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From Free Privilege to Regulation: Wireless Firms and the Competition for Spectrum Rights before World War I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

Elizabeth Kruse
Elizabeth Kruse
Affiliation:
ELIZABETH KRUSE received her Ph.D. in economics from theUniversity of Massachusetts at Amherst.
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Abstract

The activities of commercial wireless companies in the United States before World War I were critical forerunners of the unique system of property rights in the radio spectrum that developed in the United States between 1899 and 1927. These activities formed the basis for commercial claims to property rights in the spectrum during the 1920s, when radio broadcasting developed. The early wireless companies provided the material, institutional, and ideological foundations for commercial rights in the spectrum that are still a striking part of mass communication in the United States today. The De Forest/United Wireless succession of companies, although ultimately business failures, nonetheless laid the groundwork for commercial radio in the United States. Most historians of radio have overlooked the importance of the pre–World War I period, and all have neglected the contribution of the De Forest/United Wireless companies.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 76 , Issue 4: entrepreneurs, regulation, and technological innovation in America , Winter 2002 , pp. 659 - 703
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2002

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References

1 The choice of usage between “wireless” and “radio” depends mainly on the historical period. “Wireless” is the earlier term; “radio” and “wireless” began to be used interchangeably by 1909. “Radio” was more commonly used from the 1920s through the 1990s. Most wireless communication before World War I consisted of Morse code signals (wireless telegraphy), as the basic technology did not allow the wireless transmission of voice, although there were a few experimental successes with broadcasting voice and music. Broadcasting as we know it today developed in the 1920s.

2 Property rights in the radio spectrum are rights to use or control a given wavelength or band of wavelengths, together with rights or restrictions pertaining to the nature of the signals that may be sent on those wavelengths. These rights or restrictions include the content of messages; the strength, timing, and place of origin of signals; the nature of transmitting equipment; the identity of operators and station owners; and the methods of financing such communications.

3 By the end of the nineteenth century, the Atlantic, Gulf, Pacific, and Great Lakes coasts of the United States were patrolled by the Life Saving Service, forerunner of the Coast Guard. These “surfmen” used a system of coded flags to communicate with passing ships, relaying information on latitude, longitude, and storm warnings; and they attempted to rescue the passengers and crew of stranded vessels. The surfmen did not carry lights during night patrol because a ship at sea might mistake them for another ship and be drawn into shallow water. This also prevented communication with ships at night. See Wright, David and Zoby, David, Fire on the Beach (New York, 2000).Google Scholar

4 Statutes at Large 44:2, 1062. This system is still the basis of spectrum allocation in the United States; the recent spectrum auctions and the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 have not altered its basic character. However, the Supreme Court review of the issue of spectrum licenses as property in the Nextwave bankruptcy case has the potential to fundamentally change the legal nature of spectrum rights. The Court's decision is expected by July 2003.

5 See Kruse, Elizabeth, “Property from the Sky: The Creation of Property Rights in the Radio Spectrum in the United States” (Ph.D. diss., University of Massachusetts, 2002).Google Scholar

6 Some economic theories of the creation of property rights emphasize the link between institutions and the creation of vested interests that then shape the further development of property rights in some resource. See North, Douglass C., “Institutions and Credible Commitment,” Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 149 (1993): 11–23Google Scholar; “The Evolution of Efficient Markets in History,” in Capitalism in Context, eds. John A. James and Mark Thomas (Chicago, 1994), 257–64; “The Historical Evolution of Polities,” Journal of Law and Economics 14 (1994): 381–9; and Libecap, Gary D., Contracting For Property Rights (Cambridge, 1989).Google Scholar

7 Important exceptions to this generalization are Mayes, Thorn L., Wireless Communication in the United States: The Early Development of American Radio Operating Companies (East Greenwich, R.I., 1989)Google Scholar, and Douglas, Susan, Inventing American Broadcasting, 1899–1922 (Baltimore, 1987).Google Scholar Mayes's history of the early wireless companies is valuable but brief, and does not relate this material to later developments in communicationshistory. Douglas writes mainly about individual inventors and their interactions with the U.S. Navy, as well as the social context in which wireless technology was developed, but she does not relate these to a struggle for property rights in the spectrum.

8 See Aitken, Hugh G. J., The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900–1932 (Princeton, 1985), 532–3.Google Scholar Some other important studies of early radio by historians, besides those cited above, are: MacLaurin, W. Rupert, Invention & Innovation in the Radio Industry (New York, 1949)Google Scholar; Howeth, L. S., History of Communications-Electronics in the United States Navy (Washington, D.C., 1963)Google Scholar; Aitken, Hugh G. J., Syntony and Spark: The Origins of Radio (New York, 1976)Google Scholar; and Lewis, Tom, Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio (New York, 1991).Google Scholar

9 For economists' views of the history of regulation of the radio spectrum, see: Coase, Ronald H., “The Federal Communications Commission,” Journal of Law and Economics 2 (Oct. 1959): 1–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Minasian, Jora R., “The Political Economy of Broadcasting in the 1920s,” Journal of Law and Economics 12 (Oct. 1969): 391–403CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mueller, Milton, “Reforming Telecommunications Regulation,” in Telecommunications in Crisis, eds. Diamond, Edwin, Sandler, Norman and Mueller, Milton (Washington, D.C., 1983)Google Scholar; and Hazlett, Thomas W., “The Rationality of U.S. Regulation of the Broadcast Spectrum,” Journal of Law and Economics 33 (Apr. 1990): 133–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar While Coase briefly examines the history of attempts to regulate the spectrum before the rise of broadcasting, he sees these attempts as failures rather than as important influences on later developments. McChesney, Robert W., Telecommunications, Mass Media, & Democracy (New York, 1994)Google Scholar, documents aspects of the development of the regulatory system for radio from the perspective of communications studies. He also takes the 1920s as his starting point. Streeter, Thomas, Selling the Air: A Critique of the Policy of Commercial Broadcasting in the United States (Chicago, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, follows Susan Douglas in tracing the roots of the U.S. organization of broadcasting to the period before 1920, but he does not consider the activities of early commercial wireless firms in any detail. This is in part because he relies on the existing work on radio history, which overlooks this, and in part because he is almost exclusively interested in broadcasting.

