In the late 19th century, there was no reliable link between the East and West coasts in the United States. The Pony Express postal company in those years was often attacked by Indian tribes. And the disparate telegraph companies competed fiercely with each other, making customer service difficult. The situation was aggravated by the impending civil war.
Way to success
On April 8, 1851, a telegraph company called the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Co. was formed by a group of New York businessmen. Among the founders was a large landowner and sheriff of one of the counties of New York, Hiram Sibley, who was so carried away by the invention of Morse - the telegraph that he sold the business and invested all the money in a new business. And his partners were Ezra Cornell, who used to sell plows of his own design, and Don Alonzo Watson.
The partners set themselves the daunting task of uniting all existing telegraph lines and, three years later, began to actively buy up competitors' firms. So in 1856 the formation of a single telegraph network was completed. At Cornell's suggestion, the company changed its name to Western Union Telegraph Company. The new name symbolized the unification of all of continental America.
Unfulfilled hopes
Hiram Sibley dreamed of a time when the telegraph cable would pass through western Canada, Alaska, the Bering Strait and Siberia. He actively promoted this plan in the US Congress. Where, among other things, he made an offer to the government to buy Alaska. Sibley even met with the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs of the Russian Empire, Ivan Tolstoy, and on his return to America reported to the president about Russia's potential consent to the sale. Alaska lands cost the Americans $ 7, 2 million.
Western Union had already started construction work, but it soon became known that the British company Elliot & Co had laid a telegraph cable to Europe right along the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The companions had to abandon their ambitious plans and start expanding their influence in America. The corporation bought over 500 more telegraph companies in California.
Rapid development
Four more years passed, and Western Union began building a transcontinental telegraph line with a length of more than two thousand miles. Moreover, the work, which, according to all forecasts, could not take less than ten years, was completed in less than four months. President Lincoln and Congress were so impressed by this success that only Western Union now provided government communications.
Telegraph communication developed rapidly and began to be applied in many areas. With its help, news was transmitted through the channels of news agencies, communication between trains was provided. At that time, a young Thomas Edison worked at Western Union at the operator's rate, who created the exchange telegraph apparatus (ticker), and by 1866 the corporation had launched a system of exchange quotations in real time. In 1870, Western Union introduced a national time synchronization service.
New Horizons
In 1871, a historic event took place that marked the beginning of electronic commerce - Western Union carried out the first money transfer using the telegraph. Subsequently, this service sector developed rapidly, and already in 1914, Western Union specialists issued the first debit card. In a hundred years, remittances and payments will become the main focus of the company and the main source of its income.
In 1888 Hiram Sibley passed away. But this sad event did not affect the further development of the company. By the mid-thirties of the last century, Western Union was the largest international corporation with about 14 thousand couriers operating in almost all countries. Clients were offered dozens of message options, the most interesting of which was the famous "singing telegram".
The Western Union communication system was fully compliant with government reliability standards. In 1964, the corporation introduced a new technology based on microwave data transmission. In addition to terrestrial technologies, satellite communications were created. Western Union launched its own satellite Westar I into orbit. And in 1982 the company already had five satellites.
The telegraph is a thing of the past
With the development of telephone communications, revenues from the telegraph began to fall. For several years the company was on the verge of bankruptcy. Only the Western Union Financial Services Inc. money transfer branch brought profit. In 1991, it was decided to separate this branch into a separate company, which was sold to First Financial Management Corporation.
Since 2006, Western Union has been withdrawn from First and is now a large international bank payments company. The system is distinguished by its high speed of translation. The money becomes available for issuance immediately after entering the data into the electronic system. Moreover, they are paid to the recipient upon presentation of the passport at any bank branch cooperating with Western Union.
