Communications - Overview
Tools of communication have transformed American society time and again over the past two centuries. The Museum has preserved many instruments of these changes, from printing presses to personal digital assistants.
The collections include hundreds of artifacts from the printing trade and related fields, including papermaking equipment, wood and metal type collections, bookbinding tools, and typesetting machines. Benjamin Franklin is said to have used one of the printing presses in the collection in 1726.
More than 7,000 objects chart the evolution of electronic communications, including the original telegraph of Samuel Morse and Alexander Graham Bell's early telephones. Radios, televisions, tape recorders, and the tools of the computer age are part of the collections, along with wireless phones and a satellite tracking system.
"Communications - Overview" showing 13 items.
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Carpathia Switch Lever
- Description
- This switch lever was part of RMS Carpathia's wireless radio apparatus; most likely it was a manual breaker for the antenna connection to the radio. It would have been opened in storms to prevent lightning from striking the radio itself. It was damaged during the rescue of Titanic's passengers, and the next time the ship was in Boston, Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company employee Harry Cheetham went aboard Carpathia to service the wireless. At the time, shipboard radios belonged to the radio company, not the shipping lines.
- date made
- 1911
- maker
- Marconi
- Marconi Wireless Telegraph Co. Ltd.
- ID Number
- EM*309910
- catalog number
- 309910
- accession number
- 110988
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Anglo-American Telegraph Company Records, 1862-1947
- Notes
- The Anglo-American Telegraph Company was organized in 1865 as a joint British-American venture to lay an Atlantic telegraph cable. After three failed attempts by other telegraph companies, Anglo-American Telegraph Company successfully laid and operated the first trans-Atlantic cable in 1866. The company operated cables until 1912, when they were leased to Western Union
- Summary
- Records relating to the organization of the company, corporate and financial records. Corporate records include two volumes of the company's acts, charters, contracts and agreements, 1862-1883; minutes of board meetings relating to varied subjects, such as agreements between the company and other telegraph companies such as Western Union Telegraph concerning sales of property, details of trnsactions or purchases undertaken by the company. Financial records consist of nine volumes of "journals" showing monthly records of receipts, 1866-1912; nineteen volumes of ledgers reveal a detailed financial status of the company, 1866-1912; and nine volumes of cash books consist of the financial transactions of the company, 1904-early 1941. See also 1 folder of the Anglo-American Telegraph Company telegrams in the Warshaw Collection under the heading "Telegraphs"
- Cite as
- Anglo-American Telegraph Company Records, 1862-1947, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Washington, DC
- Date
- 1862
- 1862-1947
- 1860-1920
- 1900-1950
- author
- Anglo-American Telegraph Company, Ltd
- collector
- Electricity and Modern Physics, Division of, NMAH, SI
- Subject
- Western Union Telegraph Company
- Data Source
- Archives Center - NMAH
[Four soldiers with heavy communications equipment in winding battlefield trench.] 14558 interpositive
- Notes
- Company catalog card included
- Currently stored in box 3.2.43 [143]
- Date
- 1910-1920
- publisher
- Underwood & Underwood
- Local number
- RSN 25396
- Data Source
- Archives Center - NMAH
Confederate Signal Station, Lookout Mountain, Chattanooga, Tenn. [Active no. 5745 : interpositive.]
- Notes
- Currently stored in box 3.2.51 [114]
- Date
- 1900
- 1910
- Civil War, 1861-1865
- 1900-1910
- publisher
- Underwood & Underwood
- Local number
- RSN 26753
- Data Source
- Archives Center - NMAH
Electrotype of "Hu'petha"
- Description
- This electrotype of “Hu’petha” was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the image was published as Plate 28 (p.163) in an article by Alice C. Fletcher (1838-1923) and Francis La Flesche (1857-1932) entitled “The Omaha Tribe” in the Twenty-Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian, 1905-1906.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1911
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- author
- Flecher, Alice C.
- LaFlesche, Francis
- publisher
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- ID Number
- 2000.0207.066
- catalog number
- 2000.0207.066
- accession number
- 2000.0207
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Electrotype of "Incidents in the life of Jaw (drawing by himself)"
- Description
- This electrotype of “Incidents in the life of Jaw (drawing by himself)” was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the image was published as Plate 63 (p.392) in an article by David I. Bushnell, Jr. (1875-1941) entitled Frances Densmore (1867-1957) entitled “Teton Sioux Music” in Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 61, (1918).
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1918
- publisher
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- author
- Densmore, Frances
- ID Number
- 2000.0207.104
- catalog number
- 2000.0207.104
- accession number
- 2000.0207
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Electrotype of "Feathers"
- Description
- This electrotype of “Feathers” was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the image was published as Plate 81 (p.176) in an article by Alfred Vincent Kidder (1885-1963) and Samuel J. Guernsey (1868-1936) entitled “Archeological Explorations in Northeastern Arizona” in Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 61, (1919).
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1919
- publisher
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- author
- Kidder, Alfred Vincent
- Guernsey, Samuel J.
- ID Number
- 2000.0207.122
- catalog number
- 2000.0207.122
- accession number
- 2000.0207
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Electrotype of “Corn from basket maker caves"
- Description
- This electrotype of “Corn from basket maker caves” was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the image was published as Plate 65 (p.152) in an article by Alfred Vincent Kidder (1885-1963) and Samuel J. Guernsey (1868-1936) entitled “Archeological Explorations in Northeastern Arizona” in Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 61, (1919).
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1919
- publisher
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- author
- Kidder, Alfred Vincent
- Guernsey, Samuel J.
- ID Number
- 2000.0207.124
- catalog number
- 2000.0207.124
- accession number
- 2000.0207
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Electrotype of "Ruins in Northeastern Arizona"
- Description
- This electrotype of ruins in Northeastern Arizona was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the image was published as Plate 14 (p.48) in an article by Alfred Vincent Kidder (1885-1963) and Samuel J. Guernsey (1868-1936) entitled “Archeological Explorations in Northeastern Arizona” in Bureau of American Ethnology,Bulletin 61, (1919).
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1919
- publisher
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- author
- Kidder, Alfred Vincent
- Guernsey, Samuel J.
- ID Number
- 2000.0207.130
- catalog number
- 2000.0207.130
- accession number
- 2000.0207
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Poster, Your Work Means Victory
- Description
- Before the first troops could be shipped overseas to fight in the trenches of France during World War I, the American people had to be convinced that the war was both justified and necessary. To sway public opinion, President Woodrow Wilson initiated a massive project to flood the country with powerful propaganda. Americans were called upon to enlist, to buy war bonds, to conserve food and essentials—anything that would help the war effort. This poster, by artist Fred J. Hoertz, reminded shipyard workers that their labor was essential for victory. Like many posters geared towards the manufacturers of war materials, "Your Work Means Victory"was meant to show workers that they were just as important as the troops.
- Created just days after the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917, the Committee on Public Information was the independent agency that oversaw the production of various propaganda means, such as newspaper ads, lecturers, and films. But the most effective and wide-reaching method was from the Committee on Pictorial Publicity, which issued the thousands of colorful posters that lined Main Streets across the country. Whether these images were created for a Liberty Bond drive, the Red Cross, or the Department of Labor, every poster urged Americans to do something for "the boys over there."
- date made
- 1917-04
- 1917
- initiated propaganda program
- Wilson, Woodrow
- agency oversaw production of propaganda
- Committee on Public Information
- issued posters
- Committee on Pictorial Publicity
- artist
- Hoertz, Fred J.
- ID Number
- 1991.0856.15
- catalog number
- 1991.0856.15
- accession number
- 1991.0856
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
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