so many great inventors are.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: And he went to Yale, like Madeline.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: And he studied philosophy and science and math at Yale.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then he moved to England to study painting.
• 43:09
  And one of his early masterpieces,
• 43:11
  I'm going to show Madeline,
• 43:12
  it's so crazy.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's called The Dying Hercules.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, my God.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's at the Yale University Art Gallery.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how to describe it.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_02: It sort of looks like William Blake.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: It does.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's the most ill-formed human being.
• 43:28
  It's kind of like Art Deco in its insistence on the form of the
• 43:32
  human muscle as
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_02: sort of like an abstract shape.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_02: Independent of a unified body.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: The weirdest situation is going on ever with his arm.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: I can't even describe it.
• 43:46
  It's like he has a normal arm down to his elbow and then
• 43:49
  something crazy protrudes
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: from it,
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: which looks like basically a small version of his entire body.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: But this is really the painting that sealed the deal for Morse.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone was like, great talent.
• 44:02
  You know,
• 44:03
  American painting wasn't really invented until the 20th
• 44:05
  century.
• 44:08
  So he goes to England and he studies painting and he's
• 44:10
  interested in bringing his
• 44:11
  skills back to the USA and kind of helping develop like a
• 44:15
  distinctly American
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: painting and art.
• 44:19
  painting culture so he paints great american scenes he paints
• 44:23
  the house of
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_01: representatives um he paints the marquis de lafayette who was an american
• 44:28
  revolutionary war history hero and then in 1824 he makes this
• 44:33
  painting which is
• 44:34
  actually the first painting i saw of his that made me realize
• 44:39
  that the samuel morse
• 44:40
  known for morse code was also a painter and i madeline and i've
• 44:45
  talked about this
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: painting before
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's called Little Miss Hone.
• 44:49
  And it's an adorable little girl with a big hat clutching a
• 44:56
  kitten who she's
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: wrapped in a blanket.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's very coquettish.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's the freakiest painting ever.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: The cat is staring right at you, sort of Mona Lisa style.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 45:08
  And it was very common to paint children as adults because it
• 45:14
  sort of signified how
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: this little girl,
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: little Miss Hone,
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: would someday grow up to be a wonderful wife and mother.
• 45:21
  taking care of that cat yeah that cat is a symbol of what's to
• 45:25
  come um so that is
• 45:29
  troubling in 1825 tragedy strikes samuel morse no away i think
• 45:35
  he's in washington
• 45:36
  dc he's on a painting trip because things are going well in his
• 45:40
  career and he
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: doesn't know but his wife has died
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 45:45
  And he's like literally writing letters to his dead wife being
• 45:48
  like,
• 45:48
  I miss you.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_01: Could you just send me a note?
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: And she's already dead and buried.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: And some will argue that that personal tragedy,
• 45:57
  which is made so much worse by the inability to communicate
• 46:00
  across vast distances
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: quickly,
• 46:01
  would help inspire his interest in inventing the telegraph
• 46:06
  because he understood
• 46:08
  personally what a difference it could make to just like if he
• 46:10
  had known she was
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: sick,
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: he could have gotten home maybe in time.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_02: Well,
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to spoil what our next books are,
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_02: but this factors into the one you're reading right now.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, really?
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you've gotten there yet.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's really sad.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_01: God, I'm not ready for this.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, carry on.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well,
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_01: similar to one of the characters in that same book,
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_01: he goes to Europe again to develop his skills as a painter.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_01: And he comes up with what he thinks is an amazing business idea.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_01: I love the 19th century because this is a business idea.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: Go to the Louvre,
• 46:48
  paint a giant painting with miniature versions of all the most
• 46:51
  famous paintings
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_01: that are in the Louvre's collection.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_01: Bring it back to New York and charge people to see it.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_02: That is the kind of business argument you and I lack.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_01: Though, unfortunately, we still have that same idea.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: That is literally our entire project.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: And as everyone knows,
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_02: if that was our project,
• 47:11
  we would make one shelf with tiny versions of all of our books
• 47:16
  on it and travel it
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_02: around and have people look at it lending library style,
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_02: which is a really good idea.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: So he's working on that.
• 47:23
  And then he's like,
• 47:23
  I'm going to go back to America and finish this painting when I
• 47:26
  get there.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: The painting of every tiny painting in the Louvre.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_01: So he boards this boat called the Sully,
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_01: which is not the name of the captain,
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_01: the pilot who Tom Hanks plays.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I could kind of see Tom Hanks playing Samuel Morse in a movie.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_01: So it works.
• 47:44
  so he gets on this boat back to the u.s he's got his painting
• 47:48
  with him and it's
• 47:50
  what's interesting is that the sully is a mail ship and it's
• 47:54
  for sending letters
• 47:55
  what do you mean it's sending it's like specifically a ship oh
• 47:57
  mail oh i thought
• 47:59
  you meant like how most ships are her are referred to as she
• 48:04
  this is a they them
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_01: ship um
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, how do they determine that?
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_01: So the ship they is sailing everyone.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: So it's mostly a ship full of letters,
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_01: but it has a couple of well-to-do passengers on board,
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_01: including a man named Charles Jackson,
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: who has brought with him.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: He's like a kind of casual scientist.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_01: He's interested in electricity.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_01: And he's brought with him, as one does, an electromagnet.
• 48:33
  and the other passengers including morse ask him to demonstrate
• 48:36
  the technology
• 48:37
  morse watches this demonstration and loses his mind he is like
• 48:44
  i have an idea that
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_01: nobody else has ever had the entire world i'm going to use electricity to
• 48:51
  communicate information so the thing is other people had
• 48:54
  already come up with this
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_01: idea but he has no idea because he's a painter he's not a scientist
• 48:59
  But he and Jackson start spitballing and they come up with the
• 49:02
  idea for a single
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: wire telegraph.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_01: The idea that you can use a cable to send a message.
• 49:09
  But what Morse is really good at thinking through is how do you
• 49:12
  communicate information?
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_01: spoken language, written language across one cable.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it's hard.
• 49:20
  And he realizes that we need a symbolic language to communicate
• 49:23
  if we're going to
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: use electricity and electrical pulses to send messages.
• 49:26
  So he comes up with the idea of a bi-signal system and the idea
• 49:30
  that you can use
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_01: only dots and dashes to communicate every single letter.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that is that like, sorry.
• 49:39
  finish what you're saying well is that related to like weaving
• 49:43
  or something like
• 49:44
  because i know that's what the computer binary comes from yeah
• 49:48
  yeah i think it's
• 49:49
  all related okay um i don't know if he was specifically
• 49:52
  thinking about like
• 49:53
  textiles when he came up with the idea but i do think it's
• 49:57
  interesting that it's
• 49:58
  like basically the same system as like the binary zeros and
• 50:03
  ones which is from the
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_02: dots and dashes on jacquard weaving carts
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's very similar.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't really...
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_01: No one said that in the histories I was reading,
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_01: but I do think...
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_02: No one's as smart as me.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_01: So he and Jackson also have this idea of...
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because the other thing is like,
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_01: yeah,
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_01: you can have this bi-signal system,
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: this Morse code that communicates across the cable,
• 50:29
  but how are you going to take the message out of the cable and
• 50:32
  onto a piece of
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_01: paper that someone could read?
