Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-9q27g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-17T17:49:52.489Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“The Dictograph Hears All”: An Example of Surveillance Technology in the Progressive Era

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2010

Kathryn W. Kemp
Kathryn W. Kemp
Affiliation:
Clayton State University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

During the first decade of the twentieth century, Kelley M. Turner of New York invented a telephone apparatus of very high sound sensitivity, which he called the “Dictograph.” (It should not be confused with the Dictaphone, a device used to record dictation.) Although his original idea was for a communications system with a great variety of applications, the Dictograph ultimately became one of the earliest electric eavesdropping devices, used by both police and private investigators. As such, the Dictograph played a part in some notable criminal prosecutions and was used in antiunion activity. It continued to be used in this way until it was rendered obsolescent by other technologies. The emergence of the preferred applications of the Dictograph illuminates aspects of the sociology of technology, such as the concept of “acoustic space.” It also raised issues related to the ethics and law of clandestine listening.

Type
Essays
Information
The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era , Volume 6 , Issue 4 , October 2007 , pp. 409 - 430
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 In spite of the similarity of the names, the Dictograph and the Dictophone lack any close connection. Turner's Dictograph most closely resembles the telephone and was used for realtime communication, while the Dictophone most closely resembles the phonograph and was used to record dictation for transcription.

2 New York Times, Nov. 18, 1905.Google Scholar

3 Sterne, Jonathan, The Audible Past: Cultural Origins Of Sound Reproduction (Durham, NC, 2003), 144–49;CrossRefGoogle ScholarElsea, Peter, “Microphones” (1996),Google Scholar <http://arts.ucsc.edu/EMS/Music/ tech_background/TE-20/teces_20.html> (accessed Nov 2, 2006), offers a description, accessible to the non-specialist reader, of how microphones convert sound waves to electricity; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., “Phonautograph,” IEEE Virtual Museum (c. 2005), <http://www.ieee-virtual-museum.org/collection/tech.php?taid=&id= 2345805&lid=l> (accessed Nov. 2, 2006).

4 The Dictograph Hears All,” New York Times, Dec. 2, 1911, p. 5.Google Scholar

5 U. S. Patent Office, Annual Report of the Commissioner of Patents: Gazette (1907), 126:2806Google Scholar and ibid., 127:184; Turner's patents included “Carbon Ball Transmitter” #844635 and“Acousticon” #846068.

6 U.S. Patent Office, Annual Report of the Commissioner of Patents: Gazette (1907), 126:2806Google Scholar and ibid., 127:184.

7 New York Times, Jan. 19, 1908, sec. 5Google Scholar; New York Times, Nov. 18, 1905,Google Scholar reported a similar Turner demonstration.

8 New York Times, April 10, 1913.Google Scholar

9 U.S. Patent Office, “Telephonic System for Auditoriums,” Annual Report and Index of Patents: Gazette (1909), 148: 991Google Scholar; New York Times, Dec. 15, 1913Google Scholar.

10 New York Times, Dec. 21, 1913.Google Scholar

11 McNicol, Donald, “The Early Days of Radio in America,” The Electrical Experimenter, April 1917, 893, 911.Google Scholar

12 Marconi Corporation, “Marconi History,” <http://www.marconi.com/Home/about_us/Our%20History/Marconi%20Heritage/Marconi%20History> (accessed Nov. 2, 2006).

13 Readers unfamiliar with the sociology of science and technology might refer to Bijker, Wiebe E., Hughes, Thomas P., and Pinch, Trevor J., eds., The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology (Cambridge, MA, 1987),Google Scholar which begins with a helpful overview of the field; also useful are readings found in MacKenzie, Donald and Wajcman, Judy, eds., The Social Shaping of Technology (Philadelphia, 1999)Google Scholar.

14 Except to make a case for a divorce. See the discussion of the Carman case, below.

15 New York Times, Dec. 2, 1911.Google Scholar

16 Cowan, Geoffrey, The People vs. Clarence Darrow: The Bribery Trial of America's Greatest Lauyer (New York, 1993),Google Scholar presents a detailed history of this episode and the subsequent court cases. An account of the actual explosion appears on pp. 87-90.

17 Hunt, William R., Front Page Detective: William J. Burns and the Detective Profession, 1880-1930 (Bowling Green OH, 1990), 52–65,Google Scholar specific reference to Dictograph, 63; New York Times, Dec. 2, 1911, pp. 1, 5Google Scholar.

