Despite this puzzling array of information, one man is credited with "inventing" the pneumatic tube that coiled itself ‘round the world: Albert Brisbane. An American from New York City, Brisbane patented the "Improved Pneumatic Tube for Transporting Goods" (U.S. Patent No. 91513; Dated June 22, 1869).
The language of this patent makes it plain that he did not invent this technology, but instead made vast improvements upon the original, which consisted of an oddly shaped "rectangular pneumatic tube or box, containing a hollow cylinder, running on rails, for the transportation of mails and merchandise" (U.S. Patent No. 91513). It is no wonder, then, why several newspapers at the time accredited Brisbane with inventing the pneumatic tube – he essentially remediated a rectangular box with rails into a pragmatic "round pneumatic tube, containing a hollow sphere or ball" for transporting goods (U.S. Patent No. 91513).
From the perspective of media archaeology, one can sense that this remediation had strong economic motivations. Basic physics reveals that a spherical object sent down a round tube will create less friction than a cylinder sent down a rectangular "tube" on rails. Time is clearly of the essence here; this technology would have been utterly useless had it not been extremely timesaving.
Additionally, Brisbane's patent addresses preventing air leakage by narrowing the sides of the hollow spheres, further emphasizing timesaving strategies. Less air leakage meant more air pressure applied to a narrower space, pushing the object down at much quicker speeds. And of course, one cannot forget the strongest economic motivation in improving a medium: money. Brisbane's patent goes the extra mile by making suggestions for the "cheapest" structure of his pneumatic tube.
Like any medium, the pneumatic tube has certain limitations within itself. We cannot then just focus on the people and events surrounding the medium, but also the traits of the material object itself – traits that will fight back. It is plain that the physical (the visible and tangible) are favored in this medium, since a physical object (i.e. a written letter) must be placed within a "carrier" which is then sent through a tube to a certain destination. This clearly had its advantages: quick communication over short distances that had a personal touch to boot. At the same time, however, this meant that restrictions had to be placed upon the object itself and where it could be sent.
Initially, before realizing the drawbacks of the technology, many imagined that long pipelines of pneumatic tubes could be constructed from say, New York to California. Soon enough, people realized that the "pneumatic plan…proved to be practicable when applied to short distances," such as within a metropolitan area (Chicago Daily Tribune). This realization also arose out of economic hindrances; a short central line cost ￡14,000 to build in London in 1860, before the surge of popularity in pneumatic tubes that followed their improvements. Taking this into consideration, one can only imagine how much a fully functioning pneumatic tube system would cost to build and maintain nowadays.
The length of the tubes did not only inhibit communication, but additionally pieces of mail had to fit within a pneumatic tube parcel or otherwise travel by regular post. While this limitation may not seem too pressing, since other avenues of quick communication were available at the time, it actually had significant impacts. In 1925, the New York Times reported one particularly dramatic instance, wherein a Parisian man killed himself after his girlfriend failed to send him a letter by pneumatic tube. The Times claimed that when this man parted from "an English girl whom he loved, she said she would either send him a ‘pneumatique' (special delivery) message within three hours or never see him again." This woman made the unfortunate mistake of placing the letter "in an envelope too large for the Paris pneumatic tube system for fast mail," and it "arrived by ordinary post too late to prevent the suicide" (New York Times).
This medium was also problematic in that it literally clogged up during times of high traffic. Frequently a parcel would become "arrested in its course, causing an obstruction, the locality of which it is very difficult to ascertain" (Scientific American). This Scientific American article from 1873, entitled "Novel Mode of Locating Obstructions in Pneumatic Tubes" describes a method of isolating pneumatic tube obstructions utilizing sound waves. Another article in Scientific American, "Pneumatic Tubes," outlines how the tubes could be unclogged: "…the whole force of the compressed air is then turned into the pipe.
If that be insufficient, a head of water fifty feet in height is added" to remove the obstruction. The fact that this medium clogged speaks to the sheer popularity of pneumatic tubes, and simultaneously indicates just how impractical they were. Interestingly enough, this phenomenon is reminiscent of high Internet "traffic" in the modern world. Though wireless signals and telephone lines aren't physically "clogged" with parcels, servers do become overwhelmed with requests, slowing down the system as a whole. (Though it would probably be a really, really bad idea to shoot water into your router.)
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