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so they,
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_01: to the same point that I made earlier,
• 50:37
  that like an electromagnetic field can cause a compass hand to
• 50:42
  start moving,
• 50:43
  they realized that they could try to come up with an instrument
• 50:46
  that would,
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_01: with its electromagnetic pulse,
• 50:49
  cause a pencil to move on a piece of paper and communicate
• 50:53
  those dots and dashes.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: And that could happen automatically,
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: which would also be an advantage to,
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_01: or like,
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_01: an advance on the Chape system because you don't need someone to read it.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't have to be real time.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_02: When was the pencil invented?
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, but I'm very interested to find out.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, but he's a painter, so he probably had pencils.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_01: So he arrives back in the U.S.
• 51:22
  Apparently his brothers pick him up from the shipyard and he's
• 51:25
  like literally can't
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_01: stop talking about his new invention.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_01: And this was not his first invention.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_01: One of his other inventions that failed was like,
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how it worked,
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_01: but basically it was like something that could...
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_01: carve stone pieces the same like sort of stereotypically carve stone into
• 51:43
  sculptures like i don't know how he was going to do that but
• 51:45
  like he had all these
• 51:46
  ideas always yeah ideas for making money and yeah them didn't
• 51:50
  work okay um it's
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_02: really crazy that he didn't just think about molds
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_02: Which is how that was done.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_02: It existed already.
• 52:00
  He's kind of famous for coming up with inventions that other
• 52:04
  people had already come up with.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_01: And he kind of does them worse.
• 52:06
  So yeah,
• 52:07
  I'm like,
• 52:08
  rather than carving stone to match,
• 52:10
  you could just cast something.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_01: Too simple for him.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_01: And he doesn't really have any money,
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_01: which also it's like really hard to be an inventor with no money.
• 52:20
  Like that's why Victor Frankenstein is a great inventor because
• 52:22
  he has the daddy
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_01: who pays for him to just like play with cadavers.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_02: Nepo baby.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_01: Nepo baby.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_01: But unlike Frankenstein, Morse doesn't have that.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so he's at home.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_01: He's like building prototypes of his system,
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_01: but he's basically choosing between feeding himself and his family.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_01: He has kids also and building his invention.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_01: And,
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_01: but he's doing it and he,
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_01: but there's one flaw and other people who invent telegraphs,
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_01: electric telegraphs have the same problem,
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_01: which is,
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_01: it's very,
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_01: not very easy,
• 52:52
  but simple enough to send a message like from one side of my
• 52:55
  dining room table to
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_01: another with a cable.
• 52:57
  But if I try adding length to the cable,
• 53:00
  my message will not be expressed.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_02: And that's kind of like Peter out halfway through.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like I don't think it makes it.
• 53:08
  And so this is really like a scientific question that Morris is
• 53:13
  not totally well
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_01: equipped to solve.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: So he starts working with an NYU chemistry professor named Leonard Gale.
• 53:19
  who helps him come up with the idea of adding extra circuits or
• 53:23
  relays to the cable.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that is like the light bulb going off, so to speak.
• 53:30
  They start also working with someone named Alfred Vale,
• 53:32
  who has a lot of money.
• 53:34
  And he basically is like,
• 53:35
  I'll invest the capital if I get XYZ percentage of your patent.
• 53:39
  And so Morse and Vail also work on streamlining Morse code
• 53:42
  because Morse hadn't
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_01: totally thought about it systematically.
• 53:45
  And like one of the things that they do is they realize that
• 53:48
  since the letter E is
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_01: the most common letter in the English language,
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_01: that that should be the simplest symbol.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_01: So that becomes just one dot.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_01: And in 1837, Morse patents his recording electric telegraph.
• 54:00
  unbeknownst to him there is a guy in england at the same time
• 54:04
  named william cook
• 54:06
  who is a man whose job is i put this on Substack it's so crazy
• 54:11
  to me this is this
• 54:12
  could be someone's job his job is making wax models of
• 54:15
  dissected cadavers for
• 54:16
  medical training um but he decides that he's really interested
• 54:20
  in electricity and
• 54:21
  he starts messing around and i think his dad has money so he's
• 54:25
  able to mess around
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_01: a little bit more productively um
• 54:28
  and he meets this guy named charles wheatstone and this was
• 54:31
  interesting because
• 54:32
  they hate each other charles wheatstone yeah i've heard of him
• 54:36
  i don't know what
• 54:37
  else he did but that makes sense to me um well the wheatstone
• 54:40
  and cook telegraph is
• 54:41
  a famous type of telegraph like i think yeah they showed it
• 54:45
  around and it was like
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_01: big in england maybe it was at the world's fair in 1851
• 54:50
  and they have a very similar idea to morse but it relies on
• 54:53
  using five cables
• 54:55
  instead of one and so they don't have because they don't have
• 54:58
  morse code they like
• 54:59
  need five cables to get to all the 26 letters of the alphabet
• 55:03
  and ultimately though
• 55:04
  they were like more successful in a way like they were able to
• 55:08
  build a working
• 55:08
  prototype more quickly and prove to people that it was useful
• 55:12
  the fact that it
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_01: required five cables would make it less
• 55:15
  um like you know repeatable because it was more expensive to
• 55:18
  make than me too and
• 55:20
  Morse won out okay are you still with me am I being insane I'm
• 55:24
  with you no I'm here
• 55:26
  okay so oh my god I'm like out of breath I'm so excited about
• 55:31
  the telegraph it's
• 55:33
  always hard to be the person presenting the information on the
• 55:36
  lungs that's why we
• 55:38
  need to start practicing podcasting while we're running like
• 55:41
  Miley and Beyonce yeah
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 55:49
  So basically we're at the end of the 1830s and the telegraph
• 55:53
  exists,
• 55:54
  but nobody is using it.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_01: It is patented, but nobody can figure out how to apply it.
• 56:01
  And nobody's very interested,
• 56:02
  but Morris has a dream that he can connect the entire world.
• 56:06
  He says,
• 56:07
  if it will go 10 miles without stopping,
• 56:09
  I can make it go around the globe.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_01: And he had 10 miles of cable set up in his office.
• 56:16
  That was the big thing that Leonard Gale helped him with,
• 56:19
  was adding the relays.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_01: So he thinks that the U.S.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_01: government is going to love this idea.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_01: I bet they would.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, they're skeptical.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_01: We're getting into magic territory, so get ready to discuss.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_01: So in 1838,
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_01: he goes to Congress and he does a demonstration for them,
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_01: but basically they're like...
• 56:41
  this is basically just a magician's trick and they do not trust
• 56:48
  it and in his
• 56:50
  obituary in 1873 the new york times notes um although the
• 56:55
  practical working of it
• 56:56
  had been demonstrated on a small scale the invention seemed
• 56:59
  altogether too
• 56:59
  hemerical to be likely ever to prove of any worth again and
• 57:03
  again he was pronounced
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_01: a visionary and his scheme stigmatized as ridiculous
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_02: Wait, is a visionary a bad thing?
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, apparently.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_01: You're having visions instead of having... Different time, I guess.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_02: Different strokes.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_01: But in 1842, he goes back and he does another demonstration.
