The telegraph’s arrival was framed in religious millenarian language

Evidence

The telegraph, widely hailed at the time of its introduction as the “noiseless tenant of the wilderness,” was clothed in the language of religious aspiration and secular millenarianism, a language Leo Marx names the “rhetoric of the technological sublime.” John Quirk and I, thinking more directly of the telegraph and subsequent developments, have called this same language the “rhetoric of the electrical sublime.” — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 783

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the key term ‘rhetoric of the electrical sublime’ as Carey’s extension of Leo Marx’s ‘technological sublime.’
• XREF: Links to Leo Marx’s The Machine in the Garden and to Perry Miller’s work on American religious rhetoric. — connects to: The telegraph became a model for how people conceptualized communication — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 775
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 783

Broader Connections

• The telegraph became a model for how people conceptualized communication #expands (0.55) — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 775