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Guglielmo Marconi Correspondence
mssMarconi
correspondence
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Title: Guglielmo Marconi
Correspondence
Dates: 1899-1902
Collection Number: mssMarconi
correspondence
Creator:
Marconi, Guglielmo,
1874-1937
Extent:
125 pieces + newspaper clippings in 2 boxes
Repository:
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens
Manuscripts Department
The Huntington Library
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, California 91108
Phone: (626) 405-2191
Fax: (626) 449-3477
Email: reference@huntington.org
URL: http://www.huntington.org
Abstract: The collection chiefly contains the
correspondence of Italian physicist Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937), primarily to his American fiancée, Josephine
Bowen Holman. There are two manuscripts: Morse Code Legend written by Marconi and Holman's diary for January to April
1902.
Language of Material: The records are in English.
Open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services Department. For more information, contact Reader
Services.
The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from or publish images of this material,
nor does it charge fees for such activities.
The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and obtaining necessary permissions rests with
the researcher.
[Identification of item]. Guglielmo Marconi Correspondence, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
Gift of Hon. Peter Smith, August 5, 2005.
Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937) was an Italian physicist who spent much of his professional life in
Great Britain. In the late 1890s he began experimenting with wireless telegraphy,
which culminated on December 14, 1901, with the first trans-Atlantic transmission of
a wireless telegraph. Marconi would later go on to experiment with short-wave radio
and microwaves. For a brief period that overlaps with his experiments with wireless
telegraphy, he was engaged to an American he met on the steamer St. Paul from New
York to England, Josephine Bowen Holman. The engagement was broken off by Marconi in
early 1902, and both later married other people.
This collection consists of letters and telegrams from Guglielmo Marconi to his
fiancée, Josephine Bowen Holman.
There are also letters to Holman from Marconi’s mother, Annie Jameson Marconi, one of
his engineers, R. Norman Vyvyan, and various other correspondents (mainly family
members). Portions of some of the letters to Holman from Marconi are written in
Morse code, and there are pictures of his telegraph towers in Cornwall and two of
his family home in Bologna.
There are two manuscripts: Morse Code Legend written by Marconi and Holman’s diary
for January to April 1902. There are six pieces of ephemera, including two published
copies of a paper by Marconi on the wireless telegraphy that he gave March 2, 1899
to the Institution of Electrical Engineers, and 141 newspaper clippings.
Subjects include: Marconi and Holman’s relationship, Nikola Tesla, Alexander Graham
Bell, Morse Code, and Marconi’s invention: the wireless telegraph.
Arrangement
The collection, which is housed in two boxes, is arranged in the following
manner: the first three authors are arranged by number of letters in the
collection (Guglielmo Marconi, R. Norman Vyvyan and Annie Jameson Marconi, in
that order), and the rest are arranged alphabetically by other authors. The
manuscripts, ephemera and clippings are placed after the correspondence.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the
Huntington Library's Online Catalog.
Marconi, Guglielmo, 1874-1937 -
Archives
Bell, Alexander Graham,
1847-1922
Tesla, Nikola, 1856-1943
Courtship - Europe - History - 19th
century - Sources
Inventors - Great Britain -
Archives
Inventors - Italy - Archives
Morse code
Telegraph, Wireless - Marconi system -
History - Sources
Women - United States - History - 20th
century - Diaries
Diaries - United States - 20th
century
Letters (correspondence) - Great
Britain - 19th century
Personal papers - Great Britain - 19th
century
Holman, Beatrice
Bowen
Marconi, Annie
Jameson
Vyvyan, R.
Norman