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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. Hello,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to This Day in History Class, a show

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Speaker 1: that tallies the gains and losses of history one day

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Speaker 1: at a time. I'm Gabelusier, and today we're talking about

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Speaker 1: a revolutionary machine that removed the geographical boundaries of the

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Speaker 1: stock market and added some cartoonish flare to turn of

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Speaker 1: the century offices. The day was November fifteenth, eighteen sixty seven.

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Speaker 1: The world's first stock ticker was unveiled at the New

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Speaker 1: York Stock Exchange. Since the exchange's founding in seventeen ninety two,

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Speaker 1: transactions had only been reported either by mail or by messenger,

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Speaker 1: and in many cases, a stock's price would change by

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Speaker 1: the time a quote reached the investor, meaning that traders

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Speaker 1: often didn't know the true price at which they were buying.

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Speaker 1: The advent of the stock ticker didn't solve that problem entirely,

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Speaker 1: but it did greatly increase the speed of trading communications.

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Speaker 1: That's because the device could receive up to the minute

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Speaker 1: stock prices over telegraph wires and then print them out

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Speaker 1: almost in real time on long, thin ribbons of paper tape.

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Speaker 1: The ticker's name came from the sound of the typewheel

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Speaker 1: as it pressed out the endless chains of letters and digits.

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Speaker 1: If you've never heard one before, it sounds like this.

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Speaker 1: The inventor of the stock ticker was Boston native Edward Callahan.

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Speaker 1: After dropping out of school at age eleven to pursue

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Speaker 1: a career in business, Callahan landed a job as a

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Speaker 1: telegrapher at the company that would later become Western Union.

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Speaker 1: He eventually worked his way up to being the chief

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Speaker 1: telegrapher at the firm's New York office, but after a

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Speaker 1: chance encounter on the city streets, he decided to strike

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Speaker 1: out on his own. One day, while walking near a

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Speaker 1: stock exchange in New York, Callahan noticed a group of

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Speaker 1: messenger boys running full tilt to a nearby broker's office.

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Speaker 1: They were delivering the current stock prices for various companies

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Speaker 1: fresh from the trading floor, and had made Callahan realize

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Speaker 1: how much simpler the process would be if investors could

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Speaker 1: receive stock quotes by telegraph instead. He decided to tackle

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Speaker 1: the project himself, and what he came up with was

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Speaker 1: a modified telegraph receiver that could print the current price

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Speaker 1: of a given company stock. This would allow business owners

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Speaker 1: and investors to keep a constant eye on the marketplace.

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Speaker 1: They could learn how many shares had been traded each

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Speaker 1: day and the price per share, as well as how

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Speaker 1: much the price rose or fell since the previous day's closing.

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Speaker 1: The ease and speed of that reporting was invaluable to

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Speaker 1: investors on Wall Street, but also to ones all around

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Speaker 1: the country. Those who could afford a stock ticker bought

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Speaker 1: one right away, in larger enterprises bought several, using each

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Speaker 1: one to provide information on a different mix of stocks.

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Speaker 1: The technology was also a win for the New York

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Speaker 1: Stock Exchange, spurring its growth and bringing in new business

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Speaker 1: that had once been spread out among different local exchanges.

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Speaker 1: The stock ticker wasn't perfect, though, and in eighteen seventy one,

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Speaker 1: Thomas Edison took a crack at improving it. His version,

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Speaker 1: known as the Universal Stock Printer, was able to be

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Speaker 1: synchronized with other tickers on a telegraph line so that

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Speaker 1: they all printed the same information. It also required much

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Speaker 1: less battery power than Callahan's original. As a result, Edison's

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Speaker 1: design became the industry standard for many years, and remained

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Speaker 1: so with some adjustments until around nineteen thirty, when a

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Speaker 1: faster ticker was developed. Along the way, New Yorkers found

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Speaker 1: a new use for the coils of used ticker tape

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Speaker 1: that had begun to pile up in their offices. The

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Speaker 1: first recorded ticker tape parade took place in eighteen eighty

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Speaker 1: to celebrate the unveiling of the Statue of Liberty. Throwing

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Speaker 1: the paper wasn't planned in advance. Several workers just started

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Speaker 1: flinging ribbons of tape out their office windows onto the

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Speaker 1: passing parade, and the people in other buildings saw them

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Speaker 1: and started doing the same. The flurry of ticker tape

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Speaker 1: added such a festive touch to the proceedings that it

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Speaker 1: soon became a fixture of New York parades. Although the

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Speaker 1: pieces thrown now tend to be smaller and more colorful

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Speaker 1: than the first patch. Thanks to its use in parades,

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Speaker 1: ticker tape has actually outlasted the stock ticker itself. The

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Speaker 1: last mechanical models were released in the early nineteen sixties

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Speaker 1: and were able to print up to nine hundred characters

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Speaker 1: per minute. In nineteen sixty five, a ticker was first

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Speaker 1: linked to a computer system, allowing it to print transactions

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Speaker 1: within seconds of their execution on the exchange floor. Within

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Speaker 1: a few years, computer networks were able to send the

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Speaker 1: information straight to an electronic display, eliminating the need for

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Speaker 1: both the ticker and its tape. The new setup allowed

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Speaker 1: data to circulate much faster and more efficiently, paving the

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Speaker 1: way for truly global markets. And while the silent, ceaseless

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Speaker 1: scrolling of an electronic display isn't as charming as an

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Speaker 1: old fashioned stock ticker, the machine's legacy does live on

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Speaker 1: in at least one way. The three or four letter

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Speaker 1: codes that identify specific stocks are still known as ticker symbols,

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Speaker 1: and some especially long lived companies are still traded using

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Speaker 1: the same shorthand they started with more than one hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty years ago. I'm Gabelusier and hopefully you now

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Speaker 1: know a little more about history today than you did yesterday.

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Speaker 1: You can learn even more about history by following us

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Speaker 1: on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TDI HC Show, and

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Speaker 1: if you have any feedback you'd like to share, feel

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Speaker 1: free to pass it along by writing to this day

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Speaker 1: at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks as always to Chandler Mays

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Speaker 1: for producing the show, and thank you for listening. I'll

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Speaker 1: see you back here again tomorrow for another day in

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Speaker 1: history class,