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History :: AT&T Patent Era 1872 - 1893 :: Invention and Disruption

Itis my heart-warm and world-embracing Christmas hope and aspiration that all of us, the high, the low, the rich, the poor, the admired, the despised, the loved, the hated, the civilized, the savage (every man and brother of us all throughout the whole earth), may eventually be gathered together in a heaven of everlasting rest and peace and bliss, except the inventor of the telephone. - Mark Twain (Twainquotes citing Caroline Harnsberger's Mark Twain at Your Fingertips )

Prelude

1845: Theodore Vail born. "Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone and Theodore Vail invented the telephone business." [THG] [PBS]

1847

March 3: Alexander Graham Bell born in Edinbugh, Scotland. He was educated at the Royal High School. As a boy he constructed a "speaking machine" at the encouragement of his father.. [IEEEVM ][About.com] [LOC Bell Family Papers] [Kingsbury 19]

1864-65: Bell conducts experiments attempting to create the sounds of vowels as produced by the mouth. Helmholtz had already discovered these experiments and produced papers in 1863 on speaking machines that could produce vowel sounds.. [Kingsbury 20] [Wolff 42]

1867: Bell graduates from University College, London [Kingsbury 19]

1869:

Theodore Vail works for the Postal Service. [MIT] [THG] [PBS]

Shawk and Barton (aka Western Electric) established in Cleveland Ohio, taking over a former Western Union repair shop. One of the first customers was Elisha Gray. Shawk sold his interest to Gray. Gray and Barton opened at years end in Chicago, with investment from Anson Stager. [Iardella 27]

1870: Bell's family moves to Brantford, Ontario. [LOC Bell Family Papers]

1871

• Bell moves to Boston, begins teaching at the Boston School for Deaf Mutes. He students included a child named George Sanders and a girl named Miss Hubbard. Their parents would finance Bells experiments.. [LOC Bell Family Papers] [Kingsbury 23]

1872: Era of Invention

Bell opens first school for the deaf. [Coon 19]

Bell produces initial drawings of a "harmonic telegraph" Bell's initial interest is to develop the harmonic telegraph, not the telephone, which would result in multiple telegraph messages being sent over a single telegraph wire. [Wolff 43] Bell reflected:

"Instead of having the dots and dashes recorded upon paper, the operators were in the habit of observing the duration of the click of the instruments, and in this way were enabled to distinguish by ear the various signals. It struck me that in a similar manner the duration of a musical note might be made to represent the dot or dash of the telegraph code, so that a person might operate one of the keys of the tuning-fork piano referred to above, and the duration of the sound proceeding from the corresponding string of the distant piano be observed by an operator stationed there. It seemed to me that in this way a number of distinct telegraph messages might be sent simultaneously from the tuning-fork piano to the other end of the circuit, by operators each manipulating a different key of the instrument. These messages would be read by operators stationed at the distant piano, each receiving operator listening for signals of a certain definite pitch, and ignoring all others. In this way could be accomplished the simultaneous transmission of a number of telegraphic messages along a single wire, the number being limited only by the delicacy of the listener's ear. The idea of increasing the carrying power of a telegraph wire in this way took complete possession of my mind, and it was this practical end that I had in view when I commenced my researches in Electric Telephony." [Kingsbury 27]

Bell meets Gardiner Greene Hubbard. Hubbard is a vocal opponent of Western Union, arguing that telegraph service should be government owned. Hubbard will become Bell's financial partner, and Bell will marry Hubbard's daughter. [About.com] [LOC Bell Family Papers] [Wolff 42]

Experiment description: "The form of the apparatus constructed at that time consisted of tuning forks arranged substantially after the manner of Helmholtz. The transmitting tuning fork was placed in a local circuit. Upon causing the wire to vibrate, the wire attached to the prong was alternately lifted out of the mercury and depressed into it again. The circuit of which the fork formed a part was thus made and broken at every vibration of the fork. The poles of the electro-magnet attracted the prongs of the tuning fork at each kae of the circuit, and release them when the circuit was broken. The intermittent attraction of the electro-magnet thus caused the transmitting fork to remain in continuous vibration, emitting continuously its musical tone. By the depression of a telegraph key, the current rendered intermittent by the vibration of the transmitting fork was directed to a line wire which passed to a receiving instrument consisting of an electro-magnet between the poles of which appeared the prongs of a tuning fork. Every time the prong of the transmitting fork made contact with the mercury below it, the prongs of the receiving fork were attracted by the poles of the electro-magnet, between which they were placed; and every time the prong of the transmitting fork broke contact with the mercury below, the prongs of the receiving fork were no longer attracted by the electro-magnet, but were allowed to move freely in the manner of a tuning fork left to itself. Thus, at every vibration of the transmitting fork, the prongs of the receiving fork were attracted by the receiving electro-magnet and released. When the receiving fork had normally the same pitch as the transmitting fork, the intermittent attraction of the electromagnet would cause it to be thrown into vigorous vibration, thus producing a musical sound of similar pitch to that occasioned by the vibration of the transmitting fork." [Kingsbury 28]

1873: Bell's experiments switch from tuning forks to "vibrating armatures consisting of single flat plates - really musical reeds." [Kingsbury 29]

1874: Bell partners with Gardiner Greene Hubbard, who provides financial backing for Bell's research. Bell meets Watson. [About.com] Bell meets Thomas Watson at Charles William's electrician shop in Boston. [LOC Bell Family Papers]

1875

• Bell conducts his experiments at 109 Court St, Boston, the electrical shop of Charles Williams Jr. (telegraph inventor) [McEven] [Brooks p 43] Photo of a Charles Williams "Coffin Phone" 1878
• February 27: Bell, Hubbard, and George Sanders form the Bell Patent Association. Sanders also provides financial backing for Bell's research. Bell would later marry Hubbard's daughter. [About.com] [LOC Bell Family Papers] [Wolff 44]
• February: Bell demonstrates harmonic telegraph research to Western Union President Orton, who expresses interest and backing [Wolff 43]
• March: Western Union's Orton indicates Elisha Gray had a better invention, and that WU would never back work that would benefit Hubbard. [Wolff 44]
• February: Bell visits Prof. Joseph Henry of the Smithsonian Institution who tells Bell that he has "the germ of a great invention." [Coon 20] [Wolff 45]
• June 2: Alexander Graham Bell, along with his assistant Thomas A. Watson, invents the telephone. [AT&T History] [Wolff 45] See also Telephone page which discusses Antonio Meucci and Elisha Gray.
• Sept: Bell begins preparation of patent application
• Oct. 5: Letter from Alexander Graham Bell to Mabel Hubbard Bell (copy in Library of Congress online)
• Brochure for Alexander Graham Bell's School of Vocal Physiology, 1875
• [Picture of Alexander Graham Bell]

