Western Union Telegraph Company to Charles W. Chesnutt, 20 October 1921
| Textual Feature | Appearance |
|---|---|
| alterations to base text (additions or deletions) | added or deleted text |
| passage deleted with a strikethrough mark | |
| passage deleted by overwritten added text | Deleted text Added text |
| position of added text (if not added inline) | [right margin] text added in right margin; [above line] text added above the line |
| proofreading mark | ‸ |
| page number, repeated letterhead, etc. | page number or repeated letterhead |
| supplied text | [supplied text] |
| archivist note | archivist note |
Form 101 A
THE WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH COMPANY
INCORPORATED
TE CLEVELAND OHIO Office OCT 20 19Your telegram dated OCT 20 to DR EDW J CHESTNUTT1 WATERLOO IND is undelivered.
Reason: PARTY IS UNKNOWN THERE2
If you desire to communicate with this office by telephone in regard to the above message, call ONT 1740 and ask for extension No. 7
Changes in the address must be paid for at the usual rates.
SVC BUREAU ManagerCorrespondent: The Western Union Telegraph Company was founded in the 1850s as a merger of several telegraph services, including Cleveland-based companies. It was the dominant U.S. telecommunications company for over a century. Telegrams remained more common and more reliable than telephone calls for long-distance telecommunication into the 1930s.
1. Edwin Jackson Chesnutt (1883—1939) was the third child of Charles and Susan Chesnutt. Born in North Carolina, he spent his childhood in Cleveland, Ohio, graduated from Harvard University in 1905, and decided not to remain abroad after an extended stay in France in 1906. Instead, he trained and worked as a stenographer, including at the Tuskegee Institute from 1910–1912. After obtaining a degree in dentistry at Northwestern University in 1917, he became a dentist in Chicago. [back]
2. Chesnutt's son Edwin lived in Chicago, Illinois, where he practiced dentistry from 1917 until shortly before his death; nothing further is known about his possible connection to Waterloo, Indiana, or other towns of that name that might have caused the error in the address (including a Waterloo in Southern Illinois). [back]
