History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications
from the first submarine cable of 1850 to the worldwide fiber optic network

Memorabilia & Ephemera

According to the American Antiquarian Society, which has an extensive collection of these 19th century albums, it is not known how they were created and marketed - it is quite possible that they were made to order or in small batches as souvenirs or for holiday gift giving. No two albums are identical, although there are many instances of similarities in page blocks, illustrations, or bindings.

The binding is black morocco leather; the cover is embossed with an elaborate border design and has a center medallion gold-stamped with “Atlantic Cable Album” and surrounded by a cable twist border. A 1/8" thick slice of the 1858 cable, with the word “Charm” above it, is inset into the cover. The back cover and spine are also embossed and gold stamped. To accommodate the cable sample, the front board is over twice as thick as the rear board.

Front Cover	Spine and Fore-edge		Back Cover

Click here for a close-up showing the cable specimen mounted in the album cover, here for a closeup of the title on the spine, and here for a closeup showing the thicker front board.

The album has a stock title page of John C. Riker, 315 Broadway, New-York. Riker was first listed in New York directories in 1827, and produced albums of this general style for many years.

A label pasted inside the front cover reads:

Entered according to act of Congress in the year 1858, by EUGENE ELY, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New-York.

The publisher of the album was Eugene Ely, of Harper’s Building, 335 Pearl Street, New York. I can find no business records for Ely, the only mentions being listings and advertisements in business directories of the period. For example, Trow’s New York City Directory for 1865 has an ad for Eugene Ely as a “Dealer in Paper and Paper Makers’ Stock and Materials” at 94 Gold St., New York.

Interestingly, the fortune which Cyrus Field invested in the Atlantic cable had come from his long-standing paper business, so perhaps Eugene Ely knew Cyrus Field through their common business interests in New York, all the addresses of which were within a few blocks of each other in the Lower East Side of Manhattan near the river. Indeed, in a book on the history and prospects of the City of New-York published in 1851, the two firms even had advertisements on the same page! Further, Ely’s list of merchandise includes “Blank Books, full & half bound”, and he may well have been dealing with John C. Riker for these.

Is it then possible that a long-standing acquaintance with Field, together with the availability of Riker’s blank albums, may have been what inspired Ely to publish the Atlantic Cable Album in 1858?

The album label also notes: “This Specimen of the Atlantic Cable guaranteed by the Publisher to be genuine,” and “Patent applied for.” Some copies of the album have a similar label printed in silver on black, and without the “Patent applied for” wording.

There is no record of any patent issued to Eugene Ely, and the only published mention of the album is this classified advertisement in the 9 October 1858 issue of the New York Times:

No other types of album published by Ely are known, so it seems likely that he ordered stock albums from Riker made with a special front cover incorporating a recess for the cable, inserted the cable, added his own label on the inside front cover, and sold them at retail. A number of examples of the album have survived, and these all show Riker’s typical variations of leather color and embossing design; some, like the example above, include Riker’s title page while others do not.

Eight variations of the Atlantic Cable album are shown at the bottom of this page for reference.

Ten of the pages have often-lengthy inscriptions to the book’s owner, the first and earliest being dated March 24 1860. Two of the inscriptions, one occupying two pages and the other a full page, mention the laying of the 1858 cable in their text.  Most of the others are poetry of a Victorian or religious sentiment, with one being just a brief and rather cryptic inscription from the owner’s brother. Images and transcribed text of the inscriptions are reproduced below.

Some of the background material here is derived from an acquisition note on the American Antiquarian Society website.

The Inscriptions

To Miss Julia Smith

An album among the Romans was a white table upon which records were made. Among us an album is a book in which friends insert for each other some memorial of enduring regard and attachment. Where then you request me to dedicate this volume I would do so by simply combining the “Old Roman” and the modern definitions. These pages are now pure and white. Let only impressions of pure unsullied sincere truth be made thereupon. You open now these pages for such inscriptions. Let not the Flatterer there soil a single page. May no daydreamer or friend of sunshine only find a place. If these pages should be turned when the sun of prosperity may be overcast with clouds of adversity then may you at least find sunshine here. But yours is called an “Atlantic Telegraph Album”. That was a noble deed that united two continents in electromagnetic bonds. Those were noble sentiments first transmitted over that sea-covered path. But there is another telegraph which unites not two continents but two worlds Earth and Heaven. Let your heart there be this Album. More pure and white than the Roman table. “Whiter than the snow”. Then may the heavenly telegraph of prayer bring you many messages from your best friend above. J. H. Pratt
North Granville March 24 1860

Examples of eight different Atlantic Cable album covers

As with Riker’s other albums, the Atlantic Cable albums all appear to have been hand made, perhaps with the individual craftsperson choosing the color of the leather, the embossing patterns, and the style of the center medallion surrounding the cable.

Here are the design variations:

Three colors of leather are used for the binding: black, brown, and red. (The two brown covers shown below are actually the same color, the shade change arising from the scanning process.)

Examples 1 through 4 use two different colors of leather, black and brown, and all have the same border embossing, but number 4 also has an embossed circular design surrounding the center medallion. The majority of albums seen have this border embossing.

Examples 5 through 7 use three colors of leather, black, brown, and red, and have almost the same border embossing as the first four, but with a sunburst design at top and bottom center.

Example 8 uses black leather and has a third style of embossing, with a vine-like floral border. This album also has the same embossed circular design surrounding the center medallion as example 4.

All eight have “Atlantic Cable Album” stamped in gold around the center medallion, but examples 1, 2 and 7 have a third color applied to the background of the medallion. Two of these have a green medallion and one is red.

With all these variations, no two of the eight albums have exactly the same design.

The back cover of all the albums repeats the embossing of the front, but instead of the cable section, the center medallion has a gold-stamped portrait of a woman surrounded by a decorative border.

1

Album very kindly donated by
Barbara Ludemann, June 2019

2

3

4

5

6

7

Bill Holly Collection

1 (detail)

Detail of a two-color medallion,
green with gold text

8

Front cover

8

Back cover

Comparison of center medallion variations

Comparison of outer border embossing patterns
The top style is most common, and several examples of the middle design
are known. Only a single example of the bottom pattern has been seen.

Copyright © 2011 FTL Design

Last revised: 27 June, 2022

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