Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online

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Electrical telegraphy
(743 words)

Early modern discussions of telecommunications freed from all constraints of land transportation (Land transport), interest was long focused on systems for optical telegraphy. Introduced across France in the late 18th century, the semaphore line first conveyed an idea of the possibilities of high-speed information transfer. The Elektrolyt-Telegraph built by Samuel Thomas von Soemmering in 1809 at Munich, on the other hand, was still impracticable, consisting as it did of many individual lines, corresponding to letters of the alphabet…

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Beyrer, Klaus, “Electrical telegraphy”, in: Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online, Editors of the English edition: Graeme Dunphy, Andrew Gow. Original German Edition: Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit. Im Auftrag des Kulturwissenschaftlichen Instituts (Essen) und in Verbindung mit den Fachherausgebern herausgegeben von Friedrich Jaeger. Copyright © J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung und Carl Ernst Poeschel Verlag GmbH 2005–2012. Consulted online on 28 March 2024 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2352-0272_emho_SIM_018675>
First published online: 2015
First print edition: 20170626



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