18 Darrow, Clarence, The Story of My Life, (1932; New York, 1996), 180 ff.,Google Scholar quote on 182.

19 , Cowan, The People vs. Clarence Darrow, 257–58.Google Scholar

20 Ibid., 302-432 recounts the trial.

21 Darrow, Clarence, “Plea of Clarence Darrow, in his own Defense to the Jury that exonerated him of the charge of bribery at Los Angeles, August 1912,”Google Scholar foreword by “Luke North” [James Griffes] (1912). Two friends of Darrow, Fay Lewis and James Griffes (using the pen name “Luke North”) prepared this pamphlet to supplement the court transcript, which they found inadequate. Darrow refers to both men in The Story Of My Life, 187-88.

22 , Darrow, “Plea,” 4.Google Scholar

23 New York Times, June 24, 27, 28, 1911.Google Scholar

24 , Hunt, Front Page Detective, 52–65;Google ScholarNew York Times, July 15, 1912Google Scholar; Blease lost the 1914 governor's race.

25 New York Times, Aug. 3, 1912.Google Scholar

26 New York Times, Oct. 14, 1912.Google Scholar

27 New York Times, Jan. 25, 1913,Google Scholar Jan. 1, 1914.

28 New York Times, April 10, 1913.Google Scholar

29 New York Times, July 2, 1914.Google Scholar

30 Ibid.

31 ibid. See also “Carman, (Airs.) Florence” and “Bailey, Mrs. William D.,” New York Times Index, 1914,Google Scholar for dozens of other stories on the case published between July and December.

32 F. W. Stockman, Railway Audit and Inspection Company, to Charles E. White, Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills, April 21, 1921, ms004-250, Archives, Library and Information Center, Georgia Institute of Technology, Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills Records Digital Collection. Hereafter cited as “FBCM digital collection.” Each item in the Digital Collection has a unique item number, such as ms004-250. This collection, a portion of the larger Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills Records collection, may be searched online at <http://www.library.gatech.edu/fulton_bag/>.

33 Two thorough accounts of the strike are Fink, Gary M., The Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills Strike of 1914-1915: Espionage, Labor Conflict, and New South Industrial Relations (Ithaca, NY, 1993); andGoogle ScholarKuhn, Clifford M., Contesting the New South Order: The 1914-1915 Strike at Atlanta's Fulton Mills (Chapel Hill, 2001)Google Scholar.

34 “Report of Operative A. E. W.,” June 1, 1914,Google Scholar ms004-125, and “Report of Opr. J. Y. W,” June 1, 1914,Google Scholar ms004-126, FBCM digital collection.

35 “Report of Operative A.E.W” June 1. 1914, ms004-125; ‘Report of Operative A.EAX’” June 2, 1914, ms004-130; “Report of Operative J.W.W.” June 2, 1914, msO04-129; “Report of J.W.W. Inspector and A. E. W. no. 10,” June 3, 1914, ms004-131; “Report of Operatives J.W.W. and A. E. W.” June 5, 1914, ms004-128; and “Report of Operatives J.W.W. and A. E. W,” June 9, 1914, ms004-132, FBCM digital collection.

36 “Report of Operatives J.W.W and A.F.W,” June 9, 1914, ms 004-134, FBCM digital collection.

37 “Report of Operatives J.WW and A.E.W,” June 10, 1914, ms004-133, FBCM digital collection.

38 Invoice for “two Detecto's,” Railway Audit and Inspection Co. (Inc.), General Office Building, Brown Brothers & Co. (Bankers), Fourth and Chestnut Sts., Philadelphia, June 15, 1914, ms004-137, FBCM digital collection (The operative reports use only “Dictograph” to refer to the equipment; “Detecto” may have been a mistake on the part of the individual who wrote the invoice.); Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills Records, box 10, folder 3 “A14-05-COR: Correspondence (folder 1 of 3),” May 1914-Aug.1918, Archives, Library and Information Center, Georgia Institute of Technology.

39 Oney, Steve, And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the lynching of Leo Frank (New York, 2003), 104–13.Google Scholar Frank, having been condemned in a dubious court proceeding to hang for the murder of his teenaged employee, Mary Phagan, was reprieved by Georgia's Governor John M. Slayton, only to be abducted and lynched before he could pursue legal appeals.

40 lbid., 109.

