Communications

WANN Microphone

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.

Date: 1900s

Foote Pierson "pony" telegraph relay

Telegraph relays amplified electrical signals in a telegraph line. Telegraph messages traveled as a series of electrical pulses through a wire from a transmitter to a receiver. Short pulses made a dot, slightly longer pulses a dash.
Description
Telegraph relays amplified electrical signals in a telegraph line. Telegraph messages traveled as a series of electrical pulses through a wire from a transmitter to a receiver. Short pulses made a dot, slightly longer pulses a dash. The pulses faded in strength as they traveled through the wire, to the point where the incoming signal was too weak to directly operate a receiving sounder or register. A relay detected a weak signal and used a battery to strengthen the signal so that the receiver would operate.
So-called “pony” relays like this unit made by Foote, Pierson & Co., serviced private lines and shorter branch circuits. The resistance of a given pony relay varied depending on the length of the circuit. This 20 ohm pony relay would have been used on circuits up to about 15 miles in length.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1900
maker
Foote, Pierson & Co.
ID Number
EM.222132
catalog number
222132
accession number
41949

Semi-automatic Telegraph Key

Telegraph keys are electrical on-off switches used to send messages in Morse code. A semi-automatic key repeated the Morse code dots rapidly, much like holding down a key on a keyboard for repeated letters. The operator still keyed the dashes but could work much faster.
Description (Brief)
Telegraph keys are electrical on-off switches used to send messages in Morse code. A semi-automatic key repeated the Morse code dots rapidly, much like holding down a key on a keyboard for repeated letters. The operator still keyed the dashes but could work much faster. The Mecograph Company created a right-angle semi-automatic telegraph key around 1906. They competed with Horace Martin's Vibroplex Company until Martin purchased Mecograph in 1914.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1908
associated date
1906
maker
Mecograph Company
ID Number
EM.320012
catalog number
320012
accession number
243907

photograph

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca. 1900
ID Number
2012.0093.12
accession number
2012.0093
catalog number
2012.0093.12

Portrait of Mlle. Bellamy

Signed pencil sketch, dated 1906Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
Signed pencil sketch, dated 1906
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1906
original artist
Ferris, Stephen James
ID Number
GA.16686
catalog number
16686
accession number
119780

An Etching Society Outing

This light-hearted etching by Stephen Ferris, the Philadelphia Society of Etchers Outing in 1900, recalls the sixth such event held by the Society on the Neshaminy River near Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
Description
This light-hearted etching by Stephen Ferris, the Philadelphia Society of Etchers Outing in 1900, recalls the sixth such event held by the Society on the Neshaminy River near Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Etching, eating, and games were the outing’s major activities.
Ferris was a founding member of the Society, organized in 1880, and its first treasurer. Initially, it was an important source for information in the Philadelphia area about the newly revived technique of etching. The group met monthly during the summer for more than twenty years, offering occasions for its members to exchange prints.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1900
graphic artist
Ferris, Stephen James
ID Number
GA.14476
accession number
94830
catalog number
14476

Offset press: Harris model S4L

This single color sheet-fed rotary offset press, series S4L no. 101, was built by Charles and Alfred Harris, and sold to the Republic Bank Note Company of Pittsburgh in July 1906.
Description (Brief)
This single color sheet-fed rotary offset press, series S4L no. 101, was built by Charles and Alfred Harris, and sold to the Republic Bank Note Company of Pittsburgh in July 1906. Its cylinder measures 34 inches in diameter.
The Harris Automatic Press Company, of Dayton, Ohio was the maker of several successful fast, automatic rotary presses, both letterpress and lithographic. Their first offset press, a development of their type press S4, was among several offset presses produced in quick response to Ira Rubel’s press of 1903, described separately. Serial no. 101 was the first production model of the new line.
The Harris S4L was sold for $4,000, and printed about 3,000 22 x 30 inch sheets per hour. Harris presses were soon the most popular offset presses in the United States.
Donated by The Harris Intertype Corp., 1966.
Citations: “With a Chip on my Shoulder,” an unpublished talk by H. A. Porter given to the Detroit Litho Club, 14 December 1950; Elizabeth Harris, "Printing Presses in the Graphic Arts Collection," 1996.
Date made
ca 1906
maker
Harris, Alfred
Harris, Charles
Harris-Intertype
ID Number
GA.22080
accession number
266310
catalog number
GA*22080

