Binder: Western Union Telegrams, 1867-1954

Photographs, correspondence, telegraph equipment and ephemera including a Western Union doll, telegrams, stock certificates, periodicals, pamphlets, sales catalogs, posters, stamps, and other items relating to the history of the telegraph, mainly in the United States, beginning before the Civil War. The collection includes various publications and objects relating to Western Union in particular, as well as American Rapid Telegraph Company, Atlantic Telegraph Company, U.S. Telegraph Company, Wells Fargo, Nichols Electric Company, and the United States Army Signal Corps. Authors of other publications include R.W. Russell of American Telegraph Company; the Morse Telegraph Club; firms Green, Eckert, Sibley and Wade, Orton; and Stephen Prigozy himself, who published a number of articles on the telegraph. Also included are copies of items from the collections of Prigozy's fellow telegraphy collector George Jay Kramer; letters from Lewis B. Coe, the author of a book on the telegraph; and a television script concerning Cyrus Field, a promoter of the transatlantic cable.

Technical items in the collection include telegraph senders and receivers, insulators, Western Union code books, switchboard specifications from 1929, a U.S. Army Signal Corps relay, a Vibroplex relay, catalogs of telegraph equipment, and issues of Western Union's periodical, Technical review.

Also included in the collection are two volumes documenting the court case, Benjamin B. French et al. vs. Henry J. Rogers et al. (1850-1851), concerning a telegraph patent.

Collection also includes photographs, clippings, and correspondence concerning the early history of the telephone. Also digital materials including images of many items from the collection, presentations given by Prigozy and other files relating to the collection and telegraph research.