Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T07:24:06.221Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Arc of Empire: The Federal Telegraph Company, the U.S. Navy, and the Beginnings of Silicon Valley

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2017

Stephen B. Adams
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The early history of Silicon Valley is incomplete unless it is framed within the context of American foreign policy. The Federal Telegraph Company, the region's first major high-technology firm, received its first contract from the U.S. Navy in 1913. Its subsequent success relied not only on navy contracts but also on State Department support and access to Bureau of Standards technology. The company's contributions to America's military-industrial complex began a pattern that would fuel the region's development and growth for more than a half century.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 91 , Issue 2 , Summer 2017 , pp. 329 - 359
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Leslie, Stuart W., “The Biggest ‘Angel’ of Them All: The Military and the Making of Silicon Valley,” in Understanding Silicon Valley, ed. Kenney, Martin (Stanford, 2000), 48–67 Google Scholar.

2 Norberg, Arthur L., “The Origins of the Electronics Industry on the Pacific Coast,” Proceedings of the IEEE 64, no. 9 (1976): 1314–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sturgeon, Timothy J., “How Silicon Valley Came to Be,” in Understanding Silicon Valley, ed. Kenney, Martin (Stanford, 2000), 15–47 Google Scholar; and Lécuyer, Christophe, Making Silicon Valley (Cambridge, Mass., 2007), 29, 129–67Google Scholar. Scholars’ emphasis on the early Cold War period in Silicon Valley's evolution is reflected in their titles: O'Mara, Margaret P., Cities of Knowledge: Cold War Science and the Search for the Next Silicon Valley (Princeton, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lowen, Rebecca S., Creating the Cold War University: The Transformation of Stanford (Berkeley, 1997)Google Scholar; Leslie, Stuart W., The Cold War and American Science: The Military-Industrial-Academic Complex at MIT and Stanford (New York, 1993)Google Scholar. See also Findlay, John M., Magic Lands: Western Cityscapes and American Culture after 1940 (Berkeley, 1992), 117–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Brechin, Gray, Imperial San Francisco (Berkeley, 1999)Google Scholar.

3 List of contracts, SRM 264A, series 37, box 189, folder 1, George Clark Collection, National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C. (hereafter GCC).

4 Zakaria, Fareed, From Wealth to Power (Princeton, 1998)Google Scholar. By 1900, the United States had surpassed Great Britain as the world leader in GDP and manufacturing output. Meiser, Jeffrey W., Power and Restraint: The Rise of the United States, 1898–1941 (Washington, D.C., 2015), xv CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Shane, Scott, Illusions of Entrepreneurship: The Costly Myths that Entrepreneurs, Investors, and Policy Makers Live By (New Haven, 2010), 97–100 Google Scholar.

6 Stinchcombe, Arthur L., “Organizations and Social Structure,” in Handbook of Organizations, ed. March, James (Chicago, 1965), 153–93Google Scholar; Aldrich, Howard and Auster, Ellen R., “Even Dwarfs Started Small: Liabilities of Age and Size and Their Strategic Implications,” Organizational Behavior 8 (1986): 165–98Google Scholar.

7 Kenney, Martin, Introduction to Understanding Silicon Valley, ed. Kenney, Martin (Stanford, 2000), 5 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Smith, Merritt R., Introduction to Military Enterprise and Technological Change: Perspectives on the American Experience, ed. Smith, Merritt R. (Cambridge, Mass., 1985), 1–2 Google Scholar; Hughes, Thomas P., American Genesis: A Century of Innovation and Technological Enthusiasm (New York, 1989), 97–137 Google Scholar; Pursell, Carroll W. Jr., The Military-Industrial Complex (New York, 1972)Google Scholar; Koistinen, Paul C., The Military-Industrial Complex: A Historical Perspective (New York, 1980), 8–9 Google Scholar.

