The QWERTY keyboard is a relic of the past, but today’s keyboards on laptops, computers, and phones carry it forward. Why?

The electronics of our modern devices require regular software updating or even device replacement to keep up with all the technological advances. Odd that keyboards stay the same. Here’s why.

The Patent

A Milwaukee newspaper editor and printer, Christopher Sholes (1819-1890), worked with his friends Samuel W. Soule (1830-1875) and Carlos Glidden (1834-1877), to create a writing machine. Sholes happened to be the one who filed the patent.

The patent was granted in 1867. The men were happy with the writing machine, but Sholes kept tinkering with the keyboard. The keys kept jamming.

In the original design, the layout was in ABC fashion, but this system wasn’t working efficiently. One of the men’s investors recommended that his brother, an educator named Amos Densmore, conduct a study of letter pairings. Densmore showed Sholes how the keys arose when a person typed common words.

Based on Densmore’s information, Sholes created what we now know as the QWERTY keyboard. It is named for the placement of the first 6 letters on the top row of letters: QWERTY. With the keyboard changes, Sholes added them into a revised patent on the typewriter.

Anyone who has ever used a manual typewriter remembers that the keys do still jam occasionally, but the QWERTY layout permitted a better system for key usage. It also partially reduced the need for typists to stop to reach in to the machine to unjam the keys. (Sound familiar anyway?)

No Keys for Punctuation Marks

The original keyboard designed by Sholes lacked most punctuation marks. There were also no keys for zero or the number one. Typists learned “work-arounds” for these needs. A lower-case “l” was used for a one, and the letter “O” in uppercase was zero. An exclamation point could be made by using a three-stroke combination. The typist hit an apostrophe, a backspace and a period and an exclamation mark was formed. (The keys for M, C, and X were also in slightly different locations than today’s keyboards.)

Manufacturing Rights Sold

In 1873, the manufacturing rights to the “Sholes-Glidden Type Writer” were sold to E. Remington & Sons. At that time, the keyboard was slightly modified by the company’s own mechanical staff. It is believed that the final design was selected because the words TYPE WRITER can be written using just one row of the keyboard. This permitted salesmen to impress customers as they quickly pecked out “typewriter” on sales calls.

Competitive Typing

When typewriters were first invented, everyone typed via hunt-and-peck. As typewriters became popular, “touch typing”—a method for faster typing—began being taught. Soon speed typing contests were popular. A Salt Lake City court stenographer by the name of Frank Edgar McGurrin began winning typing contests. Through McGurrin’s continued success, his touch-typing method and the Remington keyboard layout he used gained popularity.

The Dvorak Keyboard

In 1936, August Dvorak (1894-1975), a psychologist and professor of education at the University of Washington, patented what became known as the Dvorak keyboard. The Dvorak permits users to type approximately 400 of the most common words in the English language with hands remaining on the home keys. This opened the opportunity for faster typing. (With QWERTY, one can type only 100 common words from the home keys.)

This brought up a new thought: Perhaps the time saved with the DVORAK keyboard would make it worthwhile for all typists to be re-trained.

Two business professors, Stan Liebowitz and Stephen E. Margolis, debunked that theory. Despite the fact that with QWERTY, “a” is under our weakest finger, and the most-used letter “e” is off the home row, people adapt. Those who are going to become fast typists will do so regardless of layout.

According to “Typing Errors,” an article co-authored by the two professors, there is no new system that would realize enough cost savings to merit the creation of a different keyboard. Given the number of additional years, we have now remained loyal to QWERTY, I wonder if they would feel differently!

So here we are. The basic keyboard design we use on our extraordinarily advanced technological gadgets was the result of the efficiency of mechanical typewriters used more than 100 years ago. Gotta love it.

 To read about the inventor of the correcting fluid for typists, read “Liquid Paper” for Typists Invented by Secretary.

Several generations of Americans remember My Weekly Reader as a source of news in the schools.

The goal of the four- to eight-page weekly paper, which was distributed via the classroom, was to bring awareness to children of what was happening in the world. Educators hoped that this type of publication would improve young people’s knowledge of the time in which they lived, while also making them lifelong newspaper readers.

Schools purchased the publication in bulk. A nominal fee (about $2 in the 1950’s) was collected from parents to offset district charges. (Schools generally had money for those who could not afford it.)

The newspaper was distributed on Friday afternoons. This must have offered a welcome relief to teachers who were ready for something interesting to fill the final afternoon before the weekend. 

The First Issue of My Weekly Reader

The first issue of the newspaper was published September 21, 1928, and was primarily aimed at fourth graders. The lead story was about the childhoods of the two candidates running for president in the 1928 election. Al Smith was the Democratic candidate and Herbert Hoover represented the Republicans. The headline read: “Two Poor Boys Who Made Good Are Now Running for the Highest Office in the World!” 

