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Samuel F.B. Morse, Professor of Art at the City University of New York, conceives idea of the electromagnetic telegraph during a voyage from Le Havre, France to New York. Between 1837 and 1844 Morse and his associates develop his telegraph, conducting numerous trials in New York, including a test between Governors Island and Manhattan in October 1842. Samuel F.B. Morse, inventor of the |
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Samuel Morse's Magnetic Telegraph Co. establishes first telegraph line between New York and Philadelphia. |
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New York paper manufacturer Cyrus Field lays the first successful Trans-Atlantic telegraph cable between Europe and North America (his earlier attempt in 1858 failed after three weeks). Field's New York-based American Telegraph Co. finances the project, which began in 1854. The underwater cable allows instantaneous communication between New York, London and other European capitals. Lithograph of a procession through New York's streets to celebrate the laying of the first Trans-Atlantic Cable, 1858 |
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The first licenses to operate Alexander Graham Bell's telephone in New York City, the first device to transmit speech over electric wires, are granted by the American Bell Telephone Company. The following year the first central switchboard in NYC is opened. Overhead
telephone wires on |
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Thomas Edison unveils his tinfoil phonograph on December 7 at the Manhattan office of Scientific American. The simple but crude recording device astonishes the public, who flood Edison's Menlo Park, New Jersey laboratory with requests to see the invention and its inventor. In January 1878 several public demonstrations are staged at locations throughout New York, including Cooper Union and the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church. Edison and his tinfoil phonograph, taken at the Matthew Brady Studio in Washington, D.C., 1878 |
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On October 8 Thomas Edison files the first of several patent caveats for his kinetograph, a motion picture device Edison claimed "does for the Eye what the phonograph does for the Ear . . . the recording and reproducing of things in motion."
Thomas
Edison's notebook sketches |
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Thomas Edison's West Orange, New Jersey laboratory produces The Kiss, the first copyrighted motion picture. Former Edison employee Charles E. Chinnock produces the first motion picture of a boxing match in New York, filmed on the rooftop of a building on St. Marks Avenue in Brooklyn. On April 14 the Holland Brothers open the first commercial exhibition of Edison's peephole kinetoscope at 1155 Broadway. First
Edison Kinetoscope parlor, 1855 |
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The American Mutoscope Company, one of the earliest film companies in New York, opens a film studio at 841 Broadway. The Edison Manufacturing Company develops a portable camera, and its staff members are frequently in Manhattan and Coney Island capturing scenes of everyday life on film; the company soon opens a studio on a roof on West 28th Street. New York City becomes the center of the American film industry -- until the beginning of the First World War. |
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Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi demonstrates his wireless telegraph by transmitting the results of the America's Cup yacht race from New York Harbor to a receiving station on 34th St. in Manhattan. Used for point-to-point communications, wireless telegraphy was the predecessor of radio. |
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The Edison Manufacturing Company opens a movie studio on East 21st Street. Thomas Edison later moves the studio to the Bronx in 1907. Edison sold his Bronx studio in 1918.
Interior of the Edison motion picture studio, Bronx N.Y. Several film productions are under way simultaneously. ca. 1912 |
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New York inventor Lee De Forest invents the Audion, a three-element vacuum tube that allows him to make the first radio broadcasts. |
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Transcontinental telephone service opens between New York and San Francisco with a ceremony featuring Alexander Graham Bell at AT&T headquarters in New York and Thomas Watson at the Panama-Pacific Exposition.
Women
telephone switchboard |
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Facsimile service, the transmission of pictures over telephone wires, is first publicly demonstrated between New York and Cleveland by AT&T. Though the technology developed in their research facility on West Street was comparatively crude, the principles used in 1924 are the same used in fax machines today. | |||
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The
National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is formed by a group of business leaders
representing RCA, GE, and Westinghouse. It begins radio broadcasts with
a gala at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. In 1927 the rapidly growing network
begins building permanent studios in New York City, and separates its programming
into two networks: the Blue Network, offering cultural programs, and the
Red Network, specializing in comedy and light entertainment. NBC President David Sarnoff with Louis Finkelstein, President of the Jewish Theological Seminary, 1940s or 1950s. |
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Don Juan, the first motion picture using a synchronized disc sound system, premiers at the Warner Theatre in New York City. Produced by Warner Brothers, starring John Barrymore and featuring music recorded by the New York Philharmonic, the film is the first full-length feature with a synchronized audio track. The Vitaphone system, developed by the Western Electric Company, was tested at the Warner Vitagraph Studios in Brooklyn. The music for the film was recorded at the Manhattan Opera House. | |||
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Commercial Trans-Atlantic radio telephone service between New York and London is officially opened from the AT&T building at 195 Broadway. The first transatlantic service via undersea cable will not open until 1956.
Traffic
operators, Overseas AT&T |
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The Jazz Singer, the first "talkie" sound film is released by Warner Brothers using the Vitaphone system. Although the sound track was originally intended to consist of a synchronized musical score, Al Jolson ad-libbed some dialogue between songs. The Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) Radio Network is established. Announcer
James Fasset and guests during |
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The Bell System transmits live television images of Herbert Hoover, then the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, over telephone lines from Washington, D.C. to an auditorium in Manhattan. It is the first public demonstration in the U.S. of long-distance television transmission. The images are transmitted to Washington from the laboratories of American Telephone and Telegraph on West Street in Manhattan. | |||
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John Bardeen, W.H. Brattain, and W.B. Shockley invent the transistor at AT&T's Bell Laboratories, heralding the widespread use of electronics in telecommunications, and the development of transistor-based electronic computing equipment. The multi-billion dollar U.S. semiconductor industry is born. The first public demonstration is given the next year in NYC. | |||
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NBC transmits the first coast-to-coast color television broadcast. Charles Townes, building on the work of W.B. Shockley, develops the maser, the forerunner of the laser, at Columbia University. |
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Bell Laboratories scientists demonstrate an experimental "optical maser," a device which generates light waves that eventually could be controlled and amplified like radio waves, laying the foundation for fiber optic technology. | |||
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The Telstar communications satellite makes it possible to relay live broadcasts from one continent to another almost simultaneously.
Bell System’s Telestar experimental communications satellite, 1962 |
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Demonstrated at the 1964 World's Fair, Picturephone service is inaugurated the same year in New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. calling centers. A technological tour-de-force, this service let you see as well as hear. Its successors provide today's video teleconferencing service. Picture phone service at the 1964 New York World’s Fair |
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