Scope and Contents

The collection contains materials documenting Cyrus W. Field's efforts to lay the Trans-Atlantic cable from Ireland to Newfoundland. The collection consists primarily of correspondence, publications, and maps and charts about the Trans-Atlantic cable.

Arrangement

The collection is arranged into five series.

Series 1: Personal/Biographical Materials, 1854-1896

Series 2: Photographs, 1840, 1865, 1871, 1893

Series 3: Correspondence, 1835-1893

Series 4: Publications, 1854-1893

Series 5: Miscellaneous, 1856-1897

Biographical / Historical

Cyrus Field (1819-1892) was born into a large family in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. At age fifteen an older brother helped him find a job in a New York City dry goods store. In 1840, he became junior partner in a paper company. When the firm failed a year later, he took it as a personal duty to repay all creditors. He then formed his own paper company, which succeeded due to his integrity, salesmanship, and entrepreneurial skills. By 1852, he had amassed a modest fortune and retired. Early in 1854, a contact made by another brother led Field to take over a bankrupt project to build a telegraph line across Newfoundland. Field had a bigger idea: extend the line to Britain.

Field gained fame for organizing the effort to successfully lay an underwater telegraph cable across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe to North America. Success in 1866 came after a decade's worth of effort and several earlier failures. To complete the cable Field marshalled financial, political and technical support on both sides of the Atlantic. He helped create companies to undertake the project and found investors willing to gamble on the new technologies involved. He negotiated with the British and American governments for material support in the form of ships and equipment, and for commitments to use the cable when it was finished. He obtained the assistance of leading scientists and engineers. In all this, the entrepreneurial skills and integrity he had demonstrated as a successful businessman, combined with his boundless enthusiasm, stood him in good stead. The resulting cable was the first means of fast transatlantic communication and one of the foundations of today's telecommunications network.

Field married Mary Bryan Stone on December 2, 1840, and they had seven children.

Materials at the Archives Center

Warshaw Collection of Business Americana (AC0060), Series: Telegraphs

Anglo-American Telegraph Company Records, 1866-1973 (AC0073)

Western Union Telegraph Company Records (AC0205), Series 6: Cyrus W. Field Papers, 1840-1892

Materials consist of drawings and illustrations, specifically the Great Eastern, illustrated magazines, publications, and newspaper clippings.

New York Public Library

Cyrus W. Field papers, 1831-1905 (bulk 1880-1890)

11 linear feet (20 boxes)

Collection contains correspondence, legal and financial documents, estate papers, inventories, notes, maps, photographs, and printed materials that document Field's business activities and estate. General correpondence, 1846-1892 (mostly incoming letters), concerns business matters. Business papers, 1858-1891, consist of correspondence and legal and financial documents relating to Field's involvement with various telegraph, railroad, and newspaper companies. Land papers, 1831-1895, pertain to properties in New York State (with information about the Croton Aqueduct), New York City and Massachusetts. Field's estate papers, 1851-1905, include wills, insurance policies, stock, correspondence, legal papers, and claims against Field's estate. Financial papers, 1843-1892, contain account books, accounts, receipts, and cancelled checks. Also, inventories of Field's estate, notes on the Field family, papers regarding Major John André monument and James Garfield memorial, maps, photographs, printed matter, and miscellaneous papers.