Commercial Telegraphers Union of America

The Commercial Telegraphers Union of America (CTUA) was a United States labor union formed to promote the interests of commercial telegraph operators.

The first practical telegraph system in the United States was put into operation by Samuel F. B. Morse and Alfred Vail between Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, DC, in 1844. By 1846, telegraph lines extended along the entire eastern seaboard and were rapidly being built westward into the interior of the country.

Early uses of the telegraph included sending press reports, commodities prices, and business transactions. As time went on, the telegraph was increasingly used by the general public for sending personal messages. During the American Civil War, the telegraph was used extensively by the Union Army for military intelligence purposes.

During the American Civil War, telegraph operators in the North organized the first telegraphers' association, the National Telegraphic Union (NTU), in 1863. The NTU saw itself primarily as a mutual benefit organization that sought to improve professional standards and provide members with benefits in the event of death, retirement, or sickness. The NTU avoided taking a stand on controversial issues, such as the admission of women as members, or the right to strike to obtain higher pay and better working conditions; as telegraphers became dissatisfied with pay rates and working conditions in the late 1860s, they abandoned the NTU for more militant organizations and the NTU itself gradually faded away.

The Telegraphers' Protective League (TPL), founded in 1868, took a more activist stance in demanding pay increases and better working conditions for its members. Its primary goal was to organize the telegraph operators who worked for Western Union, by then the largest telegraph company, and, after its absorption of its two rivals, the American Telegraph Company and the United States Telegraph Company, in 1866, a near monopoly. The TPL called a strike in January 1870 after Western Union attempted to cut the wages of four operators in San Francisco; however, the strike was unsuccessful and was called off after only two weeks when the telegraph company simply hired non-union operators to take the place of the strikers.

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