• 57:22
  He actually is successful in this one and he gets $30,000 to
• 57:25
  build an experimental
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_01: line,
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_01: but not without,
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_01: again,
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_01: a lot of skeptics and critics.
• 57:30
  so representative cave johnson of tennessee ridicules the idea
• 57:35
  and he says if we're
• 57:36
  going to give this freaking crazy man thirty thousand dollars
• 57:39
  then i is basically
• 57:41
  as a joke he's like then we should put something else into the
• 57:43
  bill that would be
• 57:44
  allocating funding into animal magnetism isn't that funny okay
• 57:48
  yeah and everyone's
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_02: like you're being mean hey you're being mean
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_02: Related to this idea of like animal magnetism and skepticism,
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's worth calling back to the earlier question you had about the
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_02: difference between media and medium.
• 58:07
  And there's a book by John Durham Peters,
• 58:10
  who is a media theorist here at Yale.
• 58:13
  And it's called something that I can't remember,
• 58:17
  but it's like about like the clouds.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_02: Should I Google it quickly?
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, probably.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_02: And
• 58:24
  basically he's making this argument about kind of like nature
• 58:29
  itself as a medium
• 58:32
  and it's called actually it's also related to the fire horse
• 58:34
  wood horse thing it's
• 58:36
  called the marvelous clouds toward a philosophy of elemental
• 58:38
  media and talks about
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_02: kind of like atmosphere and
• 58:44
  clouds and like there's a chapter about whales that's really
• 58:47
  amazing but um one of
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_02: the things he says in the introduction of that book is sort of
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_02: Thinking about the way that in the 19th century,
• 59:00
  the ability to send these messages that would precede your
• 59:05
  physical being was kind
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_02: of magical.
• 59:08
  And the fact that the term that came into use for those types
• 59:13
  of technology is
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_02: medium is related to like a spiritual medium or a psychic medium.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's like not...
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's not a coincidence, not a coincidence.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_02: No,
• 59:25
  it's like it's or it's not like those things had like meetings
• 59:28
  that came about
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_02: separately from a shared route.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's like,
• 59:31
  it's this idea that you can be in touch with someone or
• 59:35
  something else without like
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_02: a physical body present.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's very relevant to the history of the telegraph.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_01: And,
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 59:43
  there's all these hilarious stories from after the commercial
• 59:47
  application of the
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_01: telegraph and,
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_01: it spread around the world.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_01: There was all of these stories of people misunderstanding what it was.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so,
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 59:53
  apparently this woman in Prussia went to the telegraph office
• 59:58
  with a bowl of
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_01: sauerkraut and was like,
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_01: I want to send this to my son.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_01: And they were like, it's so cute.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_01: You can't.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:00:06
  And then there was like another young man sent his mother a
• 1:00:10
  message being like,
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_01: please,
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_01: mom,
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_01: send me 50 bucks.
• 1:00:13
  And she's reading the telegram and it's in someone's
• 1:00:16
  handwriting who works at the
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_01: telegram office.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:00:19
  And she's like,
• 1:00:19
  well,
• 1:00:19
  this is obviously trickery because that's not my son's
• 1:00:22
  handwriting.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_01: Back to the like sending messages and tubes idea.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's funny.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_01: And also to the point of what's in a name,
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_01: if only Chape had succeeded in calling it the Fast Rider,
• 1:00:35
  then maybe it wouldn't have mattered that Morse was unable to
• 1:00:40
  send a message across
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_01: a vast distance,
• 1:00:42
  but it was because it was called the Telegraph that that became
• 1:00:44
  more important.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm also, like, thinking about, like, the money thing.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's, like, what is the Western Union for now exclusively wiring money?
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so this, like, it's not just that this enables communication.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_02: It, like, enables international banking and, like, all of these things.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's crazy.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:01:02
  And also like the idea that it was was its value and utility
• 1:01:05
  was first understood
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_01: and applied in the military context.
• 1:01:09
  And then it became this thing that changes the world of
• 1:01:11
  commerce and the change of
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_01: personal relationships.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:01:14
  Feels like I think almost every technology like starts off as a
• 1:01:17
  military tool and
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_01: then becomes something that we just like.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_01: Now we plug our phones in next to our beds, you know, like.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, totally.
• 1:01:24
  um so we've now covered medium and marxism so yeah which
• 1:01:30
  witchcraft and marxism as
• 1:01:31
  promised as always yeah um so what happens next for morse is
• 1:01:37
  that with this thirty
• 1:01:39
  thousand dollars of funding what he's able to do is actually
• 1:01:42
  build an exterior
• 1:01:44
  telegraph like what he'd been doing in congress is like having
• 1:01:47
  a pile of cable that
• 1:01:49
  in length equaled 10 miles and sending a message from one side
• 1:01:52
  of the room to the
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_01: other
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_01: But everybody was sort of like,
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_01: this test doesn't really prove anything,
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_01: because the message he would send would be like,
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sitting next to Cove Johnson,
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_01: or Cave Johnson,
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_01: sorry.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_01: And they would be like, okay, like... Cave's a bully.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he's a bully.
• 1:02:05
  And it's also sort of like,
• 1:02:06
  back to the movie Frankenstein,
• 1:02:08
  like when he's demonstrating his...
• 1:02:10
  like living cadaver thing it that's the kind of image that
• 1:02:14
  comes to mind when i
• 1:02:15
  imagine morse demonstrating his um telegraph in congress it's
• 1:02:19
  like it's still
• 1:02:21
  there's always a way that this could just be magic a magic
• 1:02:24
  trick you know not real
• 1:02:25
  magic but like maybe he planted a seed like maybe he's got
• 1:02:28
  someone else you know
• 1:02:29
  like maybe he's working with someone who's like trying to make
• 1:02:32
  him look like he's
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_01: able to do this you know like
• 1:02:34
  yeah well also like science there's like a really amazing quote
• 1:02:37
  in John Tresh's
• 1:02:39
  book about Edgar Allan Poe about like America in this period
• 1:02:43
  where it's like
• 1:02:44
  science was developing so quickly and charlatanism was so
• 1:02:48
  rampant that like people
• 1:02:51
  who were more educated tended to be less skeptical than the
• 1:02:56
  average person and so
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_02: they would like
• 1:03:00
  people who were interested in science were more willing to
• 1:03:02
  believe in like magic
• 1:03:03
  and in like these sorts of tricks and the promises because they
• 1:03:08
  had this hope about
• 1:03:09
  science whereas like normal people like maybe the people in
• 1:03:12
  congress who had seen
• 1:03:14
  well i don't know i think congress at the time was like not i
• 1:03:19
  don't cave johnson
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_02: doesn't sound too smart
• 1:03:22
  too smart to me um he it's like those people who are like more
• 1:03:28
  worldly maybe but
• 1:03:29
  less like scientifically educated are going to be way more
• 1:03:33
  skeptical of something
• 1:03:35
  like this because there's such rampant like snake oil
• 1:03:40
  charlatanism going around and
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_02: has been you know for years
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_01: And you're totally right.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_01: And also in the Tom Standage book,
• 1:03:48
  in his like kind of introductory chapter before he talks about
• 1:03:51
  Claude Chape's
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_01: invention,
• 1:03:53
  he talks about like the other technologies that were sort of on
• 1:03:57
  offer in France at
• 1:03:59
  the end of the 18th century that were said to be able to be
• 1:04:03
  like said to be usable
• 1:04:05
  as a way of sending a message from across a great distance
• 1:04:07
  where like basically
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_01: like lodestones with like basically you would be given.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_01: What's a lodestone?