9 On Federal within a broader story of the navy's importance in telecommunications developments, see Aitken, Hugh G. J., The Continuous Wave (Princeton, 1985)Google Scholar; Douglas, Susan J., Inventing American Broadcasting, 1899–1922 (Baltimore, 1987)Google Scholar; Howeth, Linwood, History of Communications-Electronics in the United States Navy (Washington, D.C., 1963)Google Scholar; and Winkler, Jonathan R., Nexus: Strategic Communications and American Security in World War I (Cambridge, Mass., 2008)Google Scholar.

10 See Norberg, “Origins of the Electronics Industry”; Sturgeon, “How Silicon Valley Came to Be”; and Lécuyer, Making Silicon Valley.

11 Henry Etzkowitz calls such university-industry-government relations a “triple helix.” Etzkowitz, The Triple Helix: University-Industry-Government Innovation in Action (London, 2008)Google Scholar.

12 John, Richard R., Network Nation: Inventing American Telecommunications (Cambridge, Mass., 2010), 6 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Markoff, John, What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry (New York, 2005)Google Scholar; Turner, Fred, From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stuart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism (Chicago, 2008)Google Scholar.

14 Zakaria, Wealth to Power, 77.

15 Aitken, Continuous Wave, 258.

16 Tribolet, Leslie B., International Aspects of Electrical Communications in the Pacific Area (Baltimore, 1929), 5 Google Scholar. Between 1899 and 1915, Root had served as secretary of war, secretary of state, and U.S. senator from New York.

17 Crapol, Edward P., America for Americans: Economic Nationalism and Anglophobia in the late Nineteenth Century (Westport, Conn., 1973), 70 Google Scholar; Britton, John A., Cables, Crises, and the Press: The Geopolitics of the New International Information System in the Americas, 1866–1903 (Albuquerque, 2013), 153–71Google Scholar.

18 Archer, Gleason L., A History of Radio to 1926 (New York, 1938), 57–58 Google Scholar.

19 Headrick, Daniel R., Invisible Weapon: Telecommunications and International Politics, 1851–1945 (New York, 1991), 169 Google Scholar.

20 Douglas, Inventing American Broadcasting, 102.

21 George H. Clark, “Radio in War and Peace,” p. 215, series 100, box 289, folder 2, GCC; Howeth, History of Communications, 221.

22 “Memorandum concerning High Powered Wireless Telegraph Stations,” n.d., Perham History Files, 2033-33-1554, History San Jose (hereafter HSJ).

23 Howeth, History of Communications, 22–23, 34, 40; Headrick, Invisible Weapon, 118.

24 Tworek, Heidi J. S., “Political and Economic News in the Age of Multinationals,” Business History Review 89, no. 3 (2015): 455 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 George H. Clark, “John Firth, Radio Gentleman” (1941), p. 3, series 4, box 12, folder 26, GCC; Clark, “Radio in War and Peace,” 54, GCC; Howeth, History of Communications, 142.

26 “Report by Mr. H. P. Veeder,” in Report on Poulsen Wireless Corporation and Federal Telegraph Company, June 1, 1914, p. 2, 2003–37–9, Federal Telegraph Company Collection, HSJ.

27 Informative works on the Federal Telegraph Company include Mann, F. J., “Federal Telephone and Radio Corporation, A Historical Review: 1909–1946,” Electrical Communications 23 (Dec. 1946): 377–405 Google Scholar; Mayes, Thorn L., Wireless Communication in the United States: The Early Development of Early Radio Operating Companies (East Greenwich, R.I., 1989)Google Scholar; and Kirwan, Harry W., “Federal Telegraph Company: A Testing of the Open Door,” Pacific Historical Review 22, no. 3 (1953): 271–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Morgan, Jane, Electronics in the West: The First Fifty Years (Palo Alto, Calif., 1967)Google Scholar. Relevant primary sources regarding Federal can be found at the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley; History San Jose; the Library of Congress; the National Archives; the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History; and the Stanford University Archives.

28 San Francisco Chronicle, 3 Sept. 1905. See also “The McCarty Wireless Telephone,” San Francisco Chronicle, 3 Apr., 5 Apr., and 7 Apr. 1950; Douglas, Inventing American Broadcasting, 27, 190–93.