experimental DeForest "Audion" tube

Early radio inventors used a variety of methods to detect radio waves. Those early detectors tended to be slow and cumbersome in operation and that limited transmission speed.
Description (Brief)
Early radio inventors used a variety of methods to detect radio waves. Those early detectors tended to be slow and cumbersome in operation and that limited transmission speed. In 1906, Lee de Forest built on the work of Thomas Edison and John Ambrose Fleming and invented an electron tube he called an “Audion.” His tube contained three internal elements: a filament, an electrode and a control grid. Today we call tubes of this type “triodes.” In 1907 De Forest received U.S. Patent #841,387 for his invention, one of the most important in the history of radio.
Date made
about 1907
maker
De Forest Radio Telephone & Telegraph Co.
De Forest, Lee
ID Number
1979.0299.93
catalog number
1979.0299.93
accession number
1979.0299

Refugees

A drawing in pencil signed “C. Schuessele” in purplish ink with what might be a stampCurrently not on view
Description (Brief)
A drawing in pencil signed “C. Schuessele” in purplish ink with what might be a stamp
Location
Currently not on view
date made
19th century
original artist
Schussele, Christian
ID Number
GA.16631
catalog number
16631
accession number
119780

Telegraph Sounder

Telegraph sounders convert electrical pulses into audible sounds and are used to receive Morse code messages. The message travels as a series of electrical pulses through a wire. Short pulses make a dot, slightly longer pulses make a dash.
Description (Brief)
Telegraph sounders convert electrical pulses into audible sounds and are used to receive Morse code messages. The message travels as a series of electrical pulses through a wire. Short pulses make a dot, slightly longer pulses make a dash. The sequence of dots and dashes represent letters and numbers. The pulses energize the sounder’s electromagnets which move a lever-arm. The arm makes a loud “click” when it strikes a crossbar and the operator translates the pattern of sounds into the original language. This miniature sounder was made by C. I. Ways as a working replica of a commercial sounder made by Bunnell and Company.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1900
maker
C. I. Ways
ID Number
EM.313150
catalog number
313150
accession number
177205

Telegraph Key

Telegraph keys are electrical on-off switches used to send messages in Morse code. The message travels as a series of electrical pulses through a wire.
Description (Brief)
Telegraph keys are electrical on-off switches used to send messages in Morse code. The message travels as a series of electrical pulses through a wire. The operator pushes the key’s lever down briefly to make a short signal, a dot, or holds the lever down for a moment to make a slightly longer signal, a dash. The sequence of dots and dashes represent letters and numbers. This key was made as a scarf pin but is fully functional and could send messages.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1900
maker
Ways, C. I.
ID Number
EM.313155
catalog number
313155
accession number
177205

Evangeline in Search of Gabriel

Evangeline, heroine of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1847 epic poem, is shown in a pensive moment during her long quest to find her lost fiancé Gabriel in the pencil drawing.
Description (Brief)
Evangeline, heroine of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1847 epic poem, is shown in a pensive moment during her long quest to find her lost fiancé Gabriel in the pencil drawing. In the poem the lovers are separated as they are expelled by the British from French Acadia in eastern Canada only to find each other many years later as Gabriel is dying. The drawing on beige paper is signed in purplish ink “C. Schuessele” with what might be a stamp. The oil painting of this subject, titled Evangeline is in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
19th century
original artist
Schussele, Christian
ID Number
GA.16630
catalog number
16630
accession number
119780

Telegraph Sounder

Telegraph sounders convert electrical pulses into audible sounds and are used to receive Morse code messages. The message travels as a series of electrical pulses through a wire. Short pulses make a dot, slightly longer pulses make a dash.
Description (Brief)
Telegraph sounders convert electrical pulses into audible sounds and are used to receive Morse code messages. The message travels as a series of electrical pulses through a wire. Short pulses make a dot, slightly longer pulses make a dash. The sequence of dots and dashes represent letters and numbers. The pulses energize the sounder’s electromagnets which move a lever-arm. The arm makes a loud “click” when it strikes a crossbar and the operator translates the pattern of sounds into the original language. The date refers to US Patent #538816, issued to Jesse H. Bunnell for an improved "Telegraph Sounder". In this patent, Bunnell claimed to increase the volume of the sound produced by constructing the sounder in such a way as to prevent the weight of the electromagnets from damping out the vibration of the armature. In essence, this acted as a built-in resonator.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1900
maker
J. H. Bunnell & Co.
ID Number
EM.332407
accession number
294351
catalog number
332407

Picture postcard, "Garden of Mission Santa Barbara, Cal."