• 1:04:13
  A lodestone is a piece of magnetite or other naturally
• 1:04:16
  magnetized mineral also able
• 1:04:18
  SPEAKER_01: to be used as a magnet.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_01: And basically,
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_01: and it's kind of like,
• 1:04:25
  I'm trying to think of what you were saying last week about
• 1:04:27
  Joseph Smith and
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_01: Mormonism.
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_01: Basically, it's like a rock that everybody says can send a message.
• 1:04:33
  Yeah.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_01: They would be like,
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_01: okay,
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_01: you,
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to sell you these two rocks for $50 or 50 francs or whatever.
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_01: And you take that rock all the way,
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_01: take it really far to your village and give the other one to your mom.
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_01: And when your rock is bouncing around, your mom is dead.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like, and so like, okay.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_01: All the other available things.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_02: Sort of like a walkie talkie from hell.
• 1:05:04
  And these things could lead to great devastating heartbreak and
• 1:05:08
  disappointment,
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_01: but they weren't real.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so,
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_01: yeah,
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_01: why would anyone believe that Samuel Morse,
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_01: who's just a painter,
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_01: could come up with anything of actual like military commercial value?
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_01: So he does get this funding though.
• 1:05:22
  SPEAKER_01: He's able to convince them to give him this funding to do a real test.
• 1:05:26
  And what he decides to do is lay his cable along the railway
• 1:05:30
  from Washington to Baltimore.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_01: So again,
• 1:05:34
  SPEAKER_01: back to your point about trains and telegraphs,
• 1:05:38
  there was like a natural symbiosis between the two because like
• 1:05:42
  on a purely
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_01: practical level,
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_01: it was easier to lay a telegraph cable along a railway than
• 1:05:49
  either underground or above ground on poles because those were
• 1:05:54
  sort of like
• 1:05:55
  straight paths and they connected places that people were
• 1:05:58
  already interested in
• 1:05:59
  communicating between usually by moving their actual body and
• 1:06:04
  I'm going to show
• 1:06:05
  this painting which is a very famous painting which I love I
• 1:06:08
  think I know what it
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_02: is yeah yeah
• 1:06:10
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, I know.
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you guessed it.
• 1:06:13
  SPEAKER_01: And we're not going to tell you what it is.
• 1:06:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's American Progress from 1872.
• 1:06:17
  SPEAKER_01: The painter is named John Gast.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_01: And he's actually Prussian.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I bet he thought he could send some sauerkraut on the train.
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, on the telegraph.
• 1:06:26
  And there's something crowdish about this woman's effervescence
• 1:06:31
  of her outfit as giving cabbage.
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_01: So what we see here is an enormous woman dressed in white.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_01: She is Manifest Destiny, right?
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_01: And she is moving from the East Coast to the West.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_01: And behind her is sort of the civilized world.
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like I think we see the Brooklyn Bridge.
• 1:06:51
  um we or we see at least a suspension bridge behind her and
• 1:06:55
  then looking forward
• 1:06:56
  towards the sort of like wild unknown land it's dark and cloudy
• 1:07:00
  there's the rocky
• 1:07:01
  mountains there's buffalo there's native americans and there's
• 1:07:04
  people in covered
• 1:07:06
  wagons and behind her just behind her is a train chugging along
• 1:07:10
  with its track
• 1:07:11
  unfinished and then she's carrying in her hand a huge telegraph
• 1:07:15
  cable mm-hmm
• 1:07:18
  And so the telegraph isn't going to be an instrument of
• 1:07:23
  manifest destiny and
• 1:07:24
  SPEAKER_01: imperialism and transformation of the world.
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_01: And this is how the world will be anthropologized.
• 1:07:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm also like something about kind of the...
• 1:07:39
  This image is like obviously kind of a precursor to the Statue
• 1:07:43
  of Liberty in terms
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_02: of its like light as a metaphor for enlightenment.
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_02: obviously that's like an older idea,
• 1:07:51
  but this like kind of the way that the sun is rising over the
• 1:07:54
  east and the west is
• 1:07:55
  SPEAKER_02: like dark and these buffaloes are like running into the shadows.
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_02: And the thing that is bringing the enlightenment is the telegraph wire.
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_02: And she's also carrying a school book if you look closely.
• 1:08:05
  yeah she also must be wearing skims because i know she has like
• 1:08:10
  boob tape because
• 1:08:11
  otherwise her dress doesn't work um but yeah there's just
• 1:08:18
  something about like it's
• 1:08:19
  so bound up with the railroad with enlightenment with manifest
• 1:08:22
  destiny with
• 1:08:23
  literacy like it's really interesting like because the school
• 1:08:27
  book is like this
• 1:08:28
  SPEAKER_02: doesn't work if people can't read
• 1:08:31
  yeah the telegraph if you can't read the telegram then there's
• 1:08:34
  no point in having a
• 1:08:35
  telegraph exactly so anyway amazing painting amazing painting
• 1:08:40
  love it so that is
• 1:08:45
  the idea right and Morse applies it he's one of the first to
• 1:08:48
  apply it he lays his
• 1:08:49
  cable along the Baltimore and Ohio railroad company and the
• 1:08:54
  railroad company is
• 1:08:55
  like you can do this but do not embarrass us they're like
• 1:08:58
  incredibly skeptical
• 1:08:59
  SPEAKER_01: about it
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's interesting though,
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_02: because I think,
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you came across this,
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_02: but I know by the 1870s,
• 1:09:05
  at least the telegraph becomes like crucial for the railroad
• 1:09:09
  companies because it
• 1:09:10
  SPEAKER_02: allows them to prevent accidents because they're basically like,
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_02: they set up a system where as trains pass certain,
• 1:09:18
  SPEAKER_02: whatever it's called on the telegraph marker,
• 1:09:21
  SPEAKER_02: it sends a signal ahead to the next 10 mile cord to like,
• 1:09:26
  SPEAKER_02: let them know that this train is about to come through.
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I read about this.
• 1:09:31
  SPEAKER_01: I read portions of this amazing book called The Train and the Telegraph,
• 1:09:34
  SPEAKER_01: A Revisionist History,
• 1:09:35
  SPEAKER_01: which is about the interwoven ways that these technologies work together.
• 1:09:41
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, I guess after he got his U.S.
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_01: patent,
• 1:09:45
  Samuel Morse took his technology on the road and he went to
• 1:09:48
  England where he
• 1:09:48
  struggled to get any patents because there was already these
• 1:09:51
  other people working
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_01: on it.
