In 1860 the U.S. Congress arranged among the telegraph companies a competition to create a national line. The winner was Western Union. Thanks to cooperation with Western Union the Associated Press at the end of the XIX century took almost monopolistic position in the U.S. market news. The Western Union Company is a financial services and communications company based in the United States. In 1849, Selden and Sibley, the founders of the future Western Union, created the New York State Printing Telegraph Company.