51–60 of 64 posts
Imagine people in 1890s or so, hearing about this almost instant transfer of messages, news to any part of the world - would be nothing short of magical modern technology.
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At least in the UK the fact that the Victorians and others used a lot of child labour is well and widely known. Blake wrote the poem The Chimney Sweeper about boys sold into the trade long before the 1850s and Elizabeth Barrett Browning published The Cry of the Children in Blackwood's magazine in 1843. Charles Kingsley used his The Water Babies to question child labour and England's treatment of the poor in general i…
I imagine the percent of people who know these telegram cables were made by children is a very low percentage.
Aha! OK, after a quick search on Wikipedia I can see that that did in fact happen:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_telegraphy_in_the_U...
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The GBP/USD currency pair is still known just as "the cable". Aside from all its other uses: the telegraph gave a way to synchronize clocks. And accurate time is accurate measurement of distance. > [...] The latest determination in 1892 is due to the cooperation of the McGill College Observatory at Montreal, Canada, with the Greenwich Observatory. [...] The final value for the longitude of the Harvard Observatory at…
One of the major uses for the telegraph was the first funds transfers that could happen quicker than moving paper (or bullion) from one location to another. London banks would telegraph correspondent banks in India, Australia, etc. This essentially doubled the capital intensity of international trade since the goods had to move in one direction but the money could be sent instantaneously in the other.
Paved the way for the downfall of physical money, and over a century of warfare in the absence of any sort of monetary discipline.
Thankfully we now have the necessary tool to fill that vaccuum.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
At least in the UK the fact that the Victorians and others used a lot of child labour is well and widely known. Blake wrote the poem The Chimney Sweeper about boys sold into the trade long before the 1850s and Elizabeth Barrett Browning published The Cry of the Children in Blackwood's magazine in 1843. Charles Kingsley used his The Water Babies to question child labour and England's treatment of the poor in general i…
I imagine the percent of people who know these telegram cables were made by children is a very low percentage.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the major uses for the telegraph was the first funds transfers that could happen quicker than moving paper (or bullion) from one location to another. London banks would telegraph correspondent banks in India, Australia, etc. This essentially doubled the capital intensity of international trade since the goods had to move in one direction but the money could be sent instantaneously in the other.
Made it that much less likely that anyone would withdraw their gold from banks due to the disparity in utility between deposits and cash. Paved the way for the downfall of physical money, and over a century of warfare in the absence of any sort of monetary discipline. Thankfully we now have the necessary tool to fill that vaccuum.
When the pound replaced the Spanish silver dollar as the default global currency, it did so with a nascent international banking system where banknotes issued by a certain bank in a certain location could be exchanged by other banks in other locations.
Payments were thus often settled in metal rather than being transacted with it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Made it that much less likely that anyone would withdraw their gold from banks due to the disparity in utility between deposits and cash. Paved the way for the downfall of physical money, and over a century of warfare in the absence of any sort of monetary discipline. Thankfully we now have the necessary tool to fill that vaccuum.
Paper money was well established at this point. When the pound replaced the Spanish silver dollar as the default global currency, it did so with a nascent international banking system where banknotes issued by a certain bank in a certain location could be exchanged by other banks in other locations. Payments were thus often settled in metal rather than being transacted with it.
I was surprised to realise bank notes used to be tied to a bank, not a state.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the major uses for the telegraph was the first funds transfers that could happen quicker than moving paper (or bullion) from one location to another. London banks would telegraph correspondent banks in India, Australia, etc. This essentially doubled the capital intensity of international trade since the goods had to move in one direction but the money could be sent instantaneously in the other.
Made it that much less likely that anyone would withdraw their gold from banks due to the disparity in utility between deposits and cash. Paved the way for the downfall of physical money, and over a century of warfare in the absence of any sort of monetary discipline. Thankfully we now have the necessary tool to fill that vaccuum.
There were major wars for millenia before the invention of the telegraph. They even names like "The Hundred Years War".
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What difference does 10 years make when you are working in a shitty factory for peanuts?
Is this a serious question? Then here’s a serious answer - the difference between employing a 9 year old and a 19 year old for a dangerous job is All the difference in the world .
Children have been working in dangerous environments since the dawn of humanity. Genuinely interested in why you think the industrial revolution and X years old is where we should draw the line.