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 7 items.
- 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
Portrait of Jean-Léon Gérôme
- Description
- Stephen Ferris etched a dapper J. L. Gérôme (1824–1904) in 1899, near the end of Gérôme’s very successful career as painter and sculptor. Ferris had admired the French artist’s work for many years, at least since 1863 when he named his son after him. Although Ferris never actually met Gérôme, the two artists had corresponded. For this print Ferris used a photograph he had received from Gérôme. He then sent Gérôme trial proofs for comments and requested a signature to include in the final impressions, which appears here at lower left.
- Gérôme congratulated Ferris on the portrait as “work done with great care and great talent—the effect is very good and very firm. If I had any criticism to make, I would reserve it for the background, which is a little too even, and for the clothing, which has a little softness in the execution.” Gérôme also suggested that the highlight on the order which appears on his left breast and is not particularly noticeable in the photograph, be less bright. The order remains brightly lit, possibly Ferris’s tribute to Gérôme.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1879
- date made
- 1899
- graphic artist
- Ferris, Stephen James
- ID Number
- GA*14396.01
- accession number
- 94830
- catalog number
- 14396.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Portrait of Electa Kinney Ferris
- Description
- Stephen Ferris made this pencil portrait of his mother, Electa Kinney Ferris, from memory in 1890. She had died in 1848 near Yorkville, Illinois, after the birth of her fourteenth child, when Ferris was a boy of thirteen. (The family had moved to Illinois shortly after Ferris was born in New York State.) Contrary to a contemporary biography’s claim that he was orphaned at ten, Ferris belonged to a large family, which became even larger with his father’s remarriage. Later a maternal uncle with whom Ferris was living offered the seventeen-year-old youth a chance to study at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia.
- date made
- 1898
- original artist
- Ferris, Stephen James
- ID Number
- GA*16646
- catalog number
- 16646
- accession number
- 119780
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Portrait of Annette Ryder Ferris
- Description
- Stephen Ferris made this pencil portrait of his son Gerome’s new wife, Annette Ryder Ferris, in 1894. They were married in May of that year. Mrs. Ferris later donated prints, drawings, and photographs that had belonged to her father-in-law and her husband to the Smithsonian in 1932. Gerome Ferris had made an initial donation in 1927.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1894
- original artist
- Ferris, Stephen James
- ID Number
- GA*16651
- catalog number
- GA*16651
- accession number
- 119,780
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Portrait of Gerome Ferris
- Description
- Stephen Ferris drew this pencil portrait of his son Gerome as a Christmas present for his new daughter-in-law, Annette Ryder Ferris, in 1894. Gerome and Annette were married in May of that year.
- In 1927 Gerome Ferris made the first donation to the Smithsonian of prints, drawings, and photographs that he and his father had collected, and his widow made a second donation in 1932.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- Christmas, 1894
- 1894
- original artist
- Ferris, Stephen James
- ID Number
- GA*16656
- catalog number
- GA*16656
- accession number
- 119780
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
The Heliograph Station--signalling between land and naval forces--near Pasay, Philippine Islands. Copyright 1899 by Underwood & Underwood. [on negative] 20943 Photonegative 1899
- Notes
- Company catalog card included
- Currently stored in box 3.1.51 [100]
- Date
- 1899
- 1890-1900
- publisher
- Underwood & Underwood
- Local number
- RSN 16110
- Data Source
- Archives Center - NMAH
- 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
