In Haunted Media: Electronic Presence from Telegraphy to Television, Jeffrey Sconce compares the two telegraphs: Message sent by Alfred Vail and transcribed by Samuel Morse using the electromagnetic telegraph on May 24, 1844, Artifact, National Museum of American History, EM*001028. For the spiritualist telegraph, the body of the medium, usually a woman and in the case of the Fox’s, two sisters, is the channel that connects the distant realms of the living to the dead. In the case of the electrical and later wireless telegraph, the technician holds the key to the message’s translation. Both of these methods of distant communication take the form of a series of taps that are translated by someone versed in that language the electromagnetic telegraph meets the spiritualist telegraph. Morse sent the first official telegraph on May 24, 1844: “What hath God wrought?” On March 31, 1848, the Fox family communicated with the ghosts inhabiting their home through a series of knocks. However, the ways in which politics, media, desire, and electricity assemble as driving forces of the movie are potent. This reading of Clue, a movie that had originally flopped at the box office, may appear obscure. Or, was she punished for treason? In her appearance and demise, feminine desire, the longing and failure to communicate, and political censorship interweave. The Singing Telegram Girl’s body, carrying the message from a distant source unknown, was sacrificed. Not only does this scene evoke the nineteenth century spiritualist telegraph, but in conjunction with its historical setting, the McCarthy era, it calls forth other moments in American history (including the Salem Witch Trials). What interests me about this movie is the curious appearance of the Singing Telegram Girl, her tragic ending, and the complicated analysis which it affords. Based on a board game, the movie brings paper characters to life. This third scene occurs towards the end of the 1985 now-cult classic movie Clue starring Tim Curry, Eileen Brennan, Madeline Kahn, Christopher Lloyd, Michael McKean, Martin Mull, and Lesley Ann Warren. The “spiritual telegraph” was channeled through the medium, a female body. The second scene sparked America’s avid enthusiasm for contacting the dead and the Modern Spiritualist movement. This is an immaterial divine transmission and a physical transmission from one place to the next. This book tells the story of God’s handing down of the laws and the Israelites’ journey to the Promised Land. These scenes are dramatizations of the history of telegraphic communication, which, in the first scene, begins with the transmission of a statement from chapter 23 of the Book of Numbers, the fourth book of the Hebrew Bible. “Dadaddadadada! I am your singing telegram!” A gunshot is fired and she falls to the ground. Eyes peer out of the darkness, terrified. − A Mansion, New England, 1954: It’s dark. − The Fox Family Home, Hydesville, NY, March 31, 1848: Daughters Kate and Margaretta and their mother Margaret of the Fox family communicate with the spirits inhabiting their home through a series of claps and rappings. Morse sent the message “What hath God wrought?” to Alfred Vail in Baltimore. − The Supreme Court, Washington, D.C., May 24, 1844: At the choosing of Annie Ellsworth, Samuel B.
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