Digital Extra: The Journal's 175th Anniversary

07.21.2004

1936. Time, distance not a match for express Wirephoto service

Confessing his "awe" in a 1936 article, Journal writer Garrett D. Byrnes wrote of the first photograph to come to the newspaper by electronic transmission:

"The annihilation of Time and Space goes on," Byrnes wrote. "The tempo of newsgathering moves up another notch."

With the Associated Press Wirephoto service, based in Boston, photographs finally could travel almost as fast as words. "Wirephoto has revolutionized modern newspaper practice just as, nearly a century ago, the telegraph came to outstrip the carrier pigeon and the pony express," The Journal reported in a March 13, 1936 preview to the new picture service.

"Utilizing the magic of the photo-electric cell, Wirephoto sends a picture across the continent over telephone wires in eight minutes without affecting the quality of the photograph." Finally, photographs of news events could appear "side by side with the stories they depict," instead of appearing days or weeks later.

The first picture to come to The Journal over Wirephoto was a shot of actress Bette Davis and her husband, Harmon O. Nelson, standing in front of the Los Angeles Wirephoto switchboard.

The Evening Bulletin published the picture March 17, 1936, under the headline:

Taken and Sent Today -- Across 3164 Miles!

The photograph was specially posed and taken for The Journal that morning to demonstrate the speed of Wirephoto. Byrnes, whose career at The Journal would span nearly 50 years, was in the Boston Wirephoto office to cover the transmission. The photo arrived in Boston as a photographic negative, which then could be processed and printed.

"From the loud-speaker came a high, shrill whine," Byrnes wrote, describing the transmission. "It was a definitely penetrating, chilling, unpleasant sound. Almost at once, the cylinder on the receiving machine began to revolve. The picture of Bette Davis and her bandsman spouse, in the form of electrical impulses of varying intensity, was coming East across more than 3000 miles."

The print was then delivered to Providence by way of a 44-minute train ride from South Station, and was published that afternoon.

"In operation, Wirephoto seems fairly effortless, rather coldly mechanical," Byrnes wrote. "But as I watched the first batch of pictures come in for this new service of The Evening Bulletin, it was impossible to avoid a feeling of bewilderment, a feeling pretty close to awe, at this device which so effectively removes those twin stumbling blocks of journalism, Time and Distance."