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 8 items.
Magnetic Recording Disks
- Description (Brief)
- These recording discs were made for the Brush Company “Mail-A-Voice” dictating machine. This set of 62 discs includes several slightly different types, the most significant difference being that some are paper and some are plastic. All are flexible and coated with a magnetizable powder. The Mail-A-Voice was designed by German immigrant Semi J. Begun who also used the device for personal correspondence. Several of the discs in the set are audio letters from Begun to his mother.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1947
- maker
- Brush Development Company
- ID Number
- 1995.3101.05
- nonaccession number
- 1995.3101
- catalog number
- 1995.3101.05
- 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
Christmas Club
- Description (Brief)
- Flat, rectangular, celluloid card advertising the West Springfield Trust Co. Christmas Club. Yellow with black and red print, it carries the Christmas Club emblem, a black square with red and green holly in the center of card. This square contains information that reminds holders to make Christmas Club payments. In red and green print on back is a calendar for 1940.
- Christmas Clubs are savings plans in which bank customers make scheduled deposits throughout the year into a Christmas account and received the money around the holidays to shop for gifts. This card is a product of Christmas Club, A Corporation of Eaton, Pennsylvania, which sold financial institutions all of the materials they would need to create a Christmas Club.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1940
- ID Number
- 2006.0098.0611
- accession number
- 2006.0098
- catalog number
- 2006.0098.0611
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Soviet poster, Anti-Hitler catoons
- Description
- During World War II, after the breakdown of the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact, the Soviet news agency TASS issued a series of propaganda posters. Topics included anti-Nazi caricatures and Socialist Realist art encouraging the war effort. Beginning in June 1941, the Union of Soviet Artists established a publishing collective to produce the posters on an almost daily basis. Because they were displayed in the windows of the news agency's Moscow office, they are known as TASS window posters. It is estimated that about 1,500 different posters were produced between 1941 and 1945.
- Well-known artists and poets worked on the designs and captions, and most of the posters were produced in limited editions using the stencil process for both graphics and text. Many posters were completed and reproduced within 24 hours, making them very responsive to political issues and war news. Copies were distributed abroad by VOKS, the Soviet Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. Their messages helped present the USSR favorably to its new allies, including the U.S. The Museum has six of these posters received in 1943 through VOKS. Other collections outside Russia include the University of Nottingham in England and Columbia and Cornell universities in the U.S.
- TASS window poster No. 711 is a two-panel poster with anti-Hitler cartoons.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1943
- ID Number
- GA*19085
- accession number
- 167088
- catalog number
- 19085
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Poster, You Bet I'm Going Back to Sea
- Description
- During World War II, the United States government recognized that full public support and dedication to the war effort was essential to victory. To bolster support, the government hired artists to create propaganda posters, designed to promote patriotism with simple, catchy slogans and colorful images. Toiling factory workers, thrifty home front mothers, and fearless soldiers were among the most popular images used by artists to communicate the message.
- This 1942 poster commissioned by the War Shipping Administration encouraged a specific mission, designed to attract former seamen back into the Merchant Marine. At the time, American shipyards were producing cargo ships faster than crews could be assembled, forcing recruiters to rely not only on new volunteers, but also to persuade experienced mariners to leave retirement and go back to sea.
- The creation of incentive posters mainly fell under the watch of the Office of War Information, a government agency created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in June 1942 to consolidate public information services and coordinate the sanctioned release of war news. The OWI reviewed and approved the content of newsreels, radio broadcasts, and billboards, in addition to producing hundreds of posters. Initially, the most pressing message to be communicated through posters was a warning to Americans about the dangers of discussing sensitive information like production schedules and troop movements that could be overheard by enemy spies. Over the course of the war, posters covered a variety of topics, such as encouraging the purchase of war bonds and galvanizing the work force at shipyards to keep production going on the assembly line.
- date made
- 1942
- commissioned poster
- War Shipping Administration
- directed poster program
- Office of War Information
- ID Number
- 1991.0856.07
- catalog number
- 1991.0856.07
- accession number
- 1991.0856
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
William K. Applebaugh Papers, 1857-1926
- Notes
- Telegrapher during the U.S. Civil War
- Summary
- Archival materials documenting the life and career of William K. Applebaugh, and his activities as a telegrapher during the U.S. Civil War
- Cite as
- William K. Applebaugh Papers, 1857-1926, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
- Date
- 1857
- 1857-1926
- Civil War, 1861-1865
- 1840-1940
- 1850-1900
- 20th century
- 1850-1910
- creator
- Applebaugh, William K
- collector
- Electricity and Modern Physics, Division of, NMAH, SI
- Local number
- 1985.0183 (NMAH Acc.)
- Data Source
- Archives Center - NMAH
- No Image Available
William Dandrige Terrell Papers, 1911-1965
- Notes
- Terrell, born in rural Virginia, performed government services for 22 years in the communications field, specific duties unknown. In 1911, after this service, he was appointed to a New York civilian post, to ensure the smooth operation of the freshly pioneered wireless on all Atlantic-based Naval ships. This collection begins with Terrell's appointment. In 1915, he was transferred to Washington, where he was given a trans-national staff of 35 and interdepartmental duties among the armed forces divisions. As Chief of Radio Division in the Commerce Department, he was responsible for monitoring the institution of radio into the nation's defense forces. After 19 years in this field, he was promoted to Chief of Field Operations for the Federal Radio Commission, created 1934. He continued in that post even when the FRC was changed into the FCC. After granting a special FCC request that he serve for a few more years after normal retirement age, he finally retired to Florida in 1943 at 72
- Summary
- Collection documents Terrell's life from his 1911 appointment to the years immediately before his death in the mid-1960s. Includes: a brief, partial autobiography and descendant listing; a large body of correspondence ranging from financial planning to insurance policies to appointment notices; a program from an American Wireless Operators convention held in his honor; several retirement announcements and best wishes; business correspondence concerning Terrell's inspection job, largely covering 1911-1914; and 4 photographs of Terrell, family, and friends
- Cite as
- William Dandrige Terrell Papers, 1911-1965, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
- Date
- 1911
- 1911-1965
- 20th century
- 1930-1950
- author
- Terrell, William Dandrige (radio communication specialist) 1871-1960s
- collector
- Electricity and Modern Physics, Division of, NMAH, SI
- Subject
- United States. Commerce Department
- United States. Federal Radio Commission
- Local number
- 1997.3094 (NMAH Acc.)
- Data Source
- Archives Center - NMAH
- No Image Available
Charles Cohill Harris Collection, ca. 1906-1976
- Notes
- Harris, radio engineer and executive, served in various capacities in the Tropical Radio Telegraph Company, a subsidiary of the United Fruit Company, 1916-1963
- Summary
- Correspondence, notes, articles, and photographs assembled by Harris on the history of the United Fruit Company and Tropical Radio Telegraph Company (TRT), 1904-1961. Also includes manuscript histories of companies; material on the application of teletypewriters to radio circuits; blueprints, schematics, reports, and manuals concerning the technical work on TRT; and a scrapbook of William Edgar Beakes, president of TRT, 1939-1943
- Cite as
- Charles Cohill Harris Collection, ca. 1906-1976, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
- Date
- 1906
- 1976
- ca 1906-1976
- 20th century
- collector
- Harris, Charles Cohill 1898- (radio engineer)
- Beakes, William Edgar
- Subject
- Fessenden, R.A
- Tropical Radio Telegraph Company
- United Fruit Company
- Data Source
- Archives Center - NMAH