Telegraph Network and Voter Turnout Data for 1840-1852 America

This dataset supports research on the impact of the electric telegraph network expansion in America from 1840 to 1852 on national elections. It was created by Tianyi Wang to analyze how access to telegraphed news from Washington affected voter turnout and newspaper coverage of national politics.

Use Cases

• Analyze the relationship between telegraph network expansion and changes in voter turnout using a difference-in-differences approach.
• Perform text analysis on historical newspaper content to measure changes in coverage of Congress, the presidency, and sectional divisions.
• Study the dissemination of national political news from Washington to local newspapers facilitated by the telegraph.

Strengths

• Data covers a specific and historically significant 12-year period from 1840 to 1852.
• The study design employs a difference-in-differences approach to identify causal impacts.
• Analysis is grounded in text analysis of historical newspapers, providing qualitative context.

Limitations

• The specific data structure, column names, and row counts are not provided in the input.
• The dataset's file formats and size are unknown, which may complicate initial access and use.
• As an archival version, the data may be static and not updated with new findings or corrections.

Provenance

Source

ICPSR Harvested Dataverse

Collection Method

Newly digitized data on the growth of the telegraph network, combined with text analysis of historical newspapers.

Time Range

1840–1852

Freshness

The metadata was last updated on 2026-02-23.

Geography

America (United States)