From Telegraph to Teletype

The development of telegraphy transformed long-distance communication. Instead of waiting days or weeks for a written message to travel by ship, train or horseback, information could be transmitted across wires almost instantly.

In 1844, Samuel Morse publicly demonstrated an electric telegraph connection between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore. Messages were translated into patterns of dots and dashes known as Morse code. Telegraph lines spread rapidly, and the completion of the first transcontinental telegraph line in 1861 connected the eastern and western United States.

Sending and receiving Morse code required trained operators. Each message had to be carefully interpreted and written or typed before it could be delivered. Telegraph offices became important communication centers where people sent business instructions, family news and announcements of births, deaths and other significant events.

By the 1920s, teletype equipment began changing this process. An operator could type a message on a keyboard, and the machine converted each character into electrical signals. At the receiving location, another machine automatically printed the message. This reduced the need to copy every message by hand and allowed information to move more rapidly through expanding communications networks.

Companies such as RCA connected teletype systems with radio and telegraph services. A message received from a ship by Chatham Radio could therefore be transferred into the land-based network and forwarded to its final destination. The surviving equipment marks an important transition from communication based entirely upon Morse code to systems in which messages could be typed, transmitted and printed automatically.