How Our Presidents have Communicated

At the peak of the Populist Movement of which Isaac Werner and many of our ancestors were a part, the People's Party had succeeded in electing not only local candidates but also state and federal officials.  The People's Party was challenging the Republicans and Democrats for the votes of primarily working people, but also some professionals.  

In 1896, however, they took a strategic risk.  They decided to nominate as the People's Party presidential candidate the same man as the Democratic nominee--Wm Jennings Bryan, a 36 year old man from Nebraska.

Their strategy failed, and it split the People's Party.  But, during his campaign, Bryan used the trains to reach more potential voters than a presidential candidate ever had, traveling 18,000 miles between September 11th and November 1 to give 600 speeches to an estimated 5,000,000 people.

The American constitution stipulates that the president "shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient."  We are now familiar with seeing the sitting president deliver the annual State of the Union Address on our televisions, but George Washington delivered his message to congress in the provincial capital of New York City on January 8, 1790, and his 'recommended measures judged necessary and expedient' were left to be conveyed to the public in newspapers and broadsheets..  

How communication has changed over the years!  Rutherford B. Hays was the first president to speak by telephone from the White House in 1877, but it was Abraham Lincoln who installed a line for his use in the War Department, used to communicate with state governors and generals.

Although Warren G. Harding was the first president to make a speech by radio, on June 14, 1922, his voice was first transmitted by telephone to a broadcasting station and from there broadcast over the radio.  Of course, the president we think of as a master of radio is Franklin Roosevelt, who reached out to Americans so effectively in a conversational manner during his regular "fireside chats."

The first televised address was given by Harry Truman on October 5, 1947, but Dwight Eisenhower was the first to use television regularly, particularly his use of television commercials in his 1952 campaign.

What Richard Nixon called "the most historic phone call ever made from the White House" on July 20, 1969, occurred when he spoke to the Apollo astronauts on the moon.  The call was set up in advance over a microwave link between Washington and Houston, then out via microwave link to the Deep Space Network, then over DSN stations with the moon in view via S-band.

Bill Clinton was the first president to use email, initially more of a test to show the president how emails were done.  President Clinton himself regards the first e-mail he sent as president to be the one he sent to astronaut John Glenn soon after he boarded the International Space Station.  About a year later, Clinton became the first president to participate in a Webchat hosted by Democratic Leadership Council and an internet company.

While Obama's 2008 presidential campaign used social media very effectively, the first tweet by President Barack Obama was on January 18, 2010 when he hit the "send" button for a tweet composed by an employee hosting the president and first lady on a tour of the Red Cross headquarters in Washington.

Great technological changes in communication have occurred over those decades.  Today, the faces

The Home of our Presidents

and voices of our presidents are familiar from their many appearances on television.

Donald Trump, our current president, is not the first president to tweet, but he is certainly the one to have made tweeting his trademark.  According to Bustle, an online magazine for American women, Trump tweeted 2,568 times during his first year as president.  An article in the New York Times documented the most tweets sent by Trump in one day, in mid-December of 2019, as 123 tweets.

I do not tweet and I have no account, but many people around the world do.  If fact, it was estimated as of September of 2019 that there were about 350 million global monthly active twitter users, with 100 million active daily, 20.5% of those being in the United States.

I cannot predict the methods future presidents may use to communicate to America's citizens.  I can only hope that the future of communication bears no likeness to the telescreens in George Orwell's classic novel, 1984.  

Send a Message

One of the things that is such fun about this photograph is that the picture was taken to be put on a postcard--a postcard showing three young women reading a postcard!

Of course Isaac Werner received mail in the late 1800s.  The post offices were in some neighbor's home.  The earliest reference to a postal address in Isaac's journal is to the Vosburgh Post Office, but the post offices during most years of his journal were in the homes of "Doc" Dix and Aaron Beck.  Nearby Antrum delivery was in the home of the Gibbs sisters.

But how was a message sent if immediacy was important, as in the case of serious illness or death?  That information is not contained in Isaac's journal, although I know that he was quickly made aware of the deaths of his sister and of his mother.

I have done some research on the telegraph of that era.  One of the issues the populists included in their Peoples' Party Platform was government ownership of telephone and telegraph, just as the government has the U.S. Mail.

According to the website from which the image at right was taken, it is likely that the messages Isaac would have received about family deaths would have been sent by Morse code, transcribed, and hand delivered in some way.  By 1900, 63.2 million messages were sent each year.  The distance from town of his homestead does raise the question of hand delivery.

Western Union was the first nationwide industrial monopoly, and in almost every session of Congress, bills urged either regulation or government takeover.  However, the greatest threat to Western Union was technology in the form of the telephone.

It is always technology that is nipping at the heels of the existing status quo.  Remember when you actually had long conversations with your friends over the phone?  And, do you remember letters!--not just a signed greeting card but actual newsy letters?!  And for sweethearts, love letters!

