American Experience (TV Series) The Great Transatlantic Cable (2005) User Reviews

An amazing feat!

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 3 May 2012]

Linda Hunt narrates this installment of "The American Experience". It's all about Cyrus Field and his drive to create a telegraph cable to connect North America with Europe. Considering this means laying a cable on the sea floor from Labrador to Ireland (about 2000 miles), this seems like an insanely impossible task. And, it turns out according to this show it was NOT easy and the task was fraught with problems. All in all, it's one of the more technically interesting shows from the series as even today it's hard to imagine such a difficult task. The show features narration, interviews and quite a few recreations with a guy who actually looked a lot like Field. Well done in all respects, this episode will probably appeal most to scientific types, such as engineers, but I enjoyed it as well for addressing a historical topic seldom mentioned otherwise. Very informative and well made.

By the way, it was never mentioned but I wondered if the original copper cable was able to be used for phone calls or just for telegraphs. I assume just telegraphs but no mention was made of this--but the show did say that several more transatlantic cables were later laid.

Triumph of an Inspired Amateur

[Goingbegging · 9/10 · 4 January 2015]

The brains behind the first transatlantic cable knew nothing about electricity, metallurgy, or ships or the sea. He didn't even realize that Canada was so close to Ireland until someone showed him a globe. All he had was a small fortune from the paper business (too small, as it turned out) and an unusual degree of trust from his highly ethical business record. But in fact, neither Cyrus Field nor anyone else involved in this ambitious project knew anything of the risks ahead. Field later said that if he'd known half the problems to come, he'd have stayed out of it.

Most people ridiculed the scheme as unworkable. A cross-channel cable between England and France had been launched, to an enthusiastic reception. But trans-ocean just sounded like fantasy. Only by one vote did Congress allow him the use of a steam frigate to lay the cable. Meanwhile nobody had thought much about insulation. This would need latex from one particular tree in Malaya, and therefore had to be imported from Britain. Neither had anyone foreseen that the sheer quantity of iron in those great coils would affect the ship's compass, sending it off course. Still, from a tent on the Irish coast in August 1858, they were able to pass on a telegraphed greeting from Queen Victoria to President Buchanan.

But only days later, the signals grew weak, and they decided to strengthen the electrical charge. This pierced the insulation, bringing the whole system to a halt. The sense of anti-climax was so great that the team were accused of having faked the whole operation, perhaps as part of a stock-market fraud. Only Field kept his nerve. "Our cable is not dead. It only slumbers."

Before a new effort could be organised, America was plunged into civil war, and it is fascinating indeed to imagine alternative outcomes to that conflict, with news transmitted to Europe instantly and negotiations conducted almost in realtime. But the war also stimulated the development of battlefield telegraph, and the new technology proved useful to Field when work resumed. This time, he had some unexpected luck in the shape of Brunel's huge vessel, the Great Eastern - which turned out much too huge to be practical for anything, except laying transatlantic cable! But once again, the signal was lost. By now, however, they had worked out a method for raising the cable to the surface for inspection. They found that the insulation had been pierced again, this time by some nails. Some suspected sabotage, but it turned out to be a manufacturing fault. Finally, in July 1866, the new and much-improved cable entered service.

This film makes good use of its 1-hour running time, the only unnecessary part being a retro 'catch-up' on the development of the land-based telegraph. Narration and commentary is of a high standard, generated by a particularly good team of historians and engineers.