10 Public goods, such as information and broadcasts, have the characteristic that use by one does not reduce the benefit available to others. The radio spectrum is a common-pool resource, as are ocean fisheries or public highways, which can be used by many at the same time, although use by one reduces benefits available to others.

11 “Tuning” refers to setting the wavelength on which a transmitter or receiver operates. It involves adjusting the circuits of the transmitters and receivers to have the same natural frequency of oscillation, so that the receiver is designed to respond to the wavelengths (frequencies) emitted by the transmitter. Adjusting the circuits can vary the wavelengths that the equipment operates on, which is the basis of the modern tuning dial that allows selection between radio or television stations. Before the development of tuning, the only means of making wireless equipment at all selective had been the crude method of varying the size of the antennas. For more discussion of the technology of early wireless communications, see Aitken, Syntony and Spark.

12 The importance of wireless technology to naval power also was recognized by the navies of Britain, Germany, France, and Italy. Naval concerns about the control of wireless in these countries were easily accommodated by the existing frameworks of state control of telegraph and telephone, including wireless, without the need for public campaigns by these navies. In contrast, given the existence of commercial telegraph and telephone in the United States, and a history of congressional failure to oversee these systems, the U.S. Navy campaigned actively for control of wireless. See Douglas, Susan, “Exploring Pathways in the Ether: The Formative Years of Radio in America” (Ph.D. diss., Brown University, 1979), 136–8Google Scholar, and Inventing American Broadcasting, 107–10, for an account of early struggles within the U.S. Navy over the use of wireless.

13 Inter-Departmental Board on Wireless Telegraphy, Report (1904), reproduced in Howeth, History of Communications-Electronics, Appendix C; U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Annual Report (Washington, D.C., 1905), 4; Aitken, Continuous Wave, 253.

14 “Naval Wireless Telegraphy,” Electrical World and Engineer [hereafter EWE] 44 (15 Oct. 1904): 646.

15 High power input to the transmitter was the primary way of increasing the range of long-distance wireless signals, on a given wavelength, before the improvement of the vacuum tube during World War I. See Aitken, Continuous Wave, 82–97, for more technical information on the development of the Navy's high-powered network. Material on the development of the arc transmitter can be found in Wireless Telegraphy War College Lecture I: Technical Developments since 1906 (1910). National Archives I, Record Group 80, Box 49; Stanley, Rupert, Text Book on Wireless Telegraphy (London, 1914)Google Scholar; Sivowitch, Elliot N., “A Technological Survey of Broadcasting's ‘Pre-History’, 1876–1920,” Journal of Broadcasting 15 (Winter 1970–1971): 1–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mayes, Wireless Communication, 140–3, 152; and Aitken, Continuous Wave, 106–9, 124–6, 224.

16 See Mayes, Wireless Communication, 147–8, 153–4; and Aitken, Continuous Wave, 87.

17 More has been written about the activities of amateur wireless enthusiasts before World War I than about those of commercial firms, so I do not focus on them here. For more on amateurs, see Douglas, Inventing American Broadcasting.

18 E. H. Moeran (1901), in “Abstract of letters of Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America by George H. Clark,” Box 140, George H. Clark Radioana Collection, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution (hereafter Clark); Frank Fayant, “Fools and Their Money,” Success Magazine, Jan. 1907, 9.

19 “Air is Tangled by Wireless War,” 1903, newspaper clipping, Box 140, Clark.

20 General Board of the Department of the Navy, “Memo No. 419—On interference with Naval wireless messages” (30 Oct. 1907); G. H. Clark, subinspector of wireless telegraph stations, “Memo regarding the installation of a complete wireless telegraph system in the Isthmian Canal Zone” (29 Dec. 1911); both in General Records of the Department of the Navy, National Archives I (NA-I), Record Group 80, Box 49; Fayant, “Fools and Their Money.”

21 See Douglas, Inventing American Broadcasting.

22 See Kruse, “Property from the Sky,” for amplification of these points.

23 For more information on Marconi's patents and debates over their validity, see Aitken, Syntony and Spark, 204–7, 287; and Hawks, Ellison, Pioneers of Wireless (London, 1927Google Scholar; reprint New York, 1974), 224–5.

24 “Wireless Telegraph Litigation,” EWE 45 (22 Apr. 1905): 745, 748; “Wireless Telegraph Litigation,” Electrical World [hereafter EW] 47 (19 Mar. 1906): 653; Phillip Farnsworth, “Letter to Whom It May Concern,” 23 Mar. 1906, Box 146, Clark.

25 John Stone Stone used both his (identical) middle and last names.

26 Oliver Lodge, like Hertz, had experimentally verified Maxwell's model of the electromagnetic spectrum in 1888, and presented his results to the British association for the Advancement of Science in the fall of 1888. Lodge's experiments used long wires as wave guides, but the theoretical implications were identical to Hertz's work. Hertz's results had been published in July 1888, but Lodge's work was carried on at substantially the same time. After Hertz's results were published, Lodge took the lead in publicizing them in England. Lodge originally had taken a similarly disinterested view toward his wireless discoveries, but was spurred to file for patents after Marconi made broad claims of having invented wireless communications. Aitken believes that to some degree Lodge “must be seen as the inventor of radio telegraphy” (Syntony and Spark, 123. See also pp. 141–4, 163–8).

