Cyrus W. Field Papers

Cyrus Field (1819-1892) was born into a large family in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. At age fifteen an older brother helped him find a job in a New York City dry goods store. In 1840, he became junior partner in a paper company. When the firm failed a year later, he took it as a personal duty to repay all creditors. He then formed his own paper company, which succeeded due to his integrity, salesmanship, and entrepreneurial skills. By 1852, he had amassed a modest fortune and retired. Early in 1854, a contact made by another brother led Field to take over a bankrupt project to build a telegraph line across Newfoundland. Field had a bigger idea: extend the line to Britain. Field gained fame for organizing the effort to successfully lay an underwater telegraph cable across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe to North America. Success in 1866 came after a decade's worth of effort and several earlier failures. To complete the cable Field marshalled financial, political and technical support on both sides of the Atlantic. He helped create companies to undertake the project and found investors willing to gamble on the new technologies involved. He negotiated with the British and American governments for material support in the form of ships and equipment, and for commitments to use the cable when it was finished. He obtained the assistance of leading scientists and engineers. In all this, the entrepreneurial skills and integrity he had demonstrated as a successful businessman, combined with his boundless enthusiasm, stood him in good stead. The resulting cable was the first means of fast transatlantic communication and one of the foundations of today's telecommunications network. Field married Mary Bryan Stone on December 2, 1840, and they had seven children.