As the publication evolved, the newspaper included a lead story and a regular column on innovations. Discussion questions about the lead story appeared were a part of each issue. Teachers sometimes used those for quizzes or as homework.

During the 1930s, a geography column was added. “Uncle Ben” traveled the world and sent letters home describing the country he just visited. The newspaper also contained captioned photographs, cartoons, and puzzles and games that were tied into current events in some way.

The company knew it had a hit on its hands during the first year. The circulation that year reached 100,000.

The Idea for My Weekly Reader

There are three people who need to be mentioned when it comes to the creation of My Weekly Reader.  Harrison Sayre was a salesman for American Education Press, which distributed school publications including Current Events, a weekly newspaper for high school students. In a “Letter to the Editor” in The New York Times (11-4-1987), Sayre’s son writes that his father may have picked up the idea from a teacher or school administrator in Indiana as he traveled the country for AEP.

Sayre submitted the idea to his company. In 1928, he obtained funding from AEP’s owner to start a newspaper for elementary school children. He became the managing editor and hired children’s author, Martha Fulton, as editor. Fulton put together the first few issues.

The third person involved, Eleanor M. Johnson 1892-1987), was head of elementary education curriculum in York, Pennsylvania. After the first few issues, Fulton hired Johnson as a freelancer to experiment with what would work on the back page.

Johnson continued to maintain her job in Pennsylvania while freelancing for My Weekly Reader. She was hired to work full-time in 1934 and served as editor-in-chief. She retired in 1966 but continued to work as a consultant to the company.

Johnson is the name most strongly associated with My Weekly Reader because of her longevity.

Success Continued

By the end of the 1930s, first through sixth graders each had their own edition of My Weekly Reader.  The newspaper’s circulation grew to a high of 13 million in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. There were also curriculum-specific magazines for middle and high school students, including areas such as health, science, careers, reading, and writing.

It is estimated that two-thirds of American adults grew up reading My Weekly Reader. 

Viewpoint Closely Monitored

My Weekly Reader was sometimes criticized for its narrow perspective on the world.  World War II was described to young readers as a time when “thousands of American men [in the Army] are learning to cook and sew.” The publication also touted one of the benefits of war being the development of many inventions that were being created in response to the needs of the time (butter that would not spoil, dishes that did not break if dropped, etc.)

Later, the Civil Rights movement was all but ignored, and while the Korean War was written about to some extent, the Vietnam War was not.  Clearly, controversy was avoided.

Positive Philosophy of Optimism

The Los Angeles Times quoted from a speech given by Eleanor Johnson in 1942 where she described the publication’s philosophy: “…We promise to do our share in guarding America’s children from the hazards of fear, tensions, and frustration and to contribute to emotional stability through the inspiration and reassurance that the carefully selected current content of My Weekly Reader brings to children. Ours shall be a positive philosophy of optimism.”

Publication Continued

With Eleanor Johnson at the helm, Harrison Sayre became a board member of American Education Press. He eventually served as president of the company.  Sayre always gave a great deal of credit for the creation of the publication to Martha Fulton.

In 2007, Weekly Reader Corporation became part of The Readers Digest Association. That company tried to create a viable online version but was unsuccessful.  In February 2012, Weekly Reader was acquired by its competitor, Scholastic. 

Six months after acquiring the publication, Scholastic chose to shut down My Weekly Reader. The company said that the need to transition to a digital format and the drop in subscribing schools usher in the end. Today Scholastic still publishes a news magazines, but it no longer uses the My Weekly Reader name.

***

Many readers write to me looking for copies of My Weekly Reader. Scholastic never digitized it, and they did not seem to save sample copies of the previously published newspaper. I remain convinced that there are still long-forgotten copies in America’s basements or attics. Every now and then I check eBay, and there will be some copies for sale. Keep watching! In the meantime, if you would like to share your memories of Weekly Reader, I would be delighted. Please use the comments section.

Just as the development of e-mail in the 1990s changed the love letter, the technology of the 1920s forever altered the love song.  

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries–before movies, before television, before radio–the most popular form of live entertainment in America was vaudeville, a live variety show consisting of unrelated acts, ranging from acrobats and animal trainers to magicians and musical performances.

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No Way to Amplify Sound

Musical performances, however, could be problematic. Theaters were often large, and there were limited ways that music could be presented to a big audience because there was not yet an effective way to amplify sound.

As a result, the successful singers of the day were those who had stentorian voices and could project. Though nineteenth century songs like Stephen Foster’s “Beautiful Dreamer” or “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair” may have been about love, the only way to perform them was by singing at top volume.

Singing bandleader Rudy Vallee came up with one solution: He used a megaphone to help amplify his voice over the sound of his band. Even after microphones came into use, Vallee was so identified with it that he kept the megaphone as signature prop for his performances.

Acoustical Recordings

Between 1890-1925, music engineers were working to find ways to capture sound as well as amplify it. By the 1910s, the acoustical recording process was being employed. This involved musicians and/or singers crowding around a recording horn (cone) that contained a diaphragm connected to a cutting needle.