The Patent Era

“That’s an amazing invention, but who would ever want to use one of them?” - President Rutherford B. Hayes to Alexander Graham Bell 1876

1876

• Hubbard was a patent lawyer, who had a great dislike of Western Union. Gray worked for Western Electric which had a strong relationship with Western Union. [Wolff 41]
• January 20: Bell's Patent application is sworn to in Boston and shipped to Washington. [Kingsbury 45]
• January 25: Bell sails to Europe in order to file patent applications there [Kingsbury 45]
• February 14: Hubbard files Bell's patent application. [Wolff 45]

Improvements in Telegraphy

Having described my invention, what I claim, and desire to secure by letters patent is as follows:"

"1. A system of telegraphy in which the receiver is set in vibration by the employment of undulatory currents of electricity, substantially as set forth."

"2. The combination, substantially as set forth, of a permanent magnet or other body capable of inductive action, with a closed circuit, so that the vibration of the one shall occasion electrical undulations in the other or in itself, and this I claim whether the permanent magnet be set in vibration in the neighborhood of the conducting wire forming the circuit or whether the conducting wire be set in vibration in the neighborhood of the permanent magnet, or whether the conducting wire and the permanent magnet both simultaneously be set in vibration in each other's neighborhood."

"3. The method of producing undulations in a continuous voltaic current by the vibration or motion of bodies capable of inductive action, or by the vibration or motion of the conducting wire itself, in the neighborhood of such bodies, as set forth."

"4. The method of producing undulations in a continuous voltaic circuit by gradually increasing and diminishing the resistance of the circuit, or by gradually increasing and diminishing the power of the battery, as set forth."

"5. The method of and apparatus for transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically, as herein described, by causing electrical undulations similar in form to the vibrations of the air accompanying the said vocal or other sounds, substantially as set forth."

"In testimony whereof, I have hereunto signed my name this 20th day of January, A.D. 1876."

"ALEX. GRAHAM BELL"

[Telephone Cases p 13 (1888)] A few hours later, Elisha Gray filed his telephone caveat.

"Be it known that I, Elisha Gray of Chicago, in the County of Cook and State of Illinois, have invented a new art of transmitting vocal sounds telegraphically, of which the following is a specification:"

"It is the object of my invention to transmit the tones of the human voice through a telegraphic circuit, and reproduce them at the receiving end of the line, so that actual conversations can be carried on by persons at long distances apart."

"I have invented and patented methods of transmitting musical impressions or sounds telegraphically, and my present invention is based upon the modification of the principle of said invention, which is set forth and described in letters patent of the United States, granted to me July 27, 1875, respectively numbered 166,095 and 166,096, and also in an application for letters patent of the United States filed by me February 23, 1875."

"To attain the objects of my invention, I devised an instrument capable of vibrating responsively to all the tones of the human voice, and by which they are rendered audible."

"In the accompanying drawings, I have shown an apparatus embodying my improvements in the best way now known to me, but I contemplate various other applications, and also changes in the details of construction of the apparatus, some of which would obviously suggest themselves to a skillful electrician or a person versed in the science of acoustics on seeing this application."

[Telephone Cases p 78 (1888)]

Bell's application did not mention the word "telephone" nor did it promise the transmission of voice. The principle of Variable Resistance was written into the margin of the application (it is not clear that Bell had done any experiments on variable resistance prior to the application). Bell had yet to successfully transmit voice. The Telephone Cases, 126 US 1, 535 (1888)

March 6: Bell, Sanders, and Hubbard form the Bell Patent Association. [Iardella p 9]

"The U.S. Patent Office issued patent #174,465 to Bell on March 7, 1876" for an improvement of telegraph (not telephone). [AT&T: Inventing the Telephone] Use the PTO Patent search engine to view Bell's patent. See also Who Invented the Telephone: Why Bell, of Course, Privateline.com; [Brands p 2] [Brenner p 1] [Brooks p 47] [Iardella p 9] [Wolff 45]

Alexander Graham Bell's Lab Notebook exhibited at the Library of Congress. You can look through all 55 pages.

March 10 “Mr. Watson, come here, I want you.” the first words that Mr. Bell spoke through his invention. This comment apparently was said as Mr. Bell had spilled acid while working on his experiments, and needed Mr. Watson's assistance. [Brooks p 49] This makes this both the first telephone call and the first emergency telephone call

April 6: Post Office grant's Bell's patent letters, Patent Number 161,739 for "a method of, and apparatus for, transmitting two or more telegraphic signals simultaneously along a single wire by the employment of transmitting instruments, each of which occasions a succession of electrical impulses differing in rate from the others, and of receiving instruments, each tuned to a pitch at which it will be put in vibration to produce its fundamental note by one only of the transmitting instruments, and of vibratory circuit breakers operating to convert the vibratory movement of the receiving instrument into a permanent make or break (as the case may be) of a local circuit, in which is placed a Morse sounder, register, or other telegraphic apparatus. I have also therein described a form of autograph-telegraph based upon the action of the above-mentioned instruments."" [Telephone Cases p 6 (1888)]

May 10, Bell presents paper, Researches in Telephony, to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. [Kingsbury 49]

June 25: Bell demonstrates his telephone at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. [Brooks p 51] [IEEEVM] [LOC Bell Family Papers] [Kingsbury 50] [Iardella p 9] [Wolff 45] Western Electric receives five gold medals at the at the Centennial Exposition for its devices. [Iardella 28]

July 12: Experiments over a circuit from Boston to NYC and back, to two separate rooms in Boston, succeeded after short circuiting the loop. [Kingsbury 56]

August 10: First one-way telephone call over outdoor wires between Bell in Paris Ontario and his father in Brantford - using borrowed telegraph wires. [Brooks p 52] [IEEE History Center Voice]

October 9: First two-way telephone call over outdoor wires between Watson and Bell. [Brooks p 52] [Privatelines 1876-1879] Bell's salutation was "Hoy, Hoy" - which is how he believed the phone should be answered (this is how Mr. Burn's on the Simpson's answers the phone - playing with the theme of exactly how old is Mr. Burns).

