The more things change …
We think that our on demand, 24/7, need-it-now obsession with news and information is something new, but it isn’t. Here’s author and journalist William Lette Stone writing in 1872 about the amazing difference in communication time between the 18th and 19th centuries.
“What a contrast between that day and our own! Then news from England five months old was fresh and racy. Now we must have it in two hours, and then grumble at the length of time taken by the Atlantic cable to convey the intelligence. Then news seven days old from New York to Boston was swift enough for an express. Now if we cannot obtain the news from Washington in less than the same number of minutes we become almost frantic and talk of starting new telegraph companies.”
From History of New York City from the Discovery to the Present Day by William Leete Stone, 1872