27 George H. Clark, “Record of Stone Telegraph & Telephone Company” (Apr. 1945), Box 141, Clark. Lodge's tuning patent had been upheld by an earlier court, and this was not contested before the Supreme Court. Stone was not involved directly in this case. The Marconi Company had sued the U.S. government for damages. See Wunsch, David A., “Misreading the Supreme Court,” Antenna 11 (1998): 8–9.Google Scholar

28 Patents and litigation also were completely unsuccessful in shaping the actions of the U.S. Navy, as shown by the experience of Reginald Fessenden. Fessenden, another inventor working in the United States, had very little success with patent enforcement, even though the originality of his work was never questioned, unlike that of Marconi. However, Fessenden's aim in litigation was not to control wireless communication per se, as the Marconicompanies' was, but to receive payment for the use of his inventions. The U.S. Navy chose to ignore Fessenden's patent rights and bought a receiver he had invented from competitors, most notably the De Forest Company. These companies could sell at lower prices because they did not have to cover the costs of research and development. Fessenden objected bitterly to many government officials, and filed suit against the De Forest Company in 1903. Although the suit was decided in his favor in 1905, the De Forest Company had sold thousands of these receivers to the Navy and used them in its own business. The Navy encouraged the De Forest Company to continue to do so, even after the court decision. See Reginald Fessenden, “Letter from Old Point Comfort, Va., to Hay Walker, Pittsburgh, Pa.” (15 Oct. 1903), Box 80, Clark; “Letter to Secretary of the Navy” (23 Feb. 1904), Box 80, Clark; and Douglas, “Exploring Pathways in the Ether” and Inventing American Broadcasting. When Fessenden obtained further court sanctions against the De Forest Company and its officers, the company was dissolved and its assets transferred to a new company. Fessenden never received payment for the use of his invention.

29 See Douglas, Inventing American Broadcasting, 64–5. The commonly used date is 1899. Baker, W.J., in A History of the Marconi Company (New York, 1971), 73Google Scholar, gives the date as April 1, 1902, and says the American rights in the Marconi inventions were transferred from the parent company for £50,000 at this time. Baker writes that the company had been “registered” on 22 November 1899. In fact, stock in American Marconi was not offered to the public before 1902, and the first annual report was issued sometime in 1902. A first stock-holder's meeting was held in October 1901 and directors were appointed “in order that the franchise… should be in no danger of lapsing.” E. H. Moeran (22 Oct. 1901), quoted in “Abstract of letters of Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America by George H. Clark,” Box 140, Clark. Since the company had built stations and was attempting to build a commercial business by 1901, the distinction is not important for the purposes of this paper. The $10 million capitalization represented in large part an inflated estimate of the value of Marconi's patents and the worldwide Marconi organization, and the par value of the stock was reduced to one-quarter of its original $100 valuation in 1911. See Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America (MWTCoA), Annual Report with Balance Sheet (New York, 1912)Google Scholar, Box 146, Clark.

30 Guglielmo Marconi came to occupy a unique position in the history of radio through a combination of advantages that included a wealthy background, important social contacts in Italy and England, education in technical and scientific subjects, technical ability, good commercial and publicity instincts, and strong financial backing. Following the publication of the results of Hertz's experiments, Marconi became interested in the idea of using Hertzian waves for wireless communications. He experimented with wireless signaling at his family home in Italy beginning in 1895. There Marconi put together components of a wireless communication system by using and improving the devices developed by others. Unlike these other inventors, Marconi was primarily interested in developing a practical commercial system, rather than in the investigation of scientific phenomena.

31 “Wireless Telegraphy at Sea,” EWE (16 Nov. 1901): 806. See also Aitken, Syntony and Spark, 235–7.

32 Robert B. Lines, Census Office, U.S. Department of the Interior, “Report on the Postal Telegraph Service in Foreign Countries,” Report on the Agencies of Transportation in the United States (Washington, D.C., 1883)Google Scholar; “Wireless Telegraph Litigation in Great Britain,” EWE (29 Oct. 1904): 720; “Telegraphy, Telephony and Signals,” EWE (15 Apr. 1905); Bureau of the Census, U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Telephones and Telegraphs, 190 (Washington, D.C., 1906)Google Scholar; Schubert, Paul, The Electric Word: The Rise of Radio (New York, 1928)Google Scholar; Emery, Walter B., National and International Systems of Broadcasting (East Lansing, Mich., 1969).Google Scholar

33 MWTCoA, Annual Report with Balance Sheet (New York, 1903), Box 146, Clark.Google Scholar

34 In 1905, the British company owned at least 57 percent of the stock issued by American Marconi. See Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Co., Annual Report (1905) and MWTCoA, Annual Report (1906). Aitken in Continuous Wave states that in 1914 “it was in London that the strategic decisions on company policy were taken” (p. 251), and that in 1919, just before RCA was formed, more than 50 percent of the stock was still held by English citizens (p. 412). See also Aitken, Syntony and Spark, 218–24, 228.

