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: 1920s

Camera-ready comic page, entitled "A Boy, Unknown a Month Ago..."

John T. McCutcheon (1870-1949) was a Pulitzer-Prize winning cartoonist, known for his political cartoons and fascination with technology, particularly aviation. In this comic page, the artist depicts the scene of "Broadcasting to the Nation from the Washington Monument in D.C.
Description
John T. McCutcheon (1870-1949) was a Pulitzer-Prize winning cartoonist, known for his political cartoons and fascination with technology, particularly aviation. In this comic page, the artist depicts the scene of "Broadcasting to the Nation from the Washington Monument in D.C. for President Coolidge." In the foreground, various groups, delegates, soldiers, etc. are in attendance. On reverse, "A Boy, Unknown a Month ago, is about to receive the greatest ovation ever accorded a Private citizen, June 11, 1927." This was in reference to Charles Lindbergh receiving the first Distinguished Flying Cross ever awarded.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
06/11/1927
original artist
McCutcheon, John T.
publisher
Tribune Printing Company
ID Number
GA.24191
catalog number
24191
accession number
1976.320859

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