Information Age: Paul Robeson, McCarthy and the submarine repeater

In the 1950s, an amazing piece of kit carried the voice of the singer and civil rights activist Paul Robeson loud and clear across the Atlantic to London
  
  

Singer and actor Paul Robeson in 1958.
Singer Paul Robeson performed at St Pancras Town Hall in London in 1957 – without leaving the US. Photograph: Keystone Features/Getty Images

Two hundred years of technology have transformed how we talk to each other, share our lives and learn about the world. On Saturday, the Science Museum in London opens Information Age: Six Networks That Changed Our World, a new permanent gallery of more than 800 objects that tell the story of the information revolution.

To mark the event, this week we have been hosting five fantastic Science Museum videos that reveal some of the greatest breakthroughs in the communications era.

The fourth film in the series, “The phone line that changed our world”, tells the story of how the US singer and activist Paul Robeson, who had fallen foul of McCarthyism in the 1950s and was banned from travelling, was nevertheless able to perform in London with the help of the miraculous “submarine repeater”.

Information Age: The Phone Line that Changed Our World. Video: Science Museum

 

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