35 Marconi's two major technical objectives were transatlantic wireless communications and enabling ships to stay in touch with land throughout an ocean crossing. These objectives were related, but required different technologies, given the enormous size of the high-powered land stations of the time. The standard ship-to-shore range was only between 50 and 150 miles during the first decade of wireless use. By 1905, sixteen ships had been outfitted with special sets that allowed them to receive messages throughout their crossing. Also, by 1905, the high-powered land stations were able to transmit signals across the Atlantic on an experimental basis. See “Wireless Telegraphy,” EW 49 (29 June 1907): 1314; Baker, History of the Marconi Company, 65–6, 82, 86–8; MWTCoA, Annual Report with Balance Sheet (New York, 1906)Google Scholar, Box 146, Clark; Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company, Annual Report and Statement of Accounts (London, 1905)Google Scholar, Box 151, Clark; and John Bottomley and E. H. Moeran, 1901, in “Abstract of letters of Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America by George H. Clark,” Box 140, Clark.

36 Bureau of Equipment, Department of the Navy, List of Wireless Telegraph Stations of the World (1906–09); Bureau of Steam Engineering, Department of the Navy, List of Wireless Telegraph Stations of the World (1910–12); and House Committee on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries, Radio-Telegraphic Installations and Radio-Telegraphers on Certain Ocean Steamers, 60th Cong., 2nd sess., H.R. 2086, 1909.

37 Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company, Annual Report, (1905); MWTCoA, Annual Reports with Balance Sheets (New York, 1902–1914)Google Scholar, Boxes 139, 146, 172B, Clark; Radio-Telegraphic Installations and Radio-Telegraphers on Certain Ocean Steamers, 3; MacLaurin, Invention & Innovation, 39, 42.

38 The Wireless Ship Act required that all large oceangoing passenger steamers have wireless telegraph equipment and operators, and that all the wireless equipment be able to exchange messages with that of other manufacturers.

39 Francis M. Barber, “No Monopoly in Wireless Systems” (Clipping, newspaper title unknown, 1902), Box 140, Clark; George H. Clark, “History of Early Wireless Telegraphy” (Scrapbook), Box 140, Clark. George H. Clark, “Story of the Formation and Early Growth of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America and the Radio Corporation of America as Told in the Personal Records of Mr. E. J. Nally,” 1949, Box 148, Clark. See Douglas, Inventing American Broadcasting, 110–19, for a more detailed account of the Navy tests.

40 “Wireless Telegraph Fact and Fiction,” EWE 44 (10 Sept. 1904): 418; “Marconi Wireless and the Government,” EWE 44 (10 Dec. 1904): 986.

41 De Forest Wireless Telegraph System (Pamphlet [1903]), Box 153, Clark.

42 “New Parents Soon Born for Wireless Concerns,” New York Commercial, 15 Jan. 1904, Box 139, Clark.

43 In 1910, the Justice Department charged White and several other officers of the United Wireless Companies, successor to the De Forest Companies, with mail fraud. There were no federal laws regulating financial disclosures or stock-selling practices per se until 1933.

44 Fayant, Frank, “The Wireless Telegraph Bubble: Part I,” Success Magazine, June 1907, 387–9, 450–1Google Scholar, and “Part II,” Success Magazine, July 1907, 481–3, 508–9; Aitken, Continuous Wave, 184–5. As is the case with much of the historical record on early radio, sources disagree on particulars, such as the exact name of the first De Forest companies, what months they were organized or discarded, when in 1902 White became involved, and what their capitalizations were, which in any case were largely fictional. The capitalization of the De Forest name also varies. The wireless inventor used “de Forest,” his family used “De Forest,” various authors use one or the other, but the companies used “De Forest.” I have generally followed the accounts of the companies given by Fayant and Aitken. Aitken's source was unpublished work by Mayes, later included in Mayes's collection of essays published in 1989. For more, see Fayant, who wrote an early exposé of these companies; and Samuel Lubell's sympathetic account of the life and adventures of de Forest, “Magnificent Failure,” Saturday Evening Post, 17, 24, 31 Jan. 1942, 9–80, 20–35, 27–38. Douglas in “Exploring Pathways in the Ether” and Inventing American Broadcasting, and Aitken, in Continuous Wave, discuss the life of de Forest, his technical achievements, and the history of the companies associated with him in much greater depth than I do here.

45 Aitken, Continuous Wave, 186; Douglas, “Exploring Pathways in the Ether,” 113–14.

46 De Forest Wireless Telegraph System.

47 “Why Wireless Will Pay,” Wireless Age 1 (1905): 21, Box 172B, Clark.

48 Aitken, Continuous Wave, 186; Lubell, “Magnificent Failure,” 17 Jan. 1942, 75. De For est's most important invention, the audion, played no part in the history of either American De Forest or the United Wireless Telegraph Company and so is outside the scope of this paper. Any history of radio broadcasting (for example, Aitken, Continuous Wave) will include information on the audion, precursor of the vacuum tube.

49 Nicolai Tesla is best known as one of the inventors of the alternating current electrical distribution system, which is the basis for the U.S. electrical power industry. Tesla gave a lecture and demonstration in 1893, in which he predicted wireless communication. Michael Pupin was a professor of physics and electrical engineering at Columbia University who did important research on electromagnetic radiation, including X-rays and radio waves. See IEEE History Center, Legacies, available from http://www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center/legacies/tesla.html.

50 Aitken, Continuous Wave, 188–9; American De Forest Wireless Telegraph Company, “Report on contract between Government and American DeForest” (29 June 1904), Box 154, Clark. MacLaurin, in Invention & Innovation (pp. 67, 70–9), is much kinder to de Forest than Aitken, rating de Forest the most imaginative inventor in the history of the radio industry, although with little of Marconi's entrepreneurial talent.

51 Aitken, Continuous Wave, 189–91.

52 A. G. Davis, “Letter to Reginald Fessenden” (25 May 1903), Box 80, Clark; Fessenden-Vreeland Correspondence (1903), Box 80, Clark; Aitken, Continuous Wave, 191–2.