On June 2, 1875, Bell and Watson were testing the harmonic telegraph when Bell heard a sound come through the receiver. Instead of transmitting a pulse, which it had refused to do in any case, the telegraph passed on the sound of Watson plucking a tuned spring, one of many set at different pitches. How could that be? Their telegraph, like all others, turned current on and off. But in this instance, a contact screw was set too tightly, allowing current to run continuously, the essential element needed to transmit speech. Bell realized what happened and had Watson build a telephone the next day based on this discovery. The Gallows telephone, so called for its distinctive frame, substituted a diaphragm for the spring. Yet it didn't work. A few odd sounds were transmitted, yet nothing more. No speech. Disheartened, tired, and running out of funds, Bell's experimenting slowed through the remainder of 1875. During the winter of 1875 and 1876 Bell continued experimenting while writing a telephone patent application. Although he hadn't developed a successful telephone, he felt he could describe how it could be done. With his ideas and methods protected he could then focus on making it work. Fortunately for Bell and many others, the Patent Office in 1870 dropped its requirement that a working model accompany a patent application. On February 14, 1876, Bell's patent application was filed by his attorney. It came only hours before Elisha Gray filed his Notice of Invention for a telephone. Mystery still surrounds Bell's application and what happened that day. In particular, the key point to Bell's application, the principle of variable resistance, was scrawled in a margin, almost as an afterthought. Some think Bell was told of Gray's Notice then allowed to change his application. That was never proved, despite some 600 lawsuits that would eventually challenge the patent. Finally, on March 10, 1876, one week after his patent was allowed, in Boston, Massachusetts, at his lab at 5 Exeter Place, Bell succeeded in transmitting speech. He was not yet 30. Bell used a liquid transmitter, something he hadn't outlined in his patent or even tried before, but something that was described in Gray's Notice. -Tom Farley's Telephone History Series (cc)

January 30, 1877 Patent Office issued patent 186,787 for an improvement to the electric telephone [US v American Bell (1888)] [Telephone Cases (1888)] [Kingsbury 61] [Iardella p 9] [Wolff 45]

Missed Opportunities 1846: USG declines Morse's offer to sell telegraph invention for $100,000. Post Office spends next 70 years arguing that USG should purchase telegraph system. 1873: Western Union declines Edison's offer to sell quadruplex telegraph for $450,000. Edison sells it to Jay Gould. 1876: Western Union declines Bell's offer to sell telephone invention for $100,000 1972: AT&T declines ARPA's offer to give them the Internet, with the USG becoming an anchor tenant. 2000: Blockbuster decline's Netflix offer to sell Netflix for $50m. "Buy when the stock is first offered." - Chauncey Depew.

Hubbard's $100,000 Offer to Sell Out to Western Union

In the early days in their partnership, facing competing patents and an incomplete invention, Hubbard allegedly floated an offered to sell the telephone patents to Western Union for $100,000. Western Union Pres. William Orton refused. Orton is attributed as proclaiming "What use could this company make of an electric toys?" By the turn of the century, there were a number of versions of this story that seemed credible. [Herbert Newton Casson, The History of the Telephone, p. 59 (1911) ("The rosiest hope that shine in front of Sanders and Hubbard was that the Western Union might conclude to buy the Bell patents, just as it had already bought many others. In one moment of discouragement they offered the telephone to President Orton, of the Western Union, for $100,000; and Orton had refused it. "What use," he asked pleasantly, "could this company make of an electrical toy?"")] [Michael Wolff p. 46 (in 1913, Watson recalled "At about that time Professor Bell's financial problems had begun to press hard for solution. We were very much disappointed because the president of the Western Union Telegraph Company had refused, somewhat contemptuously, Mr. Hubbard's offer to sell him all of the Bell patents for the exorbitant sum of $100,000. It was an especially hard blow for me, for while the negotiations were pending I had had visions of a sumptuous office in the Western Union Building in New York which I was expecting to occupy as Superintendent of the Telephone Department of the great telegraph company.")] [Report of The Committee of The Senate Upon Relations Between Labor And Capital and Testimony Taken By Committee, Vol. III, Testimony of Western Union Pres. Norvin Green 1883, p. 882 (GPO 1885) ("Mr. Hubbard, the father-in-law of Mr. Bell, came to see me once, and told me that we could take the whole of the Bell patent and control it for $100,000. We declined to do it, and now it has a market value of nearly $20,000,000.")] [Wolff at 237 (noting that a series of letters suggesting a protracted negotiation)] [Bell Telephone v Western Union (1879), The Guardian Aug. 6, 2007 ("When Alexander Graham Bell first invented the telephone, he and his cohorts offered to sell the patents to Western Union - then the world's most important communications company, thanks to its domination of the telegraph - for $100,000.")]

One popular version of the story is supported with reference to the following memo

Western Union memo, 1876. Chauncey M Depew Esq President, Western Union Telegraph Co. New York City In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell and his financial backer, Gardiner G. Hubbard, offered Bell's brand new patent (No. 174,465) to the Telegraph Company - the ancestor of Western Union. The President of the Telegraph Company, Chauncey M. DePew, appointed a committee to investigate the offer. The committee report has often been quoted. It reads in part: "The Telephone purports to transmit the speaking voice over telegraph wires. We found that the voice is very weak and indistinct, and grows even weaker when long wires are used between the transmitter and receiver. Technically, we do not see that this device will be ever capable of sending recognizable speech over a distance of several miles. "Messer Hubbard and Bell want to install one of their "telephone devices" in every city. The idea is idiotic on the face of it. Furthermore, why would any person want to use this ungainly and impractical device when he can send a messenger to the telegraph office and have a clear written message sent to any large city in the United States? "The electricians of our company have developed all the significant improvements in the telegraph art to date, and we see no reason why a group of outsiders, with extravagant and impractical ideas, should be entertained, when they have not the slightest idea of the true problems involved. Mr. G.G. Hubbard's fanciful predictions, while they sound rosy, are based on wild-eyed imagination and lack of understanding of the technical and economic facts of the situation, and a posture of ignoring the obvious limitations of his device, which is hardly more than a toy... . "In view of these facts, we feel that Mr. G.G. Hubbard's request for $100,000 of the sale of this patent is utterly unreasonable, since this device is inherently of no use to us. We do not recommend its purchase."