29 Elwell received bachelor's (1907) and master's (1908) degrees from Stanford. Sanders, Ian L., Cyril Frank Elwell: Pioneer of American and European Wireless Communications, Talking Pictures and founder of C.F. Elwell Limited, 1921–1925 (Morgan Hill, Calif., 2013)Google Scholar. On early electronics interests in the area, see Morgan, Electronics in the West, 7–43.

30 Sanders, Cyril Frank Elwell, 10.

31 C. F. Elwell, “Pioneer Work in Radio Telephony and Telegraphy,” pp. 1–4, SRM 4 1568, series 4, box 11, folder “Elwell, C. F.,” GCC.

32 Jacobsen, Kurt, “Wasted Opportunities? The Great Northern Telegraph Company and the Wireless Challenge,” Business History 52, no. 2 (2010): 235 Google Scholar.

33 The contract gave Elwell rights to seven Poulsen patents as well as patents “to be issued.” Fuller to Veeder, 28 Sept. 1915, Series 4, box 17, folder “Poulsen, Valdemar,” CWC4 2299A, GCC.

34 Howeth, History of Communications, 133.

35 Aitken, Continuous Wave, 109. Elwell also paid six thousand dollars for two sets of apparatus to be used in California demonstrations. Elwell, “Pioneer Work,” 5.

36 Veeder, Report on Poulsen Wireless, 6, Federal Telegraph Company Collection, HSJ.

37 Williams, James, Energy and the Making of Modern California (Akron, 1997), 193–94Google Scholar; Fuller to Clark, 8 Apr. 1940, SRM37 106, series 37, box 188, folder 1, GCC. Jordan invested five hundred dollars. Elwell, “Autobiography,” pp. 43–44, 2003–37–36, Federal Telegraph Company Collection, HSJ.

38 Shafer, Harold M., “Stanford in Radio,” in Stanford on the Job in Electrical Engineering: A Report on the Activities of the Staff and Graduates of Department of Electrical Engineering (Stanford, 1941), 1–2, 16Google Scholar, HSJ.

39 “Beach Thompson,” Notables of the West, vol. 1 (New York, 1913), 867 Google Scholar; “Promoter Thompson Passes Out; Well-Known San Franciscan Dies Suddenly While in New York,” San Francisco Bulletin, 30 Oct. 1914.

40 “Local Men in Wireless Company,” San Francisco Call, 21 Dec. 1910, 1–2; “Wireless Wizard to Work Wonders,” Hawaiian Gazette, 30 Dec. 1910, 3; “Circular Issued in 1911 by Poulsen Wireless Corporation and Federal Telegraph Company,” 15 Feb. 1911, Federal Telegraph Company Collection, HSJ.

41 Hughes, Thomas P., Networks of Power (Baltimore, 1983)Google Scholar; John, Network Nation; White, Richard, Railroaded (New York, 2011)Google Scholar.

42 Veeder, Report on Poulsen Wireless, 14, Federal Telegraph Company Collection, HSJ.

43 Thompson to Veeder, 13 Dec. 1911, MSS 2009/145, box 1, folder “Federal Telegraph Company,” Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (hereafter BL).

44 Francis P. Farquhar, “Federal Telegraph Company, Poulsen Wireless Corporation—History—1909–1912,” 15 Nov. 1956, box 3, folder 48, Federal Telegraph Company Collection, HSJ.

45 Aitken, Continuous Wave, 132–34; “Leonard Fuller—For Defendant—Direct,” 352, BANC MSS 79/91, folder 32, “De Forest-Armstrong Patent Litigation,” BL.

46 Howeth, History of Communications, 48–49, 132–50.

47 Ibid., 221.

48 Cone to Thompson, 25 Sept. 1912, 2009/145, box 1, folder “Federal Telegraph Company 1911–1912,” BL.

49 Mann, “Federal Telephone and Radio,” 392; Elwell, “Autobiography,” 63.

50 Veeder, Report on Poulsen Wireless, 11, Federal Telegraph Company Collection, HSJ; Mann, “Federal Telephone and Radio,” 393; Cyril F. Elwell, “The Poulsen Arc Generator” (1923), 24, CWC 37-392A, series 37, box 189, folder 3, GCC.

