America was on the verge of civil war and needed a reliable connection between the North and South. On the telegraph market of the USA at this time were operated with six large companies: American Telegraph Company, New York Albany and Buffalo Electro-Magnetic Telegraph Company, Atlantic and Ohio Telegraph, Illinois & Mississippi Telegraph Company, New Orleans & Ohio Telegraph Company, and the brainchild of Sibley & Co. - The Western Union Telegraph. In 1920, Western Union has implemented the world's first transmission of images over the ocean. In 1877, starting from September, New York City residents began to have the opportunity to check the time on clock with the "time ball", located on the roof of constructed in the same year a new corporate headquarters - Western Union Building. In 1933, by the Western Union Company were invented "singing telegrams". In 1849, Selden and Sibley, the founders of the future Western Union, created the New York State Printing Telegraph Company. Western Union made so that the time in all of American civil services was the same.