53 De Forest Wireless Telegraph System; “The Naval Wireless Station at Sitka, Alaska,” EW 50 (16 Nov. 1907): 971; MacLaurin, Invention & Innovation, 80–1. Throughout this paper, all claims about the existence of stations from De Forest promotional literature are treated as fact only if they have been verified by another source.

54 Archer, Gleason L., History of Radio to 1926 (New York, 1938), 74–5Google Scholar; Charles C. Galbraith, “Direct Testimony of Charles C. Galbraith, Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America v. Atlantic Communications Company, U.S. District Court, East District of New York,” (n.d.), Box 169, Clark; American De Forest, “Report on contract between Government and American DeForest,” and “Extract from the New York Herald,” New York Herald, 24 Mar. 1906, both in Box 146, Clark; “Wireless for Fruit Steamers,” EW 50 (24 Aug. 1907): 356.

55 These were the major markets open to American wireless companies. Coastal shipping had been closed to foreign competition since 1817, and while U.S. shipping was in decline in many international markets, it did retain most of the business between the U.S. and Central and South America.

56 General Manager, Atlantic De Forest Wireless Company, “Letters to B. K. Roome” (5 Jan. 1905 and 6 Mar. 1905), Box 171, Clark; List of Wireless Telegraph Stations of the World (1906–09); Galbraith, “Direct Testimony”; “Use of Wireless on Great Lakes,” World, 10 May 1903, Box 140, Clark; “Wireless Telegraphy on Coastwise Steamers,” EWE 44 (31 Dec. 1904): 2146; Douglas, Inventing American Broadcasting, 93. My list understates the number of stations that American De Forest was building in these and the following years. I have not listed interior stations; these did a negligible amount of business because they did not serve ships. As with the stations built for other organizations, I have only included those whose existence I can verify using a source independent from the De Forest Company. Mayes in Wireless Communication is careful to indicate when his only source was De Forest Company material.

57 Galbraith, “Direct Testimony”; William H. Ocker, “Letter from Chicago to Abraham White” (1905), Box 146, Clark; “The De Forest Wireless Telegraph Station at Chicago Opened,” EWE 45 (18 Feb. 1905): 357; “New Wireless Telegraph Station at South Boston,” EWE 46 (16 Sept. 1905): 499; General Manager, Atlantic De Forest Wireless Company, “Letter to B. K. Roome” (6 Oct. 1905), Box 171, Clark; P. E. Odell, “Letter from Cleveland, Ohio to Abraham White” (8 Nov. 1905), Box 146, Clark; Mayes, Wireless Communication, 43, 60; Charles J. Badger, “Services Performed by the Flagship Chicago During Conflagration in San Francisco, California” (31 May 1906), National Archives Military Records, Group 45, Box 464; and List of Wireless Telegraph Stations of the World (1906).

58 The list of operators and engineers employed by the De Forest companies who went on to other positions in the wireless industry includes G. S. Iredell, A. A. Isbell, Thomas Appleby, A. R. Redfern, Frank E. Butler, Harry Shoemaker, G. H. Barbour, Elmo Pickerell, and Robert Marriott. Lloyd Espenschied, later a Bell Labs researcher, Elmer Bucher, best known as David Sarnoff's biographer, and Graynella Packer, the first woman to work as a commercial wireless operator, all worked for UWT. See letters of G. S. Iredell (1905–07), Box 160, Clark; Barbour, G. H., “Recent Practice in Wireless Station Construction,” EW 49 (2 Mar. 1907): 437–41Google Scholar; A. R. Redfern, “Letter to George S. De Sousa” (13 Oct. 1916), Box 61, Clark; Yearbook of Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony, 1922, Box 19, Clark; G. H. Clark, “Beginning and Expansion of Radio Training,” History of Specific Companies: Book 3, Box 172B, Clark. See Frank E. Butler's articles in Radio Broadcast: “Making Wireless History with De Forest” (Dec. 1924): 211, “Pioneering with De Forest in Florida” (Jan. 1925): 492, and “How Wireless Came to Cuba” (Mar. 1925): 916; MacLaurin, Invention & Innovation, 49–53; “Abstracts of letters of MWTCoA”; MWTCoA, Annual Report (1906); Mayes, Wireless Communication, 38–43; and Baker, History of the Marconi Company, 63.

59 See note 28.

60 Crystal receivers consisted of a small wire that made a point contact to the surface of a crystal, which was surrounded by metal. Crystal detectors were simple, inexpensive, required no replacement parts, and were more sensitive than electrolytic detectors. They were widely adopted by both amateurs and commercial ship operators and were the most common detectors used in the United States between 1907 and the end of World War I. They continued to be used by hobbyists into the 1960s. Dunwoody's carborundum receiver was sensitive and more stable than some others, and became very popular on shipboard. For more discussion of the properties of crystal receivers, see Lee, Thomas H., The Design of CMOS Radio-Frequency Integrated Circuits (Cambridge, 1998), 4–7.Google Scholar

The audion was a descendant of Thomas Edison's incandescent light bulbs and a precursor to the vacuum tube. Vacuum tubes formed an integral part of radio and television sets until replaced by transistors in the 1960s, and are still used in specialized communications equipment. The two-element audion, also called a diode, consisted of a filament and a plate sealed in a partially evacuated glass bulb. Electrons flowed from the filament to the plate across a gap. The originality of de Forest's two-element audion is a matter of dispute; he was anticipated in its development by Ambrose Fleming, a British physicist who worked for the Marconi Company, but opinions differ about whether de Forest was aware of Fleming's device when he developed his two-element audion in 1906. However, de Forest's reputation as the “Father of the Vacuum Tube” rests on his development of the three-element audion, or triode, in late 1906. De Forest's addition of the third element, the “grid,” between the filament and the plate, allowing signals to be amplified, was an original contribution. See Douglas, Inventing American Broadcasting, 168–71, and Aitken, Continuous Wave.

