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introduction of three mutations of society-wide communication systems during the relatively brief history of the United States. Specifically, we refer to the social order instigation of new transportation systems that in turn altered the very fabric of the social order itself. In the nation’s history, there have been three distinct paradigm shifts regarding transportation on a national scale: the intercontinental railroads, the interstate highway system and commercial aviation. Each of these transitions, while grounded in technology, forced or enabled major shifts in the social orders of the day.

The introduction of new technology on a broad scale often encompasses a problem of infrastructure. While an element of the technology may be individual or personal in size and scope, the technology itself may require a significant infrastructure in order to achieve its full utility. Such was the situation with credit cards that we discussed in previous chapters. To achieve ubiquity of application, it was necessary to standardize and then deploy the infrastructure through which credit cards function. Likewise, in the deployment of telephone payment cards, France Telecom had to stimulate development of virtually the entire supporting industry. Our point here is that to address certain classes of infrastructure deployment, nothing less than stimulus from the prevailing social order will suffice. Such was certainly the case with the relevant transportation systems. Each offers a metaphorical illustration of the current computer network situation.

At the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, the United States was essentially comprised of two nations separated by a broad landscape populated by indigenous peoples. These Native Americans presented quite advanced civilizations organized along tribal boundaries. However, their technological capabilities were significantly inferior to that of the United States that existed along the west coast and the eastern reaches of the North American Continent. In the early days of the Civil War, two major railroad companies were given incentives by the federal government to build railroads linking the eastern United States to the west coast. These incentives included land, in the form of broad right-of-ways for the railroad tracks, and direct financial payments to offset the cost of laying track. The societal goal for these incentives was largely driven by commerce. Content production in the east sought markets in the west. Populating the ostensibly “available” lands with immigrant populations required large scale transportation facilities from each coast of the country. Moreover, capital needs in the east sought the wealth of the west; wealth in the form of raw materials to fuel industrial production. Again, massively enhanced transportation facilities were needed. In the end, of course, the societal outcome was significantly greater than the original goals.

In the most basic terms, the completed railroads turned the two distinct regions of the country into a contiguous nation. Resolution on the battlegrounds of the Civil War in turn affirmed the primacy of The Union over the individual states. Even more profound, this unification of both physical and social structure of the United States dealt a death knell to any hope of independence of the Native American tribes. Frederick Jackson Turner offers an overview of the conquest of the frontier and its resulting impact on American society in his writings published under the title History, Frontier, and Section: Three Essays. The end result was a truly united set of states that were individually encompassed by many distinct cultural sections of country all tied together by the railroads. At the beginning of the Civil War, travel from the east coast to Europe was quicker and easier than was travel to the west coast. Likewise, commerce between the west coast and Mexico and countries in Asia was more common than that with the eastern reaches of the country. By the early XX^th Century, with the completion of the transcontinental railroad system and the ensuing conquest of The West, the United States comprised an interconnected social order that spanned the breadth of the continent.

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