Western Union Telegraph Stock Ticker
date: label: date made
content: ca 1890
notes: label: Description (Brief)
content: This Western Union Telegraph Company stock ticker was produced during the late 19th century and received information via a telegraph line. The ticker, so-named due to the distinctive ticking sound made during operation, printed out a company’s abbreviated name and stock price on the spool of paper tape. After the Civil War, the volume of stocks traded rose sharply along with American corporations’ need for investment capital. The 1867 invention of the stock ticker, transmitting up-to-the-minute share prices, helped modernize the stock exchange.
label: Description (Brief)
content: The object has a circular wooden base on which is set a printing telegraph receiver covered by a glass dome. The receiver consists of a black iron base stamped in gold-colored ink "Western Union Telegraph Company". Brass brackets support a mechanism that includes an ink roller, a small wheel with alpha-numeric characters, and a roll of paper tape that is about 1/2 inch wide. An electric motor draws the tape through the mechanism for printing, after which the tape passes under the glass dome through a slot milled in the wooden base.
label: Description (Brief)
content: For many years people in major cities celebrated events with so-called ticker-tape parades. Participants threw rolls of ticker tape from high windows while holding onto one end of the paper, so that long streamers of paper would rain down onto the parade's honorees passing by on streets below.
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Electricity
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content: Communications
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content: Computers & Business Machines
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content: American Stories exhibit
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Western Union Corporation
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: EM.332283
label: accession number
content: 294351
label: catalog number
content: 332283
label: collector/donor number
content: 100-772
objectType: label: Object Name
content: stock ticker
label: Object Name
content: telegraph receiver
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: glass (cover material)
label: Physical Description
content: steel (parts material)
label: Physical Description
content: paper (recording tape material)
label: Physical Description
content: copper (wires material)
label: Physical Description
content: wood (base material)
label: Measurements
content: ticker only: 9 in x 8 5/8 in; 22.86 cm x 21.9075 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 13 in x 10 in; 33.02 cm x 25.4 cm