Chauncey Mitchell Depew. Library of Congress.

See, e.g., [Javier Sanchez Lamelas, MARTKETING: The heart and the brain of branding 2016 ("In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell offered to sell his telephone patent to Western Union for $100,000. The chairman of Western Union, Chauncey M. DePew, formed a committee to consider the request and to advise him on how to respond. What follows is claimed to be the report of DePew's committee. It was rediscovered by an AT&T patent attorney in 1992.")]

The memo is a fiction. Its fabrication appears to be an amalgamation of different versions of the story. The History of Phone Phreaking Blog traced the first publication of the Depew Memo to Richard C. Levine, "Chairman's Statement", IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Volume EM-15(2), pp. 55-56, June 1968. [The Greatest "Bad Business Decision" Quotation That Never Was, The History of Phone Phreaking Blog, Jan. 8, 2011] [Michael Wolff 46 (questioning the authenticity of this reported memo; noting that there is no record of the offer to sell AT&T's patents in either AT&T's letters or in Western Union's letters; further noting the Depew was not President of WU - Orton was. Finally the memo is unsigned)] [Field 249]

Chauncey M Depew was not, as the memo identifies him, President of Western Union. He was, however, an rather significant player in this story. At the time he worked as an attorney who worked for the Vanderbilts, a personal friend of William Orton, became a Senator from New York in 1899, and joined the Board of Directors of Western Union. Depew was the author of a famous 1896 telegraph around the world. Depew was also a story-teller - sharing the stage with the likes of Mark Twain - and one has to wonder if this did not help fuel the myth of the memo. [Chauncey M Depew, 12 Delightful Stories, One Each Sunday in the The Washington times. (Washington [D.C.]), 29 Sept. 1922. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.] [The English Sense of Humor, The Hope pioneer. (Hope, N.D.), 29 Nov. 1906. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress (reporting on an ocean steamer banquet featuring Mark Twain and Chauncey Depew)] In 1897, at the time of Hubbard's death, Depew recounted the following interesting story:

Thirty years ago I was counsel for the Harlem road, and Gardniner G. Hubbard was railway mail inspector. In the course of our official duties we were thrown frequently into contact, and came to know each other well... one day Hubbard came into my office, and leaning against my desk said:

'Depew, I have a son-in-law. He is a bright young fellow named Bell... He has invented a talking telegraph. It is a wonderful sort of an arrangement.'

In those days Hubbard had no money, and I had only a little. He suggested to me that I take an interest in the invention, and made a proposition that I advance $10,000, for which he would give a sixth interest in the patent. I said I would think it over. The next day I went downtown and saw William Orton, who was at that time President of the Western Union Telegraph Company. I laid the matter before him fully. He said to me:

'Depew, you haven't got much money, and as a friend I dont want to see you lose what you have got. That invention is practically worthless. It will never amount to anything. If it should, however, we own prior rights upon the idea, of which Bell's patents are simply an infringement. Don't throw away your money.'

I took his advice, and now I am in a position to reflect. What would have been the result? I would be to-day, or my estate would be, worth something like $30,000,000...

[Mr. Depew's Narrow Escape, Electrical World., Vol. 31, p. 9 Jan. 1, 1898] [Chauncey M. Depew, My Memories of Eighty Years, p. 406 (ND) (manuscript) (recounting taking Ortons advice not to invest in Hubbard's telephone)]

Depew may not have been President of Western Union, but the President of Western Union had aced him out of an incredible investment opportunity. The Feb. 24th, 1916 edition of The Wallace Miner included a bunch of random quotes from celebreties including Vanderbilt, J.P. Morgan, and J.D. Rockefeller. The quote attributed to Depew was "Buy when the stock is first offered." [Antidote for Penury, The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho), 24 Feb. 1916. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.] In 1899, Depew was elected a U.S. Senator. In 1897, he oversaw the opening of the Pneumatic Tube Mail System in New York City, and was quoted saying

This is the age of speed. Everything that makes for speed contributes to happiness and is a distinct gain to civilization. We are ahead of the old countries in almost every respect, but we have been behind in methods of communication within our cities. In New York this condition of communication has hitherto been barbarous. If the Greater New York is to be a success, quick communication is absolutely necessary. I hope this system we have seen tried here to-day will soon be extended over all the Greater New York. ["Mail Tube is a Success". The New York Times. 8 October 1897]

Western Union President Orton hated Hubbard. Orton knew all about Bell's telephone; Bell had come and presented the invention to Orton directly. But dealing with Bell meant dealing with Hubbard; and Western Union had Elisha Gray and Thomas Edison on retainer, and Orton could set them on Bell's trail - based on Gray's and Edison's patents, Western Union would enter the telephone market in 1877. Michael Wolff in his excellent article concludes "This writer strongly suspects that Orton's whole attitude toward the telephone can be understood as resulting from a subtle combination of his dislike for Hubbard and his great confidence in Edison and the other inventors in Western Union's 'stable.'". [Michael Wolff p. 49] Western Union President Norvin Green, in his own way, agreed. "Indeed, he (Orton) would never meet Mr. Hubbard whenever he could decently avoid it.. I think this resulted in a loss of a great opportunity to our company. But for this repugnance I believe the Western Union would bave acquired a controlling interest in the Bell telephone at a very low cost compared with the great value it has since developed.") [Supplemental Statement of Norvin Green, June 9, 1890 at 6. See also p. 8 ("What is there but clap trap and humbug in the social phase of the telegraph business that so disturbs the quiet of Mr . Hubbard ?")].

