from the first submarine cable of 1850 to the worldwide fiber optic network
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History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications from the first submarine cable of 1850 to the worldwide fiber optic network |
Search all pages on the Atlantic Cable site:
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Research Material Needed The Atlantic Cable website is non-commercial, and its mission is to make available on line as much information as possible. You can help - if you have cable material, old or new, please contact me. Cable samples, instruments, documents, brochures, souvenir books, photographs, family stories, all are valuable to researchers and historians. If you have any cable-related items that you could photograph, copy, scan, loan, or sell, please email me: Bill Burns - billb@ftldesign.com |
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| Atlantic Cables: 1857-1866 | ||
| Master Index to articles on the first Atlantic Cables | ||
| The 1857-58 Atlantic Cable | ||
| History of the Atlantic Cable enterprise, 1850-1858 by Bill Glover |
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| The 1858 cable history as it happened - reported by Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper | ||
| Atlantic Cables: 1856-2012 | ||
| Master Timeline of all Atlantic Cables | ||
| Cyrus Field - A Contemporary Record | ||
| Cyrus Field Photographs and Portraits - the man behind the Atlantic Cable | ||
| Cyrus Field Medals and other cable medals and tokens | ||
| Cyrus Field’s Descendants - Diane Gravlee’s comprehensive list of Cyrus Field’s family and descendants, down to the seventh generation | ||
| The Brothers Field - Russell Carpenter’s history of the five brothers of the Field family who held among them a total of 10 academic and honorary degrees from Williams College. | ||
| Cyrus Field Family Portraits - images of paintings of Cyrus Field and his parents, wife, and sons, owned by Peter Christian Hall and Alix-Marie Hall, New York City-based siblings whose great-grandfather was Frederick Joseph Stone, Cyrus Field’s nephew | ||
| Cable Bibliography | ||
| Main Reference Bibliography - Books and other printed material | ||
| Current Bibliography - books available for purchase, book reviews, recent magazine articles | ||
| Additional Bibliography - Gill Cookson’s Submarine Telegraphy Research Notes | ||
| Book Cover Images - from Cable and Telegraph Books | ||
| Cable Company Book Advertisements | ||
| Atlantic Cable Sheet Music - popular songs and music inspired by the cable expeditions | ||
| Cable Pioneers | ||
| Images, brief biographies, and autographs of the men who pioneered and promoted the cable industry | ||
| Cable Timeline - 1845 to 2012 by Bill Glover | ||
| A chronological record of every major submarine communications cable. Corrections and updates are welcome. Includes sections on cable signalling speeds, cable design features, and cable recovery. |
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| Cable & Wireless | ||
| Bill Glover’s History of Cable & Wireless - a detailed history of the firm and its predecessor companies, illustrated with original telegrams, covers, and other documents. | ||
| Cable Ships | ||
| Cable Ships - illustrated articles on ships used for cable laying and repair, from 1850 to 2010 | ||
| Cable Stories - 1850 to 1989 | ||
| Personal stories and photographs of the cable industry, shared by site visitors. Contributions are welcome! | ||
| Cable Stamps and Covers | ||
| Submarine Cable Stamps and First Day Covers - includes Atlantic Cable 75th and 100th anniversary stamps and covers, Bill Glover’s extensive collection of cableship stamps and covers with information on each ship and the cables laid, and Bill’s history of Cable & Wireless, illustrated with original telegrams and covers. | ||
| Cable Artifacts, Ephemera, and Memorabilia | ||
| Atlantic Cable Broadsides 1856-66 | ||
| Cable Equipment and Cable Samples | ||
| Early Cable Instruments - text and images of a talk given at the Antique Wireless Association Conference, August 2009 | ||
