Poulsen Wireless Telephone and Telegraph Company stock certificate, 1909

Poulsen Wireless Telephone and Telegraph Company was organized in San Francisco in October 1909, with working facilities in Palo Alto to commercially produce a wireless radio transmitting device based on the arc system, a dramatic improvement to Marconi's spark system. Initially the company was a Stanford-Palo Alto affair, with alumnus Cyril Elwell as president, engineering professor Charles D. Marx as vice president, and alumni R. W. Barrett, F. A. Wise, and M. A. Thomas helping to set up the organization. Despite the financial backing of eminent professors, among them Marx, math professor L. M. Hoskins and university president David Starr Jordan, this initial funding was not enough for the ambitious expansion Elwell envisioned. Soon after this certificate was issued, the company would be taken over by San Francisco financial men and Elwell relegated to the position of "chief engineer." This stock certificate, issued November 16, 1909, to C. F. Elwell, for "two million four hundred and eighty nine thousand 990 shares," is signed by R. W. Barrett, secretary and C. F. Elwell, president. Certificate No. 75.