61 List of Wireless Telegraph Stations of the World (1906–09); Galbraith, “Direct Testimony”; Aitken, Continuous Wave, 192–3.

62 Mayes, Wireless Communication, 58.

63 The company sold two former De Forest stations in Louisiana, in New Orleans and Southwest Pass, to the United Fruit Company. In 1907, UWT completed construction of a new station for New Orleans, begun earlier by the De Forest Company.

Information in this section on UWT's stations and the ships it served comes from comparison of a number of sources. See “Operations of Land Stations of United Wireless Telegraph: Confidential Memorandum,” UWT, [1910], [hereafter “Confidential Memo, UWT”], Box 153, Clark; Department of the Navy, List of Wireless Telegraph Stations of the World (1907–12); Bureau of Navigation, Department of Commerce, “Radio Stations of the United States” (Washington, D.C., 1913); Mayes, Wireless Communication, 60–100; Radiotelegraphic Installations; and MWTCoA, “Schedule of Steamship Wireless Business assigned by UWT,” [1912], Box 163, Clark; and George H. Clark, “List of Commercial Shore Stations, U.S.A.,” 1911, Box 109, Clark.

64 Again, I have not listed all the stations built by UWT, only those that could serve ships, even if that was not their primary purpose.

65 “Confidential Memo, UWT.” Cost information for the early wireless industry is sketchy; this is probably the most accurate data available on the operations of the land stations of UWT because it was produced for internal use. In addition to the costs and receipts assignable to individual land stations, UWT had the expenses of a factory in Jersey City and the income from rent charged for ships' wireless equipment, which would have brought in $300 to $600 per passenger ship, once the shipboard wireless operator's wages had been paid, and $600 for a freighter. Additional income from fees charged ships' passengers to send private messages probably account for the individual land station receipts and profits, if any. By 1909, UWT also charged an installation fee of $100 for a ship's wireless equipment. See Radiotelegraphic Installations, 5–6.

66 Mayes, Wireless Communication, 100.

67 This jump in business was partially the result of the Wireless Ship Act, which was passed on June 24, 1910. Although the Act did not take effect until July 1, 1911, most shipowners took steps to comply with the Act even before it came into effect. U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Annual Reports of the Commissioner of Navigation to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor (Washington, D.C., 1910–1911)Google Scholar.

68 G. H. Clark, “Beginning and Expansion of Radio Training,” History of Specific Companies—Book 3 (Scrapbook, n.d.), Box 172B, Clark; Marshall, “Testimony”; and Mayes, Wireless Communication, 66–8.

69 “Government Raids United Wireless,” Modern Electrics (July 1910): 195; Mayes, Wireless Communication, 66–8.

70 Reginald Fessenden clearly would have been better off without infringement of his receiver patent as well. But it is not clear that his company, NESCO, would have been much more successful even with increased revenues, given Fessenden's legendary flaws a businessman and employer.

71 The amount that was said to have been paid to the trustees of United Wireless ranges from $650,000 to $750,000. “Trustees in Bankruptcy, United Wireless Telegraph Company—1912” (Handwritten copy by G. H. Clark), Box 139, Clark, gives the figure as $650,000. Donaldson, Frances, The Marconi Scandal (London, 1962)Google Scholar lists two figures, $700,000 (p.272) and $750,000 (p. 131), without explaining the discrepancy.

72 MWTCoA, Annual Report (1913), Box 146, Clark; Donaldson, The Marconi Scandal, 131, 152, 272–3.

73 Counts of stations and other assets vary by source, and sometimes within the same source. Mayes, Wireless Communication, states American Marconi had five land stations, including the long distance station on Cape Cod; the 1909 Navy list of wireless stations verifies this number. By 1911, the Marconi Company also had installed stations in New York and Philadelphia for the Wanamaker stores.

74 MWTCoA, Annual Report (1912), Box 146, Clark.

75 Ibid.; MacLaurin, Invention & Innovation, 41; Mayes, Wireless Communication, 70; Donaldson, The Marconi Scandal, 49–54; Department of the Navy, List of Wireless Telegraph Stations of the World (1912); “Radio Stations of the United States” and “Schedule of Steamship Business—MWTCoA.” The number of customers served by UWT at its demise is larger than the number inherited by American Marconi because ships under foreign registry were not included in the transfer from British Marconi. The UWT stations in British Columbia were also not included; in any case it is not clear that they remained in operation after 1912.

76 MWTCoA, Annual Report (1913).

77 MWTCoA, Annual Reports (1913, 1914); G. H. Clark, Untitled typewritten note labeled “SRM 14 081,” n.d., Box 184, Clark. Clark's comment is somewhat misleading. The Navy bought many of the stations of the MWTCoA during World War I. The Navy was hoping to maintain control of wireless after the war, and the purchase was part of that strategy. Although Clark was a civilian employee of the Navy during World War I, he did not support naval control of wireless, and went to work for RCA shortly after the war ended.

78 Donaldson, The Marconi Scandal, 49–54, 272–3; MWTCoA, Annual Report (1913), 5, 9.

79 Donaldson, The Marconi Scandal, 131, 152; MWTCoA, Annual Report (1904).

80 List of Wireless Telegraph Stations of the World (1907–12); “Confidential Memo, UWT” “Radio Stations of the United States” and “Schedule of Steamship Business—MWTCoA.” The 1913 Navy list assigns sixty-two shore stations to American Marconi, but seven of these were new stations in Alaska that were probably not in full operation yet.