| Memorabilia, Ephemera, and Promotional Material - Cable Watch Fob, 1858 Atlantic Cable Album, Cable Candlestick, Niagara Anchor, Cable Cane, Cable Snuff Box, Cable Earrings | ||
| 1858 Cable Souvenir Advertisements - the short-lived frenzy in New York for all things cable after the successful expedition of 1858 | ||
| Cables for Electrical Power | ||
| A guide to the differences between power and communications cables | ||
| Research Requests - contributions welcome | ||
| Mystery Cable at Porthcurno Telegraph Museum by Allan Green. This landline cable may have been used as a telegraph connection, or in a radio application. | ||
| Special Feature Sections | ||
| Major Submarine System Suppliers (1850 -2012) - the evolution of undersea cable companies from the beginning of the industry until the present day, by Stewart Ash | ||
| The Cable History Trail - an illustrated guide for visitors to the sites of the earliest Atlantic Cables in County Kerry, Ireland | ||
| Cable Route Maps - from the first Atlantic Cable to present | ||
| Cable Manufacturing & Laying Companies and Cable Stations - illustrated articles on early cable companies and cable stations | ||
| Report on the IEEE Conference on the History of Telecommunications, St. John’s, Newfoundland, 25-27 July, 2001 - includes photographs of the Heart’s Content Cable Station Museum | ||
| "Online - 150 Years on the Net" - an overview of the special exhibition at the Danish Post & Tele Museum, Copenhagen (2 February to 19 September 2004) | ||
| 150 Years Of Industry & Enterprise At Enderby’s Wharf - by Allan Green | ||
| The Atlantic Cable Medal of 1866 - article by Herman Blanton on the medals presented after the success of the 1866 cable | ||
| Distant Writing - The Telegraph Companies in Britain between 1838 and 1868 - website by Steven Roberts on British Telegraphy from 1838 to 1868, which includes considerable detail on the submarine cable companies working in this period. | ||
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| 1827 | Precursor to the Electric Telegraph - article by Bill Glover on the Holyhead - Liverpool semaphore telegraph, established in 1827 and finally superseded by a cable/landline connection in 1861 | |
| 1837-1860 | Early Landline Telegraph Cables - 1978 article by Francis Celoria on the beginnings of the telegraph cable industry in Britain | |
| 1838-1868 | Distant Writing - The Telegraph Companies in Britain between 1838 and 1868 - article by Steven Roberts on British Telegraphy which includes considerable detail on the submarine cable companies working in this period | |
| 1840-1866 | Origins of the Submarine Cable Industry in Britain - a paper presented at the Fleming Centenary Conference, University College London, 1-2 July 2004 | |
| 1842-1853 | Cyrus Field, Paper Merchant - how Field made his fortune | |
| 1845-1857 | On the Submarine Telegraph - John Watkins Brett on his involvement, together with his brother Jacob Brett, in the early cable enterprise | |
| 1845-1950 | The Gutta Percha Company - insulation, and more; one of Telcon’s predecessor companies | |
| 1849 | Early British Experiments in Submarine Telegraphy - by Charles V. Walker | |
| 1849 | Article from The Times on Walker’s experiments | |
| 1849 | Horatio Hubbell and his claim to be the originator of the Atlantic Cable - a forgotten pioneer | |
| 1849 | Joseph Hyppolyte Pulte and the land route to Europe - another forgotten visionary | |
| Pre-1850 | Wire Rope and the Submarine Cable Industry - the origins of cable-making technology | |
| 1850 | The 1850 Dover-Calais Cable - articles from Scientific American and The Living Age on the first cross-Channel cable | |
| 1850-1858 | The First Atlantic Cable - history of the early attempts to lay the cable | |
| 1850-1851 | The Submarine Telegraph Company - the company which laid the first cross-Channel cables | |
| 1850-1851 | 1850 & 1851 Dover-Calais Cables - from Willoughby Smith’s book | |
| 1852-1866 | Anglo-Irish Cables - article on these important early lines by Steven Roberts | |
| 1852 | The Electric Telegraph - a poem on the wonders of telegraphy | |
