Newcomb Carlton

Newcomb Carlton graduated from Stevens Institute in 1890 with a degree in mechanical engineering. He went to work in Buffalo, where he built up a reputation as a first-class organizer and director, so that, when the Pan-American Exposition was broached, he was made Director. This was his start. He became Vice-President of the Western Union in 1910, and four years later he was President.

In those days the telegraph blanks had a printed notice on the back signed Newcomb Carlton in large letters, and by reason of this his name became a household word. He was a miraculous administrator. He knew and understood the mechanical problems of wire and wireless communication, and he was original and infinitely resourceful in dealing with men and money and the organization of the vast network that he presided over. He was not himself an inventor; but he had an urgency that inspired inventors to bring forth their productions and make them workable.

The range of his interests reflected the diversity of his talents. He was a trustee of Columbia, the American Academy in Rome, the Marine Museum in New York, and the New York Museum of Science and History. He was an excellent sailor, and the little time he spent away from his office was usually spent with like-minded friends on his yacht at Woods Hole.

In 1929 Carlton’s wife died, and he was severely and permanently affected by losing her. He got in the way of being by himself, and this tendency to solitude was greatly increased by his growing deafness. It is exceedingly difficult for deaf men to circulate in the ordinary give-and-take of social intercourse. For Carlton it became intolerable. He never resigned from the Century, but he came no more. He did other things in which hearing was not so important.

This was a very remarkable man: competent, successful, with an imagination projected into the future, with a vision of the possibilities of things.

George W. Martin
1954 Century Association Yearbook