Kmflett's Blog

Proposed route of the North Atlantic telegraph 1860

There are 50 volumes of the Collected Works of Marx and Engels which comprises their published articles, books etc and a good deal of their correspondence (there are a few gaps).

There is however only one reference to Greenland which is an article under Marx’s name and published in the New York Daily Tribune on 15th September 1854. Its likely that Engels supplied some of the details. Quite how the Tribune deciphered Marx’s notoriously difficult to read hand writing I’m not sure. Marx and Engels produced over 500 articles for the paper to the early 1860s when the events of the American Civil War occupied its columns rather than news and analysis from elsewhere.

The reference to Greenland, in fact a quotation, is interesting. The specific article was written in the context of the Crimean War 1853-56- in which Britain was of course involved- and the mention of Greenland and its role in widening the reach of the Victorian internet (the telegraph) reflects the strategic location of the country.

Fortunately I dont think Donald Trump is familiar with the Collected Works of Marx and Engels

1854 also saw a scientific expedition to the Artic and also, not exactly unrelated, the beginning of the mining of cryolite (used in aluminium) in Greenland

Being still in the Baltic I may as well give a place here to the
following piece of news contained in the Aftonbladet.
“A correspondent from Copenhagen announces as certain that the Danish
Government authorized on Aug. 16, Mr. T. P. Shaffner to establish a line of
electric telegraph extending from North America through Greenland, Iceland, the
Faroe Islands and Norway to Copenhagen. On the 26th a line was opened from
Stockholm to Malmö. The extent of this line is 68,670 yards.”

The actions of the Allied Fleet, New York Daily Tribune 15^th September 1854