| 1853 | Shaffner and Sleeth’s Ohio River Cable at Paducah | |
| 1854 | The Atlantic Cable Projectors - how it all began | |
| 1855 | European Sub-Marine Telegraph - article from Scientific American on the Crimea cable | |
| 1856 | Marshall Lefferts at the American Geographical and Statistical Society - speaking on The Electric Telegraph; its Influence and Geographical Distribution | |
| 1857 | Laying the Atlantic Telegraph Cable from Ship to Shore - a portfolio of eight lithographs together with a description of landing the shore end of the 1857 cable at Valentia, Ireland, by John R. Isaac. | |
| 1857 | Professor Hall’s Floating Telegraph Stations - an alternative to a single span cable across the Atlantic | |
| 1858 | On Submerging Telegraphic Cables - report on a paper presented to the Institution of Civil Engineers (London) | |
| 1858 | The Northern Land Route - Tal Shaffner’s alternative to the Atlantic Cable | |
| 1858 | Henry Field’s Summer Pictures - a brief account of the meeting of the Field brothers in Plymouth just before the sailing of the expedition | |
| 1858 | The Cable History as it happened - reported by Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper | |
| 1858 | The Cable Celebration in New York City - contemporary illustrations and text | |
| 1858 | Speech by David Dudley Field - at the Crystal Palace, the Cable Celebration in New York City | |
| 1858 | Robert Merry’s Museum - articles on the cable from a children’s magazine | |
| 1860 | On the Maintenance and Durability of Submarine Cables in Shallow Waters - paper presented by William Henry Preece to the Instituition of Civil Engineers | |
| 1861 | Deep-Sea Telegraphs - George Saward examines the failures to date and proposes remedies | |
| 1861 | Henry O’Rielly and the Russo-American Telegraph - another unsuccessful proposal | |
| 1862 | Cyrus Field at the American Geographical and Statistical Society - speaking on Prospects of the Atlantic Telegraph | |
| 1863 | Cyrus Field at the New-York Chamber of Commerce - A Meeting Called to Further the Enterprise of The Atlantic Telegraph | |
| 1865 | Telegraphy and the Atlantic Cable in the U.S. Capitol Dome | |
| 1865 | Russell: The Atlantic Telegraph - high resolution scans of the cover, title page, and the tinted lithographs from the book recording the events of the 1865 Great Eastern cable expedition | |
| 1865 | Original letter from Sir Daniel Gooch describing the loss of the cable on the 1865 Great Eastern expedition | |
| 1865 | The 1865 Atlantic Cable - companies involved in its manufacture | |
| 1865 | John C. Deane’s Diary of the 1865 Great Eastern expedition | |
| 1865 | Letter from Sir Robert Peel to John C. Deane, later Secretary of the Anglo-American Telegraph Company, concerning the loss of the 1865 cable | |
| 1865 | Paper by William Thomson on The Forces Concerned in the Laying and Lifting of Deep-sea Cables. | |
| 1866 | The Recovery of the Cable - detailed description of the recovery of the 1865 cable, from Henry Field’s book | |
| 1867 | Submarine Telegraphy at the Paris Universal Exhibition - survey and review by Robert Sabine | |
| 1869 | The First French Atlantic Cable - illustrated by stereoviews | |
| 1870-74 | James Nicol: cableship voyages - life on board ship | |
| 1871 | Remarks of Mr Cyrus W. Field at the International Telegraphic Conference - Rome, December 28th 1871 | |
| 1872 | Sir James Anderson on Submarine Cables - their design and construction, and reasons for their failure | |
| 1877 | The Laying of the Ocean Cable - Peter Cooper’s story of the Atlantic Cable | |
| 1879 | 25th Anniversary Celebration Invitation - the anniversary of Field’s first involvement with the cable project | |
| 1879 | Speech by David Dudley Field - at the 25th Anniversary Reception | |
| 1879 | The Second French Cable - including photographs from the French Cable Station Museum at Orleans, Massachusetts | |
| 1882 | Facts and Observations Relating to the Invention of the Submarine Cable by R.S. Newall. In which Newall sets the record straight on who did what in the early days of cable laying. | |
