Edward Calahan's 1867 stock ticker, later improved by Thomas Edison, printed prices onto a ribbon of paper that, when spent, fluttered down as confetti in the ticker-tape parade.
Born
1867 CE
Died
1970 CE
Lived
103 years
Dead for
56 yrs
At its peak
Standard fixture of every brokerage and newspaper for nearly a century
Cause of death
Replaced
Replaced by
Electronic quotation systems and digital market data feeds
The Obituary
The stock ticker brought the market’s heartbeat into every brokerage. Invented by Edward Calahan, Western Union’s chief telegrapher, in 1867 and improved by a young Thomas Edison, it received telegraph signals and printed abbreviated company symbols and prices onto a thin paper ribbon, the “ticker tape,” named for the sound it made. Clerks read the unspooling tape to follow trades minute by minute. The leftover paper found a second life: New Yorkers threw it from windows to celebrate heroes, inventing the ticker-tape parade. Electronic quote terminals and digital data feeds, faster and silent, displaced the paper tickers through the 1960s and 70s.
Worth remembering
Thomas Edison's improved 'Universal Stock Printer' funded his early career as an inventor.
Spent tape thrown from Manhattan windows created the original ticker-tape parade in 1886.
Gallery
Thomas Edison stock ticker from the National Museum of American HistoryPublic domainMechanical stock ticker under a glass domePublic domain
Sources
Edward Calahan invented the stock ticker in 1867; Edison improved it Wikipedia
Ticker-tape parades originated from discarded ticker paper in New York Wikipedia
Edward Calahan invented the stock ticker while working as Western Union's chief telegrapher; machines were called 'tickers' for the sound of their printers and displaced messenger boys who previously relayed prices by hand Smithsonian Magazine
A graveyard tradition: leave a stone to show you came, and remembered.
Buried nearby — by shared fate or a neighbouring lifespan.
