O.B. Kirkpatrick's Instructograph

 

 

I picked up a Morse code training course booklet at a flea market. This one was published by the Instructograph Company of Chicago, IL in 1937. On the inside leaf it reads "Copyright 1937 O.B. Kirkpatrick."  O.B. Kirkpatrick died in 1938 at the age of 66 just a year after the publication of the booklet. Weird detail, they did print instructions marked "Copyright 1947 O.B. Kirkpatrick" in later kits. The man had been dead for 10 years. 

But this is not Kirkpatrick's only book. He also authored a more proper book, The Station Agent’s Blue Book, published in 1928. The latter was published by Kirkpatrick Publishing Co. of 10 East Huron Street, Chicago, IL. It weighs in at a beefy 522 pages. More here. 

The Instructograph was a punched paper tape machine used to learn Morse code.  It was advertised in the magazine, The Railroad Telegrapher back in 1929. It was $7.50; that's about $140 in 2025 dollars. Interestingly, the address 10 East Huron St. was also the address for the publication The Train Dispatcher, from the American Train Dispatchers Association. They were at that address from 1920 to at least 1960.  Instructograph later moved to 4701 Sheridan Road, then 5071 N. Broadway both in Chicago before they move to California.

A 1925 issue of The Train Dispatcher confirmed that Kirkpatrick had "long experience" in station work and was the Secretary-Treasurer of the American Railway Auditors Association. But it also described the Blue Book in detail which most sources report wasn't published for another 3 years, a date corroborated by the Library of Congress copyright entry. That same entry confirms his full name to be Otto Bernard Kirkpatrick. But with that I found his obituary. There is little online about his life. He was born in 1872, he married Blanche Maize Barber. His parents were Snyder Solomon Kirkpatrick and Rosannah Hoke Bowen. He had 4 siblings and had 2 kids.

The amazing thing about the Instructograph is that some sources report it was still being made into the 1980s. This is easily corroborated by advertisements. The one below is from Tune In the World With Ham Radio from 1981. By then they were using the address PO Box 5032 Grand Central. Dept.B Glendale, CA. 9120. One advertisement actually had the phone number 213-246-3902. That only seems to be listed in the late 1970s. On eBay I saw a stack of Instructograph paper tapes which included a receipt dated to 1984. That's as far forward as I can push the date. 

But I can confirm that amateur radio newsletters were absolutely aflutter, buying and selling them and requests for repair parts and paper tapes in the late 1980s and 1990s indicating the primary source had closed up shop. The 1981 advert also corroborates a 1920-ish start for the company. Another ad I found in 1977 put their founding more specifically in 1924, which fits that Train Dispatcher article. 

According to Russ Kleinman of zianet.com, the Instructograph was an improvement on a prior telegraph devices.  I'll quote his whole annotation: 

"Both the Omnigraph and the Natrometer were predecessors of the Instructograph. The Instructograph was made from 1947 or earlier to at least up until the late 1950's and was available with both an electric motor drive with cord and plug, and with a hand crank and spring drive. These machines read perforated tape which is drawn across a contact point. They were available with several different perforated tape rolls and an instruction booklet by O.B. Kirkpatrick. The Instructograph Company was located in Chicago, IL. early on, but appears to have later moved to Glendale, CA."

I also found a patent, 613,928, for a seal-lock intended for use in the doors of railway cars by one Otto B. Kirkpatrick based in Aspen, CO. It was filed June 16th, 1898. It seems likely that is our Kirkpatrick. (There are several other historical O.B. Kirkpatricks I have doubts about, including a doctor, and a poultry fancier.) But one entry in The Santa Fe Magazine of May 1927 is definitely him. It describes the Instructograph but adds that he is an old-time Santa Fe employee who began his railroad experience as a student-operator at Oxford, KS. "He later worked at Fredonia, Kan, and Colorado Springs, Co. Mr. Kirkpatrick later became a traveling auditor on the Southern Pacific and chief traveling auditor on the C.M. and St. P. Ry."

But back to the Instructograph booklet. My edition has a single typed page addition tucked in between 22 and 23. It's thin office paper but it has a watermark, two words that are probably "MODERN FORM." The inserted page makes a correction. The change isn't to an error per se. But the booklet was published in 1937, and in 1938 the International Radio-communication Convention held in Cairo changed both the Continental Morse codes for the period and the comma among other things.  [SOURCE]

 

Up until 1928 the original codes were: 

• Period .. .. ..
• Comma . - . - . -

The rest of the inserted page describe the changes to a tape recording I don't have, so it's hard to follow. Btu I understand that the way the machine worked is that the holes in the paper tape actuated a set of contacts which actuated a sounder. Learning to receive code is much harder than learning to send. The Instructograph took the place of an instructor for students to practice live transcription with the added advantage of adjustable speed. It allowed home study and some schools even rented the devices to students. More here. Courses on punched tape were available in both International (Continental) Morse Code, and American Morse Code. 

If you want to know more about how it worked, in 1988, writing for the magazine Hands-On Electronics, Marc Ellis wrote a detailed article on the mechanism. [SOURCE] It's interesting that in 1988 it was also being discussed under the "antique radio" heading. In a 1970 issue of TM-73, Wayne Green suggested a theory which may be why the Instructograph faded away; essentially he stated that training options had diversified, W1AW, cheap LPs and tapes had taken over what was already a niche market. [SOURCE] But today there are still fine geeks 3D printing replacement plastic take-up reels so people can keep their Instructographs in service.