Then came e-mail, whose primitive beginnings happened in 1965 at MIT.  Within 2 or three decades most of us were enjoying chatty e-mails from our friends.  Today, if you are like me, most of my past e-mail friends are posting travel photographs and kids' pictures on face book!

Portrait of the End of a Romance

And, now there is Twitter, which did not exist until March of 2006.  By the 10 year anniversary of its creation there were 319 million monthly active users.  Evan Williams, one of its founders, said "Twitter actually changed from what we thought it was in the beginning, which we described as status updates and a social utility.  It is that in part, but the insight we eventually came to was Twitter was really more of an information network than it is a social network."  I would add that it is also a 'misinformation network.'  

Like all the communication methods just described, something new will surely come along to replace Twitter.  One of my earlier blogs pointed out that young people prefer texts over phone calls because it spares them from being trapped in a conversation.  I do understand that.  When you are busy or immersed in a project or even in the middle of a great book, being interrupted by the phone can be an annoyance.  However, it seems less likely that Twitter, or even texts, can develop relationships in the same way that conversation can.

Although it is difficult to predict what new technology may replace Twitter, history would predict that something will.

What Makes Things Obsolete?

Isaac Werner's penmanship

When Isaac B. Werner kept his journal, his tool was a pen.  Previous blogs have shared Isaac's effort to improve his penmenship, having a "good hand" an important indication of an educated man.  

Typewriters had been invented by the 1880s and 1890s when Isaac was keeping the journal about his years on the Kansas prairie.  The picture of an 1881 Hammond typewriter below was taken from the Editor's Page of Elle Decor.  Michael Boodro, editor, titled his editorial "When Does An Object of Desire Become Obsolete?"  His question inspired this blog.

I took a typewriting class in high school, perhaps my sophomore year, and as I recall, everyone in my class took typing, both boys and girls.  I believe that was when I asked my parents for a typewriter, and I think my portable typewriter was a birthday gift.  It served me through high school, college, and law school and was my only personal typewriter until the computer age arrived.  I did use electric typewriters for a couple of jobs, and I remember the clatter of keys and the ding of the bell as it reached the end of each row of typing.

1881 Hammond typewriter

In his article for Elle Decor, Michael Boodro recalled that he asked for a typewriter for Christmas when he was twelve, adding that he was an unashamed nerd.  In his editorial he used the evolution of typewriters to explore the impact of technology on the way we live.  However, he also pointed out that even those things which retain their function are often abandoned for reasons of style.  In other words, we often trade a perfectly serviceable automobile for a new model, or we discard clothing and furniture strictly because the styles change.

Mother's Underwood

The Underwood typewriter of unknown vintage pictured at left once belonged to my mother.  She used it to type her articles for the local newspaper, and although the sticker on the back of the machine states ownership of the copyright in Underwood Elliott Fisher Co. and production in the USA, it does not include a copyright date.  Mother loved writing, and becoming a news reporter in her senior years was like a dream come true.  I don't know where or when she acquired the Underwood typewriter, but it has a sticker from a Hutchinson business on the front, and I suspect she bought it when she became a reporter.

Although its date is uncertain, it seems older than the 1970s or early 1980s when Mother first became a reporter.  Unlike Michael Boodro, Mother would not have rejected it because it wasn't a new model.  Rather, it might have suited her imagination of what a 'girl reporter' would have used when she first dreamed of being one.

Nostalgic Mug

When Isaac Werner ordered a book on Spenserian penmanship, would he ever have imagined that slightly more than a century later students would no longer be taught cursive writing?  Will handwriting, even block printing, disappear except for jotting down brief notes as we communicate more and more by e-mail, text, tweets, and who knows what?

The advertisement for the mug pictured at right reads:  "The Lost Art of Penmanship Mug," and continues, "Kids today may not be taught cursive, but some of us fondly remember learning to mind our p's and q's...  Now you can enjoy the nostalgia of pretty penmanship with this 'educational' 12-ounce mug decorated with lower- and upper-case letters."  I believe the generally accepted origin of the saying about p's and q's relates to pub owners calling out to patrons to mind their pints and quarts in case they needed a refill before the legal hour prohibiting serving liquor arrived.  Will cursive penmanship soon be as obscure as the origin of that saying?

Many, including me, have argued that cursive writing deserves to be taught, not only for aesthetic reasons but also because taking the pains to write legibly--even beautifully--encourages thoughtful reflection, something often lost in the hasty pounding of a keyboard, abbreviated texting, and scribbled printing.  The essay in Elle Decor was directed toward the impact of technology on furnishing our homes, but perhaps Boodro's ideas should also cause us to reflect on the impact of technology on communication and reason, as well as beauty.