Philo Holcomb, Jr. Papers

Born in 1893, Philo Holcomb, Jr. is noted for several contributions to the field of telegraphy during his long tenure with Western Union. Holcomb graduated from Tech High School in 1911; he then went on to earn his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia School of Technology in 1915.

Holcomb’s background in telegraphy can be partially attributed to his father, who worked for Western Union on the first transcontinental line at Julesburg Colorado and owned an extensive communication library. According to Holcomb, he learned the alphabet and Morse-code at the same time and, by the age of eleven, had already worked with neutral relays and started his own boys’ hobby club, the “back alley telegraph company”. While still in high school, Holcomb began to work summers as a branch office relief operator for the Postal Telegraph. In 1912, shortly after entering Georgia Tech, Holcomb started working summers as a transmitter clerk in the Barclay department of Western Union Telegraph Company in Atlanta. By 1914, Holcomb had secured a steady position in the Western Union district plant superintendent’s office in Atlanta. While working in the superintendent’s office, his duties consisted largely of telegraphing, conducting line and office inspections, and of implementing electrolysis surveys.

In 1917, Holcomb enlisted in the Army and, within two weeks, was on his way to France. While serving in France, Holcomb served in the first American telegraph offices in France, where he assisted in the installation of multiplex and duplex telegraphy equipment. He eventually became Chief Operator for the third Army Headquarters in Koblenz, Germany and, by the time he was discharged, was rated as a Master Signal Electrician.

In 1923, Holcomb became a Traffic Inspector for Western Union, and he relocated to the office of the Vice President of Traffic in New York. From 1924 onward, he worked on a variety of special projects for Western Union. One of his most successful projects, the Varioplex system, was his own invention. Holcomb even won a 5,000.00 development prize from Western Union in 1924 for the Varioplex; Holcomb described the device as a telegraphy application that was later utilized as the basis for International Metered Communications. The Varioplex was discussed in two AIEE papers and in at least one college textbook.

Holcomb later went on to do pioneering research in a variety of fields related to communications and telegraphy. According to Holcomb’s own account, he had applied for “approximately” thirty five different patents related to telegraphy and communications technologies. By 1946, Holcomb had become the General Traffic Engineer of the International Communication department of Western Union. By his own account, he continued working on Metered Message Service (MMS) applications between 1946 and 1955.

In a brief autobiography, written in 1955, Holcomb goes into greater detail about the various projects that he worked on for Western Union. The autobiography states that, as of 1955, Holcomb was married and living in Great Neck, New York. Holcomb’s son, Philo Holcomb III, was beginning his first semester at Harvard when the autobiography was written.