Communications

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.

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1874
graphic artist
Harper & Brothers
ID Number
1985.0303.03
accession number
1985.0303
catalog number
1985.0303.03
Initialed and dated watercolorCurrently not on view
Description (Brief)
Initialed and dated watercolor
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1866
original artist
Schussele, Christian
ID Number
GA.16641
catalog number
16641
accession number
119780
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1874
date made
June 27, 1874
graphic artist
Harper & Brothers
ID Number
1985.0303.01
accession number
1985.0303
catalog number
1985.0303.01
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1874
graphic artist
Harper & Brothers
ID Number
1985.0303.04
accession number
1985.0303
catalog number
1985.0303.04
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1925
Artist
Miller, Benjamin
Associated Name
Bernard, Allen W.
maker
Miller, Benjamin
ID Number
2016.0084.030
catalog number
2016.0084.030
accession number
2016.0084
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1874
graphic artist
Harper & Brothers
ID Number
1985.0303.02
catalog number
1985.0303.02
accession number
1985.0303
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1905
associated person
Dollinger, Louisa Amalia
Dollinger, Wilhelmina
Dollinger, Wilhelm
graphic artist
Jennings and Pye
ID Number
1986.0428.10
accession number
1986.0428
catalog number
1986.0428.10

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