1877 :: Patent Wars

Bell 1877 Advertisement: "The proprietors of the Telephone . . . are now prepared to furnish Telephones for the transmission of articulate speech through instruments not more than twenty miles apart . . . Conversation can easily be carried on after slight practice and with occasional repetition of a word or sentence. On first listening to the Telephone, though the sound is perfectly audible, the articulation seems to be indistinct; but after a few trials the ear becomes accustomed to the peculiar sound . . ." [Brooks p 60]

“I believe in the future, wires will unite the head offices of telephone companies in different cities, and a man in one part of the country may communicate by word of mouth with another in a distant place.” - Alexander Graham Bell, 1878

1877: "the Government of the United States moved to annul the patent issued to Bell on the grounds of fraud and misrepresentation, a case that the Supreme Court found viable and remanded for trial" [H Res 269]

1877-1879: Western Union v. Bell Telephone

Other Patent Challenges

Western Union was "not alone. At least 1,730 telephone companies organized and operated in the 17 years Bell was supposed to have a [patent] monopoly. Most competitors disappeared as soon as the Bell Company filed suit against them for patent infringement, but many remained. They either disagreed with Bell's right to the patent, ignored it altogether, or started a phone company because Bell's people would not provide service to their area." [Farley at 4] [See also Mueller p 34] Some services may have been offered with inventions outside of Bell's patent, but the threat of litigation would terminate the venture. Naturally, Bell refused to interconnect with these competing services.

"Over the next decade, the Bell company would be involved in more than six hundred lawsuits for patent infringement, all of which it would win." [Brooks p 77]

1885: USG brings suit against Bell in the Southern District Court of Ohio, attempting to void his patents based on Antonio Meucci's prior caveats for the invention of the teletrofono. The suit is terminated in 1897 without resolution after Meucci died and the Bell patents expired. [Catania] According to author Basilio Catania, the motivation for the law suit was not so much from Meucci as from the USG which had grown weary of AT&T exercising its patent monopoly powers.

The Telephone Cases, 126 US 1 (1888) (challenging Bell's patents based on the work of Phillip Reis and Charles Bourseul published in Paris 1854 )

US v American Bell, 128 US 315 (1888) (suit challenging Bell's patent based on the work of Phillip Reis and others, granting defendants motion to dismiss)

1897: USG challenge to Bell's patents, based on Meucci's prior art, is terminated after the death of Meucci and the expiration of Bell's patents; it was terminated as moot without resolution of who actually invented the telephone.

Having secured its monopoly position, AT&T engaged in the 1880s in a series of rate hikes under the justification of expanding the service. The public faced with no alternative service responded negatively. Responses included establishing legal authority to regulate the rates (See Common Carriage) and also the establishment of municipal networks. [Mueller p 36]

Bell Telephone

1877

• By April, Bell contracted with Charles Williams for the manufacturing of telephones. [Kingsbury 65]
• April 4: First dedicated outdoor telephone lines between the Williams Shop in Boston and Williams' home in Somerville. [Brooks p 53] [Kingsbury 68] [Wolff 46]
• May: First line installed for a customer, the Cambridge Board of Waterworks [Kingsbury 68]
• May 10 :: Pres. Rutherford Hayes has telephone installed in the White House [History.com]
• May 17: an experimental telephone exchange is set up borrowing lines and the central office of the Holmes Burglar Alarm Co, bring together the lines of several customers and exchanges calls. Holmes orders a switchboard from Williams and acquires the rights to operate the telephone central office from Hubbard. Bell telephone would provide the phones. Holmes however used the opportunity to permit telephone customers to call into the central office so as to place orders for a General Express Agency, not to connect telephone calls. [Kingsbury 69]
• May 18: First telephone line installed in New York between the house and office of HL Roosevelt [Kingsbury 68]
• June 30: 230 telephones in use [Kingsbury 68]
• July 9: Bell Telephone Company established. [Brooks p 53] [About.com] [LOC Bell Family Papers] [Iardella p 9] [Wolff 49] Based on Hubbard's previous business model of renting shoe making machines, Bell Telephone decides to rent telephone service, not sell telephones. [Brooks p 55]
• July 11: Alexander Graham Bell and Mabel Hubbard are married [Brooks p 53] [LOC Bell Family Papers]
• July, end of, 750 telephones in use. [Kingsbury 69]
• July: Isaac D Smith sets up the New England Telephone Company in Connecticut. Smith would start by connecting local doctors, with his drug store acting as the central office. [Kingsbury 72] [Iardella p 9]
• Aug: Bell Telephone Association formed (Bell - 3/10s share, Hubbard - 3/10s share, Sanders - 3/10s share, Watson - 1/10s share) [Kingsbury 179]
• Aug 4: Bell sails for Europe [Kingsbury 88]
• Aug, end of, 1300 telephones in use. [Kingsbury 69]
• Fall: 600 Bell telephone subscribers. [Brooks p 60]
• Oct. 6, Scientific American features an article entitled, The New Bell Telephone
• Oct. 31, Bell lectures demonstrating experiments before the Society of Telegraph Engineers, London [Kingsbury 29]
• See Atlanta first phone in Atlanta 1877 - first exchange in Atlanta 1879
• Long Distance
  • "Twenty miles was the modest limit for telephonic conversations referred to in the first Bell circular of May 1877." [Kingsbury 417]
  • Bell experiments with a 250 mile LD call between Boston and New York, on a Sunday when the circuits were most likely to be unemployed. "No difficulty was experienced so long as parallel lines were not carrying telegraph messages, but when business opened upon the other wires the sounds, though still audible, were much diminished." [Kingsbury 417] Bell would describe as attempting to speak through a storm.
  • "The subsequent combination of the Edison and the Bell interests in both the United States and Great Britain enabled the long distance systems to be developed to the best advantage so far as the instruments were concerned. The limitations of the Government licenses under which the British companies worked prevented them from devoting much attention to long distance communications. In the United States there were no government restrictions. The only limits were those of science and commerce, and both of these limits had to be found by experiment." [Kingsbury 418]

1878

• Jan. 14: Bell demonstrates telephone to Queen Victoria[Brooks p 55] [LOC Bell Family Papers] [Connected Earth] [Queen Victoria's Scrapbook] [Staffordshire Sentinel Jan. 17, 1878]
• Jan. 28: The first telephone exchange opened in New Haven CT operating under a license from the Bell Telephone company. [AT&T History Origins] [IEEE History Center Voice] [Brooks p 65] [Kingsbury 96, 156] The exchange's first directory had 50 names. [Iardella 28].
  • First Telephone Directory New Haven [List of Subscribers to the New Haven exchange]
• Feb. 12: Bell Telephone Company reorganized into
  • New England Telephone Company ($200,000 capital) and
  • the Bell Telephone Company.
  • "What the reorganization meant was that the founders, in the cause of bringing in new capital, had relinquished control to a group of aristocratic yet venturesome Boston capitalists" [Brooks p 67] [Kingsbury 96, 179]