• 1:09:53
  SPEAKER_01: and then he goes to france where he does get a patent and then the french
• 1:09:55
  government asks him to help come up with a system for train
• 1:09:59
  signaling yeah using
• 1:10:01
  the telegraph technology and it's not literally a telegraph but
• 1:10:03
  it's like what
• 1:10:04
  you're saying it's like using the cables in the same way um but
• 1:10:08
  a lot of the it's
• 1:10:09
  like kind of a tense relationship for some parts of the 19th
• 1:10:12
  century like train
• 1:10:14
  guys are like i don't need that and telegraph guys are like you
• 1:10:17
  need this but who
• 1:10:19
  SPEAKER_02: would listen to a train guy
• 1:10:21
  I listen to the train conductor when they yell at me when they
• 1:10:25
  say all aboard yeah
• 1:10:26
  or when they take your shoes off like don't put your feet on
• 1:10:30
  the seat in front of
• 1:10:30
  SPEAKER_01: you don't put your bag next to you nobody ever says stuff like that to me
• 1:10:35
  SPEAKER_01: They say that to me all the time.
• 1:10:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a target.
• 1:10:38
  SPEAKER_02: Weird.
• 1:10:38
  SPEAKER_02: You're a victim.
• 1:10:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
• 1:10:42
  SPEAKER_02: the reason I know about the train telegraph thing is because of France,
• 1:10:46
  SPEAKER_02: because there's a scene in,
• 1:10:50
  SPEAKER_02: or it's not a scene,
• 1:10:51
  SPEAKER_02: it is a huge plot point in a Zola novel about trains,
• 1:10:56
  SPEAKER_02: La Bette Humaine.
• 1:10:58
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing like a book about trains.
• 1:10:59
  SPEAKER_01: Am I right?
• 1:10:59
  SPEAKER_02: The human beast.
• 1:11:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:11:05
  So Morse lays his cable along the railway and then he sends a
• 1:11:10
  message that proves
• 1:11:11
  SPEAKER_01: the validity of his technology.
• 1:11:13
  SPEAKER_01: He...
• 1:11:14
  sends a message i guess the wig national convention is
• 1:11:17
  happening in dc and he sends
• 1:11:18
  a message to baltimore telling them what the names are of the
• 1:11:21
  nominees from the
• 1:11:22
  convention and it's sent in like five seconds five minutes and
• 1:11:27
  everyone's like oh
• 1:11:28
  SPEAKER_01: my god he did it he's on whoa
• 1:11:31
  SPEAKER_01: But then Morris,
• 1:11:33
  SPEAKER_01: maybe because he's an artist,
• 1:11:34
  SPEAKER_01: maybe because he's kind of a spiritual guy,
• 1:11:36
  he decides that he needs to send a symbolic ceremonial message
• 1:11:40
  to really mark the
• 1:11:42
  SPEAKER_01: first use of the telegraph.
• 1:11:45
  SPEAKER_01: So on May 24th,
• 1:11:47
  SPEAKER_01: 1844,
• 1:11:47
  SPEAKER_01: he sends a message from Washington to Baltimore that reads,
• 1:11:50
  SPEAKER_01: What hath God wrought?
• 1:11:52
  SPEAKER_01: What?
• 1:11:53
  oh my god that's very Oppenheimer it's really Oppenheimer it's
• 1:11:57
  really it like gives
• 1:11:58
  me chills what hath God wrought and he didn't even know what he
• 1:12:01
  had like what God
• 1:12:03
  hath wrought yeah I just like I literally have chills right now
• 1:12:07
  and that's why I
• 1:12:08
  SPEAKER_01: chose 1844 because I'm like this is a breaking point in human history
• 1:12:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like, everything changes after this.
• 1:12:15
  SPEAKER_01: After... I mean, and we've talked about this before.
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like,
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_01: not only are you going on a transcontinental flight this week,
• 1:12:23
  SPEAKER_01: and you're not prepared,
• 1:12:24
  SPEAKER_01: and you're going to come right back in a couple of days after that,
• 1:12:27
  SPEAKER_01: but also,
• 1:12:28
  SPEAKER_01: like...
• 1:12:29
  SPEAKER_01: It is not right to go to a different time zone.
• 1:12:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like it is wrong.
• 1:12:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's wrong.
• 1:12:37
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going against my will.
• 1:12:38
  SPEAKER_02: I want the record stated.
• 1:12:41
  SPEAKER_02: I would never do this.
• 1:12:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's like my choice.
• 1:12:44
  SPEAKER_01: We do it all of the time.
• 1:12:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm doing it like three times in the next three months.
• 1:12:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's so intense.
• 1:12:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's,
• 1:12:52
  SPEAKER_02: yeah,
• 1:12:53
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 1:12:53
  SPEAKER_02: this is like the sort of like common parlance for the moment,
• 1:12:56
  which I'm sure we've said on the podcast before is the
• 1:12:58
  annihilation of time and
• 1:13:00
  SPEAKER_02: space.
• 1:13:00
  It's like the collapse of all of the sort of physical
• 1:13:03
  structures of the world.
• 1:13:04
  SPEAKER_02: We know it could be traced to this moment.
• 1:13:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's really crazy.
• 1:13:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 1:13:09
  SPEAKER_01: even like,
• 1:13:10
  SPEAKER_01: so I just watched the new season of Bridgerton,
• 1:13:12
  SPEAKER_01: which is a private secret shame of mine.
• 1:13:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it's set sort of in Regency England and a character dies this season.
• 1:13:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I was actually... No, spoiler.
• 1:13:28
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, of course, sobbing while watching.
• 1:13:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I was reflecting on the demonstrations of grief of the characters.
• 1:13:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I was thinking about how,
• 1:13:36
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 1:13:36
  SPEAKER_01: this is like,
• 1:13:37
  probably the 18 teens or something and before the real advent
• 1:13:41
  and commercial
• 1:13:41
  SPEAKER_01: application of photography.
• 1:13:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I was thinking about how like the character who dies,
• 1:13:46
  SPEAKER_01: the people who are mourning him,
• 1:13:49
  SPEAKER_01: they have no way of seeing him anymore.
• 1:13:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like if someone I love died,
• 1:13:53
  I could spend the rest of my life like hanging out with the AI
• 1:13:57
  chatbot based off of
• 1:13:58
  SPEAKER_01: their text messages to me and like looking at photos of them.
• 1:14:01
  SPEAKER_02: If you do that to me, I will come back and haunt you.
• 1:14:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you will be back.
• 1:14:06
  Yeah.
• 1:14:08
  just for the record yeah I would never do that your soul will
• 1:14:11
  never be at rest if
• 1:14:12
  you do that to me well it's like even though the 19th century
• 1:14:15
  was the is a century
• 1:14:17
  famous for grief and for mourning rituals and Queen Victoria
• 1:14:20
  spent her entire life
• 1:14:21
  in mourning it's like it's the right way to mourn by using your
• 1:14:26
  imagination and
• 1:14:27
  your remembrances of someone rather than your literal physical
• 1:14:30
  evidence of them
• 1:14:30
  SPEAKER_01: it's just like yeah there's a finality to death yeah so
• 1:14:37
  SPEAKER_01: That all happens.
• 1:14:38
  SPEAKER_01: And Morse is still being called a charlatan,
• 1:14:42
  SPEAKER_01: unfortunately,
• 1:14:43
  SPEAKER_01: even though he's proven that his technology works.
• 1:14:46
  SPEAKER_01: But Cook and Wheatstone over in England are kind of having a better time.
• 1:14:51
  And it's also in 1844 that they're able to prove the use of
• 1:14:56
  their technology.