81 MWTCoA, Annual Report (1914), 1, Box 146, Clark.

82 Galbraith, “Direct Testimony” “Contracts for Wireless Telegraph Service” (1912), Box 60, Clark; MWTCoA, Annual Reports; and MacLaurin, Invention & Innovation, 42. Profit figures are rounded to the nearest thousand. Profit in 1909 was only $3,701.

83 MWTCoA, Annual Report (1913); “lists of unfilled orders from Engineering Department” (1914), Box 60, Clark; and “Instructions re: Sale of Apparatus” (28 Oct. 1914), Box 140, Clark.

84 Since all wireless communications firms in this period manufactured equipment, the Navy could argue that private firms would continue to prosper as suppliers under a Navy controlled system. In fact, this is what happened during World War I.

85 These opinions and concerns are expressed in congressional hearings on wireless legislation. See U.S. Congress, Senate, Wireless Telegraph Convention, 60th Cong., 1st sess. 1908, 452; Message from the President Relating to Radio-Telegraphy, 60th Cong., 2nd sess., 1909; Hearings on the Bill (S. 7243) to Regulate Radio Communication, 61st Cong. 2nd sess., 1910; Radio-Telegraphic Installations and Radio-Telegraphers on Certain Ocean Steamers; and U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Annual Reports (Washington, D.C., 1904, 1905, 1909–1912).

86 These views also were expressed in congressional hearings and in Reginald Fessenden, “Legislation in regard to wireless telegraphy—Sept. 1904,” Box 154, Clark; James H. Hayden, Brief in Opposition to the Ratification of the International Wireless Telegraph Convention (n.d.), Box 442, Clark; Massie, Walter W., “Letter to the Editor: Congress and Wireless Telegraphy,” EW 51 (21 Mar. 1908): 609–10.Google Scholar See also the following letters, articles, and editorials in Electrical World: “Control of Wireless Telegraphy,” 42 (29 Aug. 1903): 348–9; “The Wireless Telegraph Conference,” 42 (14 Nov. 1903): 791–2; “The Government and Wireless,” 43(4 June 1904): 1068, 1111; “Wireless Companies Oppose Hale Bill,” 51 (21 Mar. 1908): 593–4.

87 Segal, Paul M., “The Regulation of Amateur Radio Communication,” Air Law Review (Apr. 1931): 156Google Scholar, Box 541, Clark.

88 The 1912 Radio Act regulated all interstate and foreign wireless transmissions. It required that non-government wireless stations and operators be licensed by the secretary of commerce. It set wavelengths for commercial land and ship and amateur stations, and it required tuned equipment. Ships within fifteen miles of a military station were required to reduce the power of their transmissions. All stations near military bases were required to yield the first fifteen minutes of the hour for government use, if necessary. No new commercial stations were to be licensed within fifteen miles of the most important naval stations. Distress signals were given priority over other messages, and intercommunication between all systems was mandated again. Ships were required to communicate with the nearest land station. The 1912 Radio Act also provided that all stations were subject to takeover by government agencies in time of war or public peril.

89 Radio-Telegraphic Installations and Radio-Telegraphers on Certain Ocean Steamers, 2–3, 7. UWT provided service to the ships of the naval militias that were stationed on the Great Lakes.

90 In September 1910, 370 ocean passenger steamers were already equipped with wireless, and 185 were not. By mid-November 1911, four and a half months after the Act had taken effect, only three violations, two of which were accidental, had been reported. In cases where apparatus was found to be defective by the wireless inspectors, ships were voluntarily kept in port until repairs were made. U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Annual Reports of the Commissioner of Navigation to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor (Washington, D.C., 1910–1911)Google Scholar.

91 Suspicion of regulation as harmful to inventors' and stockholders' rights was one focus of the ideological battles waged over regulation in the United States affecting the course of property-rights definition between 1899 and 1927. Examples of these views can be found in editorials, letters and articles in Electrical World, in AT&T Annual Reports, and congressional debates.

92 Manton Davis, International Radiotelegraph Conventions and Traffic Arrangements. Copy of address made to School of Law of New York University, 29 Apr. 1930, Box 435, Clark. It is often supposed that the sinking of the Titanic led to the creation and passage of the Radio Act of 1912. While the Titanic disaster no doubt increased public concern, and may have affected the timing of passage, Congress had been considering the legislation for two years prior to the disaster. Also, there had been several other well-publicized ship disasters in the past decade in which wireless communication had played a role in rescue efforts.

93 Mayes, Wireless Communication, 147–52; Aitken, Continuous Wave, 87; “Development of Wireless Telegraph,” EW 47 (21 Apr. 1906): 814.

94 See Radio-Telegraphic Installations; U.S. Congress, House, Regulation of Radio Communications, 62nd Cong., 2nd sess., 1912; U.S. Congress, Senate, Control of Wireless Telegraphy, 60th Cong., 1st sess., 1908; Wireless Telegraph Convention; Message from the President; Hearings on Bill 7243; “Radio Communication,” 62nd Cong., 2nd sess., 1912; Department of Commerce and Labor, Annual Reports (1908–12); Hayden, Brief in Opposition; Massie, “Congress and Wireless Telegraphy” John W. Griggs, “Memorandum of objections submitted on behalf of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America” (n.d.), Box 442, Clark; and Electrical World articles referenced in footnote 84.

