Patent Materials
name: label: Collection Creator
content: United Telegraph Workers.
label: Collection Creator
content: Western Union Telegraph Company
setName: label: See more items in
content: Western Union Telegraph Company Records
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1840-1970
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives Center, National Museum of American History
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NMAH.AC.0205, Series 12
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
arrangement: label: Arrangement
content: The patent materials are arranged into nine subseries:

1. By patentee, 1840-1914

2. By patent number, 1900-1954

3. Miscellaneous patents, 1846-1908

4. Patent application files, 1954-1966

5. Contract Department correspondence regarding patents, 1927-1945

6. Invention records and submission forms, undated

7. Hazeltine Electronics Division Correspondence, 1960-[1963?]

8. Western Union Transcontinental Microwave System, 1961-1962

9. Litigation materials, 1851-1887
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: Many of the patents in this series trace the development and improvements in the telegraph (and some telephone) apparatus between 1840 and 1954. The patentee subseries is arranged alphabetically by inventor: Charles Buckingham, Thomas A. Edison, Elisha Gray, Samuel F.B. Morse, George Phelps, Joseph Stearn, John Skirrow, and Charles Wheatstone. The numbered patent specifications, 1900-1954, are Western Union Telegraph Company patents. They are organized by type of improvement or invention. Among the patents represented in this subseries are those relating to: signalling systems; switching systems; automatic message exchange system; multioffice systems; storage systems; facsimile systems; oscillator systems; frequency transformation systems; printing telegraph systems; reperferators; repeaters; oscillators; generators; radio antennas; rectifiers; condensers; detectors; static reducers; and batteries. Most of the miscellaneous patents are for improvements to the telegraph, though there are several for electric time-controlling systems and electric clocks.