When I first saw the Western Union telegram, Jerry Butler started singing in my head:
“Oh, Western Union man, send a telegram to my baby
Send a telegram, send a telegram, whoa
Send a telegram to my baby
This is what I want you to say.”
It was his 1968 song titled “Hey, Western Union Man,” and this slip of paper and envelope in front of me at the auction house represented that song. The telegram had been sent on Tuesday, Sept. 12, 1944, from John (with the Special Services Army Exchange) to his wife Mrs. John, telling her that he would be arriving the next day at 10 a.m.
Telegrams had obviously been around a long time when Butler recorded his song. In fact, they’d been around since the 1850s, and became very popular in the 1920s and 1930s. They were first delivered by a courier (during World War II, a courier delivering a telegram usually signaled the death of a soldier). By the 1970s the courier service was discontinued due to decreasing long-distance rates and changes in how we communicated with each other.
No one sends telegrams anymore to announce their arrival, their apology for not attending an event or a profession of their love to another (just as John had done, too, in his telegram). Western Union stopped offering them in 2006.
As I stood there reading the telegram and another seemingly from the wife, I got to thinking about some of the other items I had seen at auction that were extinct.
What are we using today that would have served the same purpose 50 or more years ago? I’ve compiled photos of some of those items from the auction tables. Can you list their equivalents today, whether they are obsolete, or how they have been upgraded into something better and more efficient?
