{{Short description|Message sent through telegraphy}} {{for-multi|the instant messaging service|Telegram (software, linked from hatnote){{!}}Telegram (software)|other uses|Telegram (disambiguation)}}
A '''telegram''' is a written or printed message, originally sent through [[telegraphy]]. The use of the telegrams was popular for [[social communication|social]] and [[business correspondence]] in the latter half of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century. Even in the [[telephone]] age, the telegram remained popular, and spawned its own style of writing that in turn persisted in other media. Telegram services still exist today, though the popularity has largely waned, replaced by other forms of [[text messaging|text communication]]. [[File:Western Union Telegram RCC Eisenhower Sept 26 1955.jpg|alt=Western Union telegram sent to President Dwight Eisenhower wishing him a speedy recovery from his heart attack on Sept 26, 1955|thumb|[[Western Union Telegraph Company|Western Union]] telegram sent to President Dwight Eisenhower wishing him a speedy recovery from his heart attack on Sept 26, 1955]]
== Terminology ==
Initially, telegrams were sent by an [[electrical telegraph]] operator or telegrapher using [[Morse code]], or a [[printing telegraph]] operator using plain text. A '''cablegram''' was a message sent by a [[submarine telegraph cable]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cablegram|title=Cablegram – Definition of cablegram by Merriam-Webster|work=merriam-webster.com|date=27 July 2023 }}</ref> often shortened to "'''cable'''" or "'''wire'''".<ref name="Macquarie"/> The suffix -gram is derived from ancient Greek: {{lang|grc|γραμμα}} ({{wikt-lang|grc-Latn|-gram|gramma}}), meaning something written, i.e. telegram means something written at a distance and cablegram means something written via a cable, whereas telegraph implies the process of writing at a distance.
== Delivery services == {{see also|Worldwide use of telegrams by country}} [[File:1930 Western Union telegram Millsaps College Mississippi State University.jpg|thumb|Western Union telegram (1930)]]
A telegram service is a company or public entity that delivers telegrams directly to the recipient. Telegram services were inaugurated after [[electric telegraph]]y became available.
Historically, telegrams were sent between a network of interconnected telegraph offices. A person visiting a local telegraph office paid by the word to have a message telegraphed to another office and delivered to the addressee on a paper form.{{sfn|Phillips|2000|p=276}} Messages (i.e. telegrams) sent by telegraph could be delivered by [[telegraph messenger]] faster than mail.{{sfn|Smith|2015|p=433}} The electric telegraph freed communication from the time constraints of [[postal mail]] and revolutionized society and the global economy.{{sfn|Downey|2002|p=7}}
A decline that began with the growth of the use of the [[telephone]]{{sfn|Kieve|1973|p=253}} was briefly postponed by the rise of special occasion congratulatory telegrams. Traffic continued to grow between 1867 and 1893 despite the introduction of the telephone in this period.{{sfn|Phillips|2000|p=274}}
At their peak in 1929, an estimated 200 million telegrams were sent.{{sfn|Phillips|2000|p=274}}
In 1919, the Central Bureau for Registered Addresses was established in the [[Financial District, Manhattan |financial district]] of [[New York City]]. The bureau was created to ease the growing problem of messages being delivered to the wrong recipients. To combat this issue, the bureau offered telegraph customers the option to register unique code names for their telegraph addresses. Customers were charged $2.50 per year per code. By 1934, 28,000 codes had been registered.{{sfn|Gleick|2011}}{{page needed|date=February 2026}}
Telegram services still operate in much of the world. However, [[e-mail]] and [[text messaging]] have rendered telegrams obsolete in many countries, and the number of telegrams sent annually has been declining rapidly since the 1980s.{{sfn|Standage|2007}}{{page needed|date=February 2026}} Where telegram services still exist, the transmission method between offices is no longer by telegraph, but by [[telex]] or [[Internet Protocol|IP]] link.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/06/telegram-not-dead-stop/ |title=TELEGRAM NOT DEAD. STOP. |access-date=14 May 2019 |work=Ars Technica |date=19 June 2013 }}</ref>
== Length and style ==
As telegrams have been traditionally charged by the word, messages were often abbreviated to pack information into the smallest possible number of words, in what came to be called "[[telegram style]]".