This postcard view of the Garden of Mission Santa Barbara was published by the Edward H. Mitchell company of San Francisco about 1908, as a photomechanical lithograph. The Edward H.
Description (Brief)
This postcard view of the Garden of Mission Santa Barbara was published by the Edward H. Mitchell company of San Francisco about 1908, as a photomechanical lithograph. The Edward H. Mitchell company published postcards between about 1900 and 1928.
Founded in 1786, Mission Santa Barbara was the tenth of twenty-one Spanish Franciscan missions established in California between 1769 and 1823. The mission was built to convert American Indians of the Chumash tribe to Catholicism.
Today the mission serves as a parish church and includes a museum, a Franciscan friary, or monastery, and a retreat site.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1900
graphic artist
Mitchell, Edward H.
ID Number
GA.24880.016
catalog number
24880.016
accession number
1978.0801

Picture postcard, "Mission, San Buenaventura, Cal, 1783"

This postcard view of Mission San Buenaventura was printed by the Curt Teich Company of Chicago using photomechanical processes.
Description (Brief)
This postcard view of Mission San Buenaventura was printed by the Curt Teich Company of Chicago using photomechanical processes. It was published about 1915 by the Eno & Matteson company in San Diego.
The Curt Teich Company manufactured postcards between 1898 and 1978 in association with many publishers. The firm used the term "Photochrom," later "Colortone," to describe its color printing processes.
Mission San Buenaventura is located in the city of Ventura. It was the ninth of twenty-one Spanish Franciscan missions established in California between 1769 and 1823, and was built to convert American Indians of the Chumash tribe to Catholicism.
Today the mission serves as a parish church and a museum.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1908
graphic artist
Eno, I. L.
Eno, I. L.
ID Number
1986.0639.0349
accession number
1986.0639
catalog number
1986.639.0349

Telegraph Sounder

Telegraph sounders convert electrical pulses into audible sounds and are used to receive Morse code messages. The message travels as a series of electrical pulses through a wire. Short pulses make a dot, slightly longer pulses make a dash.
Description (Brief)
Telegraph sounders convert electrical pulses into audible sounds and are used to receive Morse code messages. The message travels as a series of electrical pulses through a wire. Short pulses make a dot, slightly longer pulses make a dash. The sequence of dots and dashes represent letters and numbers. The pulses energize the sounder’s electromagnets which move a lever-arm. The arm makes a loud “click” when it strikes a crossbar and the operator translates the pattern of sounds into the original language. This miniature sounder was made by C. I. Ways as a working replica of a commercial sounder made by Bunnell and Company.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1900
maker
C. I. Ways
ID Number
EM.313154
catalog number
313154
accession number
177205

portrait studies of women and men

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca. 1900
ID Number
2014.0250.01
accession number
2014.0250
catalog number
2014.0250.01

Foote-Pierson main-line telegraph relay

Telegraph relays amplified electrical signals in a telegraph line. Telegraph messages traveled as a series of electrical pulses through a wire from a transmitter to a receiver. Short pulses made a dot, slightly longer pulses a dash.
Description
Telegraph relays amplified electrical signals in a telegraph line. Telegraph messages traveled as a series of electrical pulses through a wire from a transmitter to a receiver. Short pulses made a dot, slightly longer pulses a dash. The pulses faded in strength as they traveled through the wire, to the point where the incoming signal was too weak to directly operate a receiving sounder or register. A relay detected a weak signal and used a battery to strengthen the signal so that the receiver would operate.
“Main line” relays like this unit made by Foote, Pierson & Co. were one of the most common types of relay and were typically made with a resistance of 150 ohms. As the name suggests, main line relays served on major intercity circuits several hundred miles long. This unit was used by the Postal Telegraph Company. Originally established by entrepreneur John McKay, Postal merged with Western Union in the 1940s.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1903
maker
Foote, Pierson & Co.
Skirrow, John F.
ID Number
EM.294351.004
accession number
294351
catalog number
294351.004