51 Aitken, Continuous Wave, 93.

52 Howeth, History of Communications, 183–84.

53 Thompson to Veeder, 18 Apr. 1913, 2003-37-6, Federal Telegraph Company Collection, HSJ.

54 Howeth, History of Communications, 184.

55 American Marconi was ten years older (1899 versus 1909) and had ten times the assets of Federal in 1917. Wireless was still a tiny niche of the electrical industry—American Marconi was barely one-tenth the size of Western Electric, America's third-largest electrical firm (behind General Electric and Westinghouse). Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America, Report of the Directors and Statement of Accounts for the Year Ending 31st December 1913 and Report . . . for the Year Ending 31st December 1917, series 5, box 104, folder 1, GCC; Veeder, Report on Poulsen Wireless, 16, Federal Telegraph Company Collection, HSJ; Walker's Manual of Western Corporations (San Francisco, 1918), 236 Google Scholar; and Chandler, Alfred D. Jr., The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge, Mass., 1977), 510 Google Scholar.

56 Douglas, Inventing American Broadcasting, 183–85.

57 Hill to Bureau of Engineering, 28 Feb. 1913, series 37, box 188, folder 3, GCC; Fuller, interview by Norberg, 1973–75, 56, BANC MSS 77/105, BL; “Abstract of contract 1948-B. G. H. Clark,” 2 Oct. 1939, series 37, box 189, folder 1, GCC; Veeder, Report on Poulsen Wireless, 16, Federal Telegraph Company Collection, HSJ.

58 Veeder, Report on Poulsen Wireless, 12, Federal Telegraph Company Collection, HSJ.

59 Mayes, Wireless Communication, 150; Fuller, interview by Villard, 1973–75, 20, BANC MSS 77/105, vol. 2, folder 1, BL.

60 Stanford C. Hooper, “Transcript of Research for Naval History,” 805–906, 3 May 1954, box 25, 72R176, Stanford C. Hooper Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (hereafter SCH); Fuller to Clark, 8 Apr. 1940, series 37, box 188, folder 1, GCC; Veeder, Report on Poulsen Wireless, 3, Federal Telegraph Company Collection, HSJ.

61 Chronology (document #CWC37-366A), series 37, box 189, folder 3, GCC; Howeth, History of Communications, 222; Aitken, Continuous Wave, 94.

62 Annual Report of the Secretary of the Navy, 1 Dec. 1914, container 496 (reel 24), subject files, 1829–1947, “Navy, 1829–1947,” Josephus Daniels Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (hereafter JD).

63 Veeder, Report on Poulsen Wireless, 14–20, Federal Telegraph Company Collection, HSJ.

64 Schwoch, James, The American Radio Industry and Its Latin American Activities, 1900–1939 (Urbana, Ill., 1990), 33, 45Google Scholar.

65 Ibid., 36.

66 Woodrow Wilson, “Executive Order 2585”, 6 Apr. 1917, box 3, folder 1, SCH; Daniels, Josephus, The Wilson Era: Years of War and After, 1917–1923 (Chapel Hill, 1946), 105 Google Scholar.

67 Galambos, Louis, “State-Owned Enterprise: The U.S. Experience,” in The Rise and Fall of State-Owned Enterprise in the Western World, ed. Toninelli, Pier A. (New York, 2000), 274–75Google Scholar; Janson, Michael A. and Yoo, Christopher S., “The Wires Go to War: The U.S. Experiment with Government Ownership of the Telephone System during World War I,” Faculty Scholarship, paper no. 467 (Philadelphia, 2013), 995–96Google Scholar.

68 John, Network Nation, 363, 371.

69 Ibid., 356, 365, 367. Burleson and Daniels were two of only three cabinet members to serve throughout the Wilson administration.

