Oslin graduated from Mercer University and the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University . He was a reporter for the '' Newark Star-Ledger '' and the '' Newark Evening News '' . As a reporter , he covered the Lindbergh kidnapping and the Hindenburg disaster . He was public relations director for Western Union , where he invented the singing telegram in 1933 . At Oslin 's suggestion , the first singing telegram was delivered to singer Rudy Vallee on July 28 , 1933 for his birthday . While Oslin created the singing telegram because he thought " that messages should be fun , " he recalled that he " was angrily informed I was making a laughingstock of the company . " In his position at Western Union , he gathered the information that led him to write '' The Story of Telecommunications '' , ( 1992 , reprinted 1999 , ) , which included the experiences of Thomas A. Edison , Ezra Cornell and other pioneers and was based on an extensive review of company documents , period newspapers , letters and diaries . He also wrote '' One Man 's Century : From the Deep South to the Top of the Big Apple '' , ( ) a memoir , published in December 1998
Hindenburg disaster
Hindenburg disaster
George P. Oslin