95 All civilian operators of transmitting stations were now required to be licensed, and other regulations governed the operation of amateur, commercial, and military shore stations, as well as ships' stations. Ship stations had to send messages on the 300- and 600-meter wavelengths. Any ship within fifteen miles of a government station could transmit only low-powered signals. Commercial stations were required to designate a wavelength below 600 or above 1600 meters as their normal sending and receiving wavelength, although in practice this had little meaning because they also were allowed to use any other wavelength in those ranges. Commercial and ship stations were supposed to use tuned transmitters to reduce electromagnetic “noise” except when transmitting distress signals, which were permitted to be as interfering as possible. At seaports where commercial, amateur, Navy and Army stations operated in close proximity, military stations were allowed to use the first fifteen minutes of every hour, while private stations were to use the rest of the hour.

96 See Radio Act of 1912; Segal, “The Regulation of Amateur Radio” Chief of Naval Operations, “Records on Interference,” in the Director of Naval Communications General Correspondence, 1912–1921, National Archives I, Record Group 38, Box 97; Dean Lewis, “Letter to George Clark” (14 Mar. [no year]), Box 189, Clark; H. C. Gawler, “Letter from H. C. Gawler, Radio Inspector to Commissioner of Navigation” (16 Apr. 1913), Box 589, Clark; “Wireless Law Prosecution,” Boston Evening Globe 16 Aug. 1913, Box 589, Clark; and “Director Utilizes Tracer,” Christian Science Monitor, 29 Aug. 1913, Box 589, Clark. Amateur interference resulted sometimes from ineptitude, and sometimes from a deliberate disregard of the new restrictions. Dean Lewis is an example of the skilled amateur violator. He operated what he called a “commercial-amateur” station IZL in Northampton, Massachusetts, between 1913 and 1917. The station was well equipped thanks to his father's money, and could be heard on a wavelength of 425 meters “consistently throughout Atlantic seaboard and west to Chicago, although Boston was difficult due to strange interference.” Lewis claimed that some of his messages were commercial, and this seems to have been the basis for his assertion of “commercial-amateur” status. The Department of Commerce did not agree and shut down the station when the commercial station WLC at New London, Connecticut, complained of interference from it. Lewis went on to work for RCA after World War I.

97 The non-Marconi “commercial” stations in the vicinity of New York City primarily served purposes other than the transmission of commercial messages. The Atlantic Communications Company, a subsidiary of the German wireless company Telefunken, built two stations in New York and Long Island to insure transatlantic communications if underseas cables were cut during wartime. This was the first U.S. station that could consistently span the Atlantic. It did some commercial work with Telefunken-equipped ships. It was taken over by the Alien Property Custodian in July 1915 for violating U.S. neutrality. Fessenden's company, NESCO, had an experimental station near the port of New York City, as did de Forest's Radio Telephone and Telegraph Company. Wireless equipment manufacturing companies were issued commercial licenses for experimental purposes, even if they did not carry commercial messages.

Several Marconi-equipped companies in the vicinity of New York City were the subject of many interference complaints, sometimes from Marconi ship operators. The most indignant complaints were against the Wanamaker department stores in New York and Philadelphia, which used wireless to communicate with each other. Many saw this as an invalid use of the crowded spectrum, as the stores could have used telegraph lines. The New York Herald station also generated many interference complaints because of the sheer volume of its messages. See Chief of Naval Operations, “Records on Interference.”

98 Ibid. The records refer to representatives from “Telefunken.” This is probably a reference to representatives from the Atlantic Communications Company, which was incorporated in New York, but actually set up by Telefunken. The Atlantic Communications Company was the subject of the first dispute over the powers granted to the secretary of commerce by the Radio Act of 1912. In 1912, the attorney general ruled that the secretary had no discretionary power to deny a license to Atlantic Communications. See U.S. Attorney General, Radio Communication-Issuance of Licenses, 29 Op. Atty. Gen. 579 (24 Oct. 1912). The other companies represented at the meeting were NESCO, Radio Telephone and Telegraph, and the Wireless Specialty Apparatus Company.

99 Conflicts over use of the spectrum after World War I were more extensive than those from before the war because the development of broadcasting dramatically increased the number of users and stations.

100 These perceived loopholes involved the way various wavelengths were assigned to different groups. A major example involved “experimental stations,” a designation that carried with it rights to use a more extended range of wavelengths than were given to other groups besides the military and those operating commercial shore stations. See Joshua W. Alexander, U.S. Congress, House, A Bill to Further Regulate Radio Communication, 65th Cong., 2nd sess., H.R. 13159, 1918.

101 U.S. Congress, House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, Government Control of Radio Communication: Hearings on H. 13159, 65th Cong., 1st sess., 1918.

102 These claims ignore the work of many wireless inventors and other companies: Reginald Fessenden of NESCO, Ernst Alexanderson of General Electric, Lee de Forest's development of the triode, precursor of the vacuum tube, and the arc transmitters of the Federal Telegraph Company. It also ignores the many advances in radio technology that took place during World War I because of the suspension of patents. Also, as discussed above, the commercial wireless network was created by United Wireless Telegraph, not American Marconi.

103 Danielian, Noorbar R., A.T.&T.: The Story of Industrial Conquest (New York, 1939), 243–70.Google Scholar

104 See Aitken, Continuous Wave, 254, and Rosen, Philip T., The Modern Stentors: Radio Broadcasters and the Federal Government, 1920–1934 (Westport, Conn., 1980), 23.Google Scholar

105 Earlier one of these officers, Stanford C. Hooper, had testified in favor of naval control. See George H. Clark, “Transcript of statement by Lt. Hooper on Government Ownership and Monopoly in testimony for the Fortifications Appropriations Bill, 1917,” (n.d.), Box 437, Clark.

106 [Radio Corporation of America], Policies During the Establishment of a Radio System (1920), Box 169, Clark.