• 1:14:56
  So the telegraph is used to announce the birth of Queen
• 1:15:00
  Victoria's second son,
• 1:15:01
  Alfred Ernest.
• 1:15:02
  SPEAKER_01: And basically,
• 1:15:04
  SPEAKER_01: quote,
• 1:15:05
  the Times was on the street of London with it with the news
• 1:15:07
  within 40 minutes of
• 1:15:08
  the announcement declaring itself indebted to the extraordinary
• 1:15:11
  power of the
• 1:15:11
  SPEAKER_01: electromagnetic telegraph for providing the information so quickly.
• 1:15:14
  SPEAKER_01: So like literally,
• 1:15:15
  SPEAKER_01: it's like Alfred Ernest,
• 1:15:16
  the baby was born and we wouldn't have known without the
• 1:15:18
  telegraph because he she
• 1:15:19
  SPEAKER_01: was like at Windsor Castle and everyone in London knows immediately.
• 1:15:25
  SPEAKER_01: They also realized that the telegraph can be used to catch criminals.
• 1:15:29
  SPEAKER_01: In 1845, there was this guy named John Towel who murdered his mistress.
• 1:15:35
  SPEAKER_02: His name was not John Towel.
• 1:15:39
  SPEAKER_01: T-A-W-E-L-L.
• 1:15:41
  SPEAKER_01: Tawel?
• 1:15:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's Tawel.
• 1:15:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, he was also in a town, which of course I do not know how to say.
• 1:15:49
  SPEAKER_01: S-L-O-U-G-H.
• 1:15:51
  SPEAKER_01: Slough.
• 1:15:52
  SPEAKER_01: Slough.
• 1:15:53
  SPEAKER_01: Is it actually Slough?
• 1:15:53
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, Slough.
• 1:15:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's Slough.
• 1:15:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:15:56
  SPEAKER_01: He's in Slough.
• 1:15:57
  SPEAKER_01: He kills his mistress.
• 1:15:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then he boards a train for London where someone spots him.
• 1:16:02
  They spot him getting on the train wearing apparently a really
• 1:16:04
  weird coat.
• 1:16:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:16:07
  a telegram is sent to London to the police at the train station
• 1:16:10
  and it says quote
• 1:16:12
  dressed like a Quaker Quaker is spelled with a K because
• 1:16:15
  there's no Q in the Cook
• 1:16:17
  and Wheatstone telegraph language but they catch him because
• 1:16:20
  they find the guy
• 1:16:21
  SPEAKER_01: dressed like a Quaker with a K okay
• 1:16:24
  SPEAKER_01: Isn't that hilarious?
• 1:16:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:16:26
  SPEAKER_01: So things start to go well from here.
• 1:16:29
  SPEAKER_01: By 1848, there are 2000 miles of telegraph wire in the United States.
• 1:16:31
  In 1850,
• 1:16:31
  there are 12,000 miles of telegraph wire being operated by 20
• 1:16:33
  different companies.
• 1:16:34
  SPEAKER_01: And between 1846 and 1852, the telegraph network has grown by 600 times.
• 1:16:46
  so the world has changed like people are communicating
• 1:16:50
  basically in 1852 this guy
• 1:16:53
  writes about american telegraphing telegraphing in this country
• 1:16:56
  has reached that
• 1:16:57
  point by its great stretch of wires and great facilities for
• 1:17:00
  the transmission of
• 1:17:00
  communications as to almost rival the mail and the quantity of
• 1:17:03
  matter sent over it
• 1:17:05
  SPEAKER_02: wow
• 1:17:06
  And it's so successful and so efficient that the Pony Express
• 1:17:09
  ends in 1861.
• 1:17:12
  SPEAKER_01: All the horses were murdered.
• 1:17:13
  SPEAKER_01: No, I don't know.
• 1:17:14
  SPEAKER_01: They probably were.
• 1:17:16
  SPEAKER_02: The number of dead horses that used to populate the landscape.
• 1:17:22
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 1:17:22
  SPEAKER_01: There's amazing...
• 1:17:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like when Dickens came to New York in the 1850s,
• 1:17:25
  SPEAKER_01: he was like,
• 1:17:26
  SPEAKER_01: dead horses and dead pigs on every street.
• 1:17:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, dead horse bag.
• 1:17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, literally.
• 1:17:32
  SPEAKER_01: So...
• 1:17:33
  the the world the united states has changed i also think like
• 1:17:37
  there's something
• 1:17:37
  particularly useful to the american project about the telegraph
• 1:17:40
  like obviously in
• 1:17:41
  that painting of manifest destiny it's a really big place and
• 1:17:45
  it's a really big
• 1:17:46
  place you can't conquer that place and call it one thing unless
• 1:17:50
  you have the
• 1:17:51
  SPEAKER_01: telegraph i agree
• 1:17:54
  So there are telegraph offices all over the United States and
• 1:17:59
  people are going in
• 1:18:01
  and they fill out a form with the physical address of the
• 1:18:03
  recipient and a brief
• 1:18:04
  SPEAKER_01: message.
• 1:18:06
  They hand it to the clerk who transmits it via the line and
• 1:18:09
  then it's transmitted
• 1:18:10
  SPEAKER_01: to the other end where it's transcribed onto a piece of paper.
• 1:18:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then, as you said, carried by a messenger boy to the recipient.
• 1:18:16
  SPEAKER_03: Mm hmm.
• 1:18:17
  And one innovation that happens is that transcribers sitting in
• 1:18:20
  the telegraph
• 1:18:21
  SPEAKER_01: office basically learn how to hear the messages.
• 1:18:23
  SPEAKER_01: They like basically become fluent in the dots and dashes and the clicks.
• 1:18:27
  So they don't even need to,
• 1:18:29
  like the pencil apparatus is not even necessarily needed.
• 1:18:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like they can just hear what the message is.
• 1:18:34
  And working as a messenger boy at a telegraph office becomes
• 1:18:37
  this kind of like rags
• 1:18:38
  SPEAKER_01: to riches opportunity.
• 1:18:41
  So both Thomas Edison and Andrew Carnegie both start out as
• 1:18:44
  telegraph messenger boys.
• 1:18:46
  SPEAKER_02: Why?
• 1:18:46
  Because they know what's going on or just because it's like...
• 1:18:50
  Because it's like a startup.
• 1:18:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a new industry where you can rise from the bottom to the top.
• 1:18:55
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:18:56
  SPEAKER_01: And even by the 1850s when telegraph cables are all over,
• 1:19:00
  SPEAKER_01: it's still a very expensive way of communicating.
• 1:19:05
  And so people very quickly develop ways of speaking that are
• 1:19:09
  cheaper to use on the telegraph.
• 1:19:13
  SPEAKER_01: So that's called telegraphies.
• 1:19:15
  That is a abbreviated language system that is conservative in
• 1:19:20
  its word use so that
• 1:19:22
  SPEAKER_01: you can send a message quickly.
• 1:19:24
  SPEAKER_01: And people also develop crazy code systems that we need to start using.
• 1:19:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like what?
• 1:19:29
  SPEAKER_01: There's books.
• 1:19:31
  SPEAKER_01: Basically,
• 1:19:31
  SPEAKER_01: you would be like,
• 1:19:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to buy this the Adams Cable Codex,
• 1:19:34
  SPEAKER_01: which was published in 1994.