70 Winkler, Nexus, 67.

71 Ibid., 78, 86.

72 Veeder, Report on Poulsen Wireless, 37, Federal Telegraph Company Collection, HSJ.

73 Thompson to Sec. Navy, 18 Apr. 1914, RG 38, 248 (9,196)–249 (19,767), box 559, National Archives, Washington, D.C. (hereafter NA).

74 “Alva Beach Thompson,” Michigan Alumnus, Jan. 1915, 210–11.

75 “Local Men in Wireless Company,” San Francisco Call, 21 Dec. 1910, 1–2.

76 Veeder to Sec. Navy, 7 May 1915, RG 38, 248 (9,196)–249 (19,767), box 559, NA.

77 Daniels to Sec. War, 5 June 1915, RG 38, 248 (9,196)–249 (19,767), box 559, NA; Wright to Veeder, 12 May 1916, RG 38, 248 (9,196)–249 (19,767), box 559, NA.

78 Hooper to Todd, 30 July 1917, 2, RG 38, Director of Naval Communications, Office files of Captain D. W. Todd, box 2 (1916–1919), G–Mc (1916–1917), NA.

79 Bryan to Daniels, 17 Aug. 1914, RG 38, 248 (9,196)–249 (19,767), box 559, NA.

80 Daniels to Secretary of State, 16 June 1915, RG 38, 248 (9,196)–249 (19,767), box 559, NA; Baker, Ray S., Woodrow Wilson Life and Letters: Neutrality, 1914–1915 (New York, 1968), 357 Google Scholar.

81 Report on Poulsen Wireless, 47, Federal Telegraph Company Collection, HSJ.

82 Winkler, Nexus, 93.

83 Daniels to Secretary of State, 18 Nov. 1915, RG 38, Division of Naval Communication, Confidential Correspondence, 1917–1926, box 17, folder “Pan American Wireless,” NA.

84 Winkler, Nexus, 93; Schwoch, American Radio Industry, 37.

85 Hooper was an accomplished telegraph operator by the age of ten. After serving as head of the Radio Division (1915–1917, 1919–1923, 1926–1928), he became director of naval communications (1928–1934). Hooper oral history, 633, SCH; Howeth, History of Communications, 113–14; Aitken, Continuous Wave, 552.

86 Leonard Fuller, “Comments on the attached eleven pages titled Federal Telegraph,” April 1972, 2003–37, HSJ.

87 Winkler, Nexus, 70.

88 Clark, “Radio in War and Peace,” 218, GCC.

89 Hooper oral history, 805–6, SCH; Secretary of the Navy, annual report, 1 Dec. 1914, subject files “Navy, 1829–1947,” reel 24, JD.

90 Contract list, series 37, box 189, folder 1, GCC.

91 Veeder, Report on Poulsen Wireless, 9, Federal Telegraph Company Collection, HSJ.

92 Fuller, interview by Norberg, 9, 50, 53, 79, BL; Veeder, Report on Poulsen Wireless, 9, Federal Telegraph Company Collection, HSJ; Aitken, Continuous Wave, 154.

93 “Palo Alto to Have Big Wireless Plant,” San Francisco Examiner, 30 Jan. 1916.

94 “Data re arc transmitters purchased by U.S. Navy from Federal Telegraph Company” (document #CWC 37-388A), series 37, box 189, folder 3, GCC; Fuller, interview by Norberg, 14, 16, 51, BL.

95 Clark, “Radio in War and Peace,” 282, GCC.

96 “Memorandum of Agreement with the Federal Telegraph Company relative to Arc Radio Apparatus,” 12 Sept. 1916, “Navy Contracts, Reports, 1907–1946,” series 100, box 294, folder 3, GCC; Clark, “Radio in War and Peace,” 282, GCC.