• Mar 8: Bell Telephone Co entered into agreement with the District Telephone Company of St. Louis [Kingsbury 181]
• May 31: Bell entered into agreement with Connecticut District Telephone Company [Kingsbury 181]
• Jul 3: Bell entered into agreement with Bell Telephone of New York. [Kingsbury 181]
• Jul 30: Bell Telephone Co Incorporated ($45,000 capital) [Kingsbury 179]
• Letter from Thomas A. Watson to Alexander Graham Bell, 1878 Library of Congress
• First telephone installed in the Whitehouse. [Farley at 4]
• Bell files for a ringer patent. [Farley at 4]
• Mark Twain and future President James Garfield have phones installed. [Brooks p 65]
• Hubbard hires Theodore Vail as a General Manager of American Bell [Farley at 4] [PBS] [THG] Vail will be first President of AT&T in 1885
• Francis Blake develops a transmitter and sells it to Bell Telephone. [Coon 40]
• Nov. Bell returns from Europe [Kingsbury 88]
• Maryland Telephone of Baltimore City founded. Becomes Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone co. of Baltimore City in 1891. [Baltimore Sun]

Telephone Operators: Boys II Women : "When telephone companies began hiring operators, they chose teenage boys for the job [Image]. But the companies soon regretted their decision. Boys had done a great job working in telegraph offices. And they worked for low wages. But being a telephone operator was a tough job that required lots of patience -- something the boys didn't have. The boy operators quickly turned telephone offices upside down. They wrestled instead of worked. They pulled pranks on callers, and even cursed at them. In 1878, the Boston Telephone Despatch company began hiring women operators instead. Women, the companies thought, would behave better than boys. Women had pleasant voices that customers -- most of whom were men -- would like. And because society did not treat women equally, they could be paid less and supervised more strictly than men. [Image of women working at Atlanta switch] "Much like many other American businesses at the turn of the century, telephone companies unfairly discriminated against people from certain ethnic groups and races. African American and Jewish women were not allowed to become operators." -- Wayback Tech 1900, PBS Kids Go (FA). See also Lois Kathryn Herr, Women, Power and AT&T: Winning Rights in the Workplace (2002). [Brooks p 66 (1878: New England Bell in Boston hires first female operator, Emma N Nutt - who worked until 1911)]

Instructions to Agents No. 1 (Nov. 15, 1877) In consequence of the difficulties that have arisen in different localities for want of uniformity in price for the rental of telephones the Bell Telephone Company has adopted the following rates for all its agencies, and prices are to be fixed in accordance herewith. The annual rental for telephones shall be ten dollars each, payable in advance; not less than a pair of telephones must be used at each station, except as hereafter specified. For social purposes, single telephones may be used at each station. By 'Social purposes' is mean the use of telephones as a matter of convenience between private houses; between a house and a private stable; a doctor's house and office, etc. etc. For district telephone purposes a discount of twenty percent., and for house use a discount of fifty per cent. may be made, and the use of single telephones allowed at each station. By 'house use' is meant all places where telephones are used in one building, or group of buildings, as, for instance, several buildings in the same yard used by the party; or, in fact, where telephones substantially take the place of speaking tubes. College lines may be included in this line. The magneto bell calls may be sold for fifteen dollars each, or rented for five dollars each per annum. [Kingsbury 181]

1879

• The first phone numbers were used at Lowell, MA during a measles outbreak which threatened the four telephone operators. Prior to this, the operators identified the lines by the name of the subscriber. The line ports were assign numbers rather than names, then a preliminary telephone directory was created associating names and numbers. This facilitated the ability of operators to connect telephone calls, and the idea quickly spread. Sources: Sterling, Bernt, Weiss, Shaping American Telecommunications, p. 54 (2006).
• Mar. 13: Bell Telephone merges with the New England Telephone Company and becomes the National Bell Telephone Company ($850,000 capital). [LOC Bell Family Papers] [Kingsbury 179]
• Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Co of Virginia established. [Five Charter Members Using Virginia Phones, Christian Science Monitor, 1934]
• "As early as 1879, Connecticut and Missouri began to regulate telephone companies as public utilities. Conn. Laws. 1879, Ch. 36; Mo. Rev. Stat. 1879, s 833. By 1910, only a few states had yet to enact such legislation." [Levy 564]
• First telephone exchange in Ohio. City and Suburban Telegraph Company records 145,392 calls for the year. [Cincinnati Bell History]
• Southwestern Bell: First Telephone Exchange in Texas, installed by Western Union. 1881 these exchanges were taken over by the Southwestern Telegraph and Telephone Association. 1882 Missouri and Kansas Telephone Company founded. 1883: Southwestern acquired and renamed Erie Telegraph and Telephone Company. 1912: Southwestern Telegraph and Telephone merged with Pioneer Telephone and Telegraph Company, Bell Telephone Company of Missouri and Missouri and Kansas Telephone Company in 1912 to become Soutwestern Bell.[Whitten] [Southwestern Telegraph and Telephone photo of building 1881] [Not to be confused with Southwestern Telegraph, a company acquired by American Telegraph after the Civil War]
• Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company established Dec. 11th. [Southern Bell, 174 U.S. at 763]

Earlytelephones were leased in pairs to subscribers. The subscriber was required to put up his own line to connect with another. The first lines were point to point lines without switching capability in the middle. [See Atlanta for images of early phones]. In order to permit a phone to call other phones in the network, exchanges were installed in the network. At first, however, the exchanges did not operate through the use of telephone numbers. Telephone numbers did not yet exist. Operators memorized the names of the subscribers and their associated lines. However, in the Lowell, Massachusetts exchange, when wide spread outbreak of measles resulted in most of the operators being absent from work - along with their knowledge of who had which line - exchange owners realized the need to switch to a system less dependant on the operators memory - telephone numbers. [See also Brooks p 74] Business may have acquired their own unique telephone number. However, the rule for residential subscribers was that they would share a telephone number and line, called a party line. When this number was called, all of the phones that were a part of that party line would ring in each phone. Everyone could pick up the phone and hear and participate in the conversation. In order to compensate for this, operators developed unique rings for each phone on a party line so that the subscribers could know who the call was for. [Atlanta]