The needle rested on a recording medium. As the diaphragm responded to the sounds made by the performers, the needle cut a corresponding groove into the recording material, usually a thin sheet of foil wrapped around a cylinder.

For the recording horn to capture the sound, it was vital for each instrument or singer to be in close proximity to it at the appropriate time. If a certain performer or instrument was to be featured, the other performers stepped quickly out of the way so that the sound from the intended performer could be closest to the cone with its diaphragm. The process involved a lot of awkward jockeying around.

Performers also learned to manipulate sound themselves. For louder and higher notes, they stepped back a bit to avoid distortion. For a softer sound, they needed to move forward so the sound could be picked up by the recording. In general, lower voices were easier to record at this time. And certain instruments could be heard better than others. The banjo, the trumpet, the trombone, and the xylophone were ideal.

All these aspects had an effect on the type of music that was chosen to be recorded.

Another Development Comes Along

The microphone—so called because it was said “to do for the ear what the microscope did for the eye.”—had been a project of many.  Much of the tinkering with the early microphones was to perfect them for use with the telephone.

An inventor in England (David Edward Hughes) was probably the first to create what became known as the carbon button microphone. But inventors in America were having success, too. Emile Berliner, a German-born inventor who worked in Thomas Edison’s laboratories, was among the first to come up with a usable carbon-button microphone in this country.

Edison initially showed no interest in Berliner’s accomplishment, so Berliner sold the rights to his invention to Alexander Graham Bell. Eventually he also went to work for Bell. (Later Edison would weigh in on what needed to be done with the microphone, and he and Berliner went through a fight over the patent.)

Carbon Button Microphone

The carbon button microphone was a drum-like device that enclosed two electric contacts separated by a thin layer of loose carbon. One contact was attached to a diaphragm that vibrated when struck by a sound wave; the other was connected to an output device. This microphone was perfect for telephone because it converted sound into voltage. (Improved versions of the carbon button microphone existed in telephones until the 1980s.)

In the early 1920s, a few radio stations began to operate, and they, too, found the microphone vital. The first commercial radio station broadcast in 1920. By the late 1920s, more people bought radios as they delivered exciting entertainment—much more so than most people could find locally.

Electrical Recording as Well

Along with the progress being made on the microphone, engineers were finding a way to record by using electricity. Developments in these two areas were soon conjoined. As microphones were used to capture the sounds for recordings, musicians soon realized that the microphones permitted them to be heard better in theaters and auditoriums because their sound was amplified.

Changes in Music

These discoveries had a vast effect on music. Instead of a singer belting out a song so that it could be heard in the back row of a theater, these belting singers actually sounded terrible in front of a microphone. They never learned to modulate their tones.

As musicians experimented with what worked, they learned that a new type of music was possible. For the first time, emotions could be conveyed with the sound of the voice. Lyrics could be about love and the tones could be intimate and suggestive, as if the performer was whispering the song to each listener. It became known as “crooning.”

Women loved it, and then as now, women were responsible for spending much of the family budget. As a result, radio stations quickly got on board with songs produced by crooners. Soon they discovered commercials were sometimes more effective when whispered. As more people listened to the radio and began hearing the new sounds that were possible, audiences wanted to see these people in person. The clubs started booking crooners to perform live. In 1932, TheNew York Times ran a headline” Radio Invades Vaudeville: Public Desire to See Microphone Performers Beckons Them to the Footlights—Many Now on Tour.”

Inspired Controversy

Change is usually followed by controversy, and this shift was no different. In The Rise of the Crooners by Michael Pitts and Frank Hoffman, the authors point out that this new form of singing was considered “dangerous.”

In Boston, the Catholic Church’s Cardinal O’Connell came out against crooning, feeling that it corrupted young people and led to bad morals. From a totally different camp, singing teachers condemned the style because they felt the American chest would shrink because of lack of lung development.

Despite this opposition, the popularity of the music grew. Early crooners included some like Al Bowlly and Gene Austin, who are little known today. Rudy Vallee was an exceedingly popular crooner who learned to shift music and acting styles and remained extremely popular. Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Nat King Cole were also crooners, all of whom still maintain followings today.

Some Rock and Roll Features Crooning

Though the 1950s ushered in the era of rock and roll, there are still musicians who mix in a crooning-style of song. Norah Jones is certainly in that group, but so, too is someone like Bob Dylan who will add into his repertoire a song like, “To Make You Feel my Love.”

Though the Doors are unlikely crooners, Jim Morrison’s “Touch Me” is a song that has definite crooning roots. After his emphatic, “Come on come on come on come on now touch me baby,” take a listen to “Now I’m gonna love ya, til the heavens stop the rain…” Morrison’s self-declared admiration for Sinatra is more than evident.