| 1884 | On The Causes Of Failure Of Deep-Sea Cables by James Graves. Article on the failure of the 1865 Atlantic cable from the Journal of the Society of Telegraph-Engineers and Electricians, No. 51, Vol. XIII, 1884. The author was a cable engineer who supervised the manufacture of the 1865 cable and was later superintendent of the Valentia cable station where the recovered 1865 cable terminated. | |
| 1884 | A Visit to the Works of Messrs. Siemens Bros. - article from The Telegraphist | |
| 1885 | Life on the Atlantic Telegraph Company’s Valentia Cable Station - article from The Telegraphist | |
| 1886 | Government Telegraphy - article by Cyrus W. Field in The North American Review | |
| 1886-95 | Captain Basil Combe - a firsthand account of life on the cableships | |
| 1887 | The India-rubber, Gutta-percha, and Telegraph Works Company, Limited (Silvertown) - article from The Telegraphist | |
| 1887 | The Submarine Cables Trust | |
| 1889 | Cable Operators: The Little Army of Men Who Work the Long Ocean Wires | |
| 1890 | CS Westmeath Cable Survey - detailed report of a survey expedition | |
| 1890 | With a Cable Expedition - article by Herbert Laws Webb | |
| 1892 | Cyrus Field’s Will - has details on the many awards and souvenirs which Field collected in his long association with the cable industry | |
| 1892 | The Submarine Cables of the World - cable system survey article from Manufacturer & Builder | |
| 1892 | Cables Under The Ocean - cable system survey article from the New York Times | |
| 1894 | Summary of the Progress of Submarine Telegraphy - 1894 article from The Electrician on 25 years of telegraphy to the Far East | |
| 1894 | Submarine Telegraph Enterprise - article from Engineering on the cost of laying and maintaining cables | |
| 1895 | Nerves of the World - article on submarine cables by J. Munro, author of Heroes of the Telegraph | |
| 1895 | At an Atlantic Cable Station - article by Roland Belfort | |
| 1896 | Repairing a Break - book extract | |
| 1896 | The Making and Laying of an Atlantic Cable - article by Henry Muir | |
| 1897 | Making and Laying an Atlantic Cable - article by Roland Belfort | |
| 1898 | Cable-Cutting At Cienfuegos - article by Lieutenant Cameron McR. Winslow on the US Navy expedition to cut Cuba’s submarine cables during the Spanish-American War | |
| 1898 | Submarine Cable Laying - Strand Magazine article by Archer Philip Crouch, C.E. | |
| 1898 | Submarine Telegraph Lines - article by Ewing Matheson which includes costs for laying and maintaining cables | |
| 1899 | Telegraph Cables - article by C.J. Cooke including details of his work with Hooper’s Telegraph Company laying cables on the west coast of South America in the 1870s | |
| 1900 | The Projected Cable-Line to the Philippines - article in The National Review by Chandler Hale | |
| 1900-13 | James Joseph Cope, Siemens Brothers and CS Faraday | |
| 1902 | How Cables Unite The World - article from The World’s Work giving a good overview of the cable industry at the beginning of the 20th century | |
| 1906 | Auction Sale of Cyrus Field’s Correspondence and Papers - many interesting and unusual items from Field’s library | |
| 1914 | Walter Claypoole - Far Rockaway and Canso stations of the Commercial Cable Company at the beginning of World War I. | |
| 1914 | The Battle of Cocos - in which the Germans destroy the cable station on Direction Island, and the aftermath | |
| 1915 | How submarine cables are made, laid, operated and repaired - article by the Commercial Cable Company | |
| 1922 | Submarine Telegraph Cables - article by Lt.-Col. C. deF. Chandler | |
| 1923 | Laying a Deep-Sea Cable Line Delicate and Dangerous Job - New York Times article | |
| 1923 | Electrical Communications - a survey by John J. Carty of AT&T of radio and cable communications between the USA and the rest of the world at an interesting turning point in technology | |
| 1925 | On Board the Cable Ship - article by George W. Gray | |
| 1926 | Cable Chess Match between London and Chicago | |
| 1934-39 | Post Office Green Papers include one on cables and others on telegraph history | |
