Cyrus West Field
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Categories: 1819 births | 1892 deaths | Field family | People from Berkshire County, Massachusetts | Telecommunications history | Stockbridge, Massachusetts | Congressional Gold Medal recipients
Cyrus West Field (November 30, 1819 – July 12, 1892) was an American businessman and financier who led the Atlantic Telegraph Company, the company that successfully laid the first telegraph cable across the Atlantic Ocean in 1858. The cable broke down three weeks afterward. In 1866, Field laid a new, more durable cable which provided almost instant communication across the Atlantic. On his return to Newfoundland, he grappled the cable he had attempted to lay the previous year and which had parted in mid-ocean, reattached it to new wire, thus allowing for a second, backup wire for communication. In December 1884, the Canadian Pacific Railway named the community of Field, British Columbia, Canada in his honor. Bad investments left Field bankrupt at the end of his life.
LifeHe was born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts to David Dudley Field, a clergyman. He was the brother of David Dudley Field, Henry Martyn Field, and Stephen Johnson Field. When he was 15 years old, he moved to New York City, and after three years he returned to Stockbridge. He moved back to New York City around 1840. Profits from his business ventures permitted him to retire at the age 33 with a fortune of $250,000. In the 1850s he financed the expeditions of Frederic Edwin Church that led the painter into the Andes and provided the painter with plenty of visual input. By commissioning some of Churches most well known paintings, Field hoped to lure investors into South America to support his ventures there. Cyrus West Field and his wife Mary Bryan Stone had 7 children. Fiction
Non-FictionA Thread Across the Ocean: The Heroic Story of the Transatlantic Cable, John Steele Gordon, Harper Perennial, 2003 See also
External links
| ||||||||||||||||||