1880

• Alexander Graham Bell resigns from the Bell Telephone Board of Directors [Brooks p 56]
• Bell awarded the Volta Prize which amounted to 50k francs [Coon 30]
• Edison-Gray company has 1600 subscribers. [Kingsbury 94]
• Bell had rented out 60,873 telephones [Kingsbury 189]
• Feb. 20: 30,436 subscribers in the US. [Kingsbury 268]
• March 1: 138 AT&T Exchanges in operation [Kingsbury 267]
• March 20: American Bell Telephone Company (Massachusetts) formed, capitalization of $10M. [Iardella p 10]
• Dec. 31: 47,880 AT&T subscribers in the US. Average number of calls per line in NYC were 5.31 for business lines and 2.60 for suburban lines. [Kingsbury 268, 271]
• "By the end of 1880, there were 47,900 telephones in the United States.
• Sept 1880 First Meeting of the National Telephone Exchange Association. [Kingsbury p 146]
• 1880: 47,900 telephones in US [Brenner p 2]

1881

• Long Distance line 45 miles between Boston and Providence went into service, wires were made of iron. Put in service by the Inter State Telephone Company. [Iardella 28] [Brooks 89]
• Watson resigned from Bell Telephone - both original inventors had now left the company. [Brooks p 57] [Braintree] He would travel through Europe and return to New England as a shipbuilder. [Coon 28]
• Bell Telephone releases first annual report. 520 stockholders. Net earnings over $500k. [Brooks p 81] 700k telephones were in service at years end. [Iardella 27]
• "The first report of the American Bell Company, issued in March 1881, shows that the general lines of its policy were to grant licenses for local use, to retain in its own hands the long distance service, and to study all the practical questions involved for its own benefit, and the advantage of its licensees generally." [Kingsbury 184]
• Two wire circuits proposed in response to problem of noise generated from earth grounding. However, the migration to two wire circuits was slow going. John Brooks writes, "So long as subscribers were willing to tolerate interference on their lines - and their only recourse was to give up something for nothing - the owners of American Bell preferred not to make the the huge capital outlays necessary for conversion to two-wire circuits." [Brooks 86, 87] This is reflective of a larger policy issue of creating proper incentives for investment in a market, communications networks, which generally has not sustained much competition. See Net Neutrality Investment.
• Bell had rented out 132,692 telephones. [Kingsbury 189]
• AT&T bought Western Electric and it became Bell's manufacturing arm. [Brooks p 10] [Porticus]
• Jan 1: First Dividends $3 per share. [Iardella p 10]
• Feb. 28: 408 AT&T Exchanges in operation. [Kingsbury 267]
• Dec. 31: 70,525 AT&T subscribers in the US. [Kingsbury 268]
• "1881 telephone service between Boston and Providence had been established. Service between New York and Chicago started in 1892, and between New York and Boston in 1894. Transcontinental service by overhead wire was not inaugurated until 1915. The first switchboard was set up in Boston in 1877. The first regular telephone exchange was established in New Haven in 1878. " History of Wire and Broadcast Communication, FCC (May 1993)

1882

• American Bell acquired a controlling interesting in Western Electric Company (founded by Elisha Gray) from Western Union. Western Electric became AT&T's manufacturing unit, acting as it's sole supplier. WE has capitalization of $1m. [AT&T History Origins] [Iardella 8, 28] [Brooks p 84] . The phones would be sold to American Bell, which would then lease them to the Bell Operating Companies, which would then lease them to customers.
• Bell is granted America citizenship. [About.com]
• First underground telephone cables laid. [Brooks 86]
• Dec. 31: 97,735 AT&T subscribers in the US. [Kingsbury 268]

"In the critical ten years now under consideration, telephone service, which was daily proving itself to be of enormous public benefit, was being developed with energy and resource against difficulties of varied kinds. Wherever official or public action was taken it was repressive, calling for the exercise of additional energy on the part of the promoters to overcome the artificial resistance inserted by public authorities against the advancement of a public benefit." [Kingsbury p 273]

1883

• Dec. 31: 123,533 AT&T subscribers in the US. [Kingsbury 268]
• Average calls per AT&T line 4.85 [Kingsbury 271]
• Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Established.
• Long Distance
  • Cincinnati Bell contracts with AT&T for LD service. [Cincinnati Bell History]
  • "It was in 1883 that the American Bell Telephone Company decided to put up a metallic circuit copper line between New York and Boston. This was apparently regarded as a bold project, for in the following year Mr. Doolittle said: 'Our copper wires from New York to Boston which Mr. Vail had the pluck to order constructed are a perfect success. All who have used them for communication pronounce the result to be superior to the average local connection." [Kingsbury 421] Previous lines, which were telegraph lines, were iron.
  • "It was in the course of a discussion on the hard-drawn copper question that one member of the National Telephone Exchange Association (Mr. Fay) asked: "I would like to have somebody tell me how to make these lines pay. We can construct them and any number of them without trouble... But how are we going to make them pay after they are constructed?' The receipts compared with the telegraph line receipts were low; telephone use was six or seven hours per day compared with the telegraph's twenty-four; and how were they to compete with the telegraph in rates? " [Kingsbury 423]

1884

• American Bell Telephone Co. establishes the Mechanical Department in Boston to conduct R&D. [Iardella 17]
• Dec 31: 134,601 AT&T subscribers in the US. [Kingsbury 268]
• Average calls per AT&T line 5.18 [Kingsbury 271]
• "The New York Legislature passed an Act requiring telephone companies in New York and Brooklyn to place all their wires underground before November 1, 1885, a time when no practicable system had been evolved which would permit the working of an entire telephone exchange system through underground conductors" [Kingsbury 273] The law was subsequently repealed as Bell had yet to perfect underground wiring over distances. [Brooks 87]
• Long Distance line between NY and Boston, using copper for the first time. Copper had greater attenuation of signal that the previous galvanized iron. [IEEE History Center Voice] The cost of a connection between the cities was daytime: $2 and nigh time $1 [Brooks at 90]
• 370 telephone subscribers served by Atlanta Telephone Exchange. [Atlanta]
• 1884: First prank phone call?  Someone in Rhode Island falsely called the undertaker asking that a coffin be delivered for the recently deceased, who were alive and surprised to find a pine box with their name on it at their door. [Lit Detective Twitpic]
• Cumberland Telephone and Telegraph Company established. [Antoinette Hall]

