Steiner telegraph key
date: label: Date made
content: 1880
name: label: maker
content: Steiner, Josef
label: maker
content: Western Electric
notes: label: Description (Brief)
content: Narrow brass base, short legs with wing nuts, nickel-plated lever with hard rubber knob attached to base with flat spring. Marked: "W. E. Co., N.Y. pat. Dec. 21, 1886." Mounted on mahogany base with brass legs.
label: Description (Brief)
content: This key is covered by US Patent 354814, "Telegraph Instrument," issued 21 December 1886 to Josef Steiner of Brooklyn, N. Y. The July 1888 catalog of the Western Electric Company, who manufactured this specimen,lists the key's price at $2.00 for a legless key or a key with legs. This specimen is a key with legs. The legs are the two long screws which extend below the base and to which the line wires were attached. This form of a key was attached to a table or mounting board by drilling holes through the mounting board and inserting the key. Legless keys had two binding posts, one on each side on projections located on the base between the two adjusting screws. The object of the invention was to provide a convenient, economical and efficient form of support for the lever, and a support which provided easy and accurate adjustment of the lever. This was achieved by supporting the lever with a flat resilient spring or flat piece of metal. The adjustment of the lever tension was achieved by extending the spring or fiat piece of metal over hollow space and then over a fulcrum or edge. Tension was regulated by an adjusting screw fastened over this piece of metal, and extending through the spring into the hollow area and into the base. This form of telegraph key was sold for about a dozen years in the 1880s and 1890s. Sources: Patent specifications and Western Electric Catalog of 1888, and Manhattan Electrical Supply Co. Catalog No. 4. Maver: American Telegraphy, page 60, figure 39. Description:
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Electricity
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: from the Telegraphic Historical Society
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: EM.181365
label: catalog number
content: 181365
label: accession number
content: 31175
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Key, Telegraph
label: Object Name
content: telegraph key
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 5 in x 3 in x 6 in; 12.7 cm x 7.62 cm x 15.24 cm