1918 | Communications, Media
Communications, Media
Former Collier's magazine publisher Robert J. Collier returns home to New York April 12 from a long tour of the front, sits down to dinner at his 1067 Fifth Avenue town house, and dies of a heart attack at age 41 (see Crowell-Collier, 1919); Nobel physicist (and cathode-ray tube inventor) Ferdinand Braun dies in a Brooklyn, N.Y., hospital April 20 at age 67 (he had come to the United States to testify in litigation involving radio broadcasting and was detained here last year when America entered the war).
Congress appropriates $100,000 for an experimental airmail service to be operated jointly by the army and post office between Washington, D.C., and New York via Philadelphia. An army surplus Curtiss JN-4 biplane leaves May 14 on the first flight from Belmont Park, Long Island, lands at Philadelphia, and continues the next day to Washington, where it is greeted by President Wilson. The first official U.S. mail flight never makes it to New York. The pilot discovers on his first takeoff attempt at Washington that someone has forgotten to fill the fuel tank, and after he does take off he becomes lost over Maryland and has to land in a cow pasture. The first U.S. airmail stamps are issued in expectation that regular service will begin between Washington and New York (the 24¢ stamps show a biplane in flight, but some of the stamps are accidentally printed with the plane inverted and the faulty stamps become rare collectors' items) (see transportation, 1921).
Chicago Tribune foreign correspondent Floyd P. Gibbons loses an eye in June as a bullet goes through his steel helmet while he is trying to observe a German machine gun too closely at Belleau Wood.
David (Alexander Cecil) Low joins the London Star at age 27 to pursue a career as political cartoonist. The New Zealand-born Australian will transfer to the Evening Standard in 1927 and become famous for satirizing the British ruling class with his "Colonel Blimp" (modeled on Field Marshal Herbert Charles Onslow, Viscount Plumer, now 61, who led the successful offensive on Messines Ridge last year and will serve as governor of Malta from 1919 to 1925).
The Boston Post reaches a circulation of 540,000 and claims the widest readership in America. The Post sells for 1¢ while the Globe and the Herald have joined most other U.S. dailies in going to 2¢.
"Gasoline Alley" by Wisconsin-born Chicago Tribune staff cartoonist Frank (O.) King, 35, capitalizes on America's growing fascination with the motorcar. Popularity of the new comic strip will zoom when its main character Walt adopts foundling Skeezix in 1921, and it will be the first strip whose characters grow and age.
"Believe It or Not!" by Santa Rosa, Calif.-born New York Globe sports cartoonist Robert L. (LeRoy) Ripley, 24, begins appearing with sketches of men who have set records for such unlikely events as running backward and broad jumping on ice. Encouraged by reader response to pursue his quest for oddities, Ripley will move to the New York Post in 1923, syndication of his cartoons will begin soon after, and "Believe It or Not!" will eventually be carried by newspapers in 65 countries worldwide.
Marconi Co. radio operator Clair L. Farrand, now 23, quits to perfect his cone loudspeaker, which will do away with earphones (see 1912). The hard, horn-type speaker now in use is unable to produce the vibrations of higher fidelities; Farrand's paper cone speaker will prove far superior.
The U.S. Government nationalizes the telecommunications industry August 1 for reasons of national security (see Burleson, 1913); Postmaster General Albert S. Burleson appoints ATT's Theodore Vail to manage the telephone system, he names Western Union's president Newcom Carlton to run the telegraph system, both companies are able to raise rates, and long-distance rates will increase by 20 percent (see 1919).