#electrical engineering

Jörg Mager playing a Spherophone, an early electric instrument invented by Mager, at the 1926 summer music festival in the Black Forest town of Donaueschingen.

1912 Harrisburg Light and Power Company advertisement.

U.S. Census Bureau employees, circa 1960s, with the Film Optical Sensing Device for Input to Computers (FOSDIC), a device used to transfer data from paper questionnaires to microfilm.

Melba Roy, January 1st, 1964. Roy headed the group of NASA mathematicians, known as “computers,” who tracked the Echo satellites. Roy’s computations helped produce the orbital element timetables by which millions could view the satellite from Earth as it passes overhead. She went on to become Program Production Section Chief at Goddard Space Flight Center.

Dorothy Whitaker at the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) magnetic tape library, circa 1960s-70s.

Thaddeus Cahill’s 1897 patent for the Telharmonium’s tonewheel mechanism, one of the earliest musical instruments to generate sound by means of electricity.

An illustration from Charles Barnard’s 1875 short story “Kate: An Electro-Mechanical Romance”. In this scene, Kate and John are installing a private telegraph line for their amorous communications using abandoned wires.