Crooning Today

We may no longer call it crooning, but today’s listeners still love a love song now and then. We love words of adoration; we love the musical intimacy, and we savor the feelings we get when a song reminds us of all the aspects of our own lives that inspire love. 

Weather. People throughout time have always cared about the weather. It affects crops, businesses, travel, and personal plans. Sometimes, all that one needs is the next day’s forecast. But often, farmers and businesspeople want to hear about what they might expect in the coming weeks.

In this country, we need only look back to the Founding Fathers to find people who were intently interested in documenting weather. Benjamin Franklin ran kite experiments during lightning storms to learn more. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson took detailed notes in their journals. Benjamin Banneker, a free Black and a contemporary of these men, kept detailed records and published annual almanacs that contained his findings. 

And as Lewis and Clark traveled to explore the Northwest Territory, they were expected to take careful records of the weather. By documenting the topography, the flora and fauna, and the weather, it was hoped that future generations would be able to make sense of the new land.

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Military and Volunteer Networks

Because weather was important, two different avenues for collecting data in this country developed independently: the military and the new Smithsonian Institution.

As early as 1814, U.S. Army Surgeon General Dr. James Tilton ordered field surgeons to keep weather diaries. Some believed that there was a correlation between diseases and weather. No one expected a physician to predict the weather, but administrators felt there was value in records being kept and sent on to the office of the Surgeon General.

Some field surgeons were diligent about their weather diaries. Others were neglectful. However, at least there was a rudimentary system in place before the Civil War changed everything. 

Telegraph Was Vital Development

But even as meteorological information was gathered, there was a continuing problem with sharing the news in a timely fashion. Before the development of the telegraph (1835), a messenger was needed to ride horseback to a neighboring town with any sort of weather information. The news inevitably arrived too late to be much help.

The telegraph was valuable from the beginning. The challenge with it was that wires could not be strung fast enough!

Telegraph lines were strung along the railroad tracks. Because trees were cut away for the tracks, men were able to erect poles and string wires more easily. This also made the railway station a logical place for telegraph offices.  It still took time to connect towns.

By the late 1840s, scientists began to realize another benefit of the telegraph. In addition to sending out news about possible storms, they could also gather weather information from multiple sources. This sometime improved the accuracy of any predictions.

Smithsonian Collected, Too

The Smithsonian was founded in Washington, D.C. in 1846 with funds from James Smithson, a British scientist. Smithson wanted to establish an institution in America for “the increase and diffusion of knowledge.” He would have highly approved of the idea of gathering data about weather.

The first secretary of the new Smithsonian was a physicist named Joseph Henry (1797-1878). He created the first network of weather observers.

The Institution asked for volunteers in different parts of the country. The Smithsonian sent them a box of instruments with instructions on record-keeping and reporting. The weather collection boxes contained all the latest instruments available, including a barometer, a thermometer, hygrometer (measures humidity), anemometer (measures wind speed and wind pressure), a wind vane, a rain gauge, and a clock.

By 1860, Henry had 500 weather stations manned by volunteers who reported regularly. (Today the Smithsonian refers to this group as their first crowd-sourcing project.) 

Civil War

The Civil War brought any type of project like weather-gathering to a halt.

Generals on both sides of the War recognized how important weather news was. However, they were fully occupied recruiting men, locating weaponry, and figuring out uniforms and how to feed so many soldiers. There wasn’t any time for “extras.”

They knew a terrible rainstorm would slow troops down, might cause river overflows, and could knock out the few bridges that might have existed. Cold and snow slowed everything to a stop, and frostbite was debilitating. As a result, many men faced amputations because of toes that couldn’t be saved.

Even hot weather was no blessing. Heat wore out the men and animals. A soldier carrying a heavy pack on a hot day was very likely to leave behind jackets, sleeping bags, and many things that would have been helpful when the weather changed. 

Weather Issues During the War

War records indicate that in addition to brutal fighting, lack of equipment, and difficulty procuring food, weather, too, was a major obstacle. One soldier recorded in his journal what it was like for Union soldiers after Chancellorsville: The area was hit with a torrential storm that included fog that prevented the men from seeing each other.  They marched side by side but … “We took to shouting to our comrades that we were enabled to keep our places in the ranks.”

Weather also resulted in direct casualties. Ships sank; horses and men were killed by lightning; frost-bitten feet could become too painful to walk on.  The war experiences pointed to what many already knew—the country needed to develop a weather department.

Who Should Run a Weather Bureau?

After the war, there were several opinions about how to set up a weather bureau. Albert Myer had been among the surgeons who kept track of the weather in his area. He was now a colonel and saw that the military’s Signal Corps was in the best position to run a bureau. They had access to the telegraph wires and knew how to send out signals.  Myer felt the weather expertise could come from volunteers.

Others Fought For a Government Agency

But in the Great Lakes region, different views were held. There was little that was predictable about the weather in that part of the country, and catastrophes could happen. In 1869, a four-day gale raged through the area. Ninety-seven ships and countless lives were lost on the lakes alone.