97 Aitken, Continuous Wave, 289.

98 Tuel to Pratt, 27 Oct. 1919, 72/116z, box 2, folder “Tuel, A. Y. Letters, June November 1919,” Pratt Papers, BL.

99 Aitken, Continuous Wave, 295.

100 Hooper to Sweet, 12 Mar. 1917, box 1, folder 7, SCH.

101 Sweet to Hooper, 10 May 1917, box 1, folder 7, SCH.

102 Hooper to Bastedo, 3 Nov. 1917, box 1, folder “Feb.–Dec. 1917,” SCH; “Friday, November 23, 1917,” The Cabinet Diaries of Josephus Daniels, 1913–1921, Cronon, E. D., ed. (Lincoln, Nebr., 1963), 240–41Google Scholar; Daniels to Secretary of State, 24 Nov. 1917, RG 38, box 17, NA.

103 Sweet to Hooper, 10 May 1917, and Hooper to Sweet, 21 May 1917, both in box 1, folder 7, SCH.

104 “Memorandum of Conference, Sunday, October 7, 1917,” 8 Oct. 1917, RG 38, Division of Naval Communication Confidential Correspondence, 1917–1926, box 17, folder “Pan American Wireless,” NA.

105 Chauncey Eldridge, untitled appendix dated June 1, 1914, in Report on Poulsen Wireless, 5–6, Federal Telegraph Company Collection, HSJ; “Dr. Dodge to Head Federal Telegraph,” San Francisco Examiner, 8 Dec. 1917.

106 Federal Telegraph Company contract with U.S. Navy, 18 May 1918, box 2, folder 2, SCH.

107 Elwell to Stone, 2 Apr. 1954, M0049, box 2, folder 14, Elwell Papers, Stanford University Archives; Pratt to Simon, 1 July 1963, 72/116z, box 3, folder “Letters Written by Pratt, 1961–1964,” Pratt Papers, BL.

108 “Dodge Out as Wire Co. Head,” San Francisco Examiner, 8 Jan. 1919; “Fraud Laid to Dodge by Telegraph C.,” San Francisco Examiner, 22 May 1920.

109 “Thursday, December 18, 1918,” Cabinet Diaries of Josephus Daniels, 355.

110 History of the Bureau of Engineering Navy Department during the World War (Washington, D.C., 1922), 114–15.

111 “Wants Radios Returned: Congressman Rowe Also Thinks $3,000,000 Should be Recovered,” New York Times, 18 Jan. 1919; “Wants Daniels Ousted: Mann Says He Should Be Impeached for Radio Purchases,” New York Times, 30 Jan. 1919.

112 “Arc Transmitters Sold to U.S. Government,” SRM 37 263A, series 37, box 189, folder 1, GCC.

113 “Navy Department Arc Transmitters Made For:” SRM 37 277A, series 37, box 189, folder 2, GCC.

114 Aitken, Continuous Wave, 288.

115 Adams, Stephen B. and Butler, Orville R., Manufacturing the Future: A History of Western Electric (New York, 1999), 221 Google Scholar; Chandler, Visible Hand, 510.

116 Howeth, History of Communications, 354–56. The U.S. Joint Army and Navy Board periodically reviewed war plans versus Great Britain until June 1939. Plans for War against the British Empire and Japan: The Red, Orange, and Red-Orange Plan, 1923–1938, ed. Ross, Steven F. (New York, 1992)Google Scholar.

117 Young to Sheffield, 7 Dec. 1921, box 3, folder “Nov.–Dec. 1921,” SCH.

118 Howeth, History of Communications, 358.

119 Ibid., 358–63.

120 Fuller, interview by Norberg, 71, BL.

121 Schwerin to Hooper, 25 Nov. 1919, box 2, folder 2, SCH.

122 Hooper to Schwerin, 27 Dec. 1919, box 2, folder 6, SCH.

123 “Dodge Out as Wire Co. Head,” San Francisco Examiner, 18 Jan. 1919; Tuel to Pratt, 19 Jan. 1919, box 2, folder “Tuel, A. Y. 1913–May 1919,” Pratt Papers, BL; Pratt to Simon, 1 July 1963, box 3, folder “Letters Written by Pratt, 1961–1964,” Pratt Papers, BL.

