Telecommunications and Computing

.... .- --. .-.. . -.-- / -- ..- ... . ..- -- / .- -. -.. / .-.. .. -... .-. .- .-. -.--  Connecting you with the past

 

The power to connect instantly, no matter the distance, has reshaped American business and society. From the telegraph of the nineteenth century to today’s digital age, Hagley collections capture the ever-changing story of telecommunications and computing.

Subject Strengths

     
Telegraph

 

 

  

Connect the dots between the telegraph, the railroad industry, and labor history. Relevant collections include the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Reading Company records. We also hold publications from the Order of Railroad Telegraphers labor union.

 
Radio and sound
  

Make waves through Hagley’s electromagnetic collections. Our collections span everything from transmission and broadcasting to reception and advertising. Highlights include:

  • Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America engineering drawings
  • RCA Rocky Point Station records
  • RCA Victor Camden/Frederick O. Barnum III collection
  • John Okolowicz collection on radio and consumer electronics
  • David Sarnoff Library of RCA records
 
Television
  

Broadcast television history via the David Sarnoff Library collections at Hagley. These collections tell the story of television and telecasting development at RCA. If business programming is more your speed, check out The DuPont Show or Chamber of Commerce’s It’s Your Business series.
Telephone   Make connections with an MCI “Friends & Family” plan. The vast MCI collections at Hagley document all facets of their history from 1968 to the end of the 1990s. They also document changes in regulatory policy, legislation, and public perception. Hagley also holds the collection of Lois K. Herr, who advocated women’s rights in the workplace at AT&T.
Typewriters  

 

Click, clack into the past with Hagley's collections on typewriting. The Donald & Carolyn Hoke collection of typewriter advertising and ephemera offers insight into the rise and fall of this once-ubiquitous machine.

 
Computers and computing
  

 

Go digital with Hagley’s robust collections related to the history of computing. Standouts include:

  • Sperry Gyroscope, Sperry-UNIVAC, and UNITE, Inc. records
  • IBM Antitrust Suit and Technitrol lawsuit records
  • Brown Instrument Company records
  • Sperry Rand Corporation, Engineering Research Associates (ERA) Division records
  • Computer gaming pioneer Joseph A. Weisbecker papers
  • Library of computer historian James W. Cortada
  • David Povilus collection of electronic trade catalogs

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Research guides

Learn more about our collections relating to telecommunications and computing.

 

David Sarnoff Library collections

 

 

 

 

 

"Mine's an RCA too!" World War II era RCA radio-phonograph advertisement, 1943 (Acc. 2014.277​).

  

 

 

Explore Further

Selected digital resources related to telecommunications and computing history.

William G. McGowan’s MCI

David Povilus Collection of Trade Catalogs (on the Internet Archive)

Joseph A. Weisbecker papers

Sarnoff Project News

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MCI standing up to  AT&T's "Ma Bell" in the comic book MCI Presents the Fifth Freedom, 1973 (Acc. 2225).

 

Top image credits (left to right): Telephone operator at switchboard, photo by Frank Schoonover, circa 1910 (Acc. 2017.239). RCA Victor's "Stylist Sportable" television, circa 1957 (Acc. 2464.68). UNIVAC 1100/10 computer system, 1973 (Acc. 1985.261). MCI Network Control Center, circa 1990 (2000.239).