Professor Increase Lapham (1811-1875) of Milwaukee observed this, and he urged for an independent separate weather bureau. He sent related news clippings to his Congressman about the issue, noting in one: Is it not “the duty of the Government to see whether anything can be done [in the future] to prevent, at least, some portion of this sad loss?”

Congress Decides

Lapham’s representative, Congressman Halbert E. Paine, introduced legislation that offered the option of creating a civilian agency. After studying the issue, Congress determined that if the military could make use of the Smithsonian volunteers, then the suggestion of letting the Signal Corps run the service would be less expensive and perfectly workable. They vetoed the idea of a civilian service.

With the department assigned to the Signal Corps, the weather service was part of the War Department.  Surgeon Albert Myer, now a Brevet Brigadier General, was put in charge. He gave the department its first name: “The Division of Telegrams and Reports for the Benefit of Commerce.”

The plan involved recruiting some meteorologists to be part of the Signal Corps but to also rely on the Smithsonian network of volunteers. To increase the possibility of better forecasting, the country was divided into eight different districts.

The first synchronized weather reports came into the Washington office from 24 stations at 7:35 a.m. on November 1, 1870.

Forecasting

In the 1870s, the Smithsonian established a daily routine that they carefully observed:

One man received and digested all incoming telegrams. He then assigned them to the staff people in charge of different divisions of the country. They then did their best to interpret what was likely to happen in their region.  

The goal of the process was to create a daily weather map within a 2-hour window.

Printing plates were prepared so that the latest data could be added to the new maps.  Then these were sent out over the telegraph lines to weather stations and railroad offices.

Sometimes The Process Worked…

As we all know, weather is tricky to predict. Even today, the forecasters will give us several options of what we might expect. In those days, the equipment was less reliable and made predictions even more difficult. However, sometimes the weather forecasters did get it right.

In one particular case, data revealed that there would be a frost in Wisconsin that could affect the crops. This information was sent from Washington to Madison 36 hours in advance of the cold weather. If farmers had received the news in time, it might have been very helpful. Unfortunately, the telegraph officer either missed the incoming telegram or forgot about it. He never sent on the weather alert.

Many telegraph offices were not 24-hour operations, and this, too, led to problems. The weather information might have been received in a timely manner, but there was no one at the office to send it out.

People Wanted to Know

People of the past were just as curious about upcoming weather forecasts as we are today.  In 1873, rural post offices were the hub of every community, so the forecasts were sent to hundreds of local post offices.

The service instituted a flag system that they recommended to post offices. (The Signal Corps had its roots in signaling by flag.) Flags of different colors were designated to signal different types of weather. Townspeople did not need to walk into the post office or even be literate to understand the weather that was expected to come.

Some post offices even created a “Farmer’s Bulletin” with weather information that was posted on the community bulletin board.

Weather predictions were also sent to rail stations and to any news media of the day.

Other Challenges

Rain, sleet, snow, and hail were the types of weather that were generally the focus of weather reports. But unfortunately, there were plenty of other weather events that forecasters had little hope of pinning down. 

Tornadoes seemed to appear on the skyline out of “nowhere.” Though townspeople might see the swirling winds as they grew in force, there was little time to do much to protect one’s home or livestock.  Hurricanes were also difficult to predict. Would this be a heavy tropical rain, or would it develop into a full-blown hurricane, and how far on land would it travel?

Flooding is also a development of weather, but the scientists were challenged as to when heavy rain would mean riverbanks would overflow. These weather occurrences could be catastrophic, but the weather experts lacked ways to do much about them.

As state governments began to invest in weather services, the predictive powers of many types of weather improved. Even today, the more local the prediction, the better chance the chance the forecast will be right.

Inaccuracy Always A Problem

Just as today, people were quite annoyed when the weather predictions were wrong.

In 1904, one New Mexico newspaper came up with a way they felt increased their chances of being correct. Each day they printed the official weather forecast issued by the government.

But they also sent a reporter out to check with Oliver P. Wiggins, a Civil War veteran and a protégé of Kit Carson. Wiggins had been injured during the war, and his leg still “acted up” before bad weather.  The newspaper saved space right next to the official weather report. There, they would print an update on how Wiggins was feeling and what he thought that meant for the local weather.

The scientists at the weather bureau saw this as “disrespectful” of the science. A meeting was held between the newspaper editor and a representative of the weather bureau. The bureau representative made it very clear that Oliver Wiggins’s predictions needed to be a thing of the past.

Department of Agriculture

As the country grew and the network of telegraph lines exploded across the country, farmers and businesspeople became the primary audience for weather news. The time had come to switch the weather service away from the military.

In 1890, at the request of President Benjamin Harrison, Congress passed an act transferring meteorological responsibility from the Signal Corps to the Department of Agriculture. It was retitled the “Weather Bureau.”

