What Abraham Lincoln and the Tech Revolution He Led Can Teach Us Today

The United States faced a tumultuous period in the mid-18th century, teetering on the brink of its worst man-made disaster: the Civil War, as well as the dawn of an unprecedented technological revolution—the Industrial Revolution. This technological upheaval reshaped America into a global superpower within five decades and spawned millions of jobs unimaginable at the time.

Abraham Lincoln, the first president to hold a patent, was the first wired president. He utilized the newly formed U.S Military Telegraph Corps to lay over 15,000 miles of telegraph wires, transmitting "lightning messages" from the battlefield to his War Department near the White House. This communication advantage provided the Union with a significant edge over Confederate forces.

Before becoming president, Lincoln was a top trial lawyer in Illinois. One of his trials showcased his future vision of the Industrial Revolution. In May 1856, the steamboat Effie Afton crashed into the pilings of the Rock Island Bridge, the first railroad bridge spanning the Mississippi River. The steamboat was destroyed, and the bridge suffered severe damage.

Steamboat owners sued for $930,000, seeking the bridge's demolition, claiming it posed a navigation hazard. This case was not merely a business dispute but a clash between two industries: steamboats and railroads.

Lincoln defended the railroads in the 1857 trial, Hurd v. Railroad Bridge Company. Although he had never attended law school, he had tried over 5,000 cases. Lincoln put the steamboat pilots on trial, aiming to prove that bridges and steamboats could coexist safely. He argued that railroads and steamboats had equal rights to traverse the Mississippi River. The jury agreed, and the Supreme Court upheld the decision, awarding Lincoln $400.

Lincoln's advocacy for railroads extended beyond this trial. He worked to include the concept of a transcontinental railroad in the 1860 Republican platform and promoted the 1862 and 1864 bills providing subsidies for its construction. Although Lincoln did not live to witness the completion of the first U.S. transcontinental railroad in 1869, it would not have happened without him.

The construction of the transcontinental railroad required immense skill, labor, and resources. It could not have been accomplished without ambitious engineers, laborers from diverse backgrounds, abundant resources in America, and capitalists willing to invest heavily for substantial profits. The railroad revolutionized transportation, reducing the time for journeys from San Francisco to New York from six months to just a week, and made travel more affordable and efficient.

This monumental project also transformed the telegraph system, replacing a multi-wire network with a single-wire system thanks to the right-of-way created by the railroad's construction. This physical upgrade to telecommunications was unprecedented and paved the way for standardized timekeeping, marked by the adoption of daylight saving time in 1879.

While some welcomed these changes, others feared the transformation of America from an agrarian society to an industrial power. Political and cultural shifts, including the emergence of urban centers and concerns about power dynamics, were accompanied by fears about the erosion of traditional values. Despite these apprehensions, America's industrial output surpassed that of any European nation by the end of the 19th century, largely due to abundant natural resources and a growing population of workers and consumers.