One man's century

George P. Oslin was born in West Point, Georgia, on August 5, 1899. He attended Trinity College, now Duke University, at the age of fifteen. World War I took him to the Newport News shipyards to help build victory ships. He returned to Georgia and completed his studies at Mercer University in 1920. After working at the Macon Telegraph for two years, he attended the Pulitzer Post Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. His early career was as a reporter for the Newark Ledger and later the Newark Evening News, covering major stories like prohibition, the Lindbergh baby kidnapping and trial, the Hall Mills murder, the Hindenburg Zeppelin disaster, and the Reid bandits murder trial. For thirty-five years he served as public relations director for Western Union, during which time he issued nationwide news releases almost daily, writing communication history as it was being made. During his prestigious career Oslin wrote books, pamphlets, basic articles and yearbook reviews for major encyclopedias, and numerous book and magazine articles on developments in the telecommunications industry. He is perhaps best known, however, for inventing the "Singing Telegram" in 1933.