Inauguration Tech Through the Years

Wired.com remembers: When George Washington was inaugurated as the first U.S. president in 1789, the words he spoke could be heard no farther than the sound of his unaided voice, and they could be carried no faster than the decrees of a Roman or Persian emperor thousands of years earlier.

The choices to hurry news on its way were horseback, sailing ship and carrier pigeon. No railroads. No telegraph. No steamboats, other than a few largely impractical prototypes.

Barack Obama's inauguration Tuesday is the nation's 56th (not counting nine impromptu swearings-in when a president died or resigned). Remarkably, it is the 23rd inauguration where the presidency has passed from one party to another, each a peaceful transition.

Time and tech have changed how we see and hear the inauguration.

1801: Thomas Jefferson's inaugural address is the first to prompt a newspaper "extra" edition.

1817: Steamboat service initiated on the Potomac two years earlier can carry news of James Monroe's first inauguration.

1837: News of Martin Van Buren's inauguration can be carried by rail, because the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad began service from Washington two years earlier.

1845: As James Polk takes the oath of office, telegraph inventor Samuel Morse sits nearby, tapping out the news to places as far as Baltimore.

1857: James Buchanan's inauguration is the first one known to be photographed, though incumbent President James Knox Polk was photographed in 1849, and former President John Quincy Adams sat for photographs in 1843. Sat is the operative word here: The long exposure times required for early photography made it hard to capture a live event for many years.

1885: A year after long-distance telephone service begins on the East Coast, news of Grover Cleveland's first inaugural may well be spoken over the wires.

1897: Highlights of William McKinley's first inauguration are captured in moving pictures.

1905: Telephones are installed on the Capitol grounds for the first time for President Theodore Roosevelt's inaugural.

1921: Warren G. Harding becomes the first president to ride to and from his inauguration in an automobile. It's also the first use of loudspeakers, so people in the crowd can actually hear the swearing-in and inaugural address. And an advance copy of Harding's inaugural address is read by an announcer on radio station KDKA in Pittsburgh.

1925: President Calvin Coolidge's inauguration is broadcast live on 24 radio stations nationally.

1929: Herbert Hoover's inaugural is the first recorded by talking newsreel, though Lee de Forest took talking movies of the 1924 presidential candidates.

1949: President Harry S. Truman is inaugurated on national television.

1961: John F. Kennedy's is the first inaugural parade on color TV, though Dwight D. Eisenhower made the first presidential appearance on color TV in 1955.

1981: Ronald Reagan's first inauguration is the world's first telecast to feature live closed-caption teletext subtitles for the hearing-impaired.

1997: President Bill Clinton's second inaugural is the first one ever webcast.

2009: Barack Obama's inauguration will be widely twittered.

Source: Kane's Famous Famous First Facts; Presidential Trivia, by Richard Lederer; websites linked above.