Ticker tape was the earliest electrical dedicated financial communications medium, transmitting stock price information over telegraph lines, in use from around 1870 through 1970. It consisted of a paper strip that ran through a machine called a stock ticker, which printed abbreviated company names as alphabetic symbols followed by numeric stock transaction price and volume information. The term "ticker" came from the sound made by the machine as it printed.
Watching the ticker tape, 1918
Edison gold & stock ticker
Hughes telegraph (1866–1914) transmitter keyboard to send text over telegraph wires to be printed as text on a paper tape. Manufactured by Siemens & Halske, Germany; range: 300–400 km
A ticker monitor simulates ticker tape but uses a different method.
The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in Denver, Colorado.
Western Union Telegraph Building, lithograph
A Western Union telegram sent on September 7, 1896, to report on the positions of two comets
A 12-year-old Western Union messenger boy in Tampa, Florida, 1911
Advertisement for Western Union "Tourate" telegram service, 1939