Western Union Telegraph Company

The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services company headquartered in Denver, Colorado.

Founded in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York, the company changed its name to the Western Union Telegraph Company in 1856 after merging with several other telegraph companies. It dominated the American telegraphy industry from the 1860s to the 1980s, pioneering technology such as telex and developing a range of telegraph-related services, including wire money transfer, in addition to its core business of transmitting and delivering telegram messages.

After experiencing financial difficulties, it began to move its business away from communications in the 1980s and increasingly focused on its money-transfer services. It ceased its communications operations completely in 2006, at which time The New York Times described it as "the world's largest money-transfer business" and added that, due to the large number of immigrants wiring money home, it would keep this top position.

Date Range of DAHR Recordings: 1936

Roles Represented in DAHR: sponsor

= Recordings are available for online listening.
= Recordings were issued from this master. No recordings issued from other masters.

Recordings

Company Matrix No. Size First Recording Date Title Primary Performer Description Role Audio
Victor BS-99546 10-in. 2/6/1936 Counting from 1 to 10 Artists vary Unknown sponsor  

Citation

Discography of American Historical Recordings, s.v. "Western Union Telegraph Company," accessed April 24, 2024, https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/names/102128.

Western Union Telegraph Company. (2024). In Discography of American Historical Recordings. Retrieved April 24, 2024, from https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/names/102128.

"Western Union Telegraph Company." Discography of American Historical Recordings. UC Santa Barbara Library, 2024. Web. 24 April 2024.

DAHR Persistent Identifier

URI: https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/names/102128

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