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Created page with "*''Japanese'': 電信機 ''(denshinki)'', 電報 ''(denpô)'' The telegraph was the first form of electronic communication adopted in Japan. First introduced to Japan in the ..."
*''Japanese'': 電信機 ''(denshinki)'', 電報 ''(denpô)''
The telegraph was the first form of electronic communication adopted in Japan. First introduced to Japan in the 1850s, it was in widespread use in the country by the end of that century.
The first telegraph ever brought to Japan was most likely one given as a gift to the shogun by [[Commodore Matthew Perry]] of the United States in [[1853]], along with three miles of wire.<ref name=martin>Martin Dusinberre, ''Hard Times in the Hometown: A History of Community Survival in Modern Japan'', University of Hawaii Press (2012), 34.</ref> The Dutch gifted the shogunate another telegraph two years later, in [[1855]].<ref>Ishin Shiryô Kôyô 維新史料綱要, vol 1 (1937), 630.</ref> This came to be installed at the shogun's [[Hama Rikyu|Hama Detached Palace]].<ref>Ishin Shiryô Kôyô 維新史料綱要, vol 2 (1937), 87, 91, 98.</ref>
In [[1857]], lord of [[Saga han]] [[Nabeshima Narimasa]] gave a telegraph machine produced in Saga to lord of [[Satsuma han]] [[Shimazu Nariakira]] as a gift.<ref>Ishin Shiryô Kôyô 維新史料綱要, vol 2 (1937), 368.</ref> That same year, Nariakira set up a telegraph system within the [[Tanshoen|Tanshôen]] gardens within the grounds of [[Kagoshima castle]] and sent (from one end of the garden to the other) what is said to be the first Morse code message ever sent within Japan.<ref>Plaques on-site at Tanshôen.</ref> Whether this was indeed the first-ever telegraph message in Japan, or the first on Japanese-made equipment, and whether it was using the machine gifted by Nabeshima or one built in Kagoshima is unclear.
The [[Meiji government]] began laying telegraph lines in [[1869]],<ref name=gordon>Andrew Gordon, ''A Modern History of Japan'', Oxford University Press (2013), 71.</ref> and by [[1876]], if not earlier, it had become a standard way for official governmental communications (if not citizens' regular communications as well) to be exchanged. (A modern postal system and railroad network were established around the same time.<ref name=gordon/>) As such comparatively high-speed communications and transportation became more widespread, one repercussion was that prices for goods across the country began to equalize; systems such as the ''[[kitamaebune]]'', which relied on buying products inexpensively in the provinces and selling them at a large markup in the cities, suffered and others benefited as the economy shifted.<ref name=martin/>
{{stub}}
==References==
<references/>
[[Category:Bakumatsu]]
[[Category:Meiji Period]]
The telegraph was the first form of electronic communication adopted in Japan. First introduced to Japan in the 1850s, it was in widespread use in the country by the end of that century.
The first telegraph ever brought to Japan was most likely one given as a gift to the shogun by [[Commodore Matthew Perry]] of the United States in [[1853]], along with three miles of wire.<ref name=martin>Martin Dusinberre, ''Hard Times in the Hometown: A History of Community Survival in Modern Japan'', University of Hawaii Press (2012), 34.</ref> The Dutch gifted the shogunate another telegraph two years later, in [[1855]].<ref>Ishin Shiryô Kôyô 維新史料綱要, vol 1 (1937), 630.</ref> This came to be installed at the shogun's [[Hama Rikyu|Hama Detached Palace]].<ref>Ishin Shiryô Kôyô 維新史料綱要, vol 2 (1937), 87, 91, 98.</ref>
In [[1857]], lord of [[Saga han]] [[Nabeshima Narimasa]] gave a telegraph machine produced in Saga to lord of [[Satsuma han]] [[Shimazu Nariakira]] as a gift.<ref>Ishin Shiryô Kôyô 維新史料綱要, vol 2 (1937), 368.</ref> That same year, Nariakira set up a telegraph system within the [[Tanshoen|Tanshôen]] gardens within the grounds of [[Kagoshima castle]] and sent (from one end of the garden to the other) what is said to be the first Morse code message ever sent within Japan.<ref>Plaques on-site at Tanshôen.</ref> Whether this was indeed the first-ever telegraph message in Japan, or the first on Japanese-made equipment, and whether it was using the machine gifted by Nabeshima or one built in Kagoshima is unclear.
The [[Meiji government]] began laying telegraph lines in [[1869]],<ref name=gordon>Andrew Gordon, ''A Modern History of Japan'', Oxford University Press (2013), 71.</ref> and by [[1876]], if not earlier, it had become a standard way for official governmental communications (if not citizens' regular communications as well) to be exchanged. (A modern postal system and railroad network were established around the same time.<ref name=gordon/>) As such comparatively high-speed communications and transportation became more widespread, one repercussion was that prices for goods across the country began to equalize; systems such as the ''[[kitamaebune]]'', which relied on buying products inexpensively in the provinces and selling them at a large markup in the cities, suffered and others benefited as the economy shifted.<ref name=martin/>
{{stub}}
==References==
<references/>
[[Category:Bakumatsu]]
[[Category:Meiji Period]]