| 1943 | Theirs the Job to Keep the Cables Mended - newspaper article on cable laying and repair in wartime | |
| 1944 | Cable Station RM - Cal Sheckler’s account of diverting the 1926 Azores-Emden German cable into Normany for use by the Allied Forces after D-Day | |
| 1944 | Cable & Wireless - Communications Old And New - book illustrations by C.F. Tunnicliffe | |
| 1959 | Salient Features In Cable Design Since 1850 - a timeline of cable technical developments from 1850 to 1959 by Submarine Cables Ltd. | |
| 1968 | Undersea Cable- an overview of repeatered telephone cable systems | |
| 1970 | Undersea Cable Systems - A Survey (or: Explanation to an Unknown Lady in Philadelphia) - article by Robert L. Easton | |
| 1974 | Tiffany Cable Samples - if you’ve ever wondered about the source of all those Tiffany-marked samples of the 1858 cable which show up on eBay every few weeks, and whether or not they are genuine, here’s the story. (The cable samples are genuine; the certificates and boxes are vintage 1974, although authentic 1858 certificates are occasionally found). | |
| 2001 | The Transatlantic Cable Stations - An Irish Perspective - paper by Cornelia Connolly, presented at the IEEE Conference on the History of Telecommunications, St. John’s, Newfoundland, July 2001 | |
Landline Telegraphy |
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| 1867 | Modern Telegraphy: some errors of dates of events and of statement in the history of telegraphy exposed and rectified / by Samuel F.B. Morse. Paris, June 1867. The link is to the Bibliothèque National de France; the text may be read on screen there, or downloaded. | |
| 1871 | London And North Western Railway Telegraph Rules And Regulations - complete scan of the 1871 employee handbook, with instructions on using the Single Needle telegraph | |
| Links to Other Sites | ||
| Lords of Lightning - telegraph history research resources, with many useful links to archives, museums, and historical newspapers | ||
| Find Latitude and Longitude - locate positions at sea for recovered cables | ||
| HMTS Alert (2) website by Charlie Voss | ||
| Les Amis Des Câbles Sous-Marin - French cable history site | ||
| Aronsson’s Telecom History Timeline - a detailed timeline of communications history from 15,000 BC through September 2001 [archived copy] | ||
| Ascension Island Heritage Society - includes a history of the Eastern Telegraph Company and Cable & Wireless on Ascension, with period photographs | ||
| The Atlantic Cable - by Bern Dibner, 1959. The Smithsonian website has full-page images of the entire text of Dibner’s book, an important and comprehensive reference to the history of the cable. | ||
| Atlantic Cable Souvenirs - Mary Addyman's page on cable souvenirs in the Cuming Museum (Southwark) collection | ||
| Atlantic Sentinel - a book by Donald R. Tarrant on the history of transatlantic communications in Newfoundland | ||
| Bamfield Cable Station - the site in British Columbia of the Pacific Cable Board Cable Station, which served as the eastern terminus of the trans-pacific telegraph cable from 1901 to 1959. The facility is now the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre | ||
| Bay Roberts Cable Station - the 1910 cable station building in Newfoundland is now a local history museum. The museum’s website has many historic cable images. | ||
| Cabot Strait Telegraph Cable 1856 - an early link in the first Atlantic cable | ||
| Canso Cable Station - the Commercial Cable Rehabilitation Society is revitalizing the former Commercial Cable trans-Atlantic relay station in Hazel Hill, Nova Scotia. | ||
| The Chapin Library at Williams College has an archive of Field family papers which includes material from Cyrus W. Field. Some images are on line, and the page also has links to other sources | ||
| Gustavo Coll’s Signa Telegraph Collection - has some interesting cable instruments and samples | ||
| Connecting the Continent - Australian site which includes material on the Overland Telegraph | ||
| Gill Cookson’s History Today article - a short overview of the laying of the first Atlantic Cables | ||
| Copper in the Atlantic Cable - the copper industry’s website | ||