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The topic for this month’s Saluda Train Tales will be “History of Railroad Telegraphy.”

Presenter Tom Jepsen will speak during the program, focusing on the history of the railroad.   

Jepsen is a retired information technology professional and a historian of technology, with a focus on the telegraph industry and women in technology. He has a BA from the University of Colorado and did graduate work in computer science at North Carolina State University, where he taught undergraduate Computer Science courses in 2002 and 2003.  

His previously published books on the history of telegraphy include Ma Kiley: The Life of a Railroad Telegrapher (El Paso, TX: Texas Western Press, 1997) and My Sisters Telegraphic: Women in the Telegraph Office, 1846-1950  (Athens, OH:  Ohio University Press, 2000), as well as many journal articles. 

His media appearances include a C-SPAN book talk in 2001 and a BBC Radio interview in 2018. 

Tom is a member of the North Carolina Association of Historians, the Society for the History of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, the Society for the History of Technology and the Chapel Hill Historical Society. He maintains a website on telegraph history at the-telegrapher.com. Tom currently resides in Chapel Hill.

Saluda Train Tales will be held on Friday, July 28 at 7 p.m. at the Historic Saluda Train Depot downtown. Please note that Train Tales is being held on the fourth Friday rather than the third Friday in order to not conflict with the Top of the Grade Concert. Doors will be open at 6:30.

 

Submitted by Nita High