Weather Kiosks

The United States observed that in the early 1900s, Germany added kiosks on busy streets in their major cities. Pedestrians could walk by and learn almost anything they wanted about the weather.

The U.S. government began sending out the materials for weather kiosks in 1908. By 1910, kiosks were built in 29 cities.

Buffalo’s newspaper headlined the news by pointing out that this would reduce phone calls to the beleaguered local weather person: “It Will Save You Calling Up Davy Cuthbertson [local forecaster] to Ask About the Weather.” 

The Buffalo newspaper ran a great article on the excitement surrounding the kiosk. It was described as a “highly ornamental iron booth, four feet square by ten feet high, with plate glass windows on the sides. The reporter continues: “Three of the windows will feature weather maps and other documents.  In the fourth window will be placed a maximum and minimum thermometer, a mercurial thermometer, a thermograph to record the temperature for 2 weeks back, a hygrometer to give the relative humidity, and a self-recording rain gauge.”

Those who strolled by would be able to find out everything except wind velocity, which was too changeable to report on reliably.

But there were misunderstandings about the purpose of these governmental structures. In Pittsburgh in September of 1909, an article explained that the kiosks were NOT mailboxes. They were just kiosks so those who were leaving letters and post cards on top if the kiosk were going to be sorely disappointed.

Communication Methods Changed

Some of us may actually remember when there was a phone number to call for the correct time, weather information, and road reports during the winter.

This “information by phone” started very casually. In the days when telephone operators worked switchboards plugging in calls, chances were good that they knew most people in town. If you knew that “Mabel” was already at work, you might well decide to call her and ask if you needed to wear a jacket or if the kids should wear boots.

If the operators thought weather was changing, it was certainly easy enough to connect a caller with the local weather man in town. He would be able to give his friends and neighbors an up-to-the-minute report.

As late as the 1930s-‘40s, weather offices often received up to one hundred calls a day. Some time after that, phone systems automated weather reports and traffic reports. There was often a specific line where you cold call for the correct time.

Improving Weather Study

Those analyzing the weather knew that the ability to measure the upper atmosphere was very helpful. But how to gather that data was more problematic. Weather kites were a failure, so in 1909, when the U.S. began trying weather balloons, there was great excitement. By the 1920s, the balloons could be equipped with radio transmitters.  This permitted real-time observation of the stratosphere so that forecasters understood the width of a weather system and also its height.

Using radar for weather information was a result of the Second World War. During the war, radar operators observed patterns of interference on their screens that aligned with bad weather.

After the war, radar meteorology became a major field of study.

Weather Prediction

Today weather predicting is a major industry, drawing the public to the internet, and radio and television. Many businesses specifically sign up to receive regular weather reports. For example, power companies predict usage based on weather; the travel and leisure industries are heavily invested in weather happenings, and agriculture and construction may alter schedules based on what is to come.

Today’s Organization

Today the Weather Service is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), where it is united with the other government agencies that were originally dedicated to studying the physical sciences–the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey (formed in 1807) and the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, which dates to 1871, just one year after the Weather Bureau became a government agency.

Then and now, these agencies all have in common the application of science for the public welfare.

*** To read about a terrible snowstorm that blew into the Great Plains with little warning, read about “The Schoolhouse Blizzard of 1888.”

The invention of the telephone in 1876 jump-started several new developments:

The telephones themselves needed to be further refined.

Telephone offices with operating equipment needed to be created so that telephone calls could be made within a community. (Very early telephones were sold in pairs and functioned as a home-to-office communication system, much like an intercom of sorts.)

The Telephone Office

Telegraph offices provided a model for how one central location might be created to manage area phone calls.

The telegraph offices employed young boys. A more mature employee who knew Morse code sent and received the telegraph messages. The boys would then be sent out to deliver the telegrams received.

Because young boys were used in this way, the early planning for operating a telephone switchboard factored in the use of young boys. However, in the early days telephone exchanges, there were not many subscribers—or many phone calls. The boys became bored with waiting, and often rough-housed with each other to fill the time.

Hire Women?

The behavior of the young boys opened job possibilities for women. In the early 20th century, women had very few opportunities. Being a teacher or a nurse were the most common options for those who didn’t have to work as servants. A few types of factory jobs were open to women, but the chance to be trained as a telephone operator sounded very professional.

Women embraced the opportunity, and they soon dominated the field. They worked for low wages and had to abide by a strict code of conduct.

Like other professions, women had to leave the workforce if they married.

The Job of Telephone Operator

A telephone operator sat in front of a board filled with telephone jacks. When a phone service subscriber lifted the receiver on their home unit, a light went on in the central office next to the jack that connected to their household. The operator then inserted her “answer cord,” and asked how to direct the call. If the call was a local one, the operator plugged a “ringing cord” into the jack of the person being called.