124 San Francisco Chronicle, 5 Jan. 1913; “Our Flag Stays on the Pacific,” New York Times, 14 Dec. 1915; San Francisco Examiner, 15 Nov. 1915; “Schwerin Asks for Federal Aid for Steamships . . . Urges Federal Subsidies,” San Francisco Chronicle, 29 Aug. 1913.

125 Tuel to Pratt, 23 Sept. 1919, 72/116z, box 2, folder “Tuel, A. Y., Letters, June–November 1919,” Pratt Papers, BL.

126 Thompson to Veeder, 18 Apr. 1913, 2003-37-6, Federal Telegraph Company Collection, HSJ; Eldridge, untitled appendix, in Report on Poulsen Wireless, 11, Federal Telegraph Company Collection, HSJ.

127 Mann, “Federal Telephone and Radio,” 396.

128 Charles C. Moore & Co. Engineers to Schwerin, 3 Nov. 1922, 2003-36-89, box 21, folder 2, Elliott Papers, HSJ.

129 Kirwan, “Federal Telegraph Company.” Federal's share of the contract was $6.5 million.

130 “Contract for China and U.S. Radio Signed,” San Francisco Examiner, 10 Aug. 1923.

131 Schwerin Memorandum, n.d., and Schwerin to Beach, 23 Dec. 1920, both in RG 80, 1916–1926, 8247 (350)–8247 (407), box 393, NA.

132 Hughes to Navy Secretary, 22 Mar. 1922. U.S. Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States 1 (1922), 848–52Google Scholar.

133 “Navy contract with Fed. Tel. Co., 19 March, 1921,” box 3, folder “Jan.–April 1921,” SCH; Roosevelt to Secretary of State, 6 Apr. 1921, RG 80, 1916–1926, box 393, folder 8247 (383–384: 7), Apr. 1921, NA.

134 Pacific Coast Communications Superintendent to Director Naval Communications, 21 Aug. 1918, RG 38, Director of Naval Communications General Correspondence, 1912–1921, 249, box 560, NA.

135 Yang, Daqing, Technology of Empire (Cambridge, Mass., 2010), 65–68 Google Scholar.

136 Hughes to Minister in China, 8 Feb. 1921, Foreign Relations 1 (1921), 410–11Google Scholar.

137 Notes, Hooper meeting with Hoover, 21 Dec. 1921, box 3, folder “Nov.–Dec. 1921,” SCH; Winseck, Dwayne R. and Pike, Robert M., Communications and Empire (Durham, 2007), 297–98Google Scholar.

138 Schwerin to Acting Secretary of State, 29 Aug. 1922, Foreign Relations 1 (1922), 856 Google Scholar.

139 Ironically, a few years earlier the Japanese government had approached Federal about purchasing radio transmitting devices. Waller to Chief of Bureau of Steam Engineering, 14 Aug. 1918, RG 19 (Bureau of Ships), entry 1081, box 1, folder 3, NA.

140 Minister in China to Kellogg, 19 May 1926, Foreign Relations 1 (1926), 1062 Google Scholar.

141 Wilbur, Clarence M., The Nationalist Revolution in China, 1923–1928 (New York, 1984), 1, 189Google Scholar.

142 Stone to Pratt, 29 Dec. 1921, 2003-36-86, box 20, folder 5, Elliott Papers, HSJ; Elliott to Clark, 20 July 1922, 2003-36-88, box 21, folder 1, Elliott Papers, HSJ.

143 Fuller, interview by Norberg, 90, BL.

144 Beal to Fuller, 27 Jan. 1919, SRM 37 252, series 37, box 189, folder 1, GCC.

145 Wireless Specialty Co., memo, 5 Aug. 1919, SRM 37 119, series 37, box 188, folder 1, GCC.

146 Redfield to Director, Bureau of Standards, 23 Oct. 1917, RG 167, National Bureau of Standards General Corr., 1901–1922 AG-AGA-AGL AGP-AF box 4, folder AP 1917, NA; Stratton to Bureau of Lighthouses, 26 Feb. 1921, RG 167, box 10, folder IEW 1921–1922, NA.

