WI: Benjamin Franklin invented the Telegraph

What if Benjamin Franklin, sometime after he discovered electricity, managed to create an electric Telegraph? What might it take for this to happen? What would be the effects of this at different possible moments of invention?
 
Um not quite, time wise this is actually fairly possible and would make not a darn bit of difference.

Ben Franklin lived until 1790, first non-electric telegraph 1784, first electric telegraph 1809.

So Franklin lives say 10 years longer and thinks of the electric telegraph so low and behold Franklin invents the electric telegraph instead of Samuel Soemmering...that doesn't make any difference at all because until William Sturgeon invented the electromagnet in 1825 electric telegraph was a useless invention. And even then it took until the mid-1830's for everything to come together.

So POD that probably doesn't make any difference except for butterflies.
 
Oersted

Discovered the relationship between electricity and magnetism in 1820, but maybe this was just a discovery waiting to happen.

Keep going!
 
To echo the others, immediately it means very little. Its a curiosity at first, and an interesting side note amongst gentlemen scientists. Benjamin Franklin will be lionized a little bit more in the pantheon of American heroes, and a few more things are posthumously named in his honor.

Now it will get interesting when the industrial and scientific means to create a practical telegraph are invented. If a practical telegraph complete with electromagnet is invented and introduced 20 years earlier, I think the results would be quite far ranging. It would certainly hasten the speed of colonization from the American west to the steppes of central Asia. It would also make the uprisings of 1848 more interesting depending on which side capitalizes upon the communication technology first.

The demand for copper, and copper wiring could cause some fairly major changes as well. Britain and to a lesser extent the united states, and belgium will likely be the nations to dominate the early telegraph industry (as well as the mass production of copper wiring) The upper peninsula is likely to experience a copper rush, boosting its population to a level that would make annexation by Michigan unlikely. Similer booms will likely occur the world over, as telegraph networks are built and subsidized by the various powers.
 
Perhaps instead of an electric telegraph he could invent something similar to Chappe's tachygraph. Tachygraphs were the brainchild of French inventor, Claude Chappe. Each one had mechanical arms which could be roatated into ninety different positions, visible from about ten miles away.

They sprung up around France in 1790 and the high speed communication was very helpful for Napoleon.
 
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