AT&T Established

1885

• American Telephone and Telegraph was incorporated "as a wholly owned subsidiary of American Bell, chartered to build and operate the original long distance telephone network." [AT&T History Origins] [About.com]. "On February 28, 1885 AT&T was born. Capitalized on only $100,000, American Telephone and Telegraph provided long distance service for American Bell. Only local telephone companies operating under Bell granted licenses could connect to AT&T's long distance network. Vail thought this would continue the Bell System's virtual monopoly after its key patents expired in the 1890s. He reasoned the independents could not compete since they would be isolated and without long distance lines." [Farley at 4] [Kingsbury 419]
  • Theodore Vail is named first president of AT&T. [MIT]
• Dec. 31: 137,570 AT&T subscribers in the US. [Kingsbury 268]
• Average calls per AT&T line 5.43 [Kingsbury 271]
• "In April 1885 the State of Indiana passed a law restricting the price of rental of a telephone to three dollars per month. As it was impossible to conduct the service at that rate, the Central Union Company was obliged to close its exchanges in the principal cities and large towns, the public being put to serious inconvenience through the act of its own government. A Bill to repeal the law was passed by the House of Representatives in the following year, but did not pass the Senate owing to the arrest of business from other political questions. In 1888 it was unconditionally repealed by a large majority in both houses. In the meantime it had 'stopped absolutely any extension of business, and checked that steady improvement which is constantly going on towards greater efficiency and convenience to the public in the conduct of the business.' Such cases as these indicate the futility of public action in ignorance." [Kingsbury 273-74] [Brooks p 82] [Kingsbury p 273]

1886:

• Dec. 31: 147,068 AT&T subscribers in the US. [Kingsbury 268]
• 736 AT&T Exchanges in operation. [Kingsbury 267]
• Average calls per AT&T line 5.82 [Kingsbury 271]

1887:

• Theodore Vail resigns as a result of a dispute with Boston Financial backers. [Farley at 4] [Brooks 85] [MIT] Will be rehired as President by JP Morgan in 1907.
• Dec. 31: Boston: 5767 subs; Hartford: 1176 subs; New Haven 1393 subs. [Kingsbury 267]
• Dec. 31: 158,732 AT&T subscribers in the US. [Kingsbury 268] 739 AT&T Exchanges in operation.
• Average calls per AT&T line 6.37 [Kingsbury 271]

1888

• Blizzard of 1888 knocks out most phone and telegraph service in the North East. Created an incentive for Bell to install its telephone wires underground. [Brooks 97] See Reliability.
• Line Power introduced. A batter in the central switchboard would supply power down the line to the telephone handsets. [Brooks 100]
• "Toward the close of the 19th century, huge numbers of overhead wires were being used in major cities. [Image] The wires caused problems because of snow, sleet and other bad weather conditions. With these problems it was necessary to develop sturdier overhead cables. In 1888, 100 wires could be combined into a large cable. By 1985 fiber cables had replaced wires. Today a pair of fiber cables can carry up to 25,000 phone conversations simultaneously.

1889: First pay phones, set up in Hartford. [Farley at 4] [Brooks 100]

The Progressive Era

1890: Sherman Anti Trust act

• Sen. John Sherman, author of the Post Roads Act, introduces and gets passed the Sherman Antitrust Act. There will be three major antitrust actions against AT&T: The Kingsbury Accord, The Consent Decree of 1956, and Divestiture
• Letter from Mark Twain to Hubbard, Father-in-Law of the Telephone
• Long Distance line between Atlanta and Chicago. [Atlanta]
• Cincinatti Bell's telephone installers and repairmen get around by bicycle [Reference for Business]

1891

• two-party and four-party telephone service introduced, making telephone service affordable. [Brooks 100]
• Maryland Telephone of Baltimore City (founded 1878) becomes Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone co. of Baltimore City. Will become Bell Atlantic in 1994 [Baltimore Sun]

Automatic Telephone Switch Invented 1891 Almon B. Strowger, a Kansas City undertaker, was reportedly motivated to invent an automatic telephone exchange after having difficulties with the local telephone operators. He was convinced that the local manual telephone exchange operators were sending calls to his competitor rather than his business. He also suspected that the telephone operators were influencing the choice of undertaker when his business was requested. The origin of this suspicion reportedly arose from an incident in Topeka when a friend died and the family contacted a rival undertaker. Other stories claim that the wife or, possibly, the cousin of a rival was a telephone operator and Strowger suspected that the operators were telling callers that his line was busy or connecting his callers to the competition. On inventing his switch he said "No longer will my competitor steal all my business just because his wife is a BELL operator." Wikipedia Aug 2006. See also [Brenner p 4] Stowger patented his device and founded the Automatic Electric Company in order to build and sell the switch in 1891. [Brooks 100] The first automatic C.O. was installed in LaPorte, Indiana. William von Alven, Bill's 200 Year Condensed History of Telecom, CCL 1998 "AT&T resisted the adoption of the automatic switch at first, largely out of the belief that it was inappropriate to be involving the customers in the switching process." [Sterling 67] "The Bell System did not embrace this switch or automation in general, indeed, a Bell franchise commonly removed "Steppers" and dial telephones in territories it bought from independent telephone companies. Not until 1919 did the Bell System start using Strowgers durable and efficient switching system. This tardiness contributed to Bell's poor reputation around the turn of the century." [Farley at 4] "One of the factors that finally caused Bell to change its direction was a major operator strike in 1920. This strike was devastating to the company and showed company management a vulnerability that they had not known existed." In Atlanta, the last manual exchange was taken offline in 1951. [Atlanta part 2] Papers RB Hill, Early Work on Dial Telephone Systems Bell Lab Records, Reprinted at Privateline.com RB Hill, The Early Years of the Strowger System Bell Lab Records, Reprinted at Privateline.com

1892

• LD New York to Chicago formally opens for business. Opened by Alexander Graham Bell. [About.com] [LOC] [Iardella 29] [Brooks 105] "Alexander Graham Bell at the opening of the long-distance line from New York to Chicago . Reproduction Number LC-G9-Z2-28, 608-B. Gilbert H. Grosvenor Collection, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress." LOC Bell Family Papers

1893

• Cincinnati's first long distance call. Mayor calls Mayor of NYC. [Reference for Business]