The impact of the telegraph on public time in the United States, 1844-93

Telegraph technology permitted, for the first time ever, the almost instantaneous synchronization of one place with another far distant one. This synchronization made the introduction of a uniform national standard time possible. The origins of a specialized time-distribution technology, in the beginnings of telegraphy and the experimental instruments designed for the US Coast Survey´s longitude expeditions in the 1840s and 1850s, are examined. Further developments on into the 1890s are discussed, by which time the technology had matured from crude beginnings as a specialized scientific tool to become, as an aspect of Western Union´s business, the most successful and widely used means of disseminating time to the business community and the general public.<>