Telegraph Key

Telegraph keys are electrical on-off switches used to send messages in Morse code. The message travels as a series of electrical pulses through a wire.
Description (Brief)
Telegraph keys are electrical on-off switches used to send messages in Morse code. The message travels as a series of electrical pulses through a wire. The operator pushes the key’s lever down briefly to make a short signal, a dot, or holds the lever down for a moment to make a slightly longer signal, a dash. The sequence of dots and dashes represent letters and numbers. This key has a switch on the side called a circuit-closer that takes the key off-line when not in use.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1900
maker
Western Electric
ID Number
EM.331836
accession number
294351
catalog number
331836

Alhambra, Hall of the Ambassadors

An unsigned exterior view of the Hall of the Ambassadors in the Alhambra complex of Granada, Spain. In another watercolor, the view serves as a frame for a story in the making. See GA*14539.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
An unsigned exterior view of the Hall of the Ambassadors in the Alhambra complex of Granada, Spain. In another watercolor, the view serves as a frame for a story in the making. See GA*14539.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
19th century
graphic artist
Ferris, Stephen James
ID Number
GA.14544
catalog number
14544
accession number
94830

Telegraph Key

Telegraph keys are electrical on-off switches used to send messages in Morse code. The message travels as a series of electrical pulses through a wire.
Description (Brief)
Telegraph keys are electrical on-off switches used to send messages in Morse code. The message travels as a series of electrical pulses through a wire. The operator pushes the key’s lever down briefly to make a short signal, a dot, or holds the lever down for a moment to make a slightly longer signal, a dash. The sequence of dots and dashes represent letters and numbers. This key has a switch on the side called a circuit-closer that takes the key off-line when not in use.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1900
ID Number
EM.331901
accession number
294351
catalog number
331901

Gammeter Multigraph printing machine

This Gammeter Multigraph No. 4, with a separate bank of type, was made by The American Multigraph Company in about 1908.
Description (Brief)
This Gammeter Multigraph No. 4, with a separate bank of type, was made by The American Multigraph Company in about 1908. The Multigraph (with table) has a height of 47 inches a width of 29 inches and a depth of 19 inches; its type bank has a height of 11.5 inches a width of 19 inches and a depth of 10 inches.
The Multigraph was an office printing machine invented in 1902 by H. C. Gammeter, a typewriter salesman. The machine printed either from short type with a specially shaped body, which slid into slots on the printing drum, or from curved plates. The impression was made with printing ink or, for a better facsimile of typewriting, through a ribbon.
Donated by Richard Stevans, 1971.
Citation: Elizabeth Harris, "Printing Presses in the Graphic Arts Collection," 1996.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1908
date made
ca 1908
maker
American Lithograph Company
American Lithograph Company
ID Number
GA.23342.01
accession number
1971.297032
297032
catalog number
23342.01

Telegraph Key

Telegraph keys are electrical switches used to send coded messages that travel as a series of electrical pulses through a wire. Due to special difficulties in sending pulses through long underwater cables, so-called double-current keys were used.
Description (Brief)
Telegraph keys are electrical switches used to send coded messages that travel as a series of electrical pulses through a wire. Due to special difficulties in sending pulses through long underwater cables, so-called double-current keys were used. Instead of the short dots and long dashes of land-line telegraphs, submarine telegraphs sent positive pulses and negative pulses that made the receiver move right or left. The operator pressed one lever on the key to send a positive pulse and another to send a negative pulse. The code consisted of the sequence of left and right movements recorded on a paper tape. This particular key was used in testing insulation at Tufts University in the years around 1910.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1890
ca 1903
maker
Queen and Company
ID Number
EM.328049
catalog number
328049
accession number
270107
collector/donor number
13

Electrotype of "Toshkachito holds a Choctow blowgun in shooting position"

This electrotype of “Toshkachito holds a Choctow blowgun in shooting position” was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the image was published as Plate 20 (p.37) in an article by David I. Bushnell, Jr.
Description
This electrotype of “Toshkachito holds a Choctow blowgun in shooting position” was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the image was published as Plate 20 (p.37) in an article by David I. Bushnell, Jr. (1875-1941) entitled “The Choctaw of Bayou Lacomb St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana” in Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 48, (1909).
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1909
publisher
Bureau of American Ethnology
printer
Government Printing Office
author
Bushnell, Jr., David I.
ID Number
2000.0207.091
catalog number
2000.0207.091
accession number
2000.0207

Poster, Your Work Means Victory

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.
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

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