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.
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Telephone Answering Machine
- Description (Brief)
- This Crown model CTA-4000 answering machine from the late 1960s used a non-standard cassette for recording messages. The telephone sat on top of the unit and was connected via a pickup and telephone cradle plug. A small microphone is mounted in a slot on the right side. The duration of message was 60 seconds. An advertisement from 1968 lists the retail price as $98.50 while one year it sold for $49.95.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1968
- maker
- Crown Radio Corporation
- ID Number
- 1982.0264.01
- accession number
- 1982.0264
- catalog number
- 1982.0264.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Reel-to-Reel Wire Recorder
- Description (Brief)
- In 1945 William Lear purchased a license from the Armour Research Foundation and made wire recorders like this “Dynaport” unit. The Dynaport combined a wire recorder with a disk record player. The user could play records and make a wire recording of the contents. Users could also connect the Dynaport with a radio and record programs off the air.
- The Dynaport did not sell well and Lear turned his attention to other products like small business jets. Years later he redesigned a tape cartridge system and became a driving force in the introduction of 8-track tape players for automobiles.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1948
- date ordered, given, or borrowed
- 1981-01-15
- maker
- Lear, Inc.
- ID Number
- 1984.0901.01
- accession number
- 1984.0901
- maker number
- 175
- catalog number
- 1984.0901.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Reel-to-Reel Tape Recorder
- Description (Brief)
- This portable Fi-Cord reel-to-reel tape recorder was made in Switzerland around 1964. Intended for use as a portable dictating machine, the Fi-Cord model 101 weighs nearly two pounds (one kilogram).
- The Swiss economy has always been heavily dependant on exporting manufactured products, especially finely crafted items like clocks and watches. This tape recorder exhibits the skill one associates with Swiss engineering and also shows that they quickly adopted transistors for small electronic devices.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1964
- maker
- Fi-cord International
- ID Number
- 1986.0407.01
- accession number
- 1986.0407
- catalog number
- 1986.0407.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Telephone Answering Machine
- Description (Brief)
- The Japanese emphasized electronic technology when rebuilding their manufacturing capability after World War II. The need to replace factories and equipment destroyed during the war gave them the opportunity to take advantage of the latest innovations and enter new markets. The invention of the transistor at Bell Labs in 1947 proved to be a significant opportunity for Japanese electronics companies like Minatronics.
- This model TE-155 answering machine does not electrically connect to the telephone, A desk telephone was placed on the deck of the unit and the lever is slipped under the handset. When the phone rang, the lever lifted the hand-set and the recording began. This indirect method of recording was required due to AT&T’s disapproval of telephone answering machines. Since the device did not connect to the company’s lines, the user avoided sanction.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1966
- maker
- Minatronics Corporation
- ID Number
- 1987.0176.01
- accession number
- 1987.0176
- catalog number
- 1987.0176.01
- model number
- TE-155A
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Reel-to-Reel Tape Recorder
- Description (Brief)
- About ten years after the invention of transistors, Steelman Phonograph & Radio Company produced this portable tape recorder that used seven transistors in its circuits. Although heavy by today’s standards, weighing about 6.5 pounds, the “Transitape” recorder demonstrated possibilities of size and weight reduction that using transistors could provide. The Transitape used a reel-to-reel tape design with tapes that could record for sixty-four minutes. Six mercury cell AA batteries operated the amplifier for about 300 hours and another seven batteries operated the motor for 50 hours.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1960
- maker
- Steelman Phonograph & Radio Co., Inc.
- ID Number
- 1987.0520.01
- accession number
- 1987.0520
- catalog number
- 1987.0520.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Reel-to-Reel Tape Recorder
- Description (Brief)
- This portable tape recorder from Steelman Phonograph & Radio Company was produced during the early 1950s and featured miniature vacuum tubes in the circuits. Users found this recorder much easier to carry than earlier tape and wire recorders. While transistors accelerated miniaturization and portability in electronics, vacuum tube development had already made smaller and more portable devices practical. By the end of the 1950s however, this recorder was replaced by a transistorized design that used less power and was more rugged.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1960
- maker
- Kleinerman, Ben
- ID Number
- 1987.0520.02
- accession number
- 1987.0520
- catalog number
- 1987.0520.02
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Reel-to-Reel Tape Recorder
- Description (Brief)
- This Ampex model 750 recorder is a professional-grade unit. In 1927, Alexander M. Poniatoff emigrated from Russia to the United States and in 1944 founded Ampex to make equipment for the U. S. Navy. Looking for a post-war product, he attended a demonstration of a German tape recorder. Poniatoff decided that magnetic recording would be a good post-war market. Ampex concentrated on building higher-quality products for professional studio use rather than selling consumer products.
- The donor purchased this unit as a graduate student for use in field work in the late 1970s. He was researching black gospel music.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1965
- maker
- Ampex Corporation
- ID Number
- 1987.0927.01
- accession number
- 1987.0927
- catalog number
- 1987.0927.01
- model number
- 750
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Reel-to-Reel Wire Recorder
- Description (Brief)
- In 1935 magnetic recording expert Semi Begun left Nazi Germany and came to the United States where he went to work for Brush Development Company in Cleveland, Ohio. By the end of World War II he had helped Brush market several types of recording devices. Some used steel tape, some coated paper tape, and some like the model BK-303 used steel wire.
- Since steel can be magnetized, the steel wire served as a recording medium. The thin wire broke easily but could be repaired by simply tying the ends together. Unlike coated plastic tape the wire served both to preserve the magnetic field and as structural support. That resulted in design compromises. Tape machines gave better results because each part could be optimized for its role. The tape could be made less brittle than the wire, and the coating could hold a stronger magnetic field than the wire. Brush and Begun soon turned to tape recordings.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1946
- maker
- Brush Development Company
- ID Number
- 1989.0311.01
- accession number
- 1989.0311
- catalog number
- 1989.0311.01
- model number
- BK303
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Telephone Answering Machine
- Description (Brief)
- PhoneMate’s model 5000 answering machine sold for about $120 in the late 1980s. In order to save space many answering machine makers adopted a tape cartridge that was much smaller than the standard audio cassette. The model 5000 took this miniaturization one step further by reducing the size of entire machine. One advertisement shows the unit being held in a man’s hand.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1989
- maker
- PhoneMate
- ID Number
- 1989.0371.01
- accession number
- 1989.0371
- catalog number
- 1989.0371.01
- model number
- 5000
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Telephone Answering Machine
- Description (Brief)
- This PhoneMate model 6950 illustrates answering machine technology in the midst of radical change. From the earliest designs in the 1900s, answering machines used magnetic recording technology, recording on either wire or coated tape. Most machines of the 1960s and 1970s used two tapes, one for the outgoing message and one to record the incoming message. Advances in digital memory design during the 1980s led the model 6950's designers to eliminate the outgoing message tape by using digital memory instead. The incoming message was still recorded on a standard tape cassette. The suggested retail price was $179.98.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1989
- maker
- PhoneMate
- ID Number
- 1989.0371.02
- accession number
- 1989.0371
- catalog number
- 1989.0371.02
- model number
- 6950
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center