| Web Sites: |
Sites whose primary purpose is telegraph history or research: |
| |
|
Distant Writing - Electric Telegraphy in Britain |
| |
|
History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications |
| |
|
Donard de Cogan's Papers - original research on aspects of cable and telegraph history |
| |
|
The Electromagnetic Telegraph - the development of International Morse Code, and related matters |
| |
|
Telegraph-History - John Casale's articles on U.S. telegraph history |
| |
Related websites with useful content: |
| |
|
Computer Networking and Telecommunications Research Group - Salford University’s communications research and outreach project |
| |
|
| Museums: |
Museums whose primary focus is telegraphy
(landline or cable): |
| |
|
French Cable Station Museum - Orleans, Massachusetts |
| |
|
Heart’s Content Cable Station Provincial Historic Site - Newfoundland |
| |
|
Porthcurno Telegraph Museum - Cornwall |
| |
|
Valentia Heritage Centre - Ireland |
| |
|
| |
Museums with some telegraphy equipment
(landline or cable) on display: |
| |
|
American Museum of Radio & Electricity - Bellingham, WA |
| |
|
Locust Grove - Poughkeepsie, NY: Samuel Morse Historic Site |
| |
|
Museum of the History of Science - Oxford: The Marconi collection and some cable material. See below for the Marconi archives |
| |
|
Resources for Learning in Scotland - telegraph resources in Scottish museums, libraries, and archives |
| |
|
Science Museum - London |
| |
|
Smithsonian Institution - Washington DC |
| |
|
| Archives: |
Archives and Libraries with significant collections
of telegraph books and documents: |
| |
|
BT Archives (London). British telecommunications history: library; original source documents, including early records of the private telegraph companies; photographs, films and videos |
| |
|
Cable & Wireless Archive - a large collection of documents and artifacts (mostly held at Porthcurno; see above), catalogued at the National Archive, London |
| |
|
The Imperial College and Science Museum Libraries (London and Wroughton)) have some early submarine cable and telegraphy manuscript material |
| |
|
The Institution of Civil Engineers (London) has some early submarine cable and telegraphy material |
| |
|
The Institution of Engineering and Technology (London) has important collections of early submarine cable and telegraphy material
Archive Catalogue: search for “submarine cables” and “submarine telegraphy” |
| |
|
Kelvin letters and papers at the University of Glasgow |
| |
|
Library and Archives Canada has telegraph and cable material distributed throughout its collections |
| |
|
The Marconi Archive (Bodleian Library, Oxford) catalogue is now on line |
| |
|
The New York Public Library Research Libraries have telegraph and cable material, mostly at the main branch and the Science, Industry and Business Library (SIBL). Search Subject: "Cables, Submarine", for example |
| |
|
Documents from the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company (Telcon) are held by:
National Maritime Museum (London): Archive Catalogue (search for "Telegraph Construction")
Porthcurno Telegraph Museum (Cornwall): Alcatel (Telcon) archive
Merseyside Maritime Museum (Liverpool): included in BICC archive
Allan Green has written an excellent summary of the history of Telcon and its successor companies, which includes additional information on access to archive material (54KB PDF)
|
| |
|
The Smithsonian Institution Library (Washington DC) has a large collection of works on the history of electricity which includes much telegraph material |
| |
|
| Catalogues: |
Trade catalogue archives which include telegraph equipment: |
| |
|
Instruments for Science: Scientific Instrument Trade Literature at the Smithsonian Institution |
| |
|
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin |
| |
|
The Scientific Instrument Commission has a comprehensive directory of trade catalogue sites |
| |
|
| Collections: |
Private collections of telegraph equipment and documents: |
| |
|
K0IU Telegraph Collection |
| |
|
K4TJP Telegraph Collection |
| |
|
Morsekey.net - Eliseo Chiarucci’s collection of Italian and other instruments, telegraph maps and books (in Italian) |
| |
|
Signa Telegraph Collection - Gustavo Coll, Uruguay |
| |
|
The Sparks Telegraph Key Review - Russ Kleinman's collection |
| |
|
Telegraph Instruments of Europe - Fons vanden Berghen's collection |
| |
|
The Telegraph Office - Neal McEwen’s collection |
| |
|
The Vibroplex Collector's Page - Randy Cole’s collection |
| |
|
W1TP Telegraph & Scientific Instrument Museums - Tom Perera's collection |
| |
|
| Search: |
Useful search resources, including newspaper archives: |
| |
|
British History Online- digital library containing some of the core printed primary and secondary sources for the medieval and modern history of the British Isles. A number of references to cable and telegraph may be found using search |
| |
|
Google Book Search- includes many early works on telegraphy and cables
|
| |
|
Internet Archive- the text section includes some works on telegraphy and cables; the Prelinger Archive has a number of short films on telegraphy and communications which may be viewed on line or downloaded |
| |
|
Google News Archive Search - searches multiple on-line newspaper archives. |
| |
|
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle Archive 1841-1902 has some articles about cables, mainly those terminating at New York. |
| |
|
The New York Times Archive 1851-1980 has many articles about cable laying, particularly early expeditions and significant later projects |
| |
|
The Guardian and Observer (UK) Archives has many articles about cables and cable laying, but is pay-per-view. Searching is free. |
| |
|
The Times (London) Archive 1785-1985 has many articles about cables and cable laying, but is pay-per-view. Searching is free; some libraries have subscription access to the full content. |
| |
|
|
| |
Ship and Crew search resources: |
| |
|
Cableships at Atlantic-Cable.com |
| |
|
Crew Agreements- resources for finding crew agreements, including those for many cable expeditions of the 19th and 20th centuries |
| |
|
The Crew List Index Project- further resources for finding ship information and crew agreements |
| |
|
|
| |
|
