Daniel Ward

*Trends of Communicationin the United States

Trends of communication throughout U.S. History is an interesting subject to think about. By looking at these trends, we can see where we began regarding communication methods, what communication methods we use today, and communication methods in between.

*Trend #1: Couriers

In 1852, the first delivery company was established to deliver packages, gold and newspapers. This company was Wells Fargo. Transporting these newspapers helped American citizens to receive important news affecting everyone’s lives.Enhanced transportation helped to make this communication method process much easier. The Pony Express was established which led to delivering this information through rail, automobiles (thanks to highways).

*Trend #2: Telegraphs

In 1844 the Whig Party nominated their candidate, Henry Clay, by way of telegraph. The electric telegraph sends signals via wires from one location to another. This made communication much easier than using transportation for relaying messages to different parties.

*Trend #3: Telephones

In 1875: Alexander Graham Bell used a bi-directional telephone that was able to transmit "voice-like sounds", but not clear speech. Both the transmitter and the receiver was developed. In 1876, Graham successfully transmits a full sentence using the telephone. Because of this, there became less need of a telegraph because voice recognition was now present.

*Trend #4: Radios

Commercial radio began in America in 1920 and became widely used by citizens to hear about political news. It now became extremely easy for the government to communicate with all Americans. Although this opened the door for entertainment purposes, historical events like the great depression and developments of World War II .

*Trend #5: Beepers/Pagers

In 1949 that the very first telephone pager was patented by Al Gross. This allowed someone to call a phone number, leave a digital number which would appear on the beeper screen which is held in someone’ s pocket or belt buckle of another person. This notification pinged someone to let them know to use another means of communication to contact them.

*Trend #6: Mobile Phones

Mobile Phones were produced in 1983 by a company called Ameritech. Now communication was possible from person to person while on the go. The was, at the time, the most convenient way of communicating since it could be done while traveling.

Let's give thanks to history for leading us to the communication methods that we have today!

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