The average length of a telegram in the 1900s in the US was 11.93 words; more than half of the messages were 10 words or fewer.{{sfn|Hochfelder|2012|p=79}} According to another study, the mean length of the telegrams sent in the UK before 1950 was 14.6 words or 78.8 characters.{{sfn|Frehner|2008|pp=187, 191}} For German telegrams, the mean length is 11.5 words or 72.4 characters.{{sfn|Frehner|2008|pp=187, 191}} At the end of the 19th century, the average length of a German telegram was calculated as 14.2 words.{{sfn|Frehner|2008|pp=187, 191}}
== Derived uses ==
A [[diplomatic telegram]] is a confidential communication between a [[diplomatic mission]] and the [[Foreign minister|foreign ministry]] of its parent country.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/11/29/10/1796-memos-us-embassy-manila-wikileaks-cablegate |title=1,796 memos from US embassy in Manila in WikiLeaks 'Cablegate' |date=29 November 2010 |access-date=29 November 2010 |publisher=[[ABS–CBN Corporation]] |archive-date=27 September 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120927221008/http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/11/29/10/1796-memos-us-embassy-manila-wikileaks-cablegate |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="Macquarie">Definition of "cable", {{cite book |title=The Macquarie Dictionary |edition=3rd |year=1997 |publisher=Macquarie Library |location=Australia |isbn=978-0-949757-89-0 |quote=(n.) 4. a telegram sent abroad, especially by submarine cable. (v.) 9. to send a message by submarine cable.}}</ref> These continue to be called telegrams or cables regardless of the method used for transmission.
== See also == * {{annotated link|Familygram}} * {{annotated link|Radiogram (message)|Radiogram}} * {{annotated link|Singing telegram}} * {{annotated link|Death notification telegram}} * {{annotated link|Telegram of condolence}} * {{annotated link|Datagram}} * {{annotated link|Instagram}} * {{annotated link|Telegram.org}}
== References == {{reflist}}
== Sources == * {{cite book | last = Downey | first = Gregory J. | year = 2002 | title = Telegraph Messenger Boys: Labor, Technology, and Geography, 1850–1950 | publisher = Routledge | location = New York and London}} * {{cite book |last1= Frehner |first1=Carmen|title=Email, SMS, MMS: The Linguistic Creativity of Asynchronous Discourse in the New Media Age |date=2008 |publisher=Peter Lang AG |location=Bern |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=wiVz8dDW8-cC&pg=PA191 |isbn= 978-303911451-1}} * {{cite book |last=James |first=Gleick |title=The information : a history, a theory, a flood | year = 2011 |url= http://worldcat.org/oclc/689998325 |publisher=Books on Tape |isbn= 978-0-307-91498-9 |oclc=689998325 |access-date= 2021-04-12}} * {{cite book |last1= Hochfelder |first1=David|title= The Telegraph in America, 1832–1920 |date=2012 |publisher=The Johns Hopkins University Press |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=fUDxx_bMVQUC&pg=PA79 |isbn= 978-1-42140747-0}} * {{cite book |last=Kieve |first=Jeffrey L. |title=The Electric Telegraph: A Social and Economic History |publisher=David and Charles |year=1973 |oclc=655205099 | isbn = 0-7153-5883-9 }} * {{cite journal | first = Ronnie J. | last = Phillips | url =https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00213624.2000.11506266 | title = Digital technology and institutional change from the gilded age to modern times: The impact of the telegraph and the internet | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200808010633/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00213624.2000.11506266 | archive-date = 8 August 2020 | journal = Journal of Economic Issues | volume = 34 | issue = 2 | pages = 267–89 | date = June 2000 }} * {{cite book | first = Richard E. | last = Smith | title = Elementary Information Security | publisher = Jones & Bartlett Publishers | year = 2015 | isbn = 1284055949 }} * {{cite book | first = Tom | last = Standage | title = The Victorian Internet | chapter = Afterword | publisher = Walker & Co | year = 2007 | isbn = 978-0-802-71879-2}}
[[Category:Telegrams| ]] [[Category:Telegraphy]] [[Category:Telecommunications]] [[Category:Types of mail]] [[Category:Written communication]] [[Category:Documents]]