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 725 items.
Page 5 of 73
Telephone Answering Machine
- Description (Brief)
- This Morsephone model KH-270B answering machine is connected to a Sony model M-7 micro-cassette recorder. The cassette recorder has been modified, possibly by the user, so as to connect to the Morsephone. This modular adaptation permits the user to record telephone messages when needed but also allows the recorder to be used for other tasks.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1982
- maker
- Sony
- ID Number
- 2000.0101.09
- catalog number
- 2000.0101.09
- accession number
- 2000.0101
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Telephone Answering Machine
- Description (Brief)
- This Phonetel model KH-141B answering machine used a removable cartridge to record telephone calls. This unit, with just a few simple controls, was imported from Hashimoto Corporation of Japan. The founder of that company, Kazuo Hashimoto, held several answering machine patents.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1980
- maker
- Hashimoto Corporation, Ltd.
- ID Number
- 2000.0101.10
- catalog number
- 2000.0101.10
- accession number
- 2000.0101
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Telephone Answering Machine
- Description (Brief)
- Telephone answering machines in the mid-twentieth century used a variety of recording media, some standard, some special. This TT Systems TeleTender IV used both. The incoming message was recorded on a standard tape cassette inserted into the top of the machine in the same manner as a portable cassette player. The outgoing message, however, was recorded on a small cartridge inserted into a slot on the side of the machine. Less than half the size of an 8-track cartridge, the cartridge received with this object is labeled, “Sunday - Summer.”
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1976
- maker
- TT Systems Corp.
- ID Number
- 2000.0101.11
- catalog number
- 2000.0101.11
- accession number
- 2000.0101
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Cartridge Wire Recorder
- Description (Brief)
- This model MI-12525 RCA wire recorder shows one answer to a major problem of using steel wire to record sound. The recording wire is wound into a cartridge. The user simply inserts the cartridge into the recorder and can quickly begin using the machine. This machine was designed for use in office dictation around 1948.
- Early magnetic recorders used steel wire or steel bands as a recording medium instead of plastic tape. Steel wire was fragile and tangled easily. Threading a recording machine took a certain amount of finesse and the wire could easily break if mishandled.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1948
- maker
- Radio Corporation of America
- ID Number
- 2002.0034.01
- accession number
- 2002.0034
- catalog number
- 2002.0034.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Wire Recording Cartridge
- Description (Brief)
- One of the difficulties of using steel wire as a recording medium was the fragility of the thin wire. These RCA model MI-12877 recording cartridges from about 1948 were designed to address that problem. The user simply inserts the cartridge into the recorder and can quickly begin using the machine. The steel casing is durable and the wires are only exposed at the front of the cartridge.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1948
- maker
- Radio Corporation of America
- ID Number
- 2002.0034.02
- accession number
- 2002.0034
- catalog number
- 2002.0034.02
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Telephone Answering Machine
- Description (Brief)
- In the late 1990s Motorola introduced this Pocketalk digital answering machine. Similar to a pager in construction, the Pocketalk allowed the user to hear an incoming phone message almost anywhere. Motorola designed the unit to make use of a special transmission network to which the user paid a monthly subscription. The incoming call would be recorded at a message center, digitized and sent to the transmitter nearest the Pocketalk’s location. While the network did not have complete coverage, most metropolitan areas could receive the signals. By 2000, advances in cellular telephones made the Pocketalk obsolete.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1998
- maker
- Motorola Inc.
- ID Number
- 2003.0095.074
- catalog number
- 2003.0095.074
- accession number
- 2003.0095
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Video Cassette Recorder
- Description (Brief)
- This front-loading Betamax video recorder was manufactured by Sony at the height of the company’s competition with producers of the rival VHS format. Beta recorders initially featured a one hour recording cassette, later lengthened to match VHS. Early Beta machines were slightly larger than early VHS units and designers struggled to put a quality audio signal on the tape without compromising video signal quality. Both formats were available for about ten years but ultimately Sony could not solve the audio-video problem without a major redesign that made newer tapes incompatible with older machines. Sony dropped the Beta format in 1988.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1984
- maker
- Sony
- ID Number
- 2003.0147.04
- accession number
- 2003.0147
- catalog number
- 2003.0147.04
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Reel-to-Reel Tape Recorder
- Description (Brief)
- This Akai reel-to-reel tape recorder was imported from Japan in the late 1960s. The professional-grade recorder used transistors rather than older style vacuum tubes. That reduced power consumption and made the electronics much lighter. However, the unit features a wooden case and cover that makes it heavier than most recorders in the collection.
- Japanese industrialists viewed the task of rebuilding after World War Two as an opportunity to modernize their production facilities and product lines. The transistor was one new technology in which they invested heavily.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1968
- maker
- Akai
- ID Number
- 2003.0147.06
- accession number
- 2003.0147
- catalog number
- 2003.0147.06
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
The Hub
- Description (Brief)
- A letter opener made of cream colored celluloid. Advertising copy for "The Hub," a clothier in Chicago, is on the blade. The handle is a molded head of a clown, finely detailed and with hand-painted features.
- "Henry C. Lytton and Sons Company, popularly known as "The Hub," was one of the city's premier clothing stores during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The main store was originally located on the northwest corner of State and Jackson Streets in Chicago's Loop. In 1912, the store moved into the newly built Lytton Building at 235-243 South State Street. Though specializing in men's clothing, The Hub also had retail sales departments devoted to women's clothing, children's wear, shoes, and other accessories."
- Source: "Jazz Age Chicago: Urban Leisure from 1893 to 1945"
- http://chicago.urban-history.org/ven/dss/the_hub.shtml
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1887-1930
- ID Number
- 2006.0098.0898
- accession number
- 2006.0098
- catalog number
- 2006.0098.0898
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
So. Pas. Ostrich Farm
- Description (Brief)
- Leather tri-fold wallet-style stamp holder with celluloid inserts on three panels. One panel is engraved with the words "Postage Stamps." The other two have photos of the ostrich farm in South Pasadena, Calif. Information inside tells how to obtain a price list for feather boas, plumes, and fans. The proprietor's name was Edwin Cawston.
- Cawston's Ostrich Farm and Zoological Garden, established in 1886, was both a profitable business dealing in ostrich feathers as well as a popular tourist attraction. Visitors could take the Pasadena & South Los Angeles Electric Railroad out to the park. There they could see ostrich chicks in incubators, learn about the process of feather collecting and dyeing, tour the gardens, and take rides in ostrich-drawn carriages.
- The site has been designated as a historic landmark by the City of South Pasadena. Today the old factory buildings have been repurposed into a 53-unit condominium space known as Ostrich Lofts.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- after 1915
- ID Number
- 2006.0098.0984
- accession number
- 2006.0098
- catalog number
- 2006.0098.0984
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
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