The first telephone systems had a “small-town” feel. Callers would pick up the receiver and when the operator came on the line, the caller would state the name of the family he or she was calling.

Early telephone exchanges were small. Some had under 30 subscribers. Bigger ones might have serviced 150 families. There were no phone numbers in the beginning. Operators had to know the names of subscribers as everyone was requested by name.  

A city operator might process as many as 600 calls in an hour. A rural operator often had the switchboard in her home. She might handle only a few calls each day, so she was given an extra long wire for her headset so that she could move around and do other things until a call came in.

A Long Distance Call

If the call was long distance, the operator plugged into a trunk circuit to begin making the necessary connections to another locale. The call could be completed only if all the intermediate trunk lines between the calling centers were available at the same time. The average time to complete a connection for a long distance call in 1918 was 15 minutes.

This time estimate extended to two hours during World War II when the government was given priority for military calls.

Calling Without an Operator

The first person to create a way for callers to connect directly with another caller is said to have been an undertaker in Kansas City. Almon Brown Strowger was one of two undertakers in town. The other undertaker was dating an operator. When calls came in, she directed the calls to the funeral home of the man she was dating. 

Strowger realized that he needed callers to make up their own minds. He worked out a way to automate local calling, and in 1891 he was given a patent for his invention.

By this time, Strowger was living in La Porte, Indiana. The first automatic telephone exchange was installed there on November 3, 1892. It had 75 subscribers. As many as 99 families could sign up for this exchange.

The Beginning of Telephone Numbers

A local doctor in Lowell, Massachusetts, Dr. Moses Greeley Parker, was among the first to see that there needed to be a way to dial numbers for households, not request a family by name. In 1889, a measles epidemic was spreading through Lowell. He pointed out that if the operators became ill, the telephone system would be paralyzed since substitute operators would not know which jacks corresponded with which families.

Dr. Parker pushed for creation of a system that involved using numbers instead of names so that substitutes could quickly pick up the system. Parker went on to be a big investor in various phone companies.

A Few Fun Facts About Early Telephones

The very first telephones were sold in pairs and were generally intended to connect a business owner’s home with his office. There was no existing infrastructure in town, so telephone wire had to be strung between the two places specified.

In movies, we sometimes see wall telephones that need to be cranked to make a call. These were Magneto telephones. The caller cranked the handle to notify the operator that he or she wanted to make a call. When the operator picked up, callers would give the family name-or later a number-so the operator could connect the two parties.

Party lines were common and made telephone service more affordable for the middle class. Each family was given a specific “ring code.” One household might be reached with two short rings and a long one. Another household on the same party line might be signaled with one long ring and short one.

Anyone on the party line could listen in on other calls, if they so chose. Operators with extra time often did so as well.

Operators became information sources and subscribers would call in for weather reports and traffic information.

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In World War I, General John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces on the Western Front during World War I, saw that the French operators were not as efficient as American ones. He put out a nationwide call for bilingual (English and French) operators to apply for becoming wartime operators. To read this story, see U.S. Recruits Women Operators.

Related Videos

Both these videos are short. The first talks of the development of the telephone company and the job of the operator: How Telephone Companies Came About. The second one is about how the system of dialing with telephone numbers happened: How the Use of Telephone Numbers Came About.

Battlefield communication has always been difficult. Before technology, armies relied on bugles, trumpets, drums and regiment flags to signal to the soldiers what was to come next. But as men spread out in fighting, it made these forms of communication very difficult to use.

During the Civil War, these methods continued to be used, but a new type communication system was introduced as well. The new method used flags (and at night, flaming torches) to communicate across distances.

The process wasn’t simple. The Army created the Signal Corps to handle this process. The men needed to carry flags, staffs, and torches. And in each location, they needed a high piece of ground or a lookout tower from which to signal. Because soldiers from both the Union and the Confederacy learned forms of the flag system, the messages needed to be sent in code. To establish the cipher, men carried a disc “dial” system that could change the cipher as needed so that the code could not be hacked.

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The Signal Corps

The flag system for sending signals was created by Albert James Myer (1828-1880). Myer worked in telegraph offices growing up. He was aware that both the Army and the Navy had been looking for improved communication methods. However, the methods attempted had been complex or involved cumbersome equipment. In the early 1850s, there was no agreed-upon system. 

Albert Myer went on to medical school but was still captivated by nonverbal ways to communicate. When he wrote his thesis for medical school, he created a sign language that he felt would be useful for the deaf. From this work, he began to develop a system for the military.

Because Myer’s system was created in the 1850s before the country had splintered apart politically, Myer made no effort to hide his work. In order to test it, he also required volunteers to help out. Though he ultimately fought for the Union, the flag system he worked on was first used by Confederates in the South. Some of those who assisted him retuned to their home states in the South, taking Myer’s ideas with them.

Use of Flags

The concept of a flag being used to signal troop movement sounds simple enough, but the method Myer developed was actually quite complex, partly because every message needed to be encrypted.