41 It is circumstantially interesting that the General Acoustic Company's offices in Manhattan were in the Candler Building, which was the property of Atlanta millionaire Asa Candler, a director of the compan y that operated Atlanta's streetcars; and in addition, a 1924 letterhead for the Railway Audit and Inspection company (cited above) shows that it had several offices, including one in the Candler building located in New York and a second in the Atlanta Candler Building. However, no direct evidence linking Candler to Dictograph use has emerged. For more on Candler's varied career, Kemp, Kathryn W, God's Capitalist: Asa Candler of Coca-Cola (Macon, GA, 2002)Google Scholar.

42 Atlanta journal, Nov. 19, 1916Google Scholar; journal of Labor (Atlanta), Nov. 22, 1916Google Scholar.

43 Atlanta'journal Feb. 17, 22, March 13, June 27, 1917.Google Scholar

44 Bell, Kristie and Webster, Frank, eds., The Intensification of Surveillance: Crime, Terrorism, and Warfare in the Information Age (Sterling, VA, 2003), 7–9.Google Scholar

45 Display advertisement, New York Times, April 10, 1919Google Scholar; trademark registered to Dictograph Products Corporation, September 25, 1928, serial number 71249514, Trademark Electronic Search System (Tess), Trademark Applications and Registrations Retrieval database, United States Patent and Trademark Office. This trademark is a white letter “D” with a lightening bolt design on a black background.

46 Reis, Jim,“‘Americanism’ Triumphed in Espionage Trials of 1918,”Google Scholar Pieces of the Past, @ The [Cincinnati] Post, March 31, 1997,Google Scholar <http://www.kypost.com/opinion/ reisO33197.html> (accessed Nov. 2, 2006).

47 New York Times, Jan. 19, 1908Google Scholar; Ernst, Morris L., Letters to Editor, New York Times, July 11, 1914Google Scholar; obituary, New York Times, May 23, 1976.Google Scholar Ernst defended a variety of controversial causes, including the right of Random House to publish the previously banned )ames Joyce novel, Ulysses.

48 Oxford English Dictionary entries for bug, bugged.

49 Reeve, Arthur B., The Poisoned Pen (1912),Google Scholar Project Gutenberg ebook, <http://www.guten-berg.org/etext/5007> (accessed November 2, 2006); “A Suspicious Wife,” American Film Institute Catalog, Silent Films, <http://www.afi.com/members/catalog/AbbrVie/v.aspx?s = l&Movie=13713> (accessed Nov. 2, 2006).

50 McLean, Deckle, Privacy and Its Invasion (Westport, CT, 1995), 1–30.Google Scholar These two chapters summarize recent scholarly efforts to define and analyze the concept.

51 Spacks, Patricia Meyer, Privacy: Concealing the Eighteenth-Century Self (Chicago, 2003), 3, 6–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

52 , Spacks, Privacy, 3, 6–7;Google Scholar, McLean, Privacy and Its Invasion, 2Google Scholar.

53 , McLean, Priracy and Its Invasion, 22.Google Scholar

54 Sterne, Jonathan, The Audible Past, 155, 159–60.Google Scholar

55 Pember, Don R., Privacy and the Press: The Law, the Mass Media, and the First Amendment (Seattle, 1972), 23–25.Google Scholar

56 Warren, Samuel D. and Brandeis, Louis D., “The Right to Privacy,” Harvard Law Reriew 4, (Dec. 1890): 195.Google Scholar

57 New York Times, July 12, 1914.Google Scholar He added the suggestion that such equipment might also be used for wartime spying.

58 Olmstead n. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928).Google Scholar

59 Goldman v. United States, 316 U.S. 129 (1942)Google Scholar; Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967)Google Scholar.

60 , Bell and , Webster, The Intensification of Surveillance, 4Google Scholar; Dash, Samuel, Schwartz, Richard F., and Knowlton, Robert E., The Eavesdroppers (New York, 1971), 23–28;Google Scholar Investigative Mechanics, Inc., “Advanced Surveillance Technologies, Tools, 2004,” catalog.

61 DHS Emerging Applications and Technology Subcommittee, “The Use of RFID for Human Identification, A DRAFT REPORT…to the Full Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee” (Version 1.0), <http://ww/v.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/privacy/priva-cy_advcom_rpt_rfid_draft.pdf‘> (accessed Nov. 2, 2006); a thorough discussion of the RFID may be found in Albrecht, Katherine and Mclntyre, Liz, Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID (Nashville, TN, 2005)Google Scholar; a Google search of “Homeland Security RFID” will produce a list of pages devoted to the pros and cons of this issue.