147 Commissioner, Bureau of Navigation to Director, Bureau of Standards, 5 May 1915, RG 167, box 4, folder AGP 1901–1922, NA; History of the Bureau of Engineering, 96; Stratton to Shoemaker, Patent Office, 28 Aug. 1919, RG 167, box 4, folder AGP, 1901–1922, NA.

148 “Comments on pages 12 to 116,” 54, box 3, folder “Notes on History of Radio,” Pratt Papers, BL; “Report of Section 6, Division I, 1 July 1920 to 30 June 1921,” 15 July 1921, RG 167, box 10, NC–76, Entry 75, folder “Annual Reports, 1919–1923,” Miscellaneous Papers, 1875–1962, Records of J. Howard Dellinger, NA.

149 “New Device Saves Ships in Fog,” New York Times, 28 June 1921, 19; Federal Telegraph Company, The Conquest of the Fog (ca.1924), p. 3, 2003-37-24, Federal Telegraph Company Collection, HSJ; Elliott to Schwerin, 22 Nov. 1923, box 22, folder 2, Elliott Papers, HSJ. Even when Kolster worked for the government, Federal had arranged for the rights to his patented inventions. Federal Telegraph Company contract with Navy, 18 May 1918, box 2, folder 2, SCH.

150 By early 1925, the company's letterhead highlighted Federal's transmitter and Kolster's radio compass and receivers. Lee to Director, Bureau of Standards, 11 Feb. 1925, RG 167, NC-76, entry 52, “Blue Folder Files,” 1902–52, 63–138, box 2, folder 63c, folder IEW, NA.

151 Stone to Pratt, 29 Dec. 1921, 2003-36-86, box 20, folder 5, Elliott Papers, HSJ; Mann, “Federal Telephone and Radio,” 399; O. H. Fernbach, “Federal Telegraph Merger Details Announced; Rudolph Spreckels Enlightens Shareholders,” San Francisco Examiner, 28 Jan. 1926.

152 “Frederick A. Kolster, Radio Research Engineer,” SRM 4 985, series 4, box 15, folder “Kolster, Frederick,” GCC; Leib, Keyston & Co., Kolster Radio Corporation: The Strategic Exploitation of a New Science (San Francisco, 1928), chap. 5Google Scholar [pages not numbered], 2003-37-23, HSJ.

153 Aitken, Continuous Wave, 25–27.

154 Fuller, interview by George T. Royden, 29 May 1976, IEEE Oral History Project, 7, IEEE History Center, Piscataway, N.J.

155 “Federal Telegraph Bought by I.T. & T.,” San Francisco Examiner, 22 May 1931; Sobel, R., ITT: The Management of Opportunity (New York, 1982), 59–60 Google Scholar.

156 Terman to Pratt, 20 Oct. 1964, 72/116z, box 2, folder “Terman, Frederick Emmons, 1900-five letters, 1963–64,” Pratt Papers, BL.

157 Terman to Elliott, 2 Oct. 1923 and 15 Oct. 1923, box 22, folder 1, Elliott Papers, HSJ.

158 Leslie, Cold War and American Science; Adams, Stephen B., “Stanford and Silicon Valley: Lessons on Becoming a High-Tech Region,” California Management Review 48, no. 1 (2005): 29–51 Google Scholar; Sapolsky, Harvey N., Science and the Navy: The History of the Office of Naval Research (Princeton, 1990), 9–57 Google Scholar; Gillmor, C. Stewart, Fred Terman at Stanford: Building a Discipline, a University, and Silicon Valley (Stanford, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

159 Lécuyer, Making Silicon Valley, 22–30, 46, 49–50, 55–60, 73.

160 Lenoir, Timothy, Instituting Science: The Cultural Production of Scientific Disciplines (Stanford, 1997), 336n27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.