Dreams of a Boreal Empire, Nightmares of a Polar Vortex
This chapter discusses the failed efforts of the government, military, and Western Union to build a telegraph route in the 1860s across Alaska, beneath the Bering Strait, and into Europe via the Russian Empire. One central theme is the role of Robert Kennicott and the Smithsonian Institution as a sc...
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| Format: | Book Part |
| Language: | unknown |
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University of Illinois Press
2018
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| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.5622/illinois/9780252041778.003.0005 |
| Summary: | This chapter discusses the failed efforts of the government, military, and Western Union to build a telegraph route in the 1860s across Alaska, beneath the Bering Strait, and into Europe via the Russian Empire. One central theme is the role of Robert Kennicott and the Smithsonian Institution as a scientific team of natural historians participating in this expedition. The ambiguous corporate-military entanglements of expedition members raises questions about whether the expedition was also some sort of occupying force on the ground in Russian Alaska prior to the Alaska Purchase in 1867. |
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