In general, there were three basic flag signals used. A wave to the left signaled “one,” a wave to the right signaled “two,” and a wave forward signaled a break between words or messages. Certain flag waves were determined for each letter of the alphabet so that words could be spelled out. For example:
A is one, two, or 1, 2.
B is one, two, two, one, or 1221.
C is two, one, two 212, and so forth.

When spelled out, the messages ranged from “Enemy approaching from the South” to complex messages concerning future strategy.

Signal Corpsmen often sent several messages, one right after the other.  A gun fired once indicated a first message; two shots indicated the start of a second message, etc.

Any very important messages were to be verified. The receiving station was to send back the same message. This process assured the sender that everyone agreed on what the instructions had been. 

Signal Corps Equipment

Signal Corps members carried with them a staff and two flags. During the day, the men knew that the flag color that was most visible was a white flag with a red square. However, if there was snow on the ground, a black flag was used.

The corpsmen also carried a torch to use for nighttime signaling. When using a torch, the operator placed a second torch at his feet as a reference point to clarify the signals. To better receive messages, members of the signal corps all carried high-powered telescopes.

Since both sides based their system on Myer’s idea, they realized that if the enemy could see the signals, they could probably interpret the conversation. One of the tools signal corps members carried was a two-disc device that permitted them to “dial” different codes. By signaling to the recipient what cipher the corpsmen were using, those who needed to would be able to decipher the messages.

How to Attract Attention

The Signal Corps faced some interesting challenges. How does a corpsman attract the attention of someone to whom they want to signal?

Signaling for attention ranged from running back and forth to flag waving. (from “A Manual of Signals: For the Use of Signal Officers in the Field,” 1864.

A government instruction booklet from 1864 explains that attempts to attract attention “should never be abandoned, until every device has been exhausted; and they should be renewed and continued at different hours of the day and night…”

These men often worked in isolated observation towers built for them by the military. By putting the signal corpsmen up high, they were more visible. In areas where the fighting had been going on for a prolonged time, the towers were spaced so that each tower could be seen by the next one. That way messages could travel by relay from tower to tower. If there was no time for building a tower, the men clambered up rocks or climbed trees. In desperate circumstances, signal corpsmen sometimes moves out in front of the troops so more people could see them. Mortality was high.

Other Ways of Communicating

Anyone who has read the Civil War novel, Killer Angels by Michael Shaara, may remember the opening chapter. A lone rider was assigned to scout the military movements of the other side. Because these “spies” rode alone, they were less likely to draw attention of the other army. This way they could report back as to troop movements. 

The spies (or scouts if they were in uniform) rode through potential battlefield areas. They noted the topography, observed troop movement, and talked to townspeople to pick up any information the locals had gleaned as to the plans of the enemy.

Military orders were sometimes sent by courier. These written notes sometimes went from brigade to nearby brigade, but often they were sent over much longer distances. These missives generally also were sent in an agreed-upon code in case they were intercepted.

Telegraphs Used in Some Places

The telegraph was introduced in this country in 1835-36. By 1861, a private telegraph company, Western Union, had wired the U.S. from coast to coast.

The system used wires that could carry Morse code signals. The telegraph was so popular that the Signal Corps attempted to arrive in an area and string telegraph wires in advance of any fighting. This permitted them to communicate with the nearest headquarters.

Balloon Surveillance

The military was also beginning to look to the air. Thaddeus Lowe, a self-made aeronautics expert, was experimenting with big hot air balloons before the war. In July of 1861, Abraham Lincoln appointed Lowe Chief Aeronaut of the Union Army Balloon Corps.

These hot air balloons were primarily used for general surveillance of an area. Lowe or one of his men rode in the basket with a telescope and report back on the enemy. Balloons were also used occasionally during battles. However, they were difficult to transport, so they often couldn’t reach the location in time.

In a unique combination of two innovative services, Thaddeus Lowe convinced Union Major General George B. McClellan to permit him to attempt to relay information via telegraph—from a balloon. In 1862, the Army of the Potomac led by McClellan pushed south to the outskirts of Richmond. Working behind Union lines, Lowe guided a tethered balloon up about 2,000 feet in the air from which he observed the actions and movement of the Confederates. The balloon carried a telegraph with wires that were strung to the ground, so the telegraph operator traveling with Lowe relayed in signals everything Lowe saw.

Very Different Today

Today our military has access to many ways to observe the enemy. From unmanned drones that fly reconnaissance missions to satellite imagery and infrared sensors that detect enemy presence, modern technology permits battles to be plotted by GPS and tracked and fought via computer in ways that earlier military units could not even imagine.

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For m ore on military communications, see Bugle Calls and the Origin of Taps.

For more about the Civil War, see Elizabeth Thorn: Burying the Dead While Pregnant. Or read about some of the mascots that accompanied the soldiers: Dog Jack, Mascot and Volunteer for the Union Army.