• 1:19:36
  SPEAKER_01: And Madeline, you're going to buy it, too, because you live in New Haven.
• 1:19:39
  SPEAKER_01: So we don't live near each other.
• 1:19:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then they come up with these code words.
• 1:19:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm going to share my screen.
• 1:19:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'll show you this book.
• 1:19:46
  SPEAKER_01: Basically, it's like there's sections.
• 1:19:48
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like if you want to send a letter of credit,
• 1:19:50
  SPEAKER_01: you can send someone the word arsenical,
• 1:19:54
  SPEAKER_01: which means I'm out of funds.
• 1:19:56
  SPEAKER_01: Arson, am out of funds.
• 1:19:58
  SPEAKER_01: Can you send draft to me here for blank amount of money?
• 1:20:01
  SPEAKER_01: Artfully, buy from my account blank.
• 1:20:04
  Do you think these words are chosen because they're so unlikely
• 1:20:09
  to have actually been used?
• 1:20:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like blackmail.
• 1:20:13
  SPEAKER_02: I'm looking at blackmail.
• 1:20:15
  SPEAKER_01: Blackmail.
• 1:20:15
  SPEAKER_01: Please name and reserve blank outside room.
• 1:20:18
  So this is a section which is all about getting someone to book
• 1:20:21
  a room for you.
• 1:20:22
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, these words are nefarious.
• 1:20:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's really egotism.
• 1:20:26
  SPEAKER_01: Sift the matter thoroughly.
• 1:20:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's what that means.
• 1:20:30
  SPEAKER_01: Elbowing.
• 1:20:31
  SPEAKER_01: So is to reach there blank.
• 1:20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Elegiac.
• 1:20:34
  SPEAKER_01: Subject to immediate reply.
• 1:20:36
  But then the telegraph companies become wise to these tricks
• 1:20:40
  that people are using
• 1:20:40
  SPEAKER_01: to like send messages more cheaply.
• 1:20:43
  SPEAKER_01: So then they add a cost for sending a coded message.
• 1:20:46
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:20:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well,
• 1:20:48
  SPEAKER_02: because I am also like,
• 1:20:49
  SPEAKER_02: if the number of people who hear,
• 1:20:52
  like you should be able to send a coded message because like
• 1:20:56
  the system you've just
• 1:20:56
  SPEAKER_02: described,
• 1:20:57
  there are at least five people who are aware of what the
• 1:21:00
  message is at any given
• 1:21:02
  SPEAKER_02: stop along the way.
• 1:21:03
  SPEAKER_02: So if I needed to send you something that was like top secret,
• 1:21:07
  like how would I ensure that those five people didn't know that
• 1:21:11
  like I was...
• 1:21:12
  SPEAKER_02: you know, doing something bad and they could blackmail you.
• 1:21:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:21:18
  Which doesn't mean reserve me for outside rooms,
• 1:21:21
  but rather extorting me for money.
• 1:21:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:21:25
  I mean,
• 1:21:25
  to your point of the towers and the surveillance state,
• 1:21:28
  like there is no more privacy.
• 1:21:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:21:30
  SPEAKER_01: But also there was no privacy with, there's no privacy with mail.
• 1:21:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I just read a Wilkie Collins novel.
• 1:21:36
  SPEAKER_03: But you'd seal it.
• 1:21:37
  SPEAKER_01: No,
• 1:21:37
  but like there's all this amazing stuff in the Wilkie Collins I
• 1:21:40
  just read about
• 1:21:40
  like how you can tell if someone actually broke the seal of
• 1:21:43
  your letter and
• 1:21:44
  SPEAKER_01: resealed it.
• 1:21:45
  And like how you need to have like chemical knowledge to be
• 1:21:47
  able to do that
• 1:21:48
  SPEAKER_01: sometimes if you want to do it well.
• 1:21:50
  um i mean i did i talk about this literally last week on the
• 1:21:55
  podcast i don't know
• 1:21:56
  but like i sometimes think about how the only privacy i can
• 1:21:59
  have as a person is to
• 1:21:59
  like think something not not speak it not write it not type it
• 1:22:05
  and if i really need
• 1:22:06
  to express myself like i could write it on a piece of paper and
• 1:22:08
  then burn it like
• 1:22:10
  SPEAKER_01: there is no more privacy and
• 1:22:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:22:13
  SPEAKER_01: You did say that recently.
• 1:22:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like obsessed with talking about this.
• 1:22:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:22:18
  It's also interesting to me because so some of my friends are
• 1:22:21
  doing this thing
• 1:22:22
  SPEAKER_01: called,
• 1:22:23
  SPEAKER_01: I don't,
• 1:22:23
  I think it's called dumb phone where basically you pay this
• 1:22:26
  company to forward all
• 1:22:29
  SPEAKER_01: of your texts and calls to a flip phone.
• 1:22:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:22:34
  SPEAKER_01: But you can iMessage on it.
• 1:22:37
  SPEAKER_01: And it's really funny.
• 1:22:38
  It's just like a normal flip phone,
• 1:22:39
  but then you can send a tiny little version of an iMessage.
• 1:22:43
  And it has Uber and it has Google Maps,
• 1:22:46
  but they're all really hard to use.
• 1:22:49
  And also the service comes with a support group for how to wean
• 1:22:53
  yourself off of a smartphone.
• 1:22:55
  SPEAKER_02: I, like, need to do this.
• 1:22:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think we should do it.
• 1:22:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's really cool.
• 1:22:58
  SPEAKER_01: It would just be hard with work, but maybe I could get a work phone.
• 1:23:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I was playing with someone's flip phone yesterday,
• 1:23:07
  SPEAKER_01: trying to send a text,
• 1:23:08
  SPEAKER_01: and I was like,
• 1:23:10
  SPEAKER_01: oh,
• 1:23:10
  SPEAKER_01: this is why people say W-Y-D.
• 1:23:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like, this is why people say LOL.
• 1:23:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:23:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I had forgotten.
• 1:23:18
  SPEAKER_02: Did you never have a flip phone?
• 1:23:20
  SPEAKER_01: I did for a couple of years in middle school.
• 1:23:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:23:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's like,
• 1:23:26
  SPEAKER_01: obviously,
• 1:23:27
  SPEAKER_01: telegraphies change the way people wrote and change the way people spoke.
• 1:23:31
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously,
• 1:23:32
  the brief period of time when it was hard to type on a phone
• 1:23:35
  created a language
• 1:23:36
  SPEAKER_01: that we all still are fluent in,
• 1:23:38
  SPEAKER_01: even though I can,
• 1:23:39
  SPEAKER_01: I could write a novel on my iPhone.
• 1:23:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this would hurt, but I could do it.
• 1:23:44
  SPEAKER_02: I don't even know if your thumbs would hurt.
• 1:23:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm pretty good at texting.
• 1:23:48
  The students that I oversee,
• 1:23:54
  my subjects,
• 1:23:58
  if they have to write an in-class exam,
• 1:24:02
  they're like,
• 1:24:03
  oh my hand like i can't oh my god that is so depressing it's so
• 1:24:10
  crazy and i'm like
• 1:24:12
  i used to go to school at 7 a.m and use my hands to write until
• 1:24:16
  3 p.m when i went
• 1:24:17
  home and then write my homework like yeah and then you walked
• 1:24:19
  home in the snow with
• 1:24:20
  SPEAKER_01: no shoes
• 1:24:22
  I had shoes,
• 1:24:23
  but there was like a trend for wearing ballet shoes with no
• 1:24:27
  real souls.
• 1:24:27
  SPEAKER_02: So in a way I was shoeless.
• 1:24:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:24:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 1:24:33
  SPEAKER_01: people,
• 1:24:34
  I handwrite all my notes at work and people are constantly
• 1:24:36
  remarking on how much I
• 1:24:37
  SPEAKER_01: handwrite and how they never do it.
• 1:24:39
  SPEAKER_01: And how they are like, I don't even know if I can do that anymore.
• 1:24:44
  SPEAKER_02: But then I don't get like how you think.
• 1:24:46
  SPEAKER_01: You can't.
• 1:24:48
  SPEAKER_01: I cannot think with just a computer.
• 1:24:51
  SPEAKER_02: No, I can.
• 1:24:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I did look up.
• 1:24:53
  SPEAKER_01: This is kind of my concluding thought on the history of the telegraph.
• 1:24:57
  One question that came to me in my research was,
• 1:24:58
  can I still send a telegraph?
• 1:25:00
  The answer is kind of yes,
• 1:25:03
  but I don't think they're using the telegraph cables anymore.
• 1:25:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think that basically they're basically sending an email.
• 1:25:09
  there's it's like basically yeah i can go on a website i i
• 1:25:12
  looked into how much it
• 1:25:13
  would cost for me to send you one it would be 50 and it's
• 1:25:17
  basically they like you
• 1:25:18
  send an email to a company that prints it out on a piece of
• 1:25:21
  paper and then finds
• 1:25:22
  you and hands it to you so i'm like it costs 75 cents to send
• 1:25:26
  you a letter i should
• 1:25:26
  just send you a letter yeah probably be just as fast how would
• 1:25:31
  they know how to
• 1:25:31
  find me i would give them your address it's like my workplace i
• 1:25:36
  mean people still
• 1:25:37
  SPEAKER_02: do like singing telegraphs don't they
• 1:25:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, or like stripper grams.
• 1:25:42
  SPEAKER_02: You never watched Real Housewives of Potomac, right?
• 1:25:45
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 1:25:45
  There's like an epic scene where one of them is planning a
• 1:25:50
  vacation to France and
• 1:25:52
  SPEAKER_02: sends a mime to like hand deliver everyone's like invitations.
• 1:25:57
  But he arrives at a lunch where Karen and Giselle are having
• 1:26:00
  like a really heated
• 1:26:02
  discussion and they're like in the middle of fighting and this
• 1:26:05
  mime is just kind of
• 1:26:05
  SPEAKER_02: like...
• 1:26:06
  walking back and forth behind them like waiting for a moment
• 1:26:12
  and they're like not
• 1:26:12
  right now not right now because they think he's like a street
• 1:26:15
  it's so funny oh god
• 1:26:20
  I do think the mime and the telegraph are probably part of the
• 1:26:23
  same history if we
• 1:26:24
  SPEAKER_02: looked closely enough yeah I mean the French history of communication
• 1:26:28
  It's interesting the role of the French in the history of the
• 1:26:30
  telegraph because I
• 1:26:31
  SPEAKER_01: kind of you wouldn't think they'd be capable of it.
• 1:26:34
  SPEAKER_01: They're so long winded.
• 1:26:36
  Like the same culture that produced Proust also produced the
• 1:26:40
  optical telegraph.
• 1:26:42
  Yeah,
• 1:26:42
  but they like to express themselves and they like like new
• 1:26:45
  opportunities to do that.
• 1:26:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:26:47
  SPEAKER_01: And also like to your earlier point.
• 1:26:50
  without the French Revolution,
• 1:26:52
  why would people have been interested in this?
• 1:26:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like, this was... There's no need.
• 1:26:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:26:56
  SPEAKER_01: This was someone saying, I can change the way the world works.
• 1:26:59
  And they were in a period of their history where that was
• 1:27:02
  incredibly appealing.
• 1:27:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:27:04
  And also,
• 1:27:04
  like,
• 1:27:04
  to the Marxism of it all,
• 1:27:06
  like,
• 1:27:06
  you don't...
• 1:27:07
  Like,
• 1:27:07
  in a...
• 1:27:09
  in a what's it called monarchical society you don't there's no
• 1:27:12
  need for the
• 1:27:13
  SPEAKER_02: telegraph because if you're a subject of a province you don't need to be
• 1:27:18
  communicating with people across wide distances your everything
• 1:27:22
  is local which is
• 1:27:23
  like then the church bell is enough of a kind of like sonic
• 1:27:27
  unifying resonance for
• 1:27:29
  people they don't need to be communicating across these vast
• 1:27:33
  distances like that is
• 1:27:34
  SPEAKER_02: a product of switching from
• 1:27:38
  um these more hierarchical societies to a more democratic
• 1:27:42
  society where information
• 1:27:43
  SPEAKER_02: becomes sort of another way of circulating capital
• 1:27:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:27:48
  SPEAKER_01: Also,
• 1:27:48
  and that's why I think it's interesting that the YMCA was
• 1:27:50
  founded in 1844 because
• 1:27:51
  SPEAKER_01: that was,
• 1:27:52
  SPEAKER_01: it became an international project.
• 1:27:55
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:27:56
  And the idea being that like young men who go to cities to find
• 1:27:59
  work have more in
• 1:28:01
  common across the globe than they might have with someone
• 1:28:05
  living down the street
• 1:28:06
  SPEAKER_01: who's very rich.
• 1:28:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:28:08
  SPEAKER_02: International proletariat.
• 1:28:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:28:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:28:12
  SPEAKER_02: I froze.
• 1:28:13
  SPEAKER_01: I froze.
• 1:28:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you froze.
• 1:28:15
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, but I'm still here.
• 1:28:17
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:28:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well,
• 1:28:19
  it just goes to show that the telegraph really didn't do much
• 1:28:22
  for us because some
• 1:28:24
  SPEAKER_01: hundred plus years later,
• 1:28:25
  SPEAKER_01: we're all still just trying to communicate.
• 1:28:28
  SPEAKER_02: Kind of.
• 1:28:28
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we're sitting here looking at each other's faces.
• 1:28:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's like creeping me out.
• 1:28:32
  SPEAKER_01: I need to go read a freaking book.
• 1:28:34
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:28:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I loved talking to you about this.
• 1:28:37
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you enjoyed it.
• 1:28:38
  SPEAKER_02: I enjoyed every second of it.
• 1:28:41
  And I hope you guys listening at home enjoyed and you like and
• 1:28:46
  read us five stars
• 1:28:47
  SPEAKER_02: because someone read it as four stars and I hate them.
• 1:28:53
  and we totally tanked our score it sucks we've only had five
• 1:28:58
  stars yeah but you
• 1:29:01
  know what we're not for everyone and i have to accept that
• 1:29:08
  hello you've reached 1
• 1:29:09
  SPEAKER_00: 800 1800 1 800 1800 i have a burning question 1 800 1800
